the beginning

Part of our worship at Central includes the opportunity to create and share community with people that arrive on Tuesdays and Thursdays—days when we share space and resources with the larger community. Most of the people that show up are unsheltered or otherwise unable to access the resources they need. Sometimes they are seeking the basic day-to-day needs that Central provides – a safe place to hang out, a meal, a shower, a washer and dryer, or maybe medical care that is freely available at Grace Clinic each Thursday (just up the stairs). Others may come for community, to lighten their load, to share for a few hours chronic concern, condition, or great loss. Some simply sleep wherever they find a spot. Stepping into our sanctuary and seeing a person peacefully sleeping on a couch or a pew after a precarious night breaks my heart wide open.

On these days at Central, I don’t really have a specific job. I might sit around and visit with the staff, or wash a few dishes for Beth, or fret about the lack of wash cloths with the person next up in line for a shower. Honestly, as a “newish” person, much of the time I’m not sure what to do, but that doesn’t matter. There is something happening here of greater importance than the state of my usefulness. If we believe the Good News, this community, where there are endless opportunities to have a caring encounter with another person, is the place of our salvation. And, while it looks like “we”, the good church people of Central, are helping “them”, the poor and downtrodden, it really hasn’t taken me long at all to realize that the very opposite is true. As much as I care and love, I am also loved and accepted. We are a community.