A Model Homeless Ministry

Running a non-profit must be a hard business. It must specialize in the art of "friend-raising" and a heart of compassion. I ran across this WORLD magazine article on a Manhattan rescue mission and Ed Morgan, its leader. As someone who witnesses homelessness and disenfranchised people on a daily and more stark basis (say, than suburbia or rural America) and who has tried to get closer to them, I am intrigued by organizations who wear the name Christian and are able to keep the Gospel front and center while not tail-spinning into just mere do-gooder"ness".

Ed Morgan runs his organization like a business so that donors will be attracted to it not just pity it. "Most charities measure process--how many meals are served and how many beds they have, but we measure permanent results. We are outcome-focused."

As an example of that he lists 5 things necessary for the homeless in his mission to graduate from the Bowery Mission recovery program:

1. Connected to Christ.
2. Connected to family.
3. Clean and sober.
4. Employed with a place to live.
5. Have a plan for the future.

It is this kind of commitment to people (note I didn't say poverty) that will avoid either the token, occasional drop of a few coins in a bucket or the relentless giving to the poor thus confirming or sinking them deeper in their poverty. I pray that all of us would grow in our understanding of the Gospel and its radical claim on our time and assets. Not that we are all called to run a homeless shelter, but we are commanded to do good to all men and women. God help us.

"You don't change lives through social services. That's called behavioral modification. Recovery from homelessness is an affair of the heart," Morgan says.

An explanation about the picture:

This is Larry Purnell. I knew him for over a year as we employed him at our office to do so some menial chores (like cleaning the sidewalk around the clinic). We eventually had to let Larry go because he was just not doing the job or even showing up. It was sad for me to see that happen. In this picture, Larry is about 51. I'm not even sure if he is alive today. One of interesting things I got to help Larry with was taking him to a center where people who get arrested get to reclaim their stuff. Larry had been stuck in the clink for a few days and needed to get his effects back. Larry had been in and out of jail and was dependent on his mother. Until she died just a few short years before. This is one of several men I have befriended. I wonder how Kenny, Willie and Mark are doing.

The Inner-Inner-City: Hamtramck, MI

Some of you know that my family and I spent some formative years in metro Detroit (wait: all yrs are formative). While not in the city proper, we were exposed to different American and ethnic subcultures. While training at the local theological seminary, I met a guy who lived down the street from me who had a bunch of kids (his youngest is the same age of my oldest)- Jay and his better half, Kristin. He actually was in the same seminary. The dude has a great story that another friend Ken Tullos has captured on a video. I hope that Jay keeps reaching people for Jesus in that urban island and that Ken keeps making videos in and around Detroit for the glory of the one true God. The only improvement I would have made to the video was to add a bit of holy hip-hop=+). Even then, the music was cool and compelling. Word!

Hamtramck from Kenneth Tulloss on Vimeo.

Urban Farming

Read this great article in Fortune on urban farming possibilities. Time/Inc. magazines have taken as its project over the last several months and into an indefinite future to chronicle the story of Detroit and her future. They demonstrated their drive for this story by buying a house in Detroit--- yeah, some editors bought a house!




Some highlights from the article:

• John Hantz is one of the drivers behind this phenomenon; a white guy who is rich and still has a Detroit address (and isn't about to leave).
• Hantz: "We can't create opportunities, but we can create scarcity."
• Detroit has 40 sq. miles of abandoned land and is bigger in land mass than Frisco, Boston and Manhattan combined!
• "Where will new ideas for the 21st century emerge? From older, decaying cities, Krieger believes, such as New Orleans, St. Louis, Cleveland, Neward and especially Detroit-- cities that have become, at least in part, 'kind of empty containers.'"
• Center city sports attractions such as Ford Field and Comerica Park "have restored, on some nights, a little spark to downtown Detroit but have inspired little in the way of peripheral development."
• "Abandonment is an infrastructure problem."
• Make pods.
• Dave Bing seems positive.
• Not trying to reproduce IA. In fact, if anything, this idea realized to an urban phenomenon may unseat "the nation's dependence on Big Ag."
• Hantz: "Some things you've got to see in order to believe," he says, waving his cigar. "This is a thing you've got to believe in order to see."
• Hantz might win the day with his ideas: "That's the beauty of [Detroit] being down and out.... You can actually open your mind to ideas that you would never otherwise embrace." At this point, Detroit doesn't have much left to lose.

I used to live right outside of the Motown in Allen Park and Lincoln Park. These years in metro Detroit were quite formative in many ways. In a sense, part of my heart is still in this suffering city. I hope that this idea of urban farming will stage Detroit as a 21st century leader in urban renewal (geographically speaking). Religiously speaking, I see great opportunity for the gospel in this blighted community. There are some even tricky ethnic and racial hurdles that Caucasian Christians need to face head-on with some serious thought. I'm thankful for this group of believers (website needs a new design, I know; it hasn't changed in over ca. 5 years) that is attempting to reach Detroit with the good news of Jesus. May their tribe increase even among their own.

It Takes a City to Raise a Child

Recently, I have been thinking about education and raising my children in a metropolis. If left to myself, I would probably home school my children and keep a very tight "grip" on the leash of influence. I have by no means thought this out completely. Furthermore, I know that several people feel strongly about how their children should be educated.

Thankfully, I have a wife who balances me out. She keeps me real. She's wise. So, one of things that has crossed my mind is that we can't raise my kids by ourselves. We need other people. We need the church. We need my parents and my brother. We need my in-laws; we need friends. We need the city. This is not to say that God has not resourced us with everything we need in the Scriptures to be the main influencers of our children. But, I'm beginning to wonder if it's really arrogant to think that I could do it by myself. I have thought and remain fully convinced that God has given these children to me, and that I am the main one to influence and teach them. I am totally committed to the idea and institution of family in the Bible. But I guess I'm confessing that living in this particular God-ordained institution should not be done independently from the context of other institutions he's given; and not just those institutions but creation as well.

While I'm rambling, it occurs to me that my own upbringing was a "group project". While my parents were cautious of what influences they let into the home, they exposed my brother and me to a vast and diverse body of knowledge and experiences that they themselves could not offer. They attentively resourced opportunities for us. For that (amongst many reasons) I am most grateful to my Dad and Mom.

I'll have more to say on this subject at another time, but for now, I leave you with a wonderful talk given by Timothy Keller, pastor in Manhattan, on the subject of raising kids in the city. I'm still trying to figure out how to get the direct link, Owen Strachan has the talk posted at his blog.