Wichita Area Friends Churches unite to serve homeless families through Family Promise
“Jesus is bringing reconciliation to every last speck of the universe, including both our foundational relationships and the systems that emanate from them. Poverty is rooted in broken relationships, so the solution to poverty is rooted in the power of Jesus’ death and resurrection to put all things into right relationship again.” –When Helping Hurts, Steve Corbett & Brian Fikkert
Congregations all across the country are wrestling with the question of how to be “our brother’s and sister’s keeper” as homelessness grows to touch virtually every city and town, large and small, in our nation. A sensitive and compassionate response, one that promotes long-term rehabilitation and development rather than a Band Aid, is needed to address this difficult and painful problem. You may be shocked to learn that 40% of the hundreds of thousands of people experiencing homelessness in America are members of families with children. Without the support of extended family, many lower income, working families who experience a major illness, loss of a job, or other forces beyond their control are driven into homelessness.
People of faith and churches want to respond to the needs of their homeless “neighbors,” but often lack a vehicle to focus their efforts. Family Promise provides a way. Family Promise enables congregations to unite hearts and hands to provide shelter, meals, and compassionate assistance for homeless families. By uniting congregations, a day center, and social service agencies, Family Promise Affiliates can do what individuals alone cannot do.
About 200 local arms in 41 states nationwide, comprised of 160,000 volunteers and 6,000 faith communities, are already participating in Family Promise programs, helping families in crisis attain lives that are closer to being in right relationship with God, self, others, and the rest of creation.
Alongside other faith traditions, Friends churches and meetings across the country are participating in Family Promise. Although their local affiliate is not currently functioning, our own Friendswood Friends Church has experience as a host church with Family Promise. FFC has hosted families (up to 14 people) overnight on their campus for one week, four times a year. Here is what Pastor David Bridges says about their experience:
“Each week that we host we have teams that greet the families when they arrive (around 6pm), feed them, and then interact with them until around 9pm. Two people (preferably male/female) stay on our campus in the same building overnight each night we are hosting… One of the major benefits of being involved with FP is that it puts a new face on the homeless. We tend to think of the guys standing under our overpasses asking for handouts. But most of the Family Promise people have been people with jobs who just haven’t been able to make housing/rent payments and have ended up on the street. A lot of our students have been surprised to see other students they go to school with in the program…this has put us in contact with real people who have real needs and legitimate stories and our people have become more educated about how people can become homeless…I certainly endorse Family Promise as a good program that is good for churches to be engaged with…the final benefit I might mention is that it puts us in cohort with other local churches around us and makes us feel like we are working with them in something rather than competing against them. To me, that is really important.”
Wichita Area churches have banded together to catalyze the launch of a new affiliate, Family Promise of Greater
Wichita. Since our first Area meeting at the 2015 EFC-MAYM Ministry Conference in July, Wichita Area Friends Churches, alongside other local churches, have united for this effort. Led by folks from Rose Hill Friends, University Friends, Derby Friends, Northridge Friends, Crossroads Friends, and Communitas, teams are currently working to recruit 13 host churches, to acquire a day center and a fifteen passenger van, and to develop the funds to begin the program. Recently, Northridge Friends Church decided to be a host church for Family Promise of Greater Wichita once the program opens. Pictured is Pastor Manny Garcia delivering the good news!
Please keep the development of Family Promise of Greater Wichita in your prayers! If you feel led to give financially to this effort, tax-deductible gifts can currently be sent to Northridge Friends Church with Family Promise in the memo line, and mailed to Family Promise of Greater Wichita, c/o Northridge Friends Church, 2655 Bullinger Street, Wichita, KS 67204.
“We have a dream, that our properties, personal and corporate, be used 24/7 to bless the community around us, and even be used for community objectives. What if we had no spare rooms in our homes or church buildings? What if we all knew our neighbors across the street, and down the road, and across the tracks and helped them with their needs? What if our churches were like store-houses for ministry? What if God restored the broken and we could hand them the keys to our church vans and even our church buildings?” –Excerpt from 2014 EFC-MAYM We Have A Dream
-Carrie Corliss
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