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A UMNS Report
By Kathy L. Gilbert*

3:00 P.M. EST May 20, 2011

John Wesley gives money to the poor in this artist rendering. Drawing courtesy of The United Methodist Commission on Archives and History.
View in Photo Gallery

Tears ran down “Samuel’s” hollow cheeks as he held the chalice and served Holy Communion to his congregation.

The 52-year-old homeless man with five teeth, a beard that looks like steel wool and tangled blond hair, suffers with poor physical and mental health.

He wept as he offered “the blood of Jesus Christ” because someone invited him to serve.

“No one has ever asked, ever trusted me at the table of grace,” he told the Rev. Brian Combs, pastor of a United Methodist congregation in Asheville, N.C., that serves “the homeless and the housed” side-by-side.

For the Haywood Street Congregation, the focus is always on ministry with the poor. “Each person is of sacred worth; God doesn’t play favorites,” Combs said.

The theme for Heritage Sunday on May 22 is ministry with the poor. The annual observance is on May 24 or the Sunday preceding it because May 24, 1738, is the date of John Wesley’s “heartwarming experience” in a Moravian meeting house on Aldersgate Street in London.

After that meeting, the founder of Methodism wrote in his journal: “In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while the leader was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

United Methodist churches worldwide are invited to use the theme to inspire Sunday school classes, mission teams, outreach committees and others to serve in a soup kitchen or similar missions and work for a just and equitable society.

Ministry with the poor is central to Jesus and primary to Wesley, Combs said.

'With,' not 'for'

The Haywood Street congregation bridges the gap between privilege and poverty.

At the Haywood Street Congregation in Asheville, N.C., the focus is always on ministry with the poor. The “unhoused and housed” worship side by side. Photo courtesy of the Haywood Street Congregation. View in Photo Gallery

“At Haywood Street, we intentionally integrate houseless and housed in volunteering and worship, blending the population to glimpse the kingdom to come,” Combs said.

The church offers a Wednesday midday service that was started at the request of a homeless man who told Combs he would rather be in church than struggling with his addictions in the middle of the day. “Our greatest compliment on Wednesdays is, ‘I'm not sure who's homeless and who's not,’” said Combs.

Often Combs said, he hears his “siblings on the streets” say, “I don’t want some well-to-do middle-class Christian earning their grace through me.”

Ministry “with”the poor means the addict, prostitute or schizophrenic may be the risen Christ in our midst, Combs explained.

From crowded urban cities to sparsely populated rural countrysides, United Methodists are finding ways to serve their neighbors.

The Upper Sand Mountain Parish, a cooperative ministry of eight United Methodist churches in one of the poorest areas in Alabama, is another living, breathing example of being in ministry “with” the poor.

The poverty rate in the Sand Mountain Parish climbs as high as 70 percent in some of the rural towns, which range in size from about 3,000 residents to 400. Operating since 1969, the ministry provides for its neighbors.

“We formed together as a parish because we had so many people in need in our congregation,” said Tayna Rains, director of the parish. The small churches in the area realized they couldn’t meet all of the needs in the community alone.

Relevance X participants assembled sack lunches and distributed them to the homeless as part of a service project through the Dream Center, an outreach ministry in Las Vegas. A UMNS photo by Joey Butler. View in Photo Gallery

Rains said the parish is unique because it literally does anything to help people in need — from providing food and money for rent or electric bills to transportation, clothes and school supplies.

Wesley’s passion for the poor

John Wesley also encouraged his followers to provide soup kitchens, clothing and blankets, medical clinics and literacy classes; visit prisoners; and establish homes for orphans, unwed mothers and the aged.

Kenneth E. Rowe, longtime Methodist librarian at Drew University in Madison, N.J., and a leading scholar and bibliographer on Methodist history, writes Wesley longed for a church that would offer “charity in all its forms.”

“Labor of Love: Wesley’s Passion for ‘Christ’s Poor’” by Rowe, featured on The United Methodist Commission on Archives and History’s website, chronicles how Wesley’s ministry with the poor began.

According to Rowe, Wesley’s convictions were not the normal mindset of an 18th-century Oxford professor. Especially for someone who was raised in a posh Church of England rectory by parents with a scholarly bent, schooled in one of the finest boarding schools in the country and educated at Oxford College.

The simple answer to why Wesley worked with the poor is because Jesus did. He knew he was following Jesus when he served the poor, and he believed Jesus would help him do so.

Changing the world

Recently, the denomination was challenged to Change the World in a weekend of simple acts of kindness. Churches across the connection chose to do that by serving the needs of the poor in their communities.

Renee Teel, director of missions at Christ United Methodist Church in Sugar Land, Texas, said her church has a long history of reaching out to those in need.

Volunteers donate their skills to repairing homes as part of an Appalachian service project. A UMNS photo by Ronny Perry.
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As part of their participation in Change the World, the church repaired homes in their county, turned Sunday school rooms into a bed and breakfast for the homeless and helped restore a hospital wing in Dabou, Côte d’Ivoire.

More than 100 members placed a bean in a bowl and committed to fast and donate.

“Our hope is that we can turn this into an annual event so we can purchase high-protein food products for our friends in Mexico,” she said. “We miss them so much, as our missions into Mexico have been stopped due to the recent violence. Our pastor friends meet us at the border and pick up any food, school supplies, vacation Bible school crafts, Spanish Bibles and gifts on the U.S. side.”

A different church

In a recent blog written by Combs, he speaks of meeting “Michael,” a homeless man who was sleeping outside the church.

Michael was from New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina had displaced him, and he had bounced around the country looking for a respite.

The man said he had learned not to expect much from Christians.

“I’ve come to expect that most Christians just look down on the homeless, refuse to even acknowledge a common humanity,” he said. “(They) assume that I’m smoking crack or boozing or loitering about for another handout. Shut the doors of hospitality before I even walk up to see if they are open.”

However, he said he always believed God created everyone equal.

“In the midst of the hypocrisy, while still sleeping on another bed of cold concrete, I have faith that church can be different.”

* Gilbert is a multimedia reporter for the young adult content team at United Methodist Communications, Nashville, Tenn.

News media contact: Kathy L. Gilbert, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.