A Safe House in Homewood

Jesus modeled the type of incarnational living where we give ourselves away to others. We find out where marginalized or vulnerable people are in our world, we go to them, we spend time with them, and God takes everyone on a process of transformation as we build relationships with one another. The concept seems simple enough, right?

The problem is that mainstream society, especially in America, does not hold to those types of values. The American Dream actually causes us to distance ourselves from the most marginalized and vulnerable people in our society. Upward mobility, at its very core, involves making our lives more comfortable so that we don't have to deal with as much messiness or discomfort.

To be a follower of Jesus, we should be downwardly mobile. We should be spending time with people in the places where God asks us to go, the very places where he promises us that we will find life if we will only give up control of our lives. We find the Holy Spirit at work in surprising places in our world, the Almighty God giving scandalous amounts of grace away to those who need it most... both the comfortable and those of need find God's grace in the margins.

My friends in Homewood, Pastor Freedom Blackwell and his wife, Freed, live out incarnational ministry like Jesus on a daily basis. This week they led a housing blitz in Homewood where an abandoned home was converted into a safe house for children in the middle of the neighborhood. It will be a place of refuge for kids to get off the streets for a little while. It was rebuilt by residents of Homewood for residents of Homewood.

I am excited to see what God does through the safe house in Homewood. Many of the children who have spent countless hours playing at my house or eating dinner at my dinner table will now have another place to go. The young people who are some of the brightest assets in the community now have a place to go that is an asset in the community.

I know that we will still welcome people into our home in Homewood, Pastor Freedom and Free will, and there are several other people living out incarnational ministry in Homewood who will continue to do so. Still, it is great to have another place for kids to go when we are unable to be there for the kids. I am praying that God raises up many more people in Homewood to live like Jesus in many more houses that are restored by the residents of Homewood in partnership with volunteers located throughout the city of Pittsburgh. God is truly doing an amazing redemptive work in Homewood, and I am privileged to experience that work up close.