“So, what kind of success rate do you have?”

I am meeting with the pastor of a medium sized church, part of [Really Huge Denomination]. We are in a quiet coffee shop, drinking $4 cups of coffee while talking about poverty. Lucky for me, he is buying.

He asks me this question, I am pretty sure, not because he really wants to know, but because he is not sure what else to ask. In his world, there are numbers to go by – you divide the number of results by the financial cost and the result is how successful it was.

I try to tell him why the world I work in can’t work that way. When you are dealing with individual people, success is hard to quantify. I could tell him that out of maybe 50 people I have a relationship with, three have moved into more permanent housing this year and one of them has decided to follow Jesus, but that would have anything to do with Maria, who still prostitutes herself in order to pay for her drugs.

I don’t know how to put a cost ratio analysis on sitting next to a transgendered person as she cries because she is alienated from her family. Or being told by someone who has had ample reason to hate the church that she attended services last week for the first time in years. How do you decide how much to invest in someone who always lets you down, yet tells other people that you are the brother he never had?

Statistics are safe. Statistics are clean. If you hear that 20 people enter a job program and one year later, 15 of them are still working, that sounds nice – but it doesn’t tell you the struggles they endure to get clean clothing to work in, the challenges of finding a place to shower, the long nights of crying in the back seat of the car they are sleeping in as they battle the urge to drink.

We don’t deal in statistics. We deal with people. We don’t count heads, we count friends. Friends are messy. Friends are inconvenient. Friends let you down. 

The pastor is less than satisfied. I understand. Most days, I am less than satisfied too. But if you are going to treat humans like they are made in the image of God, you have to let people make their own choices. If the only way you will spend time with someone is if they do the things that make you happy, then you have a pet, not a person.

Many professional homeless workers are in horror at this concept. They believe that I am rewarding bad behavior and as long as I am not strict with what I will tolerate, then they will never change.

I have a different philosophy. As a follower of Jesus, I believe that I constantly let God down, yet he has not given up on me. I fail again and again, yet am loved completely and without question. And even should I decide to go my own way and make decisions that harm our relationship, he honors my choices and would take me back in an instant. In fact, he would never stop pursuing me in his efforts to take me back.

It’s called Grace. It’s called Love.

And if the cross on Friday and the empty tomb on Sunday have anything to teach us, it is that Love Wins.

Last year, Renee had a wonderful idea: What if we celebrated the Fourth of July in Moore Square with our friends?

We put out the cry for help and  we ended up feeding over 300 folks, had lives changed, had rich bankers playing football with people who sleep under bridges and had a blast in the process.Some of us were convinced we saw a foretaste of the Kingdom of God.

On the Fourth of July at 2:00PM, we are going to do it again. In Moore Square (click here for a map) in downtown, Raleigh, there will be hot dogs, baked beans, watermelon, lemonade and much more (we hope, anyway). If somebody could bring some guitars and such, that would be pretty cool too.

Why are we doing this, you ask? Because who you eat with, matters. Jesus believed that with every fiber of his being. When he ate with prostitutes and tax collectors, he was making a statement about who God is. And when we ignore the homeless and poor to eat with folks like us, we make a statement about who we think God is.

Other reasons:

• Because while no doubt you have friends and loved ones to spend the Fourth with, many of the homeless and poor do not. Bring your friends and loved ones with you.

• Because on holidays the soup kitchens are closed, so any free meals usually consist of bag lunches with peanut butter and honey sandwiches. Surely we can do better than that?

• Because when the poor go hungry, it ticks Jesus off.

• Because you need more friends who have less than you do.

• Because you will get to eat with some really cool people.

• Because things like friendship, community, dignity and happiness are important in the Kingdom of God.

• Because while everyone else is celebrating their allegiance to the American Empire (the same Empire that often says your worth is related to your net worth), we can show our ultimate allegiance to the Kingdom of God, which says these people are priceless and worth fighting for.

NOTE: The purpose of this event is not to win souls, to pass out tracts or to break out with the street preaching. Instead, we want to have fun, to meet new people and to show the love of God in the way of Jesus.

If you want in on this, go to this page, where you will find an updated list of things we need and a form to enter the things you can bring. Please alert your friends, small groups, etc.

There are businesses out there that make a living off of exploiting poor people. They take the normal hopes and fears of decent people and use them as fuel for taking their money.

Example:

Last Friday I was talking with one of my friends, a Latino man I first met when he was homeless and sleeping in a church parking lot, behind the dumpster. I watched him move from Muslim to Christ-follower, from living outside to working a full time job and renting his own place. While I hope that my relationship with him has helped, he did most of the work himself.

Our conversation was somewhat routine: He had just gotten a new place, a small efficiency apartment and he wanted me to come over and see it.  He said he would be home all afternoon, as he was waiting on them to deliver the television.

“You bought a TV” I asked?

“Nah. I am renting one – only $20 a week.“

The resulting conversation, where I explained that he was getting ripped off and that if he waited just six weeks he could buy one new and own it outright and where he told me he worked hard and deserved it, did not go well. When I found out it was a big screen plasma TV, I went nuts.

Who do you blame here? He is proud that he can work and grant himself a luxury. Everything he sees on TV and in the culture tells him that “normal” people have these things and he should have them too. The salespimp at Rent-A-Center encouraged him to upgrade to the bigger TV, and it is “only” $20 a week, – or about 8% of his income. No one in his life has taught him about delayed gratification or how to goal set. He lives in a ‘right now’ world. And he sees the rest of the world having these things, and after sleeping outside for several years, it is probably normal to want to feel normal.

I am a capitalist, more or less, and I want people to make money. But when your business model depends on the gullability of uneducated poor people and on exploiting their weaknesses, you are a special kind of slime.

Pardon the liberty of posting a personal item here (It does not happen often – I have a personal blog for that) but many of our supporters and like-minded folks would, I think, like to know that I, Hugh, am now engaged to the lovely Renee.

We are planning on getting married in October of this year, surrounded by our friends and family. If you want to know more, I put together a site just for wedding information – www.hughandrenee.info, where you can get all the details as they become available.

We now return you to our regular programming.

The Catholic activist Dorothy Day said once that her biggest battle was with Pride. I understand that. I have a lot of people telling me what an awesome thing I am doing in my work of building relationships with very broken people and teaching others how to do the same. I have spoken at universities and churches and I get calls everyday, wanting my opinion or advice on how to do ministry to the poor. It can be very ego-boosting.

After someone has just spent 15 minutes boosting your ego, it is a very difficult thing to tell them that you are uncertain, or you are not sure, or that you are scared. After a while, it becomes hard to ask for help. As if asking for help diminishes the value of what it is I am out here doing. As if I were not just a broken guy, very much in need of grace.

So, here is the deal. I am officially asking for your help. Not just help for my “flock”, but help for me as well. Here are four things you can do today.

Pray for me & for Love Wins Ministries.

I really mean this. The world I work in is very dark. I can only survive in this environment if I have your prayers behind me.

What is going on out here is nothing less than spiritual warfare. We are doing battle with the systems and powers that would oppress and damage those God loves. And those powers and systems will not go gently.

Go here to sign up for a twice a month email prayer letter that will tell you how best to pray for both me personally as well as for Love Wins Ministries.

Give to us

I have no idea what you think our finances look like, but this thing is held together by hope and prayer. We are $700 a month away from being able to pay me the same salary a full-time employee at McDonald’s makes, minus the health insurance and snazzy uniforms. We need office space, storage space and business cards. We recently had to tell people we can’t buy them any more boots until August because our primary donor had unexpected expenses. We need your financial help. Go here to learn how to be part of our support team.

Talk about us.

A basic belief of our ministry is that following Jesus calls us to have authentic relationships. This is why we won’t cold call churches or send unrequested info packets – it just is not relational. What we need is for you to do is:

Talk about Love Wins Ministries with your friends.

Tell your pastor about what we are doing out here.

Take me (Hugh) to church with you and introduce me to your pastor and friends.

Get your small group or congregation to invite me to speak.

Put a link to our website on your blog.

Follow us on Twitter.

Join our cause on Facebook and invite your friends.

Forward our newsletter to your friends.

Love.

Loving someone who has less stuff than you do can change your life – and theirs. Last week I sat with a small group and talked about ways they could reach out to their community and build real relationships, using their unique gifts. I would love to have a similar conversation with you or with your small group or congregation.

Pray. Give. Talk. Love – Always, Love.

‘Cause Love Wins.

Hugh Hollowell

If you are reading this via RSS, click through to the website for a minute…

At the top of the page you will see our new logo, rendered for us by my friend Amy over at Like Water Designs. I think she did an awesome job. The graffiti look at the top relates to the slightly sketchy, underground sort of thing we do, while the very corporate font at the bottom relates to our attempt to be organized and professional. Like us, our logo is in tension between two worlds.

If you need graphic work, give Amy a chance. She was awful good to us.

To go with the new logo, we are doing some rennovating to the site as well. We had so many pages and resources, it was getting a bit unwieldy. The bones are in place, and they will be fleshed out over the next few days.

Thanks always for your love and support!

Several of our friends have told us that they want to pray for us, but they are unsure of just what to pray for.

We are very much in need of your prayers. The work we do often takes us to very dark places and in dark circumstances. In a very real sense, we are battling principalities and powers, not flesh and blood…

We need your prayers. I (Hugh) need your prayers. As an old friend was known to say, we could use the prayer and you could use the practice. If you go here, you can sign up for a twice a month email prayer letter that will tell you how best to pray for both me personally as well as for Love Wins Ministries.

Thanks for your love and support.

I have a reputation for being somewhat cynical, especially about the church.

Having friends who sleep behind the dumpster in a parking lot of a church that is spending millions on a building expansion will do that to you.

Or when you meet with the head of an international “Christian” non-profit and he tells you the reason they are focusing on international poverty rather than domestic poverty is because it is much easier to raise money for international poverty, especially if there are kids involved. It makes me even more cynical to recognize that he is right – it is easier. Much easier.

Or the wealthy Christian who can’t help you financially, but he will pray for you. As he gets ready to go on the fourth vacation of the year.

Or the Men’s group that wants a missions “project”, something they can do two times a year, like pass lunches out in the park to the homeless. You know, like Jesus did.

The problem for me is that I identify with the church people – that is where I came from. And we are hardest on the people we identify with the most. These people are in my mission field too.  Just as my friends who have no homes need to know what it means to be loved, my friends who live in houses need to know what it means to love someone who does not have the ability to love you back in the same way. Loving people who cannot love you back allows us to begin to understand Grace.

Being a prophetic voice without being a jerk is something I struggle with. (I can hear the chorus of Amen’s from here…)

Jesus loves everybody, but he wants to do it through us. And as hard as it is for me sometimes, I have to understand that means arrogant wealthy church people too. Keep praying for me -  and us -  would you?