Lausanne World Pulse – Themed Articles – Homelessness and Poverty: Reaching Out in Christ-like Manner to the Vulnerable
By Gordon Russell
September 2006
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I remember sitting on a bus filled with pre-schoolers and their parents. We were on our way to an outing that was organized by the nursery school my daughter attended. At the time I was beginning a pastorate in a small Mennonite Brethren church in southwestern Ontario (Canada). I was sitting next to a young woman whom our family was just beginning to befriend. The “befriending” was mutual and I decided to casually begin to explore matters of faith.
Up to this point, approaching anyone this directly involved some angst and fear, so you can imagine the care with which I approached the topic. My friend sniffed out my approach as sharply as a dog sniffing for illegal drugs. Although I do not remember her exact response to what I said, it is safe to say that she did not want to discuss matters of faith. Yet fifteen years later I still call her and each member of her family friends. Over the years we have had a number of opportunities to discuss faith issues, generally in a “back door” kind of way.
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What’s the point of this seemingly insignificant story? Well, it raises a number of questions regarding my personal desire to invite people into a relationship with Jesus. Also, since I have moved from the pastorate to a social service agency which reaches out to those struggling with homelessness and poverty, it also raises contextual questions such as:
- What does it mean to invite others to Jesus from a position of power, where on the surface we claim that everyone can decide, but in reality we make the decisions?
- What does it mean to invite others to Jesus, where the culture appears to be the same, but in reality it is fundamentally different?
- What does it mean to invite others to Jesus, where dependence can undermine our relationship in a world of vulnerability and where motives can easily be confused? It is not difficult to look like we are trading bread for belief.
There are certainly more questions to wrestle with, but first we will look at the world in which I work and some working principles that I am attempting to implement with varying degrees of success.
Reaching Out to the Vulnerable at the Men’s Mission and Rehabilitation Centre
The Men’s Mission and Rehabilitation Centre, located in London, Ontario (Canada), is an emergency and transitional to long-term shelter for men sixteen years of age and older. There are 111 emergency beds arranged in dormitories and thirty-five transitional to long-term beds arranged as private rooms. The residents get three meals a day and there is a guest meal program for non-residents. There is little private space in the building and most of the residents not only have economic issues, but health, mental health and addiction issues as well.