Sonya and I met each other in 1962 when we with husbands Manning and Dave were active in the Presbyterian Interracial Council. Disappointed with the amount of resources that were being earmarked for this effort to promote racial integration in Presbyterian Churches, we moved to the Church of the Savior. This ecumenical church, founded by Mary and Gordon Cosby, incorporated practices drawn from both Catholic and Protestant traditions. This appealed to us because we had become ecumenical ourselves through our participation in a group of Protestant and Catholic couples who shared in each others' faith practices.
Sonya was quickly drawn to the work of FLOC (For Love of Children), a group dedicated to strengthening inner city families. After Martin Luther King's death, to explore ways of being a presence in the community and to address some of the racial and economic divisions, Sonya was instrumental in extending the Potters House hours to serve lunch in hopes that it could become an attractive place for community activists and others to meet. In 1975 Gordon Cosby, realizing that the growth of the missions of the Church of the Saviour was too much for one person to pastor, invited members to form sister communities. Sonya and Fred Taylor, the Director of FLOC, responded by offering themselves as organizing leaders for one such community. Wanting to give expression to female/male co-leadership, they began Seekers.
Prior to being involved in the Church of the Saviour, Sonya did social work in Montgomery County and Washington DC, having earned a Bachelors Degree in Social Work from Western Maryland College. Sonya's primary inspiration for her leadership of Seekers has come from reflecting on and learning from life experience. This has been augmented by continuing education courses at several seminaries, seminars in pastoral counseling and a variety of workshops.
In her role as leader of the staff pastoral team of Seekers, Sonya has been the one who has continuously guided the community since its inception. There have been a variety of configurations of staff leadership as well as strong leadership from many others in the community. Sonya's job at Seekers has taken three days a week. For sixteen years, Sonya and I worked two days a week and directed Working From the Heart, a non-profit organization that helps people find work that they want to do and that contributes something valuable to society. Out of this work, Sonya and I wrote the book Working From The Heart, now unfortunately out of print but available from Seekers in photocopy.
Now it is the year 2000. Sonya retires from her Seekers staff responsibilities at the end of June. In the fall, Sonya and Manning will move to Charlotte, North Carolina to be near their daughter Barbara, her husband Rick, and their two grandchildren, Owen and Hannah. This move was prompted by Manning's health limitations. Sonya is seeing this in terms of a new call - to create as full and rich a life as possible and to enter into this phase with a spirit of adventure and exploration. This move prompted my desire to collect some of Sonya's wisdom not only to celebrate her years of inspired leadership with us but also to give Seekers and other interested readers a resource to help develop vibrant faith communities.
Seekers Church, recently selected by The Lilly Foundation as one of sixteen creative church congregations to be described in a forthcoming book, is also on the move. We occupy a renovated building opposite the Metro Station in Takoma Park DC at 272 Carroll Street 20012. To reach us you may Write Us or visit our Website at http://www.seekerschurch.org.
Jackie McMakin
June 4, 2000