church on Homelessness

The homelessness of these people, in other words, led them to a “new home”: the family of God, in which they found social acceptance and protection.

God of love—Father, Son and Holy Spirit: You loved us before we ever knew You. Give us such a deep love for You, that we can see the world as You see it, feel the compassion You feel, and be a people ...

God of time and eternity–for you all of time is now: past, present, future are the same to You. You are the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, nothing was before You and nothing is or wi...

This scripture guide is adapted from the Summer Settings sermon guide Road Trips II . For more Summer Settings sermon guides, click below. Saul's Confident Error Last week, we considered A...

[Jesus] sends us into the world as he was sent into the world (John 17:18; 20:21). We have to penetrate other people’s worlds, as he penetrated ours: the world of their thinking (as we struggle to und...

Christians: The crisis is not that you are politically homeless. The crisis is that we ever thought we could make a home in politics at all.

Many of us don’t have to board international flights to reach people from other religions and cultures. We just need to open our eyes, look around, and engage the nations in our own cites and towns….8...

As long as there are millions destitute of the Word of God and knowledge of Jesus Christ, it will be impossible for me to devote time and energy to those who have both.

A man named Jim Haynes died last year at 87 years old, in Paris where he’d lived for decades. Jim Haynes was known as the “man who invited the world over for dinner.” Why? Because for more than 40 yea...

Christianity revitalized life in Greco-Roman cities by providing new norms and new kinds of social relationships able to cope with many urgent urban problems. To cities filled with the homeless and im...

A missionary friend of mine once said, ‘Things were simple before I went to Africa. I knew what the African’s problem was, and I knew the answer. When I got there and began to know him as a person, th...

The defining problem driving people out is …just how American life works in the 21st century. Contemporary American life simply isn’t set up to promote mutuality, care, or common life. Rather, it is d...

I've seen far too many Christians who are more than willing to travel halfway around the world to volunteer for a week in an orphanage, but who cannot bring themselves to take the personal risk of...

As the center of Christianity shifts from the West (North America and Western Europe) to the Global South, grinding poverty is on the front doorstep — and in the front pews — of the church of Jesus Ch...

The most resilient of Christians are, in addition to their church engagement, also active in the world where God has placed them; they deeply concern themselves with poverty; they work to reverse inju...

Lack of repentance is the root cause of powerlessness in the church, in this materialistic, self-indulgent age. There can be no spiritual power in a non-repentant church.

One of the seductions that continues to bedevil Christian obedience is the construction of utopias, whether in fact or fantasy, ideal places where we can live the good and blessed and righteous life w...

God—Father, Son and Spirit; You are a God of compassion and love. Like the Israelites in the wilderness, we’ve known Your love, and experienced Your care and provision. Repeatedly You’ve answered our ...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Missing the point? In the days when the tourist business was good in Israel, some entrepreneurial chap set up a tent between Jerusalem ...

Recently I talked to a friend who had been a faithful pastor for more than two decades. After raising four kids with his wife of almost thirty years, he came home one day to the shock of his life. His...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Missing the point? In the days when the tourist business was good in Israel, some entrepreneurial chap set up a tent between Jerusalem ...

Heavenly Father, in your Word you have given us a vision of that holy City to which the nations of the world bring their glory: Behold and visit, we pray, the cities of the earth. Renew the ties of mu...

An Irish church once had a humorous yet insightful motto that gets at the heart of the pain that often accompanies our relationships: “To dwell above with those we love will certainly be glory. But to...

We are not bringing Christ to poor communities. He has been active in these communities since the creation of the world, sustaining them, Hebrews 1:3 says, by His powerful Word. Hence, a significant p...

While I was born much too late to be the legal property of a person in America, I have been the recipient of racism. When a classmate called me a racial epithet in my first year of college, I was deva...

Many come to bring their clothes to church rather than themselves.

Since 1991, the adult population in the United States has grown by 15%. During that same period, the number of adults who do not attend church has nearly doubled, rising from 39 million to 75 million—...

Leonard Sweet shares an interesting story in the introduction to Neil Cole’s book, Organic Church , about a parish pastor who lived in a Scottish village near Edinburgh called Davidson’s Mains. ...

It is a phone call no parent wants to receive. “Jerry,” Bethany said, “Catherine’s had a little accident.” “Accident! How bad?” “She’s going to be okay. You want to talk to her? We’re in a kind of am...

Tom and Angela had lived in their neighborhood for about twelve years without really getting to know many people. They lived in a cul-de-sac of eleven houses and had limited communication and interact...