Justice Ministry

Biblical inspiration for Justice Ministry

Micah 6:8 says, “And what does the Lord require of you? But to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”

In Matthew 23:23-24, Jesus chastises the Pharisees for not following Micah 6:8.

Nehemiah the prophet provides a model for building the power needed to affect powerful systems when he gathers a Great Assembly to hold public officials accountable for the promises that had previously been made to the oppressed Jews in their community. He built power with people.

Vineyard Justice Ministry Efforts

To build power we join with ~25 other congregations under the banner of IMPACT, and together, by turning out thousands of people at an annual assembly called the Nehemiah Action, we exercise that power to bring justice to the Charlottesville area.

As one example of the results of our efforts, IMPACT has been successful getting the City of Charlottesville to put $3MM a year (for several years in a row now) into an affordable housing trust fund. By 2025, the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Trust Fund will have funded the construction or renovation of affordable homes for over 3,500 families in Charlottesville.

Vision 52/1

Our congregation wants to turn out our Average Worship Attendance of 85 people at least once a year for justice. We want the 85 who attend 52 worship services each year to attend the annual Nehemiah Action!

Justice Ministry Cycle

The process of working for justice wins each year starts with building a Vineyard Justice Ministry Network.

• A formal network of relationships – organized through households – that engages the entire congregation in doing justice. We have a 3-part annual cycle:

1. It starts with listening in the fall via house meetings where we listen to each others’ stories of how injustice personally affects us.

2. In the winter and spring, we research and take action. Within IMPACT, we vote on the issues we will focus on, and we learn how they affect our communities.

3. In the summer, we celebrate our wins and start fundraising for the next cycle.

If you have any questions, reach out to the Vineyard Justice Ministry Team Members, Carissa Phillips, Crystal Seek or Jessica Leathers.

UPDATES

Justice Ministry Rally Re-cap

This past Monday, over 230 Justice Ministry Network Members came together to prepare for our Nehemiah Action on March 24th.

We had two city councilors present to make commitments on transit and heard important updates on our other two issue campaigns: housing and neighborhood safety.

Mark your calendars for the Nehemiah Action on March 24th (6:30pm at Charlottesville High School) and keep reading below to see what each of our issue campaigns will be asking at the Action.

Transit Wait Times

At the rally, we heard a few important updates from our transit committee:

Wait times for the bus continue to exceed an hour, and last year CAT’s “on-time” performance was barely 60%. That means that more than one out of every three buses don’t show up on time
We are excited to share that Charlottesville’s city manager has presented a plan to improve CAT and get down wait times to between 15 and 30 minutes on all routes by 2031

IMPACT supports this plan AND we know that the many who rely on the bus cannot wait four years for a functional transit system, so we are also asking city council to do everything possible to speed up the timeline. At the Rally, Councilors Michael Payne & Jen Fleisher were both present and were asked to make three specific commitments:

Will you support and vote for at least 10 additional drivers in the FY 2027 budget?
Will you introduce and support a resolution to clearly state Council’s intent to fully implement the transit improvement plan by FY 2031?
Will you direct city staff to present options to fully implement the plan sooner than FY 2031?

Councilor Payne gave a clear commitment to all three asks, and Councilor Fleisher committed to questions 1 & 3. She was not supportive of a resolution, but she did clearly state that she is supportive of fully implementing the plan as soon as possible.

Councilors Fleisher & Payne joined us on Monday evening because of the Mayor & Vice Mayors concerns about having a quorum of Council at the Nehemiah Action. Because Councilors Fleisher & Payne were present Monday night, we do not anticipate there being any further issues with public meeting law that would prevent the Mayor & Vice Mayor from attending the Nehemiah Action.

Neighborhood Safety

At our Rally, we our Neighborhood Safety committee presented several important updates from our research:

UVA hospital has reported at least 30 people in the ER for gunshot wounds every year since 2019, and police have reported over 100 victims of gun violence every year during that same timeframe. The hospital also told us that stabbings and other forms of violence are even more common
While much of the violence in our community is concentrated in low-income neighborhoods, it is not exclusively there. However, there is a disproportionate police presence in low-income and majority Black neighborhoods. Experts and research show that this over policing has a deep economic impact and furthers the cycle of violence occurring in communities.
Several neighboring cities, such as Roanoke, Baltimore, and Richmond, have recently contracted with national organizations such as the National Network for Safe Communities (NNSC) and the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (NICJR) to develop city-wide strategies that both reduce violence and do so in a way that can rebuild trust in communities rather than continuing cycles of over policing.

Our committee shared that Roanoke saw a 50% reduction in homicides with this approach, and Baltimore reported its lowest rate of violent crime in decades! At the Nehemiah Action this year we will be asking the city’s law enforcement leaders to take steps to implement a similar method.

Affordable Housing

We are continuing to fight for affordable housing in Albemarle County. This past January, 20% of homes sold in the County were worth over $1MM, and rents continue to climb every year as now more than 10,000 households are on the brink of homelessness.

We remain committed to the goal of establishing a housing trust fund with $10MM annually in Albemarle County, matching the City of Charlottesville’s housing commitment and providing enough funding to help construct 300 new affordable homes every year.

At least 5 of the 6 County Supervisors will be in attendance at the Nehemiah Action this year and we will be seeking their commitments to get to $10MM in the housing fund for FY2027, find dedicated funding to maintain it at $10MM longterm, and to ensure that the guidelines for the fund provide proper community oversight to ensure the funding goes to the projects that need it most.