I have served non-profits in various roles through the years. In addition to various roles in churches (see Ministry page) which are also non-profit organizations, I have served as a volunteer, board member, and webmaster/IT guru for several organizations with a bent towards those that help serve practical and spiritual help to fellow citizens.
Trauma Intervention Program, Chaplaincy, Fire Rehab, Disaster Relief, NWBC Exec Board, Day in Damascus, Interstate Baptist Association, Northwest Baptist Historical Society, Committee for the Future of Damascus, Disaster Sheltering, Other
I currently serve in the following ways:
Chaplaincy: I serve as a chaplain with Clackamas Fire District, Northwest Baptist Disaster Relief (see below), Mountain Wave Search and Rescue, and unofficially at Clackamas County 9-1-1 (aka C-COM). For purposes of additional accountability I am also affiliated with Public Safety Chaplaincy, the Federation of Fire Chaplains, and am endorsed by the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. More about this on my chaplaincy page.
Southern Baptist Disaster Relief: I am certified in several disciplines as a volunteer with this, the 3rd largest volunteer Disaster Relief organization. I also provide technical services to the Northwest division including as webmaster. More about this on my ministry page.
NWBC Exec Board: In July 2014, I accepted the nomination to serve on Executive Board of the Northwest Baptist Convention through 2018. A regional affiliation for Southern Baptist churches in OR, WA, and ID’s panhandle, tThe NWBC is nearly 500 churches strong and more than a dozen local Baptist Associations, and is
TIP Portland/Vancouver: As a volunteer with TIP (Trauma Intervention Program). TIP volunteers get called by 911 centers to crime scenes, house fires, medical emergencies, automobile accidents, and other situations where there is an immediate need for emotional first aid for trauma victims. “Citizens Helping Citizens in Crisis” means that TIP currently has me (and nearly 200 other volunteers in the PDX metro area!) on-call for 3 twelve hour shifts per month, plus a few hours one evening each month for continuing education. At times, it also includes manning a booth at a local event such as concerts at McMenamins Edgefield in Troutdale, National Night Out in Gresham’s Powell Valley neighborhood and Happy Valley, or Boeing’s annual safety fair in North Gresham. I have been honored to be a speaker at one of their Academy graduations, as well as at their annual banquet. One of my treasured challenge coins is a TIP challenge coin. I would love to tell you more about this great organization, but check out their website first. www.tipnw.org
In the past I had the honor of serving the following ways
Rehab Support Volunteer: I was recruited to be on the Rehab team for Clackamas Fire and attended the Recruit Academy (08/14 – 02/15) to train for this responsibility. Rehab volunteers provide important firefighting service to firefighters at incidents. Rehab furnishes critical medical care including rehydration, smoke inhalation remediation, as well as monitoring for signs of and treating heat stroke, hypothermia, heart attack and exposure to carcinogens and other toxins. Rehab aims to keep firefighters safe so they can keep battling flames at the incident, and long term. This will compliment my chaplaincy ministry at Clackamas Fire by granting me more face-time with our firefighters, allowing me to serve these heroes, and helping me understand firefighter culture better as well. In 1st quarter 2018 I resigned the Rehab team to better focus on attending drills, making station visits, etc in my chaplain role.
Leadership Team: Day in Damascus: I served on the planning committee for the Day in Damascus event in 2006. Day in Damascus is the largest annual event (heck, it’s the largest ever event!) in the lovely town of Damascus, Oregon. My involvement initially began as a way for me to get to know the community where I felt God leading me to start a new church. Out of that work, by the way, was born what is now called Trinity Church. Trinity, and her sponsor church in Gresham, Oregon, served as one of the two largest providers of volunteers for several years at this event. Additionally, we have provided much in the way of equipment, technical assistance, and leadership for this wonderful event. I stepped down at the end of the 2012 season due to changes in my availability and in hopes of being more a part of what the fire department does with the event. I love this event and the great people who are a part of it!
Moderator: Interstate Baptist Association: The IBA is a denominational organization, comprised of and serving the 78 or so churches in the greater Portland/Vancouver area which cooperate with the Southern Baptist Convention and the Northwest Baptist Convention. After having initiated the start of a new church in Damascus, Oregon, and having helped to create a partnership with a sponsor church, the association, and the Northwest Baptist Convention to start a new church in a century old abandoned church building in a very culturally mixed Northeast Portland neighborhood, as well as my role in connecting a church in Portland and one in Oregon City with new pastors when they were searching for one, I was asked to serve as a “moderator” for the association. A moderator is a typical word in Baptist associations for a board member, in this case one who represented the largest zone of our association, the I-5 East zone (roughly speaking that is Multnomah and Clackamas Counties between the I-5 highway and the Cascade mountain range). My service as moderator happened during a difficult transition of personnel when most of the paid staff had their roles changed to roles at the Northwest Baptist Convention. Several churches were not so sure about continuing their support of and participation in the association after the new paradigm, and in fact quite a few of the other associations within the Northwest Baptist Convention faded away during this time. As moderators during this time, we helped steer the association through troubled waters, have seen membership, receipts and ministry involvement grow. I felt particularly good about:
- my role in rewriting our bylaws to reflect the new realities
- my support for church planting
- my attempts at softening some of the recent tension between the IBA and another denominational entity
- helping some of the pastors in my zone to see the benefits of the IBA, and my role in creating a new fund for inner city churches. That fund’s first recipient, by the way, was not the church I had in mind when first working on such a fund, but the church in NE Portland across from Irving Park that I helped get Greater Gresham Baptist Church to purchase from the IBA to start a new work there!
- Convincing our IBA staff to try a constant contact approach (cleaner format, ability to track hits, etc) to the weekly newsletter and to vigorously pursue increasing it’s readership as a way of letting churches know what great resources the IBA makes available to them.
Though I was not involved much other than voting to approve, I was so proud of the IBA for the way our new boys and girls camp was revamped by Melody Iorg. Melody took new wine, and poured into into some desperately needed new wineskins in the creation of an exciting new camp called PAC (Pre-teens in Action Camp). Read more about it here.
I resigned, after giving 6 months notice so a replacement could be found, in June 2012 to free up more time for chaplaincy related training and ministry.
Board Member: Northwest Baptist Historical Society: I served as a board member for this historical society, which catalogs historical artifacts and promotes an appreciation for the hard work of our early regional Baptist forefathers up to our current leaders in Southern Baptist life of the Pacific Northwest. While much of the membership and leadership of this organization is elderly, my relative youth helps bring some new perspectives while appreciating what all we have to learn from these dear mature saints. Did you know that the first protestant church west of the Rockies was in Oregon? Did you know that David Lennox, the first man to drive a wagon train across the Rockies started the first Baptist church in his home? Now you know! I served in 2011, 2012.
Board Member: The Committee for the Future of Damascus: This non profit organization, well known in Damascus simply as “the CFD” is over a decade old. It was created with the intent of letting residents in the community of Damascus learn about and vote on whether or not to incorporate as the newest city in the state of Oregon. While that happened eventually, the non-profit continued to exist and was about to shut down. Meanwhile, I was part of a study group the city initiated to look at how we can make Damascus more sustainable economically and environmentally. It was a fascinating topic to me, and another way to continue to build new relationships in the target area of our new church plant as well. I was part of the original discussions with leaders in the community to turn this non-profit organization into a tool to continue looking at ways to make the community more sustainable, and to promote citizen-led non-partisan non-governmental projects towards that end. In my role as a member, and as a board member, I helped:
- re-write the by-laws of our organization to reflect our new purpose, to unclutter some of the heavy language, to clarify some of the unclear procedures, and to allow non-residents such as myself to have full participation if they have a clear history of participating in the community.
- get the organization to prepare for creating a cultural center, something that had concrete steps AND A BUILDING by the time I left the board
- encourage the efforts of citizens to create a farmer’s market under the umbrella of the CFD until such a time as they can form their own non-profit organization. The Fresh and Local farmer’s market was a great success as it ran every Thursday from July through September. Hat’s off to the great work they did, go check them out again this summer!! For more info, click here.
- served as webmaster (see Webmaster page) as well as technical expert. Created not only a website, but use of a Googlevoice account to accept phone calls and redirect those calls either to an appointed board member or to voicemail depending on the organizations needs, sent out email announcements. Set up accounts with PayPal and Square.com to accept funds online or via scanner at events, and created and maintain organizational FaceBook page, Google Calendar, and Twitter account. Kept up contact info, created webforms for membership and input, created an initial logo and letter head prior to the current logo created by a professional graphics artist for us.
I stepped down from the Board of Directors at the end of June 2012, after 6 months notice to find a replacement, in order to make more room on my calendar for chaplaincy related training and activities, including my service as a TIP volunteer. In July 2012 I was asked to consider becoming a chaplain for the local fire department in that same community, and 3 days later for the 911 center that dispatches them and the local police and sheriff units.
Catalyst and volunteer for Disaster Sheltering in Damascus, Oregon: I had the privilege of helping the City of Damascus find potential sites for sheltering residents in the case of disasters that might force them to flee their homes. I coordinated the beginning talks between City Hall, our selected site location, Red Cross, and the fire department (Boring Fire). After Red Cross made did some initial investigation with the two most willing and able sites, one was chosen (Damascus Community Church). Their leadership worked so well with all parties involved, and soon training was announced to the community which responded in great numbers. An over-night exercise was held, testing the plan, and it was a success. Several times since then the shelter has been used when the Carver section of Damascus was in danger of flooding from the Clackamas River. I am hoping to get a new series of training going again soon. Watch here for details, or contact me if you are interested in being involved. In addition to the Red Cross training for Emergency Sheltering, Red Cross also did training for Psychological First Aid. I am hoping to get that course offered again as well. For all the hard work done by so many, more so than by me frankly, still I was honored by the City of Damascus and Boring Fire District for my role in bringing that together. I am very honored and grateful for their nomination of me for a public safety award at the annual Community Safety Appreciation luncheon held by the N. Clackamas Chamber of Commerce.
Board Member: International Museum of Cultures, Dallas, TX: the IMC invited me to serve as a board member while I served as the Asst Director of the International Office at Dallas Baptist University. DBU’s international program had many wonderful volunteers from Wycliffe Bible Translators’ international headquarters which was about 5 miles away, and I had many friends involved with Wycliffe from having grown up with many “Wycliffe kids” going to my high school. I even took some linguistics classes there during my college days as I looked into possibly becoming a translator someday. Better yet, I married the best of the Wycliffe kids! 🙂 My father-in-law had been the architect of the museum building back when he served as Center Administrator for the headquarters in fact, and I was proud and honored to be asked to serve as a board member. During my time of service, I helped navigate the museum through a difficult time as our Director had to step down due to health issues. I was able to help create two new fund raising features that still are in use today, an annual banquet and a fun-run, as well as served as webmaster. Shortly before we decided to move to Oregon, I had been asked to serve as chair but declined knowing that I would not be able to continue serving after the move.
Misc other non-profits in the past: included Texans United for Life and the Duncanville (TX) Crisis Pregnancy Center
This is Kenton, how may I help you? 