St. John's Downtown

While in America, just before we attended the Russia Initiative Conference at Church of the Resurrection in Kansas City and after our Georgetown visit, we were able to make a one day visit to St. John's Downtown United Methodist Church in Houston, TX. As mentioned previously, this church has around 9,000 members in which 3,000 are homeless or former homeless. We wanted to see how this church has been able to blend a congregation of homeless poor, middle class and wealthy people.

When we arrived at the church, we waited for the pastor since he was preforming the funeral of a 21 year old member of the church who had been shot in gang-related violence. The neighborhood around the church is not an easy one to work in. After the funeral, the pastor, Rudy Rasmus, greeted us with hugs and warm welcome, spending the rest of the day with us showing us the church and its ministries.

Two points stood out as he related how this church has managed to grow while still maintaining its blended character. One was of "extreme welcome". Since homeless people are refused entry to so many places, it is difficult for them to "challenge the door", that is, get up enough courage to actually walk inside the church. To ease this, St. John's Downtown has a 3 tier welcoming system. People called Ambassadors are on the street around the church before services to invite people with hugs and handshakes to come on in. Greeters are inside the door to give more hugs,
information and direct people to the sanctuary. Ushers in the sanctuary then give more hugs and show people to their seats. We were told you probably would get hugged 5 or 6 times before you actually sit down. This sense of welcome gets people, especially the poor and homeless, over the barrier of entry to a new place. The second point was "to never compromise the vision of the church". The vision of St. John's is to be a place for all people of all economic and social classes. As any church becomes more successful, the pressure to accommodate the church to those who give the most financially is always present. It takes a lot of work to guarantee equal access to the pews for all in a church which crosses economic and social classes. We hope to remember these points as we begin our "equal access" church in the Dosvitok Children's Center building.