Special project: Ministerial alliances
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Alliances serve those facing homelessness, addiction
Churches of Christ participate in efforts to feed and evangelize vulnerable groups.
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In Trinidad, Colo., 200 miles south of Denver, Clay Mason leads a 12-member ministerial alliance. But his move from Texas to Trinidad, a city of 8,200 bisected by Interstate 25 and the Purgatoire River, was not about ministry.
He and his wife, Mary, arrived in their RV eight and a half years ago to pursue nontraditional cancer treatments, which Clay believes cured him.
Clay and Mary Mason
They initially felt unwelcome at the local Church of Christ. But they created a church community as they began serving the city’s poor and homeless, many of whom also lived in or near the Masons’ RV park.
On Thanksgiving Day 2017, “we noticed these people weren’t tourists,” Clay Mason said, “so we fed about 55 people that day.”
Thus began The Way, a church without doors to serve people without homes. A half-dozen or so local churches provide volunteers or financial support, including the Church of Christ where Clay and Mary now feel entirely welcome.
Related: Special project: Ministerial alliances
The congregation has opened its doors as a warming center during cold spells. Members volunteer, and the minister helps serve breakfast on Sunday mornings.
“We attend the midweek service and fellowship with members there, but this ministry is 24/7,” Clay said.
“Since we’ve started doing this and I became president of the ministerial alliance, the homeless people have access to two hot meals a day thanks to the Church of Christ and the Catholic soup kitchen.”
A half-dozen or so local churches provide volunteers or financial support to feed Trinidad’s homeless population.
Until just recently, the church met for worship in the park. That’s also where Clay served breakfast daily and a Sunday meal. After the city demanded insurance and permit fees that were well beyond what Clay could afford he decided “to give Caesar back his park.”
He relocated the worship service and Sunday meal to the Lutheran church playground. Daily breakfasts are still distributed at the park because too many folks come for breakfast who have disabilities preventing them from climbing the hill to the play area. He expects to be ticketed at some point.
“I do a short devotional — about 10 minutes — because they’ve got the attention span of a guppy. Most are addicts or alcoholics,” Clay said.
“I do a short devotional — about 10 minutes — because they’ve got the attention span of a guppy. Most are addicts or alcoholics.”
Support comes from friends and family — many in Texas where he grew up and used to preach — in monthly checks of $100 or $200, occasionally up to $500.
The Masons still live in their RV and prepare 85 meals a day in its kitchen.
‘Addiction doesn’t care what church you go to’
Just over 1,000 people live in Glenmora, La., 25 miles south of Alexandria. Five churches there and from nearby Oakdale have worked together to create a Christ-centered recovery ministry for men fighting substance abuse and addiction. Justin Simmons has preached 14 years for the Church of Christ with about 80 members.
“I think for my church, and I’m sure others, it humanized people with addiction,” Simmons said. “Maybe even church-going people kind of look at addicts as not human beings — though they would never say that.
Youths from the Glenmore Church of Christ serve a meal at a weekly recovery meetings hosted by Grace Christian Center.
“But when they get to interact with these guys when they’re sober, they see they’re just like us. They have skills, they’re good carpenters or welders or plumbers.”
Each church in the cooperative fills a role. The Church of Christ feeds the men on Wednesday nights and sends leftovers home with them. They attend one church on Sunday morning, another Sunday evening and rotate Wednesday nights. Ministers take turns doing a daily 5 a.m. devotional before the men are picked up for work.
From right, Justin Simmons fellowships with Bishop Gerald Simon of Grace Christian Center and Pastor Greg Willis of Christ’s Church of Oakdale at Overdose Awareness 2024.
Simmons said no one seeks credit for the rare and hardfought successes:
“If they succeed and wind up in a pew, we see it as a win. If they find Christ and through him stay sober and connect to a church and grow spiritually and put back into community — that’s a win.”
“I don’t think it would have worked this long if we didn’t keep Jesus at the center of it,” Simmons said. “It’s easy for churches to see each other as competitors — but addiction doesn’t care what church you go to.”
CHERYL MANN BACON is a Christian Chronicle contributing editor who served for 20 years as chair of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at Abilene Christian University. Contact [email protected].
