The street ministry team at Operation Nightwatch provides deep pastoral care to over seven hundred people living in poverty every month. The need to be known and seen is met through meals, socks, conversation, and prayer. One afternoon while on outreach, a young man sitting on the sidewalk, in front of a church apologized to me. “Sorry that you have to deal with people like us.” I told him that we were all created in the image of God and encouraged him to not adopt an identity of shame and guilt. He smiled and nodded in agreement. “I always thought we were all God’s children!” The narrative that poverty is a result of moral failure has taught my friends on the street that homelessness is God’s punishment. “He doesn’t give us more than we can handle.” Street ministry challenges that narrative, communicating the God of Scripture. A God who commands love. A God who promises to not leave us homeless but to make his home with us. “Jesus answered him, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them (John 14:23).” Help us to remember that all of us together form the Body of Christ. May we suffer and rejoice together.

Michael Cox