“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus.”

Titus 2:11-13

The grass is neatly cut and manicured along the parkway, trees line the walkway. As you approach you notice a tent with someone sleeping on the ground outside. The closer you get you notice people just standing around holding cardboard signs saying “Will work for food” or “God Bless you”. There are children just sitting, not playing, not listening to IPods, just sitting with their parents.

The closer you walk; you begin to notice the car that apparently hasn’t run for a while is filled with someone’s belongings. The shopping cart holding blankets and recyclables is next to a shabbily dressed man carrying one of the cardboard signs. He looks directly at you, but you don’t make eye contact. Now you recognize that you have wandered into a homeless encampment, but that was not where you were headed, you were going to church.

This was the first thing you saw last Sunday morning as you walked toward the main Sanctuary at Crossroads. Once people passed our “Encampment” they were exposed to other areas of the world in which poverty exists. There were shanties erected, live animals, and outdoor cooking with food to sample. You could witness the physical relief in many people as they began to understand that we were only part of the display and that the church grounds had not been taken over by the homeless.

Patrice Maturkanich did a great job organizing our encampment, from the car and tent, to the actors playing the part of the homeless. Everyone did a great job. The most interesting thing was the response of many before they realized that these “Homeless” were members of our church. No one was rude, many people actually tried to give money; some actually insisted that we take their donation.

For many we noticed that we had intruded into their life, an unexpected interruption. We watched as one woman, kids in tow, stopped and walked around our display, toward the offices and down the stairs to avoid contact.

I would not put forth that anyone is indifferent or adverse toward the homeless; for the most part we just don’t know how to effectively help a stranger without jeopardizing our own well-being. This is a natural response for anyone.

How do we overcome these feelings? By increasing awareness of the problem, training on how to resolve the problem and resources to overcome the problem. The fix doesn’t come from one person becoming involved; it comes from all of us doing what each has the ability to accomplish.

From a Spiritual standpoint it looks like this, though each of these attributes applies to each of us, not just the homeless.

Awareness: “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men”.

Training: ”Instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age”

  Resource: ”Looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus.”

From a physical standpoint we are becoming more aware of the homeless problem that exists in our community. We are putting things in motion to train those interested in helping and we are organizing resources to make sure that the needs are being met. So we are on the right track.

Photo's by Dianna Lopez. MakeUp: Joanne Stevens and Malory Giboney