My church struggles with how to love our homeless neighbors
posted: August 4, 2008 | category: community, faith, homelessness
tags: alcohol, crack cocaine, homeless news, housing, policy
Blankets, clothing and other items left out in the open by homeless people who sleep outside at Grace Community Church are stacked beside the dumpster a few days before it’s scheduled to be emptied, giving them a chance to retrieve their things.
My church, Grace Community on West Lee Street, is struggling with how to answer the question: How do we love our homeless neighbors? Grace is known for serving the poor and homeless. We have a weekly community dinner for the homeless, a financial assistance ministry, a permanent supportive housing ministry (moving people from homelessness to housing), and a yearly Christmas Banquet for our homeless friends. We have members involved in urban mission projects, street outreach ministries, the Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness, the homeless coalition, the day center initiative, as well as close friendships with homeless and formerly homeless people. But one of the biggest struggles that our church faces is how to love and serve the homeless neighbors who sleep on our church property every night. (It’s not just the sleeping that’s a problem. It’s the mental health and addiction issues, sanitation problems, liability concerns, sex offenders sleeping at a place frequented by children, etc. But that’s another post.)
Shepherding Pastor Will Dungee spoke about it at the end of a recent sermon:
[Listen to all of the sermon, “Who Is My Neighbor?,” here.]
When he said all that about the Holy Spirit speaking to us in the church about what we should do, I wanted to stand up and read Isaiah 58, which talks about true worship and says, in part, “Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless.” (My blog gets its name from Isaiah 58.) But I didn’t stand up. I sat there and prayed instead. Because I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to read it. And I have a lot of questions and a lot of concerns about our response to our homeless neighbors, but I don’t even pretend to have the answers.
After the service, the first person I saw was Pastor Will, and he immediately asked what I thought of what he’d said about our friends. I told him that I was really struggling with us having this big heated and cooled building that we only fully utilize a couple of times a week, while our friends sleep outside. And then I started crying and I ran to the bathroom. (I know, that sounds so lame. It’s embarrassing for me to write it. I almost never cry. But this has been getting to me for a while, and when Will asked me about it, I just kind of lost it for a minute. But you know what? I want my heart to break for every single thing that breaks God’s heart, so hey, maybe it’s just a God thing that I cried about it.)
I haven’t had a chance to talk to Will since then. I know that he and our other pastors and elders are struggling with what to do. I talked to a friend of mine about it. Here’s how our conversation went:
Audrie: “If we opened up every single church in Greensboro, nobody would be homeless. Nobody would be hungry.”
CM: “What’s the worst thing that could happen if we let homeless people sleep in our church?”
Audrie: “Somebody might smoke crack in the bathroom. Or have sex.”
CM: “And then what? I mean… so…?”
Audrie: “Yeah.”
Audrie: “You can stand up and speak in a meeting in front of the mayor but you won’t stand up in your church? I think the prompting of the Holy Spirit was there. What would have happened if you’d responded? You would have stood up and read the passage and sat back down and everybody would have looked at you like you were psycho. Just like they did with Jesus. What’s the difference?”
CM.: “[Sigh.] I know.”
Audrie: “There’s injustice here! And we’re calling ourselves Christians? Hello! Open the doors to the church!”
I used to be bold. She is kicking my butt on boldness these days. I need to pray…
I’m really thankful that my church is struggling with this situation. Some churches don’t struggle with the poor or homeless at all — they don’t have any connection to them or they don’t acknowledge them. So I think it’s a blessing that we’re where we are as a church, and it’s an honor to be given the opportunity to love and serve our homeless neighbors. As Pastor Will says, “The bottom line is, we have to love…” And what a gift that is. Amen.
Please pray for us at Grace as we seek the LORD on what it looks like for us to love our homeless neighbors the way that Jesus wants us to.
UPDATE, 11/10/2008: It looks like our church is going to be an emergency shelter location this winter. I’ll be writing more about this, but I wanted to come back and update this post. I’m so excited about what God is doing at our church, and how He’s growing and using us to serve homeless and hungry people!
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9 Responses to “My church struggles with how to love our homeless neighbors”
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I think you might have cried because you didn’t stand up and do what you felt called to do.
I love the dream, the vision, the possibilities that opening up the doors of all the churches could have . . . nothing could be more Christ-like than that.
Just imagine for a moment the potential domino effect if Grace Community Church opened it’s doors - and in so doing, showed Greensboro what it means to truly love your neighbors.
Go for it. God has given you the spark. It’s your job to light the fire.
Thanks for that word, Val. I am continuing to pray over this. My prayer is that the body of Christ at Grace will seek God together and that we’ll be united in, rather than divided and separated by, our response to our homeless neighbors. I want us to hear from the LORD and answer of one accord.
I feel torn in so many directions about all this, and I know that Jesus is not the author of confusion, He’s the prince of peace. I’m willing to turn over temple tables, but I want to avoid chopping off any ears, so I have to keep listening… Hope those metaphors work. I know what I mean, anyway.
OK, also, if that response sounds guarded and cautious, it’s because that’s how I felt when I wrote it. There have been times in my life where I’ve just popped off and said exactly what I was thinking about what I thought we (some Christian/church group) should do, and my words were based on Scripture (or at least I could back them up with some, anyway), and I truly believed that I was right (and other perspectives were thus wrong), and I managed to damage feelings and not move the conversation along or help the situation. I guess it does seem to me that the Bible is fairly clear here that we need to DO something, to be bold in our love for our homeless neighbors and in our practice of that love.
But… I know that there are other perspectives from other people who also deeply and sincerely love Jesus and deeply and sincerely love our homeless friends, and also read the Bible and also have legitimate concerns about opening up the church. I don’t want to make a bad situation worse by not hearing them. And I long ago learned that I am not always right, even when I’m sure I am.
So, yeah, maybe part of why I cried was from frustration. Not just the frustration that my homeless friends are sleeping outside our big comfortable church, but frustration over this indescribable and undefinable distance that makes it safer to sit in silence. I long for community…
Really thoughtful and great replies, Michelle. I can honestly say I completely understand.
Lighting the fire from one spark can be a REALLY difficult task (I’m sure you know that already) but it is a worthy task.
I’ll be thinking about you and Audrie and the congregation and sending lots of prayer and positive energy your way.
: )
Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
Ummm..I think when the Holy Spirit gives you a word then you are to say it..The Holy Spirit can never be wrong..His timing is perfect. Do we spend too much time worrying about people who “just don’t understand” ? Is it not our responsibility to help them to understand if the word is from God himself?..I refuse to teeter-totter with any church that believes anything other than the LIVING WORD which CLEARLY states that we are to help our brothers no matter the cost…I know you believe that.Dorothy Day looked at the a bishop in the Catholic church and said, “We are DOING church, Bishop!”..and that bishop had told her that she was giving a bad name to the Catholic church by allowing hungry, addicted, hungry people into the home that she had opened up…And she never locked the door……..Does it really matter what religious leaders or even religious people say? Does it? Are we not to be so loving that it’s RADICAL?..Aren’t we loving Jesus himself when we love a hungry…or an addicted..or thirsty..or a hurting homeless person?……I’m not saying to turn over tables - unless ofcourse the food is bad.
But see, Audrie, the problem I have there is that I can’t open my Bible and say, “Look, it says right here that we should open the doors of our church building and let the homeless people stay in it,” because there is no church building in the Bible. The “Church” met in people’s homes. In Isaiah 58, where it says to bring the homeless poor into the house, what does that mean? The temple? I don’t think so.
Does that mean MY house, and YOUR house? Does that mean we’re supposed to be bringing homeless people home to live with us? (I mean, talk about getting radical!?!?) I’m not opposed to that idea (yes, I want to have a Dorothy Day hospitality house), but I’m also not doing it yet, either. Are you?
My point is, I think we’d all agree that the Bible clearly states that we are to love our brothers and sisters. But there’s obviously some disagreement, among committed, loving followers of Jesus, about what that looks like. And when you ask if it matters what religious people or religious leaders say, if we’re talking about the ones at Grace, then yeah, it does matter to me. I know them, and I know they love Jesus, and I know they love our friends. I don’t doubt that. Not for a minute. We may disagree or just have different ideas about how to serve our friends, but I think it’s imperative that we continue to seek unity.
We are the Body of Christ. How do we love the world if we can’t love each other? How do we hear our friends if we can’t hear each other? How do we serve our friends if we can’t serve each other? I just feel like the LORD is saying, “Look at me! Keep your eyes on me! I’m showing you something here!” And it involves not just how we love and serve our friends, but how we love and serve each other in the process. I don’t know if that makes sense to anybody else, but I just keep feeling this longing for community, and the root of that is UNITY…
Great points…I very much agree with the church not being the building…I’m also very open to the idea of my home being a haven for the hurting…My great-grandmother who was living in Wilmington close to the turn of the century opened her very nice home to anyone who needed food after a hurricane had come through. She did church. She created community.
..Will there ever be the unity you seek from the people in any given building?. Our homeless friends see the church (building) as a refuge and since the church is seen as a refuge it is fair (to me ) to say the doors should be open. I cannot make myself feel differently about that…
Maybe this does go further than the building..maybe this does mean homes….Great food for thought this week…
I love how you think and think on things. You are a most amazing and beautiful example of Jesus.
“Our homeless friends see the church (building) as a refuge and since the church is seen as a refuge it is fair (to me ) to say the doors should be open. I cannot make myself feel differently about that…”
I agree with you on that. I am praying that God will lead Grace there.
When Tim and I were cooking for Food Not Bombs yesterday, this guy came in who needed help, and Tim helped him and I got to pray for him, and when he left I told Tim that’s what I want to be doing every day. Living in a house where people can just come and get help, and hang out, and be loved, and eat good food, and stay if they need to stay, and be prayed for and know that Jesus loves them. I want Grace to do that in their building, but I also want to do it personally in my home. I’m praying that God will provide a way for me to do that, if that’s what I’m supposed to be doing, and I can’t imagine that desire not being from God, so I’m expecting it to happen.
And you, my precious friend, are a beautiful example of Jesus to me, always. You challenge me and you provoke me to think and to act and to never get comfortable in this world. Jesus never did. I love how you love. I’m so glad God brought you into my life. I love you, Audrie.