- Kotzebue Ministry Partners with ChangePoint Alaska to Expand Rural Roots - December 6, 2017
A small Kotzebue ministry is partnering with an Anchorage megachurch to plant roots in rural Alaska.
The Kotzebue-based Workers in the Harvest ministry, founded by Pastor Lance Kramer and his wife Corina, are partnering with the Anchorage-based ChangePoint church to host discipleship trainings that started in Kotzebue Tuesday, Nov. 28. It’s a partnership that has been ten years in the making.
“They realized that being in Anchorage and being a predominately non-native church, that they needed to get someone on staff that was Alaska Native,’ explained Corina Kramer.
ChangePoint’s Pastor of Preaching, Joel Engle, explained that his church wanted to give “every single Alaskan a shot at the love of God’. They spent a lot of time identifying potential partnerships to spread the message in areas they couldn’t reach themselves.
“Lance, being Alaska Native, was able to give me honest and complete understanding of life as an Alaska Native and the needs of an Alaska Native person,’ Engle said. “They’re uniquely gifted to reach a younger generation.’
Lance and Corina are Inupiaq from the Northwest Region have been ministering for about 20 years. “Not many missionaries get to serve their own people and we get to do that so we’re excited,’ said Corina Kramer.
Originally an elementary school teacher, Lance started attending online seminary classes through a school in Kentucky and training with the Southern Baptist Convention at the same time. “They basically just wanted to train him up as an indigenous minister,’ Corina Kramer said.
Once he took all the online courses he could, the Kramers packed up and moved to the Anchorage area so that Lance can continue taking courses in ministry and eventually get more hands-on training in his position as Assistant Pastor. Kramer explained that they came back to Kotzebue for two years and “discovered that we needed a little bit more training’ and moved to Palmer for a year.
In the six years since they’ve been back in Kotzebue, they have started ministering in Kotzebue and the surrounding villages. “We’ve developed a different type of ministry,’ explained Kramer. They utilize social media, such as Facebook, to reach people remotely in Alaska’s vast lands.
Throughout all his training, Pastor Lance’s relationship with ChangePoint grew. They had offered him a position in Anchorage, but he didn’t take it because he wanted to minister in Kotzebue. “They decided the best way to help us was to give us ministry support,’ Corina Kramer said. That support included some money for living expenses while ministering in Kotzebue.
Earlier this year, ChangePoint decided that they wanted to help expand the Kramer’s ministry to fit their vision: “Life in Christ for every Alaskan and the world beyond’.
“The Kramers are highly respected in the church community,’ said Engle. “I think this is one of the most significant things to happen in the state of Alaska.’
Kathleen Sherman, who has been involved with Worker’s in the Harvest through attending their church services and other programs, was also happy to finally hear the announcement. “I’m excited to be a part of it. I’m excited to break ground,’ she said referring to the ministry’s use of social media and videos to reach rural Alaskans.
The Kramers have been working to shy away from the “western church model’.
“Church should be relational,’ said Corina Kramer. “It shouldn’t be: you go there on Sundays, sit in linear seated pews and you don’t really know the person five rows from you.’
“God intended church to be very relational and very familial because you are a part of each other,’ she added. “When Facebook came around, that’s kind of what it’s about. You know each other, and you know about each other’s lives.’
ChangePoint has similar beliefs about the way church should be. They discovered that meeting once a week in somebody’s home through Community Life Groups is more like a family setting and that people are more comfortable and open.
It’s the same reason the Kramers decided to host their first ChangePoint event at the Kotzebue Youth Center.
“Some people just aren’t comfortable going to a church building but they want to know more about God so we wanted to be in a neutral location in town,’ she explained.
According to Engle, ChangePoint also hopes to grow in Kotzebue and launch a full campus by September that includes childcare and youth ministry.
They would also like to help other remote villages start their own discipleship trainings after developing it in Kotzebue.
“We’d like to travel to any of the villages that would like us to come work with them on how to begin their own Community Life Group,’ said Corina Kramer.
She suggested that they can take place in any homes or community buildings available.
“It’s my desire that this will reach not only Kotzebue but surrounding villages,’ Sherman said. “We have more sessions on prayer and really, even if we just help one person, it’s worth it. But I do hope that the group grows.’
“You don’t have to be a Bible leader,’ Kramer urged. ChangePoint has both videos and audio available for those with slower internet connection speeds. They also have discussion outlines that you can print off or download to your phone.
The Kramers also have a lot of interest coming in to revive their youth camps, which typically consisted of a mix of learning from the Bible and learning about the Inupiaq culture out on the land.
Kramer added, “I would just request anyone out there to pray for God to really heal our land. Pray and be involved.’
