The North Alabama Conference Ministry with the Poor Team is offering an online Lunch and Learn on the first Thursday of each month to share ideas and discuss being in ministry and relationship with underserved people in our communities. This is a new tool for people working with outreach, mission, and justice ministries to connect and learn.
Every other month, Lunch and Learn will focus on a book that examines poverty. The team will select books that are good for church groups to read and discuss. For the April meeting, participants will discuss Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by award-winning journalist Barbara Ehrenreich. Participants should read the book in advance to fully participate in the discussion.
The Amazon.com description of Nickel and Dimed explains, “Ehrenreich left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was offered. Moving from Florida to Maine to Minnesota, she worked as a waitress, a hotel maid, a cleaning woman, a nursing-home aide, and a Wal-Mart sales clerk. She lived in trailer parks and crumbling residential motels. Very quickly, she discovered that no job is truly ‘unskilled,’ and that even the lowliest occupations require exhausting mental and muscular effort. She also learned that one job is not enough; you need at least two if you intend to live indoors. Nickel and Dimed reveals low-rent America in all its tenacity, anxiety, and surprising generosity―a land of Big Boxes, fast food, and a thousand desperate stratagems for survival. Read it for … a rare view of how ‘prosperity’ looks from the bottom. You will never see anything―from a motel bathroom to a restaurant meal―in quite the same way again.”
The Ministry with the Poor Lunch and Learn will be on the first Thursday of each month from 12:00pm until 1:00pm using the Zoom platform. Here’s what is scheduled so far:
April 4
A book discussion on Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
May 2
Rev. Carolyn Foster, who works with Greater Birmingham Ministries and is involved in the national Poor People’s Campaign, will be the guest speaker.
Click HERE to join the online gathering. The link will be the same every month.
