About Troy and Neighbors Abbey
Neighbors Abbey is a church growing out of southwest Atlanta. As you might guess, I’m the pastor. This does deserves a bit of a back story though… Kelley and I have been living in SW Atlanta for four year now, with out any strings attached. This wasn’t a missionary parachute drop. I’ve managed a coffee shop, I’ve joined the folks here in community efforts including public development, Kelley has been working as speech therapist at a school 3 miles away and we’ve been raising Eve here with a true “village” of great folk living around us.
For the past four years since seminary I have been serving in validated ministry for the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta. I am ordained by the Presbyterian Church (USA). And I served for 12 months as a designated pastor in a church on the north side of town. As organizing pastor for Neighbors Abbey I am supported by the fellowship and oversight of minister members of the presbytery here.
Now, our neighborhood might not seem that different from your image of a blighted urban inner-city: prostitution, crack houses, 66% of our homes in foreclosure, and a hidden ring of human trafficking. But there are also people here who have taken care of the neighborhood for decades, there are those who have moved into the neighborhood as pioneers, those who own, rent, and those heavily subsidized by the government for their rentals, and added to the mix are those who are simply fixing up their homes hoping to someday get a good return on their investment. But all of us have to learn to get along. All of us want safe streets for our kids, better education, and we want to feel like we can trust our neighbor. Neighbors Abbey is a church working to build up that kinda trust, between everyone. We think that’s what Jesus’ body would be doing in a place like ours…
I do need to point out… there are already other churches in SW Atlanta doing a good job of telling people who want to join church about Jesus. And most who attend these churches drive in from out of the neighborhood. But this group banding together to form Neighbors Abbey, we are looking to do church in a new way. The folks here took the initiative and asked me to consider being our pastor and we are currently meeting in homes. But we hope to have an Abbey one day, a “third place” for neighbors to congregate, and a dedicated place for education and the arts as much as for Christian worship. We come from Roman Catholic, Southern Baptist, Assembly of God, and Presbyterian Traditions. Some of us have not been a part of a community in the way of Jesus before now. We don’t have a corner on doing good in our neighborhood, and we don’t want to stand in the way of right-living with fanciful church services or exclusive memberships. We do want our neighbors to be “in play”, we see them as partners, not competitors or target audiences. Basically, Neighbors Abbey is a group of folks learning more about God in Jesus Christ when we meet. ‘Learning by listening… We’re listening in prayer, we’re listening together to scripture, we’re listening to the elders and other advocates for our neighborhoods, and we’re learning through loving and screwing up and forgiving and hoping.
