Up a hill from tiny Hope Chapelis Roof Above, which shelters 300 homeless men most nights. To its right is a fence protecting a construction site that will soon be “luxury housing,” in the parlance of developers.
Hope Chapel United Methodist Church is a part of the North Carolina Annual Conference.
A yellow sign on the road leading to the construction site says, “Dead End.”
But maybe this doesn’t have to be a dead end for Hope Chapel, which developers have tried to purchase, presumably so it can be demolished in the interests of gentrification. The chapel, part of the Word on the Street ministry run by the Rev. Charles DiRico, feeds all-comers four days a week, two at the chapel and two elsewhere in the community. It also maintains a clothing bank available to people who are homeless.
The Baptist owners of Hope Chapel, which used to be one of their churches, have told the developers they’re not interested in selling.
Instead, the owners plan to continue letting DiRico and Word on the Street use it. DiRico, a United Methodist of indefatigable good cheer, envisions the future of the site as a coffee shop catering to the wealthy new neighbors. Taking it further, he imagines men from the shelter could work there, selling coffee to the luxury housing folks.
“If you're going to buy an $8 cup of coffee, why not give it to Roof Above instead of Starbucks? You know what I mean?” DiRico says.
Such an arrangement could bring different classes of people into proximity, and who knows what good might develop from those relationships?
“This is a dream, right? Gosh, I would love for something like this to happen,” he adds.
“We may even (build) a whole new building and do a drive-through, but make it to where we open up 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. Close early afternoon like a lot of coffee shops, and then we can still do our ministry here, but do more of it and have a newer facility,” DiRico said.
Is this a pipe dream? Perhaps. But just down the road, the upscale Providence United Methodist Church is hosting the first national conference of the United Methodist Fresh Expressions movement, which lifts up this kind of ministry as an important part of the denomination’s future.
And also, its past.
Meeting people where they are instead of trying to lure them to church has roots to the very beginning of Methodism, preached the Rev. Michael Adam Beck at the conference on Feb. 8. Beck leads Fresh Expressions United Methodist under the auspices of United Methodist Discipleship Ministries.
Beck believes outreach and missionary work don’t necessarily require an elaborate structure or bureaucracy. In fact, social wholeness was practiced from the beginning.
A handful of Fresh Expressions participants visited Hope Chapel one evening during the conference. Inside, they shared pizza with five men — some of them homeless and all getting some of their weekly meals at Hope Chapel.
And I was like, you don't even know what's going on in their life. They might not be homeless, but they might not be getting paid as much as you think or it might not be steady.”
Whole families living in their cars drive up to get a meal, DiRico said.
No one knows if these people are Christians, much less Methodists. No one asks.
So despite the use of one small structure, Word on the Street is a textbook Fresh Expressions ministry, more concerned with its mission than helping an institution prolong itself.
And that’s OK, say Fresh Expressions leaders back at the conference.
excerpt from a story by Jim Patterson, UM News reporter in Nashville, Tennessee
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.
