Missoula Interfaith Collaborative
[The Missoula Interfaith Collaborative (MIC) is a collaboration of faith communities (e.g. churches, synagogues) and local organizations (e.g. human service agencies, service coalitions, businesses and government offices) working together to serve human needs and address community challenges. This piece by Joyce Latimer introduces the founder of the MIC to Holy Spirit.]
Casey Dunning and the Birth of the Missoula Interfaith Collaborative
According to Casey Dunning, there was an “initial whisper” coming through to him as he experienced working at group homes and mental health facilities. The whisper came from his coming to know how such beautiful people tended to become isolated because they needed help learning how to build relationships.
Perhaps they had overwhelming anxiety because they felt different, apart from others. From spending time with them and hearing their stories, Casey became aware of the impact of that isolation. At the same time he was growing in his understanding of scripture as it speaks to living life with the outcasts, the marginalized, for whatever reason, and to help them come to know they could bein relationship with other human beings -- that isolation was not their only choice.
To that end Casey began to envision a possible solution, in spite of our cultural reactions to people who don't fit in according to our preconceived notions about them. At the same time he was beginning to see the discrepancy between faith values and how hard congregations were really struggling to come to terms with their desire to become more involved in the lives of others in our Missoula community.
Facing the question "What is my role in this?" caused Casey to apply to Princeton Theological Seminary. He was accepted and during the period of discernment, he was offered a job as the director of a mental health center. During the mutual process of discernment and consideration of their two (now three) pre-school age sons, his wife, Dayel, confided to Casey that she was not going to be married to a pastor! Whereupon, with this realization, the discernment process led Casey to apply to the Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Montana. The rest is in the process of becoming history: he met John Lund, Campus Minister of Emmaus House and thus began the development of a research model as well as a very important question.
The question involved finding out what the congregations felt strongly about, what missions did they want to pursue, how were they willing to help. From their answers Casey had enough information to develop the model which identified leadership teams from the congregations, and best practices began to take form. The next step was to design a system of resource mapping to assess the real needs of the community and what resources were already available both in the community of Missoula and in the interfaith congregations.
Having earned his M.S.W. and done the foot-work and heart-work, Casey was able to put together a sustainable and inclusive program which is now the Missoula Interfaith Collaborative. Several concerns are already officially being addressed with more to come. At present there is the Homeless Outreach Team working with the Poverello Center; the Mentoring Program working in tandem with the Montana Department of Corrections; the Faith-Based Response to Sexual Violence program working with the county and the university to raise awareness of this problem and to train faith leaders to become first responders. There are other programs of similar magnitude in process waiting to be announced.
Enough sustainable funding has been attained, with the expectation of commitment from the participating congregations and friends, for an MIC office at St. Paul's Lutheran Church with a full-time director and a half time person. There is an established network of 22 congregations with various levels of buy-in and relationships. Perhaps the most exciting aspect of MIC is the resulting collaboration of different congregations, social work graduate students, and agencies empowering each other, learning from each other, and answering the question "what can I do to live out the faith I profess?" To that question, MIC and Casey Dunning have a lot of concrete answers!
-- Joyce Latimer