Place of Worship as Neighborhood Center

Sam Skillern (Executive Director), DJ Vincent & Dwayne Hilty (Lightning Rods) of the Salem Leadership Foundation

DJ presented a video demonstrating the concept of a direct church program combined with multi-congregational collaboration called “Church at the Park."  Four different churches partnered in taking the church potluck to the park where the homeless stay.  The emphasis is on developing connections and relationships among the participants.  Volunteers are asked to come ready to listen and ask questions, i.e., active listening.  Relationships get built when there is give and take.  The second most important role of volunteers is to get people to appointments (e.g., doctor, DMV, court appearance).  Collaboration takes place among other churches and groups in sharing what’s going well and not going well.  "It’s us doing this together.”  Now almost all the core team running this ministry are the homeless members.

Interfaith hospitality involving 20 congregations in Salem occurs all year round.  Each congregation hosts families in rotation.  In addition to providing short term housing and food, they helped the unhoused get to the next step.  The program has fostered inter-denominational collaboration.

Dwayne discussed the program “Dinner on the Green” (Greenway) in which participants come together to eat.  Again the emphasis is on promoting relationships and connectivity.  He gave an example of an unhoused camp inviting church members to go fly fishing and then eat together.   

Dwayne also shared about experiencing extreme burn-out in serving people.  Helping people transition from unhoused to housed can be draining.  He recommended “soul care consciousness," developing systems to care for ourselves.

DJ also described a retreat for the unhoused:  three days over Christmas Eve and Christmas day in which participants celebrate holiday traditions.  However, it’s important to have an amazing relationship with an unhoused camp before introducing the retreat.  It could be held at any camp with a ministry focus. Mistakes have included over-emphasizing “stuff" when the church  just gave participants a fresh set of clothes and pajamas but no other gifts.  Other types of retreats included “guys only” and “gals only."   The challenge was in accommodating their pets and belongings.

Contact info:  Sam Skillern: sam@salemlf.org, DJ Vincent: dj@salemlf.org, Dwayne Hilty: dwayne@salemlf.org

Submitted by Valerie Hazen