Homeless No More?

February 3, 2018

Being pastor of a city church is like nothing else I’ve ever done. Yesterday, I officiated at a funeral of the patriarch of a multi-ethnic family that took each other’s failings and foibles in stride, and came together as one in their time of grief. It was a beautiful thing to behold, even to the granddaughter’s eulogy that recalled the best time she and he ever had together was a night they drove through a blizzard smoking cigarette after cigarette while he kept up a constant barrage of warnings and driving instructions.

Today, I received a text from a fellow pastor asking if I knew of anywhere a homeless couple could take a shower. Since our church has such facilities, I told her to give me some contact information. A short time later, I’m arranging with this couple to come to the church early in the morning so they can make themselves presentable to go to church. In more than forty years’ ministry, this is a first for me.

A friend recently posted a meme about how there are something like 300,000 homeless in the country, and 310,000 churches, so why are there homeless people? (My numbers are certainly not correct, but you get the idea—there are more churches than homeless, so as Christians, we ought to be providing shelter for these folks. On the surface, it sounds reasonable, but there are a few problems. One is that many of these churches are what we call “Open Country Churches,” many of them located out in the countryside where homeless people do not tend to gather. Additionally, most churches don’t have facilities or staff to care for people overnight. Government regulations prohibit much of what we might otherwise be able to do. On top of all that, many of our homeless prefer living on the streets, and refuse to take shelter that’s offered to them. 

Is there more we could be doing? Absolutely. And those of us with the facilities and staffing are doing just that. I don’t know where this couple is spending the night tonight, and it is very cold outside. I do know that tomorrow morning, we will be helping them out, and hopefully making a connection that can move from providing tangible help to blossom into something that would be a more permanent and eternal blessing. That would be cause for great thanksgiving and rejoicing!