bethel neighborhood center staff

Meet Rev. Lisa R. Harris

Rev. Lisa R. Harris
Executive Director

Work Phone: 913.371.8218
Email: lrharris@bethelcenter.org

“I love being part of a mission that has a history of changing with its community” says the Rev. Lisa Harris about her work as Executive Director of Bethel Neighborhood Center in Kansas City.

For more than 94 years the Bethel Neighborhood Center in Kansas City, Kansas, has brought hope and help to people in its community through ministries of health care, education, recreation and spiritual nurture. The Center’s ministries include free lunches for senior adults, a weekly senior health program taught by a parish nurse; youth education, service and recreation programs; a children’s playground and garden.

As newly arrived immigrant groups and people of differing ethnic backgrounds have arrived in the neighborhood over the years, the Bethel Center has offered an enduring ministry of help and hope to its community. Harris has heard dozens of stories from families who “grew up” at the Bethel Neighborhood Center. “Bethel means ‘House of God’, she says. “We hope people feel a sense of God’s love when they are here.”

One of nineteen Neighborhood Action Centers in mission partnership with National Ministries, the Bethel Neighborhood Center is also one of the few Centers that have a worshipping congregation associated with it. Established in the 1980’s as an extension of the Center’s ministry, the Bethel Center Baptist Church meets for worship on Thursday evenings. Harris gladly accepted the invitation to pastor the Bethel Church in addition to her duties as Executive Director of the Center. “Serving as pastor to this congregation is a joy,” says Harris, who is often traveling on Sunday mornings to speak in other churches on behalf of the Center and its ministries.

Another joy in her ministry is the opportunity to develop relationships with the youth and adults Bethel serves as well as staff, volunteers, congregations, and the Center’s Board of Directors. Harris is excited about working together with the Board to integrate the wide variety of existing services into a comprehensive organizational plan that will also allow for expanding the programs and services offered by the Center in the future.
Harris came to Bethel with an appreciation for the vital American Baptist witness in the nation’s heartland. “The strong support we continue to receive from American Baptist congregations confirms my sense that Bethel’s ministry is a significant extension of that witness,” she says.

The Bethel Neighborhood Center is a mission partner of National Ministries and the American Baptist Churches of the Central Region, and welcomes support from churches, foundations and individuals.

EDUCATION:
B.A.: Douglass College: Rutgers University,
New Brunswick, NJ

M. Div.: Duke Divinity School, Durham, NC

EXPERIENCE:
Prior to accepting the call to this ministry, Rev. Harris served as the Associate Executive Minister for World Mission Support for the Philadelphia Baptist Association

Rev. Harris grew up in Scotch Plains, New Jersey where she was nurtured in the Christian faith by her family and the St. Paul Baptist Church of Montclair, NJ. She worked in public policy administration as Special Assistant to former United States Senator Bill Bradley, and Assistant to the Director of Health and Human Services for the City of Trenton, New Jersey prior to accepting her call to ordained ministry. She has served as a minister of mission in North Carolina and Washington, D.C. and has visited the mission fields of Myanmar (Burma), Guyana, Haiti, Mexico and South Africa.

IMPORTANT DATES:

Rev. Harris became the Executive Director of the Bethel Neighborhood Center on March 7, 2005
Ordination: May 28, 1998
Birthday: May 2