truth wears pants.

We have a wonderful Sunday night service. The average attenders are either homeless, drunkards, drug addicts, hookers, or a combination of them. Many of them come for the food that we provide aftarward. Some of them have recieved Christ. Many of them are striving to live the way that Christ wants them to live and they have found acceptance and fellowship with each other during this time. This is church. The problem is that they are looked upon entirely as an outreach ministry. The "next step" would be to invite them to Sunday morning, which, as I pointed out, could be detrimental to their faith. If Sunday morning has become such a force for negativity, and in my opinion, does more bad than good, what does that say about the state of our church. Meanwhile the people who could be the most effective people in the city ofr Christ are being treated as second class citizens. We are content to keep providing outreach to these poeple without bringing them into the fellowship that is the church. This is a problem. My point is that we have, perhaps inadvertantly, made a sociological barrier that separates the church from the outsiders who we simply evangelize too. The problem that I have is that many of these people have been coming and listening, and sharing, and striving for years and are still looked at as outsiders. I think that ministry to this group of people requires a new thought process. We need to be able to look upon them as a church; as our church.  I believe the crusties and I have more to repent of than any of the people who walk throughthe door on Sunday evening and until we see it that way...well its going to continue to be sad.