Far and away, the phrase that gets people to this site is something along the lines of “Raleigh Homeless Help”. In other words, it is people who are either homeless or facing homelessness and they don’t know what to do.

Similarly, one of the main reasons my phone rings as often as it does is because I get calls from congregations and individuals who want to help a person who is homeless or near homeless, but they don’t know what resources are available.

That is why we have created RaleighHomeless.info, a website packed full of information and resources for those who are homeless and those who want to help the homeless.  We are still finishing it, but I wanted to go ahead and get it out there, so you could start sharing it with people you know. Right now the resources are geared primiarly to the homeless, but eventually we will have resources for congregations that want to reach out to the homeless as well.

The easiest way to get the news out and get in Google and the other search engines quickly is if you link to the new site – so if you have a blog, facebook, twitter, etc. it would be great if you could link to RaleighHomeless.info, even if you just mention it in a blogpost or tweet about it.

Also, if you know about resources we have not mentioned on the site, feel free to mention them in the comments below, or contact us through the new site.

Most Sunday mornings find me in Moore Square in downtown Raleigh. Moore Square is located near two homeless shelters and the city bus station, so it tends to be a magnet for the homeless population of Raleigh. I jokingly refer to it as my office.

On Sunday mornings, myself and somewhere around seven or eight others bring biscuits, coffee and fruit down to the Square and share breakfast with our friends in the park.  No goals. No agenda. No preaching, no tracts, no loud ‘praise’ music, no four spiritual laws, no… well, you get the point.

Instead, we hug folks. We laugh. We give Danny* a hard time as he tries to ‘pick up’ a new girl he just met by the coffee pot. I joke with Dave* because he is jealous of my new boots someone gave me. Suzanne talks with transgendered people and helps everyone find clothes. Donna passes out biscuits. Greg does whatever Donna tells him to do. Chad is taking orders for work boots, so people can get back to work. I agree to go to court with Irene*, so she can get a divorce from her alcoholic, abusive husband. And somewhere along the way, we get lots of hugs, and listen to sad tales of how ‘this’ happened to them, and we learn that we are not much different than they are.

In fact, after you do this a while, you learn that there is no us and them. There is just us.

Note: It costs us about $75 to throw breakfast in Moore Square each week. If you would like to underwrite breakfast one week, you can donate $75 via PayPal (you don’t have to have a PayPal account) by clicking here. If you would like to donate a different amount, go to our donate page. Thanks!

*As always, I change the names of our friends in order to protect their dignity and privacy.

In our little experiment we call (for lack of a better term) The Gathering, one of the things we hold dear is the idea that those of us who claim to follow Jesus should eat together regularly. There are several reasons for this, among them being:

The first church ate together.

The first Jesus followers were always eating. Seriously; look at how much bread breaking they are doing, all of Paul’s railings on table etiquette, The Emmaus story, Acts Chapter 2, etc. These folks were eating. And this was not incidental to what they did; rather, this is what they did. It was not in addition to “church stuff’, this was church stuff.

Jesus tells us to do it.

Do this in remembrance of me. Do what in remembrance of me? When Jesus said this, he was at a Passover meal. That happens once a year; Did he mean “When you have the Passover meal”? The early Jesus followers did not think so, as I pointed out above. They were eating together as a part of worship all the time. No, the first church took it to mean “Whenever you have a meal in common, do it in remembrance of Jesus”. And so do we.

Eating together echoes Jesus stories

Jesus had a lot to say about food. Jesus fed the five thousand, with tons left over. Jesus fed the four thousand on another day, again with tons left over. Jesus turns water into wine, and there much left over. We are told by Jesus how to act at banquets (take the worse seat for ourselves). We are told who to invite (the blind and the beggar). The Kingdom of God is often compared to a banquet or a feast. The Passover meal itself tells us that God will provide liberation for his people. Matthew 25 tells us that, in some way, our eternal destinies are tied to what we do with food. The examples are near endless.

Sharing food says something about what we believe.

When we eat together, it is making an economic statement: There is enough. It says we depend on each other. It says we can all contribute. It shows us that God made a world of abundance. It says that in the Kingdom of God, no one has to go hungry.

These are a few reasons why we make it a point to share food on occasion. Yesterday was one of those occasions.

There were our usual folks, plus some folks we invited for the first time. We sat down together, white and black, rich and poor, male and female. Many of us brought things — all of our regulars contributed.

There were burritos, soft tacos, hard tacos. There was a ton of refried beans and Spanish rice. For desert, we had huge chocolate chip cookies. We sat and ate, and talked and laughed. For the newcomers, we shared a bit about what we are looking to do. We invited them to come and be a part of us, to share their lives with us and to join us on this journey of following Jesus. There were a lot of questions, most of which were answered better than I could have done it by the regulars.

Here we are, hanging out and chatting before we eat.

Note: I keep getting asked when we will open it up to ‘outsiders’. The answer is still “I am not sure”. It is a lot like going to Grandma’s house. You love doing it, you get a lot out of it, but if you put 20 strangers in the living room, it changes everything. Right now, we are selectively inviting folks. We are not sure what the future looks like yet. Please be patient, and as we build this, we will invite more of you. Meanwhile, we appreciate your prayers, love and support.

I bet you thought I had forgotten, hadn’t you?

Well, no such luck. I have been busier than a long tailed cat in a room full o’ rocking chairs, but I managed to sneak in under the wire and get the newsletter out to your inbox.

In any event, if you did not receive the email, it means you are probably not subscribed… but you can go here and fix that.

As always, feel free to forward it to anyone you think may be interested.