Missions Talkback
Download MP3Thank you all so much for coming tonight on a, midweek night. Why don't we just open up with a word of prayer real quickly? Lord, we thank you for who you are. We thank you that you are over the comings and the goings of our lives. The standing up, the walking around, the laying down.
Speaker 1:Lord, you're over the things in our mind and our hearts. Lord, we know that your grace covers so many areas of our lives, even areas we don't understand and we don't realize at first, Lord. So we we wanna thank you. We come with thankful hearts. Lord, we pray that tonight as we study your word and as we attempt to learn how we can, represent you well in this community.
Speaker 1:We pray that you will speak tonight. We pray that you'll give us wisdom. You'll give us discernment, and, Lord, that, we will be able to serve the people around us with the gospel, in word and in deed, Lord. We thank you in your name. Amen.
Speaker 1:Alright. Well, in case anyone doesn't know who I am, my name is Dwight, Dwight Castle. I work for the church and kind of do what we're gonna talk about tonight. Trying to get people from the church involved in the community around us. Also, oversee all the foreign missions that we do, the global missions, but we're not gonna talk about that tonight.
Speaker 1:We're just gonna focus on local missions. And so I'm glad that you guys are here. And I'm sure everyone's kind of wondering a little bit. I mean, to some degree, you've already bought in enough that you're here. You believe that this is an important thing to talk about for some reason or another.
Speaker 1:But why have a talk back about urban ministry? About how to serve the poor and the needy and the marginalized? Why should we do this? Let me ask you guys a couple of questions, and I'm going to make this a little bit interactive. Probably, I know this is where we are on Sundays.
Speaker 1:It's not exactly like this on Sundays, but we're going to break the mold here a little bit. By show of hands, how many of you guys have ever been approached by someone and asked for money? Pretty much across the board. K. How many of you guys have ever passed a homeless person holding a sign and wondered what you should do?
Speaker 1:K. How many of you guys have ever been approached by someone coming into church, going out of church, or as you're in church here in this building? K. Less hands, but there's still probably 15 to 20 people here. It happens to me all throughout the week and about every day.
Speaker 1:Every Sunday, it seems right before church is about to start, and scrambling because I need to talk to this person. I'm I'm a go and tell you guys what I would love is on a Sunday, when someone walks in the door, that every person here feels competent, and capable, and and able to help that person to some degree. That you could go to that person, and you could begin to get to know them. You could begin to share Christ's love with them in word and in deed. And that's kinda my goal tonight, really.
Speaker 1:The need is great, and you guys have all heard it. I'm gonna read a few statistics for you about Birmingham, and I'm not gonna belabor this because we've all heard we're all aware of how many people around us are in need of help, but might be helpful to start with Birmingham. And I'll go ahead and add the caveat at the beginning that there are all kinds of numbers. As you research how many homeless people, how many people in poverty, every different study shows a different amount. But kinda what I found to be a good average here is through, a study that was done by needs assessment in Jefferson County in Birmingham City, and the overall poverty rate here in Birmingham is 18 0.7%.
Speaker 1:Extreme poverty is 8.4%. Children living in poverty, 27%. That blows my mind right there. The total number of homeless that were able to be counted on one random day within the last 10 years, almost 3000,229 people. Of those homeless people, 717 were severely mentally ill.
Speaker 1:894 were chronic substance abusers. 1 third of those homeless people were diagnosed by a doctor at some point as being mentally ill, although half of them claimed that they struggle with it even though they haven't been diagnosed. 36% of those homeless people had considered suicide. 31% had actually attempted suicide. And here's one thing that kinda blows my mind to top it off.
Speaker 1:4 out of those 5 people, more than 4 out of 5, 88% were born and raised in Birmingham or have lived here for over 2 years. So they're essentially natives here. So, all around us, you know, I could keep going on and on with statistics. The need is great. So, the question is, what are we going to do as God's people?
Speaker 1:How do we help? First, do we have a desire to, and then if we do have a desire, how do we do it well? So my goal tonight is this. My goal is that we will see, as God's people, that we will see the needs around us. We'll become aware of these needs.
Speaker 1:That as we become aware of the needs, that we will be aware of our call, our responsibility to help reach into that need. And then thirdly, that we will be informed, we will be competent to begin to meet those needs. Now I wanna make a little caveat here, a little disclaimer. There's not enough time to do this tonight. This is supposed to be an hour long event, and we're already, like, 15 minutes into it, and I've been talking for, like, 4 minutes.
Speaker 1:So this is not gonna be an exhaustive, discussion of this topic. What it's meant to be is to get our toe in the water and to begin discussion so that it can continue in your homes with your friends, in your home groups, all over. Continue this discussion and ask how we can become more involved. I will not answer all your questions tonight. I don't have all the answers.
Speaker 1:We wouldn't have time to get to all the answers. It won't be a step by step tutorial, but I do hope to give a framework to go over some general guiding principles that will help us as we try to help those around us. Quick spoiler alert here. The gospel is our fuel for helping the poor. The gospel.
Speaker 1:Jesus took people like us who didn't deserve anything, who were dead, we were destitute, we were hopeless, and he took us, and he lavished grace upon us. And that is why we wanna help other people because the gospel changes us so much that we wanna offer the same thing to others. And I'm gonna keep coming back to that, and Joel's gonna talk about that in a minute here. But that's it. The gospel has to change us.
Speaker 1:God, whenever I find myself in a situation where I'm looking at others and I think, do they deserve it? Are they gonna waste this? What should I do depending on how they're gonna respond? I need to be reminded. How does God treat me?
Speaker 1:What does God give me when I don't deserve it? So, the gospel offers redemption. Okay? And one of the things that we're gonna talk about is that that supersedes just the spiritual category. There's a huge spiritual element to it, but sin mars all of our lives.
Speaker 1:It it mars so many categories, and and there are some guys I'm actually gonna refer to a couple books here tonight, and I have brought these up so that you can look after for further reading. But a lot of what I'm gonna talk about tonight is covered in a book called When Helping Hurts. And these guys are really they ask difficult questions, and they dig deep into the issue like a lot of us, like, I hadn't thought about before I read this book. And so I wanna encourage you to to look at that if you haven't. But one of the things they talk about is, and lots of other people talk about is sin messes us up in so many ways, and especially for.
Speaker 1:Sin messes us up with God, messes us up with our self, with other people, and with creation. So So that's the result of sin. Redemption, reconciliation, what we need to be engaging in, reverses all those, and it stems from our relationship with God. But we wanna bring redemption, reconciliation, healing into all four areas. It's a holistic approach.
Speaker 1:So here's the quick structure for tonight. I'm gonna get Joel to come up here and talk for a couple minutes about kind of a theology of why we do this. What does the bible say about helping the poor? Then I'm gonna come back and give a couple of guidelines to help us. We're gonna go into a few specifics, and then we're gonna have q and a for about 30 minutes.
Speaker 1:So that's where we're going here, and Joel, you can go ahead and come up, and he's gonna talk to us about what does the Bible say about this.
Joel Brooks:Thanks, Dwight. Let me, just start by reading a few verses about our biblical mandate to help the poor. When when I started Redeemer, when a group of us did years back, that was one of the things we wanted to take seriously. We think every church, every believer is called by God to help the poor. And so we have tried over the years to set up some structures in which we could do that, And it comes from a biblical mandate to do so.
Joel Brooks:And so let me just read to you a couple of places. Deuteronomy 15 says, if among you one of your brothers should become poor in any of your towns within your land that the lord your god is giving you, You shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficiently for his need, whatever it may be. So that's in the Old Testament. Jesus, of course, especially if you read the gospel of Luke, which is known as the gospel to the poor, you get over and over Jesus talking about the poor. Blessed are the poor.
Joel Brooks:The longest parable that Jesus ever gives, is about the poor. So we read this in Matthew 25. I won't read the whole thing because it is his longest parable. But he says when the son of man comes and actually, it's not really a parable. It's a it's a story that it will illustrate his point.
Joel Brooks:But, when the son of man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right and the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me food.
Joel Brooks:I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you welcomed me. I was naked, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited me. I was in prison, and you came to me.
Joel Brooks:Then the righteous will answer him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you and thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you? And the king will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.' And then he switches the story and he says, as often as you didn't do it to these people, you didn't do it to me. To those who will be judged.
Joel Brooks:I use this, this teaching by Jesus all the time with my girls when we go to, the hospitality house in Woodlawn, which is when we serve a meal to them, I would say, all right, come on, girls, it's time for us. We get to serve Jesus a meal tonight. This is one of the few ways that Jesus said, you can actually physically do something for me. We get to serve Jesus, we get to give Jesus a meal, we get to give Jesus a hug, we get to play with Jesus, we get to do all of that tonight. And that's Jesus's words, not mine, when he says, you do it to the least of these, you are doing it unto me.
Joel Brooks:So these are just a few of the passages in the Bible that show that God has a heart for what I would call the least of these. Anybody who has tried reaching out to the poor realizes it's actually not that easy. It gets complicated. It gets hard, even though we know we have the scriptural mandate to do this. I've known a lot of really passionate Christians who say, I've got a big heart for the poor.
Joel Brooks:You know, like a lot of people, you know, this have a big heart for Africa. And you're like, well, you know, it's a continent not a country. You know, there's there's it's define that for me. And then people are like, I have a big heart for the poor. And you're like, well, can you can you define that?
Joel Brooks:What does that mean? It's got to be more than just circling something that Dwight put out saying, yeah, I'd like to help with kind of poor ministries and turning it in. It's got to be more than that. What does having a heart for the poor means? But I've known those who have had a heart for the poor, tried to do things for the poor, burn out in a matter of weeks months, because it's not anything what they had thought going into it.
Joel Brooks:It's really hard to do it. And the reason is they're thinking they're going to go into the poor and the poor are going to respond a certain way. Like, wow, thank you so much for your kindness. I can't believe you'll be so generous as to give me some money and to help me out. You know, now I clearly see God, you know, in a way I never did before.
Joel Brooks:Rarely, if ever, do you find that. Many of the homeless you reach might be appreciative, they might be somewhat kind, but likely more can be rude, unkind, sometimes even verbally abusive to you, even as you're trying to help them. And so what do you do? What do you do in cases like that? I experience this all the time, you know, as Dwight said, how many have been approached at Redeemer?
Joel Brooks:Often I have been approached outside here, sometimes right before the service. And when I tried to actually really help, I have just been chewed up and down. I'd be like, hey, can we meet after the service? Let's talk through how I could get some long term care. I don't want long term care.
Joel Brooks:Beepity beep beep beep. I want money right now. Well, I don't have money. Here's a pack of crackers. Grab the pack of crackers, throw it down.
Joel Brooks:I don't want that. And you're like, I'm trying to help you. And that is Dwight deals with this every single day. Staff around here, we get to deal with this a lot. I'm sure you are approached by people like this all the time.
Joel Brooks:So how do you help mean spirited poor people? Or is this even your call to do so? I mean, we know we have a biblical mandate to help the poor. I would say you have a definite mandate, clear cut to help the poor within your midst. That was that passage from Deuteronomy, those among you.
Joel Brooks:You also have things like Galatians 6 that says, so then as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, especially those who are in the household of faith. So first and primary, we have the responsibility by God to take care of Christians, those in our church home. We take care of them first. But what about those outside? What about those who are even opposed to the gospel, who hate the church, who will be really rude to us?
Joel Brooks:Do we have a mandate to help them as well? And I say, absolutely, yes. There's a lot of places we could turn to look for this, but I'm going to look at probably the most famous example we have in the Bible. And that's the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. You're familiar with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Joel Brooks:God rains down fire and destroys this city. And we always think that He destroys them because of their, usually it's their sexual sin. Scripture says. Homosexuality, that's why God destroys them. But that's actually not what scripture says.
Joel Brooks:Ezekiel 16, the prophet, he writes this about Sodom. He says, this was the guilt of your sister, Sodom. She and her daughters had pride. They had excess of food. They had prosperous ease.
Joel Brooks:But they did not aid the poor or the needy. That was God's condemnation of Sodom. Yes, there was many other sins there. But the reason judgment went to them is because they lived a life of ease in the face of the poor and the needy. How does that story give us the mandate to help the unrighteous poor?
Joel Brooks:Well, if you remember, before they were judged, God had told Abraham that he would spare the entire city if, and Abraham kept whittling the number down to where he finally gets down to 10. Abraham says, if there's just 10 righteous people, will you spare the city? God says, yes. If you can find me just 10 righteous, I will spare the city. But there were not 10 righteous.
Joel Brooks:That means all the poor there were not righteous poor. They they were the poor that would berate you. They were the evil poor, the poor that showed no kindness, possibly there by their horrible choices. They were not righteous. So God judged all of Sodom.
Joel Brooks:He judged the unrighteous poor along with the rich unrighteous. But the reason he rained down his righteousness or his judgment was simply because the rich would not take care of even those unrighteous poor. Now, I have found that helping the unrighteous poor, and Dwight's already alluded to this, is perhaps the best way for me to remember the gospel, to to even embody the gospel by which I'm saved. Because I was saved by mercy, God's grace, I didn't deserve it. It's not like I deserted deserved his handout.
Joel Brooks:Not at all. I was his enemy. Christ didn't die to me because I was a good person. I never did and I never will earn his grace. So when I see an unrighteous poor person responding in bitterness to my act of kindness, I'm reminded of the gospel.
Joel Brooks:It cements that in me. I'm reminded of my own spiritual condition before God when I'm in the parking lot and somebody is yelling at me as I'm trying to help them. I'm like, that is where I Lord, that is me. I did not deserve mercy, help me to love this person. And so we need to see the service of the poor through this gospel lens, as Dwight said.
Joel Brooks:Let me just end with this, and, Dwight, I'll let you get back up here. In Luke 6, Jesus says, if you love those who love you, what benefit is that? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.
Joel Brooks:But love your enemies. Do good and lend, expecting nothing in return. And your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the most high, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. So be merciful even as your father is merciful. Joy.
Speaker 1:I wanna dive right into some guiding principles, Number 1, we need to be guided by the Holy Spirit. Now, as I say that, some people are thinking that is, that goes without saying. That's the most obvious thing. That's actually an afterthought. But I want you to know this is not an afterthought.
Speaker 1:This is of the foremost importance. This is going to dictate how and why and when we do what we do, and a way that we can look at this is actually looking at a story in acts 3, and I believe that's gonna come up there, and and I'll say that a lot of the way that I have been influenced to think this way is actually from a sermon that Joel gave about 10 years ago that impacted me a lot. Let's read together, Acts 3, just the first few verses here. Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the 9th hour, and a man lame from birth was being carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple that is called the Beautiful Gate, to ask alms of those entering the temple. Seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked to receive alms, and Peter directed his gaze at him, as did John, and said, look at us.
Speaker 1:And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. I'm gonna stop right there. If I was in this situation, if I was Peter and John right here, if I'm honest with myself, I would not have responded this way. Because I know that because I don't. I'm faced with this all the time.
Speaker 1:People asking me for money. That's going on right here. You're walking down the street and someone asks you for money. And if you're honest with yourself, what's the first thing that you do? What's the first thing that I do?
Speaker 1:You get really awkward and you try to find the quickest way out of the situation. You kinda look down, you think, do I have money? Do I not have money? Will he know if I say I don't have money, but I do? Is there a police officer around?
Speaker 1:Am I about to get mugged? You think of all these reasons. It's my first instinct. It's not to do what Peter and John do, which is kind of twofold here. 1, they look the man in the eye, both of them.
Speaker 1:They look him in the eye, and that gives a moment where I am sure in that moment, the apostles asked the spirit of God to guide them. Asked for wisdom. What should I do in this time? What does God, what does God's spirit want me to do for this person asking for money? Should I give him money?
Speaker 1:Should I give him a pack of crackers? Should I tell him he's not getting anything from me? Should I rebuke him? What should I do with this man? And in that moment, when we stop, and we ask the holy spirit, God is pleased, and he wants us to do that, and he wants to guide us to help his people.
Speaker 1:Okay? The people that are made in his image. The poor, that's something we forget. That they have the dignity of human life being made in God's image. So when we stop, 1, we have an opportunity to ask God's spirit how to guide us, and 2, we give that person dignity, which is one of the most resounding things you will hear homeless people say that they feel shamed, that they don't have dignity, that they're treated as less than human.
Speaker 1:So when we stop and we look the person in the eye and we pray to God, what do you want me to do with this person? Then we're on the right track. It's not an afterthought. It should be the first thing, and I confess it's not my first thought. And I want to go and say, I'm going to give a couple more principles here, but God's spirit trumps my principles.
Speaker 1:He trumps my excuses or my fears. God's spirit might say, give that person money, which I don't typically do. God's spirit might say, do something that normally I wouldn't feel is the standard way to go. But I need to be discerning which way do you want me to go, lord. 2nd guiding principle, always attempt to work towards relationship.
Speaker 1:Okay? Now this is kind of key here. Relationship is what humans are made for. Every single one of us, we don't even know it, but we're constantly craving and working towards relationship, and when sin enters, a lot of times we do the opposite. But we're made for relationship.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you a question here, and again, break down this wall. I want someone to be honest with me. Homeless person comes up to you and they say, can I have $5? Someone raise your hand and tell me what's the first thing that you say. In reality, what's the first thing you're gonna say to that homeless person?
Speaker 3:I only got a credit card.
Speaker 1:Only got a credit card. Somebody else? Let me let me tell you something. This is tricky. Work towards a relationship from step 1.
Speaker 1:First thing somebody, when they say to you, can I have some money? I say, hi. I'm Dwight. What's your name? And I shake their hand, and lord willing, I look them in the eye and I ask god's spirit, what do you want me to do with this person?
Speaker 1:But I ask them their name. Why do we not think of that? If any one of you walk up to me right now, the first thing you're gonna do is tell me your name and ask me mine. But suddenly, we don't do it with other people. Okay?
Speaker 1:So ask them their name. Ask them about themselves. Ask about their lives. When you all came in, I had a a handout here. First thing on there, and you probably looked at me like, what is this?
Speaker 1:If you looked at it all. First thing it says, ask them their name. These are some helpful, just normal and thoughtfully worded questions and discussion starters that you can have with someone that you can go over beforehand, so when someone comes up to you and asks you for some sort of help, you know how you can begin to engage relationally with them. And again, those are really intentionally thought out because you've got to understand the context of the people you're working with. If Thomas comes up to me and introduces himself, I might say, hey, what line of work are you in?
Speaker 1:Or what do you do? But if I'm working with a homeless person, I've got to be sensitive to the fact that they likely don't have a job. So I might say something like, are you working at this time? Or however I have it worded there in a way that you can be very sensitive and you can say, what are what things do you like to do? What are you skilled in?
Speaker 1:What are you experienced with? These are the ways that you can relationally begin to engage with that person. Here's what it's gonna be, and this is tough. You have to see through the immediate need that they are presenting, and discern what do they really need underneath. You you need to engage with that person.
Speaker 1:Now, I wanna say this doesn't discount James 2, for example. I'm gonna read James 2. Some of you guys might be thinking this. James 2 verse 14 says, what good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?
Speaker 1:If her brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking food, daily food, and one of you says to them, go in peace, be warm and filled, without giving them the things that they need for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. We don't say go warm and be well fed, and don't keep them warm and feed them. But we always are working towards a relationship. So we're not discounting that, but we're trying to discern what's the true need here.
Speaker 1:There are several ways this can play out. If someone comes up and says money, says they want money, I begin to think, and I ask them, what are you going to use the money for? And there are ways you can word it so you're not being rude, but you could say, what do you need money for? You want you hungry? You need a bus ticket?
Speaker 1:And I try to go below that. So if they want food, great. I will go try to share a meal with them and relationally begin to get to know them. If they need money to get on the bus, I'd say, where are you going? I'd love to take you myself.
Speaker 1:We have a car ride. And so you're trying to begin to look, what is the real need under here, always working towards relationship. There are felt needs, is what we would say, that we need to meet, but as we're meeting their felt needs, we're trying to get to know them. And you might be surprised. People will open up.
Speaker 1:This is something that I'm constantly amazed by. When you're dealing with the the poor, the homeless, the marginalized, the least of these, a lot of times, they don't have relationship. And so the first opportunity they can get to have a relationship, they're going to open up to you. You might have just met this person. They might they might start spilling their whole life story.
Speaker 1:You never know. And so what we're working for is a mutual relationship. Okay? If any of you in here want to be friends with someone, you're going to expect a mutual relationship. If you are constantly giving, giving, giving, and the person never gives back, you're going to say, what's the point of this?
Speaker 1:Well, there's a difference in what mutuality looks like in this relationship, but we're still going for it. Okay? So you want to invest in this person, and you want them to be able to give back to you in that relationship. And sometimes when people don't wanna do that, you have to ask the question again of the holy spirit. What do you want me to do right now?
Speaker 1:How should I use my time best? Because I want to build a relationship with this person. And if you are sitting there trying to say, I'd love to go buy buy you a bite to eat. You say you want food because you're hungry and you haven't eaten all day. I wanna go buy you a meal right now with you.
Speaker 1:And they say, I don't want that. Then you say, I mean, I don't know what to say. I'm not going to tell you what to say. But you might be faced with the decision, am I out of roadblock here with this person? If I'm my goal is to go relationally deeper.
Speaker 1:I'll say one note here, because this is hard. A lot of personalities don't do this. It's tough to engage in this way where you're constantly rerouting and redirecting the relate the conversation to go relationally deeper. But be bold. Be discerning, be wise, be kind, but be bold.
Speaker 1:Okay? So sometimes the people that have had to manipulate to get somewhere in life are going to try to do that to you. That's just the reality of it. And you have to try to discern through that. You have to try to say, you know what, I'm going to work towards relationship here, and I'm not going to be bullied, and you might need to say, you know, this is what I'm offering right now.
Speaker 1:I'd love to get to know you. I'd love to know how I can help you in a long term way. And if and if that is where you try to lead, that's the best. Number 3. We'll move on.
Speaker 1:Think and act towards sustainable and long term health. I could go on for a long time here, but asking the question, are we trying oftentimes to put a band aid on a festering wound? Okay? There are so many problems that we might think that $5 or even one meal or one conversation might fix suddenly. That's not usually how it happens.
Speaker 1:It takes a long time, and we need to constantly have the mindset of relationship, and we constantly need to have the mindset of working towards the best long term good. And this is hard. This is where it gets hardest, because there are no easy answers. As Joel said, if anyone has ever engaged in this type of, ministry, it's messy. I could share story after story of where I just meet my wits end, and I'm like, I don't know what to do.
Speaker 1:But constantly working relationally towards long term good, Am I fostering dependency where this person needs me and needs other people like me, or am I helping them to try to establish patterns in a long term way that's going to help them? And we gotta ask ourselves a critical question here. What is success? What are we going for here? What does success look like?
Speaker 1:And that's tough. We can we we have to evaluate our own intentions. Are we just trying to make ourselves feel good? Are we trying to do our good deed for the day? Are we trying to show Christ to this person?
Speaker 1:So our intentions are a big part of it. But then we have to realize that success must be a lifelong process of holistic redemption. Meeting those 4 areas that we talked about, where sin messes up, our relationship with God, our relationship with ourselves, with others, and with creation. That's to me all of those, and it's a lifelong process. Think of that question for yourself.
Speaker 1:What does success look like in your life? It's not something that just ends at a certain point. Well, I want to get a career I want to get a college education. Well, okay. So you get the college education, then you wanna get an internship or a job, then you wanna get a family.
Speaker 1:And you're constantly what is success? It's an evolving thing, and it takes a long time to get there. Same thing. What is success? It's a lifelong process with someone relationally, bringing redemption to the things in their lives that are messed up.
Speaker 1:We need to ask, how can we really help this person get to where they wanna be? And so that we've gotta figure out where do they wanna get? Where do they need to get? What will be best? And one of the things that we can do as we work towards long term good is connect with people in the community.
Speaker 1:You also have a small piece of paper here, and there's plenty more at the back. And if we happen to run out, we can always print more. Keep this with you. I want you guys to use this as a resource, but also, you can hand these out to people. If someone says that they need a shelter, if someone says that they want to get some job skills training, if someone says that they have a disability and they need help, or they're addicted to some substance, these are places you can direct people.
Speaker 1:And you can always come to me, you can come to other people. Don't try to reinvent the wheel. There are lots of professional and experienced people around us that we can use as resources to help people towards long term good. And finally, the 4th one. This is hard work.
Speaker 1:Prepare for the long haul. And that kinda goes without saying, but it it needs saying. If you really want to help people relationally, if you really want to discern where the lord is leading you to help them towards long term good, you've got to be in it for the long haul. And I can share a lot of stories here. I've actually had one recently, and we're out of time, so I'm not going to.
Speaker 1:But there's a gentleman who 2 weeks ago walked in this church, before church. And he he's an alcoholic, and he's been homeless for a long time, and I've been trying to help him for the past 2 weeks, and I've barely touched the surface. And it is painful. I've gotten drunk phone calls all through the night for the last 2 weeks. I've taken him to shelters, I've put him in hotels.
Speaker 1:I've paid for bus tickets for him. I've sat down and had conversations with him. I tried to get him put in jail so he could hit rock bottom, so he could try to get back to the top. He avoided that. He's still out somewhere that I I was trying to call him today.
Speaker 1:It's not easy, and I'm only at the very beginning. I'm only at the very beginning, and it's both encouraging and discouraging, but it's a lifelong process of bringing redemption. I'm going to end there with the kind of first section here because we're over, but I want to give some time here for questions and answers. And I wanna encourage you guys to be bold, ask questions. I wanna also encourage you to be gracious.
Speaker 1:I surely don't have all the answers. And here's the thing, if a lot of questions tend to be very case specific, and some of them I might just need to say, come up and talk to me we can talk more detail about that if it's very specific to that person. But I'd love to hear questions that you guys have. These are just principles, and we can get into more specifics. Dylan.
Speaker 1:Sure. Yeah. Now that's great. His question in case someone didn't hear, can I sometimes it can seem very hopeless? Can I share some story that shares hope?
Speaker 1:And I'll say this, I wanted tonight to replay a voice mail from the gentleman who I just referred to, but I decided not to because I didn't get his permission, and it's very personal. But even in the process of this, because kind of my answer to that is, have I ever seen the end of it? I don't know if I've ever seen the end of it, But have I seen the end of of my sin? Have I seen the end of me needing grace? Certainly not.
Speaker 1:But along the way, I have seen lots of successes, and this guy did call me after about 15 drunk calls the other night, and he genuinely thanked me and said, Dwight, I've never had anyone invest in me. I played it for Joel. I've never had anyone invest in me the way that you have. I owe you an apology for the way I've treated you. I owe Jesus an apology for the way I've treated him, and I need him and you to remember that I'm sinful, and I need grace, And I was reading today in James about the tongue, and the tongue can be used for good, and the tongue can be used for bad.
Speaker 1:And I've used it for bad a lot lately, especially when I drink. And I wanna thank you for taking the time to invest in me, and he continued about how I wanted to get in this rehab program. And it's ups and downs, you know, and that's just one story. There are plenty others, but the hope is that there's continual forgiveness, and there's more opportunity to to keep going up. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So thanks, Dylan. Anyone else? Yeah, Ashley. Yeah. So basically, safety for women.
Speaker 1:How do we how do we be safe? That's a great question, and I think that one, asking the Holy Spirit for discernment, and that's gonna be kind of you, your husband, your family asking that. My recommendation for something like that is that I would not recommend that you as a woman and with your kids in the car pick up a man off the side of the road. That's my recommendation. That can be trumped by the holy spirit.
Speaker 1:That can be trumped by yourself or your husband or others maybe who feel differently. I think there are lots of really good ways for you as a woman to intentionally invest. Like you said, volunteering at a woman's shelter could be a great start. There are lots of other ways you could get Brian to come with you. If you see that person, they're probably not going anywhere too fast.
Speaker 1:You know? They're on the side of the road. You could run home, in all likelihood, if you're anywhere in Birmingham, you're not that far from your house, get Brian or someone else to come help you, and go back and get that person. You know? You could call someone.
Speaker 1:Call me. Call Joel. Call someone else and ask for help. There are lots of ways you can, and I just wanna real quick, that made me think of something, run through. If we can go through just one minute of some specifics.
Speaker 1:These are a few specifics that one of those you asked. I'll go through them 1 by 1. Generally speaking, avoid giving money. Again, discernment. I purposefully don't give money 99% of the time.
Speaker 1:There are lots of other ways to meet the actual needs without giving money. Be cautious about giving your phone number and personal info. As you go deeper with someone, if you feel it's a right decision to give them your phone number, just be aware that you're gonna get drunk calls throughout the night, or they might cross the line between being dependent on you, and you're gonna have to use a lot of wisdom. Be cautious giving away personal info. Do things in a safe way.
Speaker 1:That's what you were kinda getting at. I would say, work in pairs, go with a guy, have same sex friendships generally, meet in the daytime or in public, tell people where you're going. These are just some guidelines here. Next, know that you will be manipulated. It happens every time.
Speaker 1:Just know it, and choose to invest anyway in love and knowing that Christ does that for us. Generally speaking, try to avoid engaging deeply with someone who is under the influence at that time. You're probably not gonna get anywhere very significant right then, so try to get it to come back around another time if you are able to. And finally, avoid religious language because I've found that about 90% of the homeless people in Birmingham that I deal with, the first things they'll say to me is, I'm a Christian. I love God.
Speaker 1:I know God. I go to church, but when I ask them, tell me about tell me about your relationship with God. Tell me about Jesus. What does that mean to you? Who is God?
Speaker 1:Who is Jesus? Nothing. So they've gotten very used to kind of getting an expected result by saying a certain thing, so bypass that. So those are a few pointers there running out of time a lot of time let's take should should I cut it short here? Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Well, then we've got plenty more questions. Ask away.
Speaker 1:Yes. Yeah. That's a great question. Again, this is So the question is dealing with mental illness, what do you do when you're faced with that? There are resources.
Speaker 1:A lot of them are free because there are, like, mental illness as we saw in the statistics is such a problem with homeless populations. So even places like UAB offer free services to the mentally ill. So UAB is a great resource. I've called them First, they need to see a doctor probably and be diagnosed, so they can get medication, but a lot of them have at some point, so then they need medication. A great resource is the one right next to us, Empower.
Speaker 1:The only free that I know of medical clinic in Birmingham, and they will help people who need medications get the medications. And there are government services that will do the same thing as well. So I would say a place like UAB might be your best bet. There's tons of nonprofits that can help with that. I mean, you could and I can talk to you about a few more off the top of my head.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to think of a few, but a lot of those, substance abuse places deal with that as well. So even if you just got on and and searched for that in Birmingham, but those are some good starting points. Next question. Brandon. I feel like some of the Sure.
Speaker 1:That's a great question. Basically, you know, we're paralyzed a lot of the time and don't do anything because we're afraid that we don't have the discernment, and we won't make the right decision, so what do we do? I would say, if if any of you guys, for example, as Joel made reference to, circled one of those things on the handout on Sunday, you got an email from me. Hopefully, if you didn't come talk to me. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:There were lots of you. One of the things I said was do something. So I would say, do something. If the Lord is leading you to serve, take a step of faith. The Lord honors that.
Speaker 1:He will work through our fumbling and our stumbling, and he will work for his purposes. So take a step in faith. Do something. Then I would say become as educated as you can. I would recommend that every person in here reads this book.
Speaker 1:The question you ask Brandon, is essentially what this book is about. When helping hurts, so often we want to do the right thing, but we hurt because we don't do it relationally, we don't do it towards a long term, good, and we don't work with the resources around us. So become educated. If you really want to serve, you don't you don't have to read a whole book. Just use the concepts that I just said, and invest in some of the partnerships that we have with our church and the community, and you'll see the Lord start to work.
Speaker 1:But I would say become educated, and use those principles, and then you're in the right direction, and I would say trust the Lord with the result. The Lord doesn't require us to perfectly use the resources that he gives us in grace. We need to. We should, but we don't, and he doesn't stop doing it for us. So just because we don't always know the best way to help others doesn't mean that we shouldn't do anything.
Speaker 1:We should continue to strive to learn how to do it better and better, but we know that we'll waste. We will sometimes give that person $5, and they'll go out and feed their addiction. And there's a lot of good in that, and there's some bad in that, and we want to try to continue towards the good and learn from the bad. Does that answer your question? Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Sure. Sure. Yeah. Basically points 3 and 4 overwhelm her, and I want you to know they overwhelm me.
Speaker 1:I'm not up here because they don't or I've figured it out. They overwhelm me, but one, we kind of see the biblical mandate, so we know we need to. And then we decide what's priority with our time. I mean, the same way you mentioned with your friendships. You know, you could be friends with every person in here, but you have to prioritize which people in your life are gonna be your close circle of friends.
Speaker 1:In the same way, you can't help every homeless person in Birmingham, but that one person that the Lord puts in your path, he you may be able to help, or maybe he wants you to take that one step and go serve a meal at the family homeless shelter and meet that one person, or tutor that kid at the school who has a grandparent raising them, and neither a father or mother, and they would love a mentor to walk through life with them, and that is working towards the gospel in that relationship that you are able to do right there. So it is overwhelming when we look at the big need, and it should be, but we know that God's grace is big enough to help us as we walk in those very particular, very specific opportunities. So I would say pray for opportunities. Pray that the Lord will bring people into your life that you can invest in, and then I'd say start looking for opportunities. So pray for it, and then actually look for it, and then choose to invest.
Speaker 1:It could be one person, one other person, and then we've got to prioritize to make that important in addition to all the other things in our life that are kind of for us.
Joel Brooks:Yeah. I struggle with the same
Speaker 1:thing, and I I have Thanks Joel. That's really good. I have so many thoughts about that too. One quick kind of analogy. I when you go in the grocery store and you're about to swipe your card, and they say, would you like to donate a dollar to, you know, whatever.
Speaker 1:My wife and I were having to talk about this and she was saying, you know, I like that you don't feel shame or guilt when you say no. I'm not saying I I'm not saying I I don't support the cure for whatever the disease is, but I know that I invest my money intentionally for gospel purposes in ways that I can see relational fruit, long term fruit. And I'm not saying don't give a dollar, but I'm saying, if you're doing like Joel's saying, if you're investing in the ways that the Lord puts in front of you, that one person that he does say, speak to that person, and you know it in the still small voice. If you're doing that, then you don't feel guilty about passing to other people that maybe you can't help. And I also say about the priorities relating it to when Joel spoke a few weeks ago about hospitality.
Speaker 1:Same thing there. God rocked me with that because I say, you know, hospitality, like, if I have somebody over and I, you know, wanna cook a meal for them, we might have, like, dessert and drinks and, you know, whatever. That's a lot of money, and if I'm trying to save money, if I try to host 2 people a month, that's a big budget. Well, you wanna know what? My priorities are way off.
Speaker 1:If I don't have money, I have a full time job, I'm salaried, and I somehow don't have money to host people in my home and be hospitable, My priorities are off, and I thank God that he convicts us in that, and we can move forward in that. Another question. Melissa. It's like a hack comment and then ask you to elaborate on it. Okay.
Speaker 1:I will elaborate on your comment. Sure. Can you kind of Yeah. I think there's a tremendous opportunity for us to use the things that we individually engage in as a corporate body. When you're engaging with a homeless person or or a poor person, one of the least of these, that's a wide open door for your friends, your community group, the church body.
Speaker 1:If that person, the situation Melissa is referring to, these people moved out of the hospitality house and needed to find other places to live. Well, they were able to find places to live. They need furniture. Well, who has extra furniture? Who can get their hands on extra furniture?
Speaker 1:Who's willing to spare some money so we can go get this person furniture to get in a a more permanent living facility rather than a homeless shelter? These are good long term relational goals, and I think that's a great point. We have a really unique opportunity as God's people locally in this body together, and across other church lines and non denominations in the city, we can join together, and encourage, and help each other. And and so I think that's a tremendous opportunity. Melissa, you had a question too.
Speaker 1:This is
Speaker 3:kinda silly. Do you think it's a bad idea to maybe buy it? McDonald's gift cards
Speaker 1:It's a good question. Did everybody hear?
Speaker 3:You know you're getting food.
Speaker 1:Like Yeah. Are there things we can do to kind of, yeah, to to help in advance and and buying food in advance or a bus ticket? I would say this. I'm gonna kinda bring it back to, relationship and long term good. Now I'm not gonna tell you not to do that because Matthew 25 says that whatever you did to the least of these in my name, you did to me.
Speaker 1:So having a bus ticket on hand or a McDonald's or something gift card on hand is is is good. It's a degree of good. What I would love is for all of us to begin to think intentionally about how can we engage in good relationally and long term. Now that could lead to a relationship where you have a long term opportunity to invest in that person's life if you intend for it to be that. It might not always be that, but that should be an intention.
Speaker 1:Or that could be a way for you to help a little bit, but you intentionally invest relationally in other ways in a long term committed way. I'd a lot of peep the problem is a lot of people stop there. That's not bad. It's good. It's it's it's step, 1 in a long process.
Speaker 1:Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. No. I mean, you can only get so much at McDonald's in the States.
Speaker 1:Elsewhere, you can get beer. Yep. That that's yeah. And and I wanna add to that because far too often, we don't we're not able or we don't pass on everything to to you guys. For example, last week, we used some of our benevolence money for that exact scenario that Joel said.
Speaker 1:There is a family who we have had a relationship with for, probably 5 years in Woodlawn. They came up through the hospitality house, and then they moved into the YWCA owned transitional housing. And it's a single mom with kids, and they got behind on some utilities. I've mentored personally this kid for the last 4 years, and they humbled themselves enough to come and ask for help. And I was able to sit down with him and talk about a long term plan.
Speaker 1:Well, tell me this. And again, these are awkward conversations, but tell me this. How did this happen? Why are you behind? So, we talked about why why they behind in their bills?
Speaker 1:Well, when she lost her job, that she had a great job that she's trained for, they got behind for a month and a half before disability or, unemployment kicked in. So in that month and a half, they accrued late bills that kept building and building and building, And the salary that the son is getting from his job with government help right now would help them be able to break even if they could just get to that even point, and then keep going. That's a great way for our church, for you guys who tithe, who give, that we we helped that family. $500 put their their water was off for a week. How many of us can think of that?
Speaker 1:I I was shocked. I know this kid well. It took a week for them to build up the courage to ask for us to pay $250 to turn their water back on. And we are able to do that. Praise the Lord.
Speaker 1:So that is what you give towards. Yeah. Marty.
Speaker 3:Because, obviously, Jesus broke cultural barriers all the time. Gender barriers, economic barriers, racial barriers. But, like, how do we give dignity to the people that we wanna help while at the same time are respecting a situation that
Joel Brooks:we might be let's say,
Speaker 1:yeah. Yeah. You come out of Jim and Nick's in 5 points, and there's always people right there asking. Yeah. It happens all the time.
Speaker 1:K? So well, I would say this. That's a good question. We can only be responsible for us, so I don't need to feel responsible to tell that person, hey. Jim and x really doesn't want you out here panhandling.
Speaker 1:You know, might not be a good idea. I know you're starving, but, I don't need to do that. I can determine, do I need to help this individual? What can I do to best help them right now at this time when I'm walking out with my friends and my family? And what what can I do?
Speaker 1:Can I know can I know in advance that this person will be out here as they always are, and bring some cheese biscuits out, and say, hey? Let's and and plan on that, And say, you know what? Sunday after church, everyone goes to Jiminox, I'm gonna intentionally order some extra food. I'm gonna take it out with me, and I'm gonna allow some time for me to sit on the side with this person who's hungry. I'm gonna try to talk to him.
Speaker 1:That's one way. The the possibilities are endless. But I would say, you know, we can only be responsible for ourselves. So, yeah. We have a higher calling to help people than Jim and Nick's can really speak into, but, at the same time, we can do it in thoughtful, intentional, relational, long term ways.
Speaker 1:Okay. No more questions. Fortunately, I will be around to answer your questions via email or anything like that. Come up and talk to me after if you'd like. I have about, 5 really good books up here.
Speaker 1:6, if you count this one too. But, come up and and look at these books. They're great resources. Ask me questions. Thank you, guys, for coming.
