Yoked Parish in Harlem Will Serve Easter Breakfast
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The United Methodist/Presbyterian Church, a Yoked Parish in Harlem, will be hosting an Easter Breakfast this Sunday, April 21, at the Presbyterian Church, located at 104 First Avenue South East in Harlem. They invite all surrounding community members to join them at 7:30 on Easter morning. All proceeds from this free-will offering meal will be donated to Intermountain Children’s Home in Helena, Montana.
Intermountain Children’s Home (ICH) was founded in 1909 upon the premise that caring solutions and strong families lead to healthy communities. With their motto, “Healing through Healthy Relationships,” and by using a treatment model grounded in attachment philosophy, ICH offers hope to parents whose child may be struggling to control emotions or who may be experiencing significant difficulty functioning at home, at school, or in the community. The clinical staff at ICH administer developmental-relational treatment for children ages 4-13, integrated into academics and daily living. With their residential care, they provide a path to restoring hope and healing for a child and family.
About the ICH, parish member Linda Tangen said, “This is a home for children with nowhere else to go. Some have been abandoned or abused. Others have missed the experience of early nurturing. We’ve been supporting this mission for about 50 years now.”
In a long-standing Easter tradition, the men of the Yoked Parish cook breakfast for the whole congregation immediately after church. This Sunday, they will be cooking sausage, French toast, and scrambled eggs. Juice and coffee will accompany the meal.
“We support special missions throughout the year,” Tangen stated. “At Christmas time, we conduct a Love Offering. The Intermountain Children’s Home is our Easter mission.”
While Tangen described the practices of the two churches, it became clear that some of the most creative collaborators are rural churches in Montana. Out of need to share costs and staffing, the two spiritual communities cooperated to form what is sometimes called a “yoked church.” Such a model is common in areas with low population density. The parish model describes a situation where two or more churches form a joint structure to support specific ministries or to share staffing. Just as the definition of the term yoke implies, working in pairs enables them to pull together on a load.
Neither the United Methodist Church nor the Presbyterian Church could afford a full-time pastor on its own, so they came to an agreement—they would become a “yoked parish.” The two churches have survived nineteen years in this relationship.
“Currently, Jack Mattingly is our pastor, and we have services in one church for four months, then in the other for four months, and then back again,” Tangen explained.
The United Methodist Church is located at 214 South Main Street in Harlem.
