Alliances Serve Those Facing Homelessness And Addiction: ‘It Humanized People’
In Trinidad, Colo., 200 miles south of Denver, Clay Mason leads a 12-member ministerial alliance. But his move from Texas to Trinidad, a city of 8,200 bisected by Interstate 25 and the Purgatoire River, was not about ministry.
He and his wife, Mary, arrived in their RV eight and a half years ago to pursue nontraditional cancer treatments, which Clay believes cured him.
They initially felt unwelcome at the local Church of Christ. But they created a church community as they began serving the city’s poor and homeless, many of whom also lived in or near the Masons’ RV park.
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On Thanksgiving Day 2017, “we noticed these people weren’t tourists,” Clay Mason said, “so we fed about 55 people that day.”
Thus began The Way, a church without doors to serve people without homes. A half-dozen or so local churches provide volunteers or financial support, including the Church of Christ where Clay and Mary now feel entirely welcome.
The congregation has opened its doors as a warming center during cold spells. Members volunteer, and the minister helps serve breakfast on Sunday mornings.
“We attend the midweek service and fellowship with members there, but this ministry is 24/7,” Clay said.
“Since we’ve started doing this and I became president of the ministerial alliance, the homeless people have access to two hot meals a day thanks to the Church of Christ and the Catholic soup kitchen.”
The church meets in a park, and different faces show up each Sunday.
“I do a short devotional — about 10 minutes — because they’ve got the attention span of a guppy. Most are addicts or alcoholics,” Clay said.
Support comes from friends and family — many in Texas where he grew up and used to preach — in monthly checks of $100 or $200, occasionally up to $500.
The Masons still live in their RV and prepare 85 meals a day in its kitchen.
‘Addiction doesn’t care what church you go to’
Just over 1,000 people live in Glenmora, La., 25 miles south of Alexandria. Five churches there and from nearby Oakdale have worked together to create a Christ-centered recovery ministry for men fighting substance abuse and addiction. Justin Simmons has preached 14 years for the Church of Christ with about 80 members.
“I think for my church, and I’m sure others, it humanized people with addiction,” Simmons said. “Maybe even church-going people kind of look at addicts as not human beings — though they would never say that.
“But when they get to interact with these guys when they’re sober, they see they’re just like us. They have skills, they’re good carpenters or welders or plumbers.”
Each church in the cooperative fills a role. The Church of Christ feeds the men on Wednesday nights and sends leftovers home with them. They attend one church on Sunday morning, another Sunday evening and rotate Wednesday nights. Ministers take turns doing a daily 5 a.m. devotional before the men are picked up for work.
Simmons said no one seeks credit for the rare and hardfought successes:
“If they succeed and wind up in a pew, we see it as a win. If they find Christ and through him stay sober and connect to a church and grow spiritually and put back into community — that’s a win.”
“I don’t think it would have worked this long if we didn’t keep Jesus at the center of it,” Simmons said. “It’s easy for churches to see each other as competitors — but addiction doesn’t care what church you go to.”
This article has been republished courtesy of The Christian Chronicle.
Cheryl Mann Bacon is a Christian Chronicle contributing editor who served for 20 years as chair of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at Abilene Christian University. Contact cheryl@christianchronicle.org.