“Not all of us can do great things,” said Mother Teresa, “but we can do small things with great love.”
With vastly increased funding and policing, Philadelphia’s new mayor is beginning to do great things in the beleaguered Kensington community, where rampant drug trafficking, tragic violence and daunting despair have long reigned. But a ministry operating out of Lighthouse Fellowship United Methodist Church in Glenside, PA, has been doing small things with great love outside of Kensington’s Hope Park for about eight years.
Lighthouse Fellowship United Methodist Church is a part of the Eastern Pennsylvania Annual Conference.
A small team of street ministry servants from Shores of Grace Philly shows up every other Sunday afternoon for just over an hour on Ella Street, outside the fence surrounding Hope Park. Under watchful eyes, they set up tables and boxes on the uneven sidewalk and give out food and other needed items while conversing with whoever comes by.
They used to set up inside the park. But even before the Covid pandemic it was fenced off—like a reverse prison—to keep out the unhoused, untidy denizens who once congregated on the grass there. Now it lies dormant and inaccessible when these visitors arrive.
Nonetheless, a long line forms quickly each Sunday, as new and familiar faces greet these guests with humble grace and gratitude. Joanna and Todd Keim lead the small mission, offering healthy food—assorted sandwiches and chips, fruit, muffins, water and juices—all donated by members of Lighthouse Fellowship and other friends and supporters.
In colder months their bounty at times includes hats, gloves, hoodies, coats, blankets, scarves and socks—not used but purchased donations. “We want to give them our best,” said Joanna, “because that’s what our Heavenly Father gives to us. We want them to know that we love them in the same way.”
They also offer—or rather, exchange—prayers, generous hugs and words of encouragement.
Lighthouse Fellowship and its pastor, the Rev. Cynthia Brubaker, support Shores of Grace Philly because of the great love it shows to the people of Kensington. It’s a love that flows both ways, the Keims have found. “Really, it’s not just about us giving them food,” said Joanna. “It’s about us showing up when they expect us, and for that hour being a part of their community. They look out for us and take care of us while we’re caring for them.”
Two brothers, Nic and Luke Billman, and their wives, Rachael and Alisan Billman, respectively, birthed Shores of Grace in Recife, Brazil, in 2010 as a call-from-God mission to rescue and restore abandoned children and youth living on the streets there. Many of those young people are exploited victims of prostitution and human trafficking.
In 2016 Luke and Alisan returned home to Pennsylvania with their children to start a Shores of Grace site in Philadelphia. They located it at the parish house of the former Servants of Christ United Methodist Church in Germantown, which closed this year.
Shores of Grace Philly offers experiential trainings, known as “School of the Streets,” which leaders of several Eastern PA Conference churches, including Lighthouse Fellowship, have taken. They teach lessons on how to connect heart-to-heart, in Christian love, with people living in difficult circumstances and how to step into negative environments and change the atmosphere by emulating Christ through prayer and the power of the Holy Spirit.
Their vision is to gain entrance back into the park, so they can set up chairs and tables for residents to sit, eat and talk together. Todd, who plays guitar in Lighthouse’s worship band, wants to play music, maybe have cookouts and offer some brief worship to nourish residents’ bodies and souls.
But if they are to create this new, fresh expression of church, they will need more volunteers to hand out food and help make that possible. And they always need contributions of healthy food and supportive funds, which can be donated online.
What the Keims heard and witnessed in their visit to Shores in Brazil—how it grew from a mustard seed ministry to something far greater—prompts even loftier visions in them of what Shores Philly can become, as it connects and uplifts more people in Kensington and beyond. They have seen God challenge them and then reward their obedience, sometimes miraculously.
“The way this seems to work is we try to do whatever God puts on our hearts to do,” said Joanna. “And then God makes it possible by sending us the support that we need.” They are grateful for all the love they get to share from the people who help them and from the people they help as well.
excerpt from a story by John W. Coleman
This story represents how United Methodist local churches through their Annual Conferences are living as Vital Congregations. A vital congregation is the body of Christ making and engaging disciples for the transformation of the world. Vital congregations are shaped by and witnessed through four focus areas: calling and shaping principled Christian leaders; creating and sustaining new places for new people; ministries with poor people and communities; and abundant health for all.
