www.operationnightwatch.org<\/a> .\u00a0 We are a ministry of hospitality with people experiencing homelessness, poverty, mental illness and isolation, all of the above.\u00a0 We began as a street ministry 30 years ago and moved indoors several years later, although two years ago we re-started some street ministry activities.\u00a0 Our sole salaried employee, Executive Director Gary Davis, is a \u201cretired\u201d UCC pastor who was one of the original street ministers.<\/p>\nNightwatch is about hospitality and relationship.\u00a0 Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings, our center is open from 7-11 PM.\u00a0 Our guests can be off their feet, be warm and dry, engage in conversation with volunteers over coffee and sandwiches or a game of Scrabble.\u00a0 RN\u2019s offer foot care.\u00a0 We aren\u2019t a soup kitchen, nor a treatment, housing or employment agency.\u00a0 We have socks and blankets, but our focus is the human being, the person.<\/p>\n
I began volunteering at Nightwatch in 2003.\u00a0 It made me nervous going downtown on a Friday night and spending time in the tiny center we had then.\u00a0 There was often tension outside, but we said, \u201cThe street stops here.\u201d\u00a0 These were people first, I told myself.\u00a0 Being in seminary while working full-time, I was often tired when I went downtown.\u00a0 I always came home energized by guests, volunteers, and conversations.\u00a0 I still do.<\/p>\n
I grew up a farm kid in eastern Nebraska, majored in German in college, learned Russian and did intelligence work in the U.S. Air Force.\u00a0 Back in civilian life, I worked for a John Deere dealer in Nebraska, got into aviation maintenance in Texas, and moved with my wife Jean to Portland 33 years ago.\u00a0 In 2000, I ran out of excuses and began seminary studies.\u00a0 I\u2019ve done the whole thing: \u00a0course work, parish internship, clinical pastoral education at the VA Medical Center.<\/p>\n
I always knew it led somewhere, just never knew where.\u00a0 I\u2019ve done gobs of \u201cchurch work\u201d in my life, attended countless meetings and kept minutes, saw worship wars that rival the Taliban.\u00a0 My gut told me we shouldn\u2019t end up in a parish, but the whole process continually pushed in that direction.<\/p>\n
Then came the call from Debbie, the Director of Nightwatch at the time.\u00a0 She had a dream to add a worship service to the ministry of hospitality:\u00a0 church for our folks.\u00a0 I said I\u2019d try.\u00a0 The Board accepted my proposal, and we\u2019ve been worshipping on Sunday evenings since May 6, 2007.\u00a0 Last year, I took over the weekly Bible studies.<\/p>\n
This year, my Lutheran synod and home church found a way to issue a formal call to the ministry I was already doing.\u00a0 I was ordained in January after a decade of work.\u00a0 I\u2019m called and ordained but not paid.\u00a0 It\u2019s a volunteer position, so I depend on a meager income from some aviation engineering work and gifts from a few supporters. Not the American Dream as advertised.\u00a0 Not the springboard to retirement touted by investment managers.<\/p>\n
But God provides.\u00a0 We have enough.\u00a0 We have something else:\u00a0 relationships with people we would otherwise have never had.\u00a0 We have new eyes for our neighbors, our city and the world.<\/p>\n
Our simple worship of Word and Sacrament is heavily infused with scripture and prayer.\u00a0 We worship not as a denomination but as the kind of community called by the vineyard owner who went out at all hours or the king who wanted everyone invited to the wedding banquet.<\/p>\n
Prayer is special.\u00a0 I prepare no written prayers or lists in advance.\u00a0 It\u2019s all the people\u2019s concerns.\u00a0 Prayers for housing, for jobs, for addictions and cancer, family members, parents and children, pet cats, neighbors who committed suicide, the mayor, the president, Congress, our soldiers, world peace, the strength to keep going and stay out of prison.\u00a0 One week, a man whose coherence is very up and down voiced the most profound prayer request I\u2019ve ever heard.\u00a0 He asked that we pray for the people who are well\u2013so that they could understand what it\u2019s like to be sick.<\/p>\n
We give an offering, have since day one.\u00a0 Any worshiping community needs a mission.\u00a0 Ours is local and global:\u00a0 downtown food pantries and Mercy Corps.\u00a0 Our offering isn\u2019t tithed.\u00a0 One hundred percent goes out the door, every penny found on the street or left over from SSD and put in the basket.\u00a0 We\u2019ve given money for help in Haiti, Japan and Joplin.\u00a0 Over $8000 so far.<\/p>\n
God gives it back to us in volunteers who bring food and do little things.\u00a0 Like K. who gave R. a used cell phone.\u00a0 R. had been homeless in Portland for over 20 years.\u00a0 Down on his luck and living in his truck, R. could not afford new license tags.\u00a0 When police towed his truck, R. lost both his home and all his work tools for generating income.\u00a0 The phone helped R. connect with people who had yard work to do.\u00a0 Last winter it helped R. connect with a brother back East who came and got him.\u00a0 Homeless no more.\u00a0 Jesus performed signs and wonders called miracles\u2026<\/p>\n
I do what I do because I see miracles like that.\u00a0 I can\u2019t preach the Beatitudes unless I mean it.\u00a0 And live it.\u00a0 Sometimes the miracle is that worshipers don\u2019t shout, \u201cShut up, preacher, that\u2019s BS!\u00a0 You don\u2019t know squat!\u201d\u00a0 That they don\u2019t says I\u2019m only going where Christ already is.\u00a0 It\u2019s why the meal we share after the Holy Meal at worship is such a blessing.\u00a0 It\u2019s what those first \u201cChrist-ians\u201d did.\u00a0 They knew Jesus was there, so they celebrated.<\/p>\n
The Bible\u2019s most ancient and enduring mandates are to love God and neighbor, but we can\u2019t love anyone we don\u2019t know.\u00a0 To do that, we have to go where they are and spend time.\u00a0 Like Jesus did.\u00a0 I do what I do because He did.\u00a0 And so much more.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Editor\u2019s Note:Today\u2019s post is a guest post by Roger Fuchs, a frequent visitor to this blog, and an outreach minister in Portland. You can find Roger\u2019s own blog site here. My child, do not cheat the poor of their living, and do not grieve the hungry, or anger the one in need.\u00a0 Do not add […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1110],"tags":[2010,460,769,2008,2007,2009,2006,1815],"class_list":["post-3037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ministry","tag-chaplain","tag-dorothy-day","tag-hospitality","tag-operationnightwatch","tag-outreach-minister","tag-portlands-homeless","tag-roger-fuchs","tag-veterans"],"yoast_head":"\n
Take Care of Each Other<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Editor's Note:Today's post is a guest post by Roger Fuchs, a frequent visitor to this blog, and an outreach minister in Portland. You can find Roger's own\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/karenspearszacharias\/2011\/11\/03\/take-care-of-each-other\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Take Care of Each Other\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Editor's Note:Today's post is a guest post by Roger Fuchs, a frequent visitor to this blog, and an outreach minister in Portland. 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<\/a><\/p>\n