SHAPING A DREAM

During the mid-sixties, men and women of conscience dreamed of ways to implement changes in the lives of people who were neglected by society and who were unable to enjoy many of the benefits we take for granted.

President Lyndon Johnson talked of the Great Society.  Congress empowered programs like Headstart and the Community Action Planning Council.  Martin Luther King Jr. crusaded for equality of opportunity for people of all colors and conditions.  Churches realized the need for ministering not only to the foreign countries, but to those next door at home.

In Watertown, New York, in June of 1967, three Presbyterian ministers, began forming a new vision for an urban ministry here in the north country.  Colleagues from other churches urged them to make it an ecumenical venture with churches of many denominations working together to meet the needs of individuals and families not served by the government and social agencies, but in need of help.  Further, they saw a need to enable these people to raise themselves from their hopeless positions and to be able to rejoin the mainstream.

Clergy and lay people from other churches joined the three and today there are many churches with a commitment to the Mission participating the this ecumenical social outreach.

Research - Dorothy G. Edson