Chestnut Mountain Ranch ministry sponsors third summit on foster care

Apr. 30—Before he answered the call to faith, Greg Clutter was a senior accountant and chief operating officer for companies in North Carolina and West Virginia.

Which means he knows all about the management of numbers—and lives behind them, on the cost ledger.

These days, in his role at Chestnut Mountain Ranch, he's dealing with numbers of a different kind.

Chestnut Mountain Ranch is a 225-acre expanse near Morgantown offering a faith-based refuge for boys and young men in trouble, or fleeing it.

And Clutter is the director of foster care initiatives for Chestnut Mountain Village, an outreach ministry under the ranch's umbrella founded three years ago for West Virginia kids in foster care and the parents and households there for them.

Which is where Clutter's continued association with numbers enter in, he said.

To date, there are more than 6, 000 children and teens in foster care in the Mountain State—this, he said, in a state with just 1.7 million people, give or take.

"Look at the state of Oregon in contrast, " he said.

"They have a population of 5 million—with 4, 800 kids in foster care."

On Friday, the ranch and its accompanying ministry is sponsoring the third-annual "All-In Foster Care Summit, " an all-day series of seminars geared to churches wanting to launch similar ministries.

The summit will be 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. that day at Trinity Assembly of God Church, 70 Maranatha Drive in Fairmont.

"This will be our third one, " Clutter said, "and I like to take it out to different communities in West Virginia."

Trent Taylor, an author and business leader who lived with five different foster families in North Carolina by the time he was 9, will present at the conference.

So will Darrell Missey, a former judge who stepped down from the bench to direct the Missouri Children's Division.

Jillana Goble, who founded Every Child Oregon, will also talk about her experiences as a foster parent who has adopted children.

Foster parents from across the region will also share their stories in a panel discussion.

Visit cmrwv.org and click on the "Events " button to learn more.

Meanwhile, Chestnut Mountain Ranch was founded by Steve Finn, a former detective who worked with youth gangs in Atlanta before returning to his native West Virginia to launch the camp and its ministry in 2004.

Finn was thinking of one kid at a time back then, which is also the idea of Friday's foster care summit, Clutter said.

"The numbers can be overwhelming when you're looking at 6, 000 kids in foster care in West Virginia, " the former accountant continued.

"We're not asking people to try to solve that all at once, " he said.

Faith communities, he said, can minister to that.

"Churches can take care of the kids in their counties and their towns, " Clutter said.

Which is critical, he said, in a place where generational poverty, and all its negative particulars and cycles, abound.

"You shrink the problem one kid and one family at a time, " he said.

"And that's gonna make real a difference."

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