First Christian, Covington, Involved with Poor People’s Campaign

On a recent Facebook post, First Christian Church in Covington Pastor, Tracy Siegman, remarked “I get to do some seriously cool stuff in my ministry.” 

Tracy has a heart for justice ministries, and she is involved, as is the congregation, in working to strengthen the church’s relationships with their neighbors and forming new partnerships as it seeks to be an integral part of the community. Tracy serves as a member of the National Benevolent Association’s Mental Health Initiative and is a co-convener of the Northern Kentucky Poor People’s Campaign. She has a passion for outreach ministry and advocacy for social justice.

First Christian is every bit as involved in these ministries and encourages Tracy to be involved in all things mission oriented and in social justice activism.

Most recently, Tracy had the opportunity to travel to Washington, D.C. as a part of Kentucky’s delegation to the Poor People’s Campaign Moral Action Congress. Tracy and FCC are great representatives of Kentucky Disciples, and it is our honor to highlight this brief article from Tracy that gives voice to her commitment to her “cool stuff ministry!”

Tracy reports:

I had the honor of participating in the Kentucky delegation to the Poor People’s Campaign Moral Action Congress. It was three days of inspiring messages, workshops and forums about the advocacy for social justice being done by the Poor People’s Campaign. The PPC is a national call for moral revival calling the nation to reflect on her moral compass that influences our social constructs and political policies. Our current policies create and sustain poverty in America. Those in poverty are largely white, but disproportionally black and Hispanic due to systemic racism.

The Moral Action Congress began with a presidential forum with nine Democratic presidential candidates. All candidates and the president were invited to the forum. Only nine accepted the invitation. Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Andrew Yang, Kamala Harris, Michael Bennet, Wayne Messam, Eric Swalwell and Marianne Williamson each had thirty minutes to respond to questions about poverty. The PPC will not endorse any candidates.

I have the joy of serving a congregation that gave me their blessing to go to [Washington] and participate in the PPC Moral Action Congress. First Christian Church, Covington, has a deeply rooted value of serving others. They have said about themselves things like: “We’re a safe place to worship, recover, and eat” and “A sign of the kingdom in the heart of the city.”

The congregation hosts four recovery groups, including an LGBT+ peer group. We host two dinners weekly and breakfast twice a month. After the first of the year, we are considering serving breakfast five days a week. We also lead a Cub Scout pack. We provide significant support to three shelters through our donations of collected goods. Most recently, we started container gardens to provide organic produce to our neighbors and we are hosting the Northern Kentucky Poor People’s Campaign coordinating committee. With nearly 500 people through our facility each week, our biggest challenge is stocking toilet paper and paper towels.

As the work of the Poor People’s Campaign continues in the coming year, I hope to see you at events around Kentucky. There are many ways to get involved.

To learn more about Kentucky’s Poor People’s Campaign Chapter, visit their webpage.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Time limit is exhausted. Please reload CAPTCHA.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.