After 20 months inside a borrowed space in Midtown, Thomas Daniel and his wife, Beth, will celebrate this Christmas in a new home. But for these married ministers, the new “home” isn’t the Oakhurst bungalow where they live with their two young daughters; it’s the new permanent address of their fledgling congregation, Kairos Church.
Just like new homeowners, the couple and about 50 friends from the Kairos community spent the last five months getting ready for this initial holiday season in their own building. They painted, decorated and refurbished a historic red-brick church on Georgia Avenue and did such a remarkable job restoring the space that it was a main attraction of the fall Grant Park Tour of Homes.
“I don’t think the place had been painted or carpeted in 40 years,” said Daniel. “There was some water damage, ceiling tiles were missing, and part of the roof was falling apart. But it was in solid structural shape.”
Having their own building also fulfills a part of the couple’s spiritual mission — to create a new, energetic community in the mainstream Presbyterian church.
“We received seed money from a local foundation to write the next chapter in the story,” Daniel said. “We’re not breaking off and doing something independently. Our mission is bringing new life to the traditional church. So having our own place is a nice embodiment of that. We’re in a sanctuary with beautiful, old, stained glass windows, but with a young community bringing new life and energy to this structure.”
Being the leaders of a new spiritual venture wasn’t what the young couple expected when they first met while teaching English in Japan. Thomas, a native Atlantan, and Beth, who was raised in Wales, married 11 years ago and came to the metro area to attend Columbia Seminary in Decatur. They worked together at North Avenue Presbyterian in Midtown before heading to a large congregation in Chicago. The invitation to start Kairos brought them back to the area two years ago.
“It was a giant leap of faith,” said Daniel, who has won awards for his effective preaching style. “We left a very secure and upwardly mobile direction to follow the Spirit’s leading — a very counterintuitive direction from where most people see themselves heading. Honestly, we still struggle with it. Kairos is succeeding in a variety of ways, but it’s human nature to wonder what would my life look like if I had moved in a different direction. There were long periods when we wondered where this was leading us.”
Where it has taken both the Daniels is to a community based on people and family. Instead of having church offices, the two spend their days meeting people in coffee shops, restaurants, homes and at family outings. They keep in touch with e-mails, a Web site and Facebook pages. They don’t run or sponsor programs, but can quickly hook others up with opportunities to give back.
“We don’t need to form the 44th task force on homelessness; we’re not about recreating the wheel,” he said. “But we have lots of opportunities to plug people into service projects, from volunteering at the Atlanta Youth Academy to getting involved with the city’s sex trafficking issue. We are about connecting with spirit and one another, so we have small groups that meet weekly in homes throughout the city, not for reading books or studying the Bible, but to share lives, dreams and struggles together as a family. That’s very different from places where everything is about budgets, bucks and buildings.”
Since Kairos first began meeting 20 months ago, it has grown from a community of nine people to more than 120. But that may not be an exact number: Part of creating a family means not having memberships, Daniel said.
“We’re not like joining the Cherokee Town Club, where you pay dues and expect services — that’s not what we’re about,” he said. “We measure growth in terms of worship attendance, and so far, we’re double where we were last year. Especially in a mainstream church, that means we are going against the trend.”
Along with finding a permanent home, the Daniels recently marked another milestone in the Kairos story. “One of our great signs of success was when we told our 5-year-old that we were going to church,” Daniel said. “She immediately clapped her hands and was excited about seeing her teacher and friends. That was very significant for me. It meant the word ‘church’ for her means people, not a building. She associates ‘church’ with people who love her, which it did not mean for me growing up. It was a clear sign to me that we were doing something good.”
Visit www.kairosatlanta.org for more information about Kairos Church.
“Milestones” covers significant events and times in the lives of metro Atlantans. Big or small, well-known or not — tell us of a milestone we should write about. Send information to hm_cauley@yahoo.com or mail to Milestones, c/o Jamila Robinson, 72 Marietta St. N.W., Atlanta, GA 30303.
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