Friday Night Light:
Finding Jesus at a Homeless Shelter
My Friday nights are very different. Every Friday night I
volunteer at a homeless shelter. I pick up trash, sweep and mop floors, clean bathrooms, and vacuum
rugs – dirty, tedious, menial work. Then I help organize the showers for the
homeless men. I give them each a bin with a towel and a pair of pajamas. After
their shower they return the bin to me, which is now full of their dirty, smelly clothes, and I return it to the right place on the shelf in the locker room.
Many of the homeless men are angry, mentally ill, depressed, and trapped in a
never-ending cycle of drugs, prison, and violence. Imagine 100 homeless men in a single locker
room. The work is hectic and tiring, and many times the stench is overpowering.
I’m not the only one who works at the shelter, but I’m the
only volunteer. My co-workers are former homeless men who are trying to turn
their lives around. They live in a separate section of the shelter, attend
daily Bible studies and discipleship programs with the chaplain, and participate
in career counseling and job training with the social worker. They also have
tragic but amazing testimonies of God’s work in their lives.
As we work together, they tell me their stories of tragedy and restoration, failure and redemption,
struggle and victory. Their lives are so much more difficult than mine, but at
the same time God’s hand is much more evident in their lives than in mine.
God is closer to them than he is to me because God is close to the
broken hearted.
Friday nights – no singing, no King James English, no Bible
stories, and no pointing fingers at the sins of the outside world. Just down-to-earth conversation
about God’s work in the lives of desperate and helpless but hopeful men. One homeless guy
tells me about a miracle that he experienced in the hospital. Another tells me
about deliverance from a lifelong addiction to alcohol. Another tells me how
his suicide attempts have been replaced with hope and meaning.
I leave church each Sunday morning discouraged and depressed
because I don’t see God. Instead I see mindless ritual, meaningless routine,
spiritual pride, and conformity to social norms. I leave the homeless shelter
each Friday night excited, exuberant, singing, and rejoicing that God is still
at work in a lost world.
Where will I find the body of Christ? Where will I hear God’s voice? Where will I see his face? Sunday mornings, or Friday nights?
I have a cousin in the ACCA who visits prisoners. All this is, of course, good work and blessed by God. The tradition within evangelicalism that we were imprinted on has a history of people who are closer to the low than the high end of society and are more apt to gravitate toward helping them. Yet as much or more help is needed at the higher levels of society. ACCs and many evangelicals (and others) are not capable of functioning there, however.
ReplyDeleteTo point out what I mean, there is a Canadian clinical psychologist, Jordan Peterson, who has rapidly gained an audience on YouTube because he can assault the citadels of evil in Western society. His comments are largely fact-driven. In my younger days, within the evangelical movement was Francis Schaffer who influenced many thinking Christians. Yet very few ACCs ever acquire the ability ("gift") of taking on the Establishment, yet it is the source of most of the evil in society. This is not a criticism or a rebuke but an observation. Hopefully by bringing this out, more ACCs with brains or other abilities will rise to become an influential voice in the public exchange of rhetoric, and hopefully rise above the cacophony to provide a light in the darkness. This is difficult when raised in a spiritual ghetto, yet it is possible. It is why I wrote my book, The Grand Deception, to give such people a boost in this direction.
Good point. I would say that the ACC (and the evangelical church in general) needs a lot more activity at both ends of society. I think the church I attend is pretty typical - we are firmly embedded in the upper middle class - lots of engineers, teachers, accountants, small business owners, etc. Very few journalists, lawyers, professors, politicians. We don't want to get our hands dirty with the homeless or underprivileged, but neither do we want to associate with the elites.
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