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Rev. Jason Ferris is pastor of OLD PINE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, a community that helped BSM get off the ground, and have been friends ever since. Below he shares a story about BSM's impact on the community.
Broad Street Ministry’s Impact
by Rev. Jason R. Ferris
I have been a resident of
Philadelphia for a year and a half, serving the Old Pine Street Presbyterian
Church as its pastor. Philadelphia, like other urban environments, offers a lot
of unique challenges and opportunities for doing ministry. Each day in this
busy city involves unexpected encounters with people from vastly diverse
backgrounds and of vastly different perspectives.
One of the most meaningful
of the unexpected relationships I’ve made in my ministry here is with Clifton
Hill, a professional musician and consultant who had fallen on hard times. A
variety of life events had rendered Clifton broke, divorced, and separated from
his young son. For the first time in his life, he became homeless. Day and
night he walked the streets of Philadelphia, navigating a daunting network of
food kitchens and shelters. He became caught in a trap in which many other
homeless people find themselves: He needed a job to climb his way out of
poverty; but because he was homeless, finding a job was almost impossible.
Clifton discovered that
being homeless had deprived him of many of the things that most people take for
granted: a mailing address, use of a computer, access to laundry facilities,
and, last but not least, healthy, fresh food. Clifton confided that living in
shelters was demoralizing, “like being in a prison.”
At some point I recommended to Clifton that he go to Broad
Street Ministry to see whether their services could help him. I will let his
own words speak to how profound his experience there was. Clifton is currently
writing a memoir of his time as a homeless person and he has given me
permission to share the following reflections:
“I found only one
service-based program in Philadelphia that provided limited computer use to
search for employment. I also found one homeless services program that
maintained a post office for the homeless.
“Broad Street Ministry
treated homeless people respectfully and as if they had value . . . They served
two lunches a week and the staff decorated the sanctuary to look like a
restaurant. A group of volunteers prepared and served the meal and refilled the
drinks of those dining at the tables. They had nice background music and
treated everyone with great kindness.
“After
lunch was served everyone could go downstairs and have coffee. They had several
sitting areas downstairs. One of the lounge-like areas had the current newspapers
and magazines on the tables. They also provided toiletry items, psychiatric
services; art and pet therapy. For a few
hours a week, it was a haven of hope for me in the midst of what otherwise felt
like total oppression. Broad Street Ministry seemed to be the only place in
the City of Brotherly Love where a homeless person could go and be treated
humanely.”[1]
As Clifton’s words attest, Broad Street Ministry is
filling a significant void in our city —the need for homeless men and women to
meet not just their basic material needs, but their need to be treated
holistically and with respect. The comprehensive services that BSM provides embody
the words of Jesus, “Man does not live on bread alone.”
But it’s not just the people receiving services who
benefit. What I’ve found is that it’s often the volunteers who provide these
services who find that their lives have been most profoundly changed. BSM has a
longstanding relationship with the church I serve, Old Pine. As mission
partners, BSM offers a place for Old Pine members to do mission work and to
come to know their neighbors through worship and service. Time and time again,
I’ve observed that the volunteers who serve at BSM receive much more than they
give: their lives are changed by discovering the joy of helping others.
If you want to get a sense of what Broad Street Ministry
is all about, I encourage you to attend a Sunday evening worship service. I
promise that you have never experienced anything quite like it! At these
evening services, the Holy Spirit is palpable as it breaks through the social
boundaries that often divide us. People young and old, rich and poor, from all
manner of backgrounds, gather together for singing, prayer, communion, and
service. It’s just one of many ways that BSM is living out its calling as a
relevant, caring, mission-oriented community centered in the love of Christ.
[1]
Excerpted from
Clifton Hill’s book "The Broken Looking Glass; An American Adventure,” to
be published in spring 2013.
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