Lets Be Sheep Not Goats

This is Stu Epperson from the Truth Talk Podcast, connecting current events, pop culture, and theology, and we're so grateful for you that you've chosen the Truth Podcast Network.

It's about to start in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, and please share it around with all your friends. Thanks for listening, and thanks for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. Kingdom Pursuits, where you hear from ordinary people instilled with an extraordinary passion. Together we explore the stories of men and women who take what they love and let God turn their passion into kingdom pursuits. Now, live from the Truth Booth, your host, Robbie Dilmore.

Well, that's almost right. I'm almost Robbie Dilmore. I'm Bill Mixon. Robbie was at a convention this week, and occasionally when he's not here, he allows me the opportunity to fill in for him.

Extra special. I even got to choose the guest to be on. I've got some heroes in my life, and most of the heroes in my life work out of one building, and I've got with me Emily Norris and Brittany Perry, who are part of the Dwelling Church, which started up four years ago, and if you understood everything that they were doing in four years, would absolutely blow your mind. So we're here to blow your mind and remind you that you've got a responsibility, if you've got Jesus in your heart, to be an ambassador for Christ and to make a difference in your life, in the lives of those around you.

Emily, tell us, how in the world did you start working with homeless? So it actually started, I was one of the ministers at Augsburg Lutheran Church here in Winston, and one of my responsibilities there was that I oversaw the overflow shelter that was part of City with Dwellings, with whom Mark was with, that was with you at this last hour. And I don't know, it was like my heart and my soul just came alive. And I was in a season in my own life of, I was in seminary getting my masters of divinity to be ordained as a pastor, and I knew that I could not do traditional church. And that was why I really drug my feet to answering the call that the Lord had put on my life, and finally someone was like, what is your problem? And I said, I just don't think I can be a pastor the way that a lot of traditional pastors, and not because I don't love traditional church, traditional church raised me up, I am who I am because of that. But when I thought about what it looked like to answer that call in my own life, I just couldn't quite get there.

And I started working with the overflow shelter and kind of running that. And it was like something came alive in me that all of a sudden makes sense, that that was who I was and what God was calling me to do. And so as I was finishing my process towards ordination, I started having conversation with our Lutheran church here in North Carolina and said, I think that there is a church among our unhoused population. And our leaders at the state level, we call it our synod, said, I think you're wrong. And I said, no, I don't think I am.

And they told me no, seven times until finally they were like, you're persistent and annoying. Maybe. Maybe.

And I said, well, we can do anything with a maybe. And so we started, so February 1st of 2020, the dwelling officially became a mission congregation of the Lutheran church and the Moravian church. Yep. Moravians came on in April of 2020 officially we signed our fully federated agreement. So it is the first and only of its kind in our entire country.

That is a fully federated from the onset Moravian Lutheran congregation. Fantastic. Brittany, you worked in with the homeless before you came to Winston, didn't you? I did.

Yeah. Um, after college I moved up to Delaware of all places and, um, I worked at a women's homeless shelter for a year and, um, I didn't know who I was at that point in my life and the trajectory of my career or what I was going to do. And that really solidified my, my heart for housing ministry and working with folks on the margins.

And so it just kind of fed really well into this internship and built me up into the person that I am. So you got in your car, you were driving home, you got lost and you ended up in Winston Salem? Something like that.

Yeah. How did you, how did you end up at the dwelling? So, um, I go to school at Wartburg Theological Seminary, which is in Iowa, of all the places that I have lived in my life, just the strangest. Um, I've lived there too.

I think that says something about us, Brittany. Um, but, uh, I am on my year of internship. So finishing up my time in seminary and, um, the opportunity to come be an intern here at the dwelling in Winston Salem came up kind of out of nowhere. I had a trajectory already planned out.

I had an entire internship ready for me. I was going to stay in Iowa at this cool congregation and try to do some things there. And then the Lord said, nope, you're actually moving back to North Carolina. And I was like, absolutely not. And so I prayed on it and went to church and the word dwelling just kept coming back up. I was like, all right, Lord, I hear you. I hear you. Okay.

This is where I'm supposed to be. And I could not ask for a better internship or a crazier internship. It is one of a kind. You actually majored in college to be a deacon. Yes. Yep. So I will graduate in May, uh, with my masters of diaconal ministry and I'll be ordained this summer as a deacon in the Lutheran church.

A thebe amongst us. Yes. What are some of the programs that city or city with dwellings is doing? I mean, um, the dwelling church is doing. So we're, um, we're really good partners with city with dwellings, um, which allows us to, uh, stay out of the lanes of the more social service kind of stuff, um, that city with dwellings does, right.

You know, helping people with their birth certificates and, you know, housing process navigating that. And we like to say that we are in the trenches of like person first ministry. So we have a mobile shower trailer that is one of our, our big, um, you might explain that a little bit. I mean, it's not how you baptize people. That is, it's not, but we, we say it's a reminder of your baptism actually.

Yeah. So we have a, a three stall mobile shower trailer that runs multiple times a week. Um, any of our, our folks in our community can come and get a shower and they can get all fresh clothing. Um, you know, underwear, socks, t-shirts, everything that they need to for personal hygiene, shower kit, everything. Um, but when we talk about showers, we talk about it, restoring dignity and restoring humanity and just kind of bringing you back to that center.

Um, because most of the people you work with are actually homeless. Correct. Correct.

Yeah. Most of the folks, I mean, all of the folks that are accessing the shower trailer are folks that are currently unhoused. Um, when we added three stalls, uh, of showers to our city, we doubled the like public showers in Winston. So it's a huge resource, but it's also one of the ways that we just get to love on people and remind them that, um, that they are washed and they are restored and that they are beloved as their starting point. And there is something about a shower, right? That kind of just like brings you back to yourself. And I think that, um, when we talk about that and we, and we lift that up, you know, that's what baptism is. It's the thing that brings us back to our center. It brings us back to our start as beloved as God's people. And so showers, they do more than just the hygiene side of thing, right?

They just restore that humanness back to people. You also provide meals for folks after church. We do. Yep.

Um, Brittany, you wanna talk about that? Yeah. So we feed 200 to 250 folks every single Sunday and, um, we feed them breakfast in the morning and lunch after church. They're welcome to come and, um, eat just lunch.

They don't have to, folks don't have to come to church. There's no stipulation on community meals, but we have a good time. Uh, it's like family meal every Sunday. We call it our feasting ministry. Now this is my guess.

You correct me. It sort of seems to me like about a third of your attendees on Sunday are homeless. A third are in low income housing and a third or might be the, the head of the church or group of kids coming in from another church.

Yeah, no, that's accurate. Um, that's what's been the surprising thing that we have seen when we, when we first started the dwelling, we thought it would be just all unhoused folks, but it turns out that people actually want to see what the kingdom of heaven is going to be like. And I think that that's what happens on Sundays. It is every kind of human that shows up and we're just our best selves when we're actually together. All of us. And you've got, I mean, sometimes you pack the room, but what do you figure your Sunday attendance is?

About 170 I would say. And then another 70 show up that just have a meal. Yeah. Well, I want you to have in your head the dwelling church and on your prayer list, I want you to be praying for the dwelling church and I want you to be praying for the homeless in your particular community. And we want you to stay with us through the break and remember we're a call in show. You're listening to the truth network and truthnetwork.com. Welcome back.

We're here at kingdom pursuits. We're talking about the dwelling church with Emily Norris and Brittany Perry. Um, just to throw out there yet one time in our country there was a whole lot of leaded gas and there was a whole lot of lead used in plumbing parts and there was a whole lot of lead in paint and that lead got in the people and it literally turned them crazy. The amount of people, the murders and the violent crimes was huge until we started getting rid of the leaded gas and started catalytic converters and started doing a lot of things and we filled up the mental health centers across the country.

And then in 1975 the ACLU won a case where they said if you were incarcerated in a mental health facility and you wanted out, you had to be let out. And all those people left and our incarceration rate in the jails went through the roof and our OD's went through the roof and our homeless population went through the roof. Point being, a lot of the folks that are homeless have emotional problems that they're dealing with, that they're trying to get a handle on.

A lot of them could really use some psychiatry and some chemicals and they don't get them and a lot of them end up self-medicating. Um, a lot of folks if they have a chance to sit across from somebody who's clear eyed and is interested in them and is talking to them and is sharing with them, they can become totally different folks with some love. And it's wonderful to see the changes that have occurred in the population that the dwelling church has serviced. A lot of folks are a whole lot better off today than they were a number of years ago.

Would you share a couple success stories? Yeah. Um, yeah. I think that the point, the point you're making there, Bill, is that relationship matters and relationship is actually the thing that walks us back to wholeness. And like, we often say that homelessness, right? There's a lot of things that contribute to that. And at the core, homelessness is a breakdown of relationship. People have, have been, have broken from their networks of support around them.

And so the only way that we're going to love people back into life is to surround them with relationship. And so we've definitely seen that at the dwelling over and over again. There's one young man that I think of that, um, when I first met him, uh, I actually didn't really meet him. He was on his way, like walking past us and I could tell he was just not into something good. And I looked at him, I said, what are you doing? And like, I did not know him. And he, I said, what are you doing?

Where are you going? And he's like, why do you want to know? And I said, I could just tell.

And I was like, you should rethink that. And it turns out like now on the backside of it, he was on his way absolutely to go do a drug deal. And here's this crazy white woman who's like, what are you doing?

Where are you going? Um, and he was like, I didn't know who she was and what, like, what was she doing? And, but he now is one of our, like most solid leaders in our church. He helps to lead our summer program in, uh, with our young people. And he's one of our counselors. He serves on our stewards team. So he shows up on Sundays to help make sure that just the rhythms of Sunday are secured and steadfast. He speaks when we have, you know, guests that come, he was in our voices for the dwelling, uh, program where he wrote his story and shared it and created original artwork and music. And I mean, his life is completely different because one day I said, what are you doing? You're better than that.

Don't do that. And, and he just kind of kept coming back because I think he was like, who does this girl think she is? Um, and now his life is totally different. And I think it's because like, we, we help, we hold each other accountable because we, we love each other. And, um, and it's when you can like, that relationship starts to plant, then you can have harder conversations with each other, um, and continue to call each other back to, to ourselves. And they do that for us too. Um, when we're, when we get wonky, they'll be like, what's going on with you? Right.

So it's not just us, uh, to them. It's, it's, it's mutual relationship. Brittany, you got a favorite story. You go home and you trying to explain to your parents that you're not crazy.

What's your favorite story? Uh, well recently I have been having a lot of good conversations with, uh, with new folks and there is a gentleman who's been coming for a while that just is kind of mean and like snarky. Snarky is an accurate word. And like a lot of the times folks will just write him off as a mean guy and like not want to talk to him or just brush it off and like, no you can't help me mop the floor today because you're being mean about it and I don't like that.

Um, which is fair. But I, I just like sat down with him recently and had really deep conversations and he's like, Deacon, I'm just like struggling. I, I've got this storage unit that I, I'm behind on my payments and they're going to sell all of the things that are in there. And I was like, I'm like, he had yelled at somebody earlier that day and to me he goes, I'm really sorry that I did that. I just have all of this baggage that I'm carrying right now. And I was like, Oh my gosh, you're not just a mean guy. Did you tell, is that what you said to him?

No, I didn't say that. Um, but I just, I really appreciate just the conversations that I've had and really realizing that people are people, you know, they're carrying things just like I am and we can't boil it down to like, that's just a mean guy. No, that's a guy who's a person and he is complicated and he has things going on in his life and maybe that's coming out as aggression or snarkiness and, and just loving him through that and being able to say, Hey, you're being mean right now because now I have this relationship with him. And he's like, Oh, you're right. You're right. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. He told you he loved you, didn't he?

He did. I caught him in the hallway the other day and we were talking somewhere about his situation right now. And I was like, Hey, I love you.

He goes, Oh, I know I love you too. You know, if you, you got to figure out where are you going to put your head down at night? Are you going to be safe? You know, is something bad going to happen to you between the time you actually fall asleep and the time you wake up, your, your stomach's empty. You got to figure there's a place to eat, but it's about a four mile walk to get there.

And then after I eat, I've got to go somewhere else. You know, a bad day for a homeless person is something most of us just can't wrap our heads around. And then there's physical pain.

There's all kinds of injuries that have are healing or aren't healing. Um, it's tough to be homeless. Yeah. We have this program in the summer.

Um, it's called spark dwell. And we have youth from across the country come do their short term mission trip with us. But on the very first day of that, we do what we call our pilgrimage through the margins and leaders from our community from the dwelling have written down their lived experience. And these kids go and they do the physical trek of trying to get their vital documents or trying to find shelter for the night or longterm housing or clothes for a job interview or doing laundry, right?

All of these things that are really just basic survival things that our, our folks have to do all the time. And these kids, they go through the whole day and they, they walk miles or they're getting on the public bus and they are seeing and feeling and experiencing things they've never, they've never had the opportunity to experience before. And they've done everything right throughout their day. They've gotten on the right bus.

They've taken the right turn. They've talked to the person that they were told to talk to and nothing works out for them. And so they come back and at the end and they're so frustrated because they're like, we didn't do anything wrong. And yet we still didn't get shelter for the night because they're all the shelters are full or because we didn't have the right documentation to be able to prove who we are.

So we couldn't get into this place or whatever it is. Somebody stole our laundry. Somebody stole our laundry or their phone.

Somebody steals phones all day long. Oh yeah, just that's a constant. And so we say to them, okay, so what would it feel like if we were like, Hey, so you thought you were coming here for the week to do service and just kidding tomorrow, you're going to have to go try to do this. You're going to have to go get mental health care. And they're like, no, I would go home. Right. Right. But that's not the reality for your neighbors, like for this community, because they have, they have to get up tomorrow and they have to do it all again. And they're going to hit the same roadblocks because nothing changed between yesterday and today. That's going to make it any easier, which is why it's so important for organizations like city with dwellings and churches like the dwelling, right.

And folks that are faithfully committed right to serving their neighbors, to step into those places, because it's nearly impossible if you don't have community wrapped around you to navigate these systems and to try to get out of it. Um, but it's hard and it's hard on your body and it is hard on your spirit and it's hard on your brain. I mean, and you talk about self-medicating and like having to do the same thing over again without getting any sort of different results. Well, I can't say that I wouldn't also turn to something to try to numb that pain of having to do this and live in this world and the trauma and where am I going to lay my head?

What am I going to eat? And there's a lot of complicating factors for that. I sold insurance and would be a constant thing where somebody would call up and their check bounced. Well, their check bounced because their previous check bounced and then they had an extra fee on the insurance to get it up and then their next check bounced and then their insurance canceled, which meant that they had fines to the state. You know, one little checking account mishap can end up putting you $400 in a hole and there are lots of people that are $10 short every week that don't have the extra money in the savings account. Right now, you know how much more it costs for you to live. You know how much more your energy bills are.

You know how much more grocery costs. There's a sea of people out there that were just almost barely getting by two years ago that aren't getting by now. Our homelessness is going to go through the roof and our communities need to come together. Our churches need to come together and we need to figure out how we can make a difference in the people that God puts in our path. It takes a plan and you and your friends and your church need to start working on that plan. I want you to pray for the station and the dwelling church and we'll be back right after this.

Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits. We're here with Emily Norris and Brittany Perry from the Dwelling Church, associated also with the City with Dwellings. They work with the homeless in our area and I'm sure that there are groups in your area that you can help. I'd like you to keep in mind that Jesus calls us to work with the least of these, be generous to the poor and everything will be clean for you, Jesus said to the Pharisees.

James, listen my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom? It always amazes me when I come into City with Dwellings and the Dwelling, you've got these folks that are just barely hanging on but they're loving and they're caring and they're compassionate. They're a group of people that if they only had five dollars they'd share three with somebody else.

They're folks that come into this shared space that we work with during the week and they'll let their phone be most prized possession in the world if you're homeless is your phone and they'll leave it charged and not worry about somebody walking off with it. Talk to me a little bit about some of the folks that you've worked with and whether or not you've been surprised at the character of the folks that come and worship with you. Oh I am often taken aback by how incredible our folks are. Actually just to be personal for a minute, my partner lost his twin sister last Sunday in just a really tragic quick awful way and so we had to duck out of church and weren't there at all this week and our community members have reached out to us via text and Facebook Messenger to check on us every single day. Brittany and I had to go to the building to go to church this morning and I walked in and one of our folks, his name is Conte, he came up to me and he said, how's cowboy? That's my partner's kind of nickname and I said he's okay and he said well this week he said I did a bunch of landscaping. He said I planted flowers on this hill and I trimmed these bushes and I made sure that the the porta-potty was all clean and just like in our in our absence from needing to be humans ourselves this week our community just completely rallied around and took care of things for us and so it's not even I mean you know but I've also seen people drop their drop money or drop phones and have seen our community chase after them to be like you dropped this right so it is as simple as just like taking care of each other that way but also on that like deep spiritual level the commitment that that this community has to caring for each other is really really beautiful. Yeah and nobody asked them to step up this week right? As staff we were like okay we have to fill this gap like our pastor is gone and there are still things that have to get done right church moves on and so we knew we were gonna step up into that role but our people like Conte just they were like okay well this is what we're doing and like just because they love us. Yeah yeah I'm surprised every day by these folks yeah in the best way. And even just you know when you think about traditional church you know there's that time of passing the offering plates and we don't pass an offering plate at the dwelling because we don't want we know money can be really triggering and we also just don't want there to be another thing of shame in the church because our folks have so much shame in the rest of their life that we don't want people to be like well I can't give and so I right and just we just don't want to create that dynamic and yet there are people I mean every single month that are like here I get my social security and here's my thirty dollars which is my 10% of what my check is or I here's like a bag of coins from what I collected yesterday while I was panhandling or here's my food stamp card can I buy the drinks this week for the community meal like with using my food stamps and so there is just a spirit of generosity and it looks different than where those might absolutely and and like just the folks that show up to help set up and clean up and serve the meal and you know we say a lot at the dwelling that your housing status or your mental health history or your substance use or your incarceration record none of those things negate your ability to serve and so we have a whole church that's filled with servant leaders that show up to serve each other now how long have you been in the space we're in now yeah we've been in our current space for just over a year and it was if you looked inside it two years ago and somebody said to you turn this into a church you would have run off screaming and right now most churches not all most churches would be absolutely thrilled to have a space like you've got with a huge sanctuary a full kitchen how many different organizations every day of the week you've got bustling going on people with different organizations helping the homeless love out loud what else do you allow to share your space so we've got love out loud which is a community kind of organizing convening group that does a lot of networking we've got an organization called school of love which is working they're doing some really incredible stuff bringing people that you would look at that seem like polar opposites right politically ethnically socially all of that bringing them together with a shared commitment to going and worshiping together in each other's communities really trying to just create avenues for bridging some of those divides that are really prevalent in our in our world right now there's an organization it's called family promise is that right yeah I couldn't think of that but they help families before they're separated in the foster system so trying to really support young moms so that families can stay connected we've got positive wellness alliance that is doing a lot of work but primarily out of this office case management for folks living with HIV and AIDS doing housing support and then we've got the Forsyth County community coat closet that uses that as their main hub that distributes coats to not only our unhoused population but also to schools so a bunch of the resource officers from all of the schools in Forsyth County can contact the coat closet and they'll go and gather up clothing coats warm weather stuff hats gloves scarves for all of our students in the county and then we've got an organization called spark that does a lot of service service they organize service throughout this city and help to mobilize groups to do cause-based long-term equitable service and then you've got city with dwellings in the dwelling so and then white flag you when the temperature gets below freezing is the one of the very few places available for the homeless to go yep yeah that's exactly right so when the weather hits 32 and below or 38 with precipitation and below our fellowship hall opens up as a winter emergency shelter city with dwellings our partner nonprofit really manages the ins and outs of that but it's really a community effort lots of different community groups sign up to help bring the meal and the breakfast bags the to-go bags in the mornings there's monitors and volunteers that come to help with the check-in process and to serve dinner so there's a lot of ways that people can be involved with that but it is the only the only place in our city that opens for emergency shelter when the weather drops and then Lewis goes out and takes people to yeah get get meals to get groceries yep so we call that our pantry party and Lewis is an incredible incredible member of this community but he volunteers and takes the church fan out three four times a week and knows all of the pantries in this city and so helps people get groceries and stock their cabinets because one of the realities about public transportation in Winston is that you can only take two bags on a bus and so it's really hard to stock your pantry when you can't carry more than two bags on public transit so he helps to take folks that do have shelter that are in you know housing to be able to make sure they've got food now when I do the prison service I come to city with dwellings after that I've seen lots of people that have been baptized oh yeah real quick you got a count so far oh I think that in our last four years we've probably baptized 65 or 70 people it is just a spectacular way to spend an hour on Sunday morning we will we will talk a little bit about that when we come back think about ways you can make a difference in your community to be a light on the hill you're listening to the truth network and truthnetwork.com welcome back you're here on kingdom pursuits this is bill mixon filling in for robbie dillmore I've got two heroes of mine here from the dwelling church they also work with city with dwellings wonderful congregation they've created a really large church with a really good attendance but not only that they use the space that they have to help a lot of other organizations do things to help our community they bring in a lot of volunteers they bring in volunteers from other states to come in and learn what it's like to be homeless and you wanted to share yeah I'd love to talk about young people experiencing homelessness just in the last year alone something like 17 to 20 percent more families are experiencing homelessness so that number is on the rise quickly and unaccompanied youth that is 25 and under that are not accompanied by a parent or guardian I don't have the specific number I want to say it was like 19 percent it was a lot just in one year last year so awful awful numbers really and at the dwelling there's kind of this double-edged sword of we I mean we hate that this is happening right we hate seeing young people especially having to go through this experience in their life from such a young age but we're seeing more kiddos at church which is like so fun and personally I've been starting a youth program Sunday school is happening for little kids which is the first time ever for our congregation and that's it's been a lot of fun for me we have a classroom Sunday morning before worship with all ages because we just don't have enough yet to separate out into multiple classes so there's six to ten eleven year olds forming their faith and learning about Jesus and it's a it's a grand old time and we're forming a youth group of our older youth to go do fun things like take them bowling or go see a movie just really forming relationships with each other and and talking about Jesus and making sure that they have a good time and can step away from the trauma horror yeah the trauma that is the rest of their life we're really excited about next summer getting our kids all to camp yeah so we're gonna get them all up to the mountains oh my gosh exciting things go see go meet Jesus in the mountains well if you're listening to this show I'm gonna assume that you're a leader in your church and you're a leader in your community and as an ambassador for Christ I want to share a suggestion with you get your small group get your Bible study get a group from your church to put together care packages in gallon size bags put in a bottle of water put in some snacks that don't have to be cooked like Vienna sausages or some nabs put in a resource list you can contact your local library they can send you to the right place where can people go to get a meal to get food to get clothes where can people go to get hooked up to get help with mental health problems or legal services there's probably already a document that you can use if not that would be a good thing for you to also put together put that in I always put a Bible a small Gideon Bible in the bag that I do never ever give cash but you can get coupons from the McDonald's or if there are a lot of Hardee's or if there's some fast food restaurants you can put a ten dollar coupon in that bag now fix up a bunch of them get before your church and say let us have 10 or 15 minutes to talk about what we should be doing with this bag this bag is an opportunity to pray for people and when you see folks that are in need you don't have to think about why are they there are they misusing the money or they do their life's got to be pretty bad if they've chosen to be on the side of the street and they call it flying a flag and if you can say here I've just got this for you I'm gonna pray for you this week now if you want to get extra credit you can say you see that restaurant right over there if you'll walk over to that restaurant I'll buy you breakfast and I'll sit and talk to you but get the entire church to be praying for the homeless that they come across and have a way to make a difference for those people and then find some ways to get connected the dwelling church has lots of volunteer opportunities city with dwellings has lots of volunteer opportunity all those different organizations that Emily mentioned have volunteer opportunities I hate to say this but I really think we're supposed to tithe our time too we've got to find ways to make a difference in the lives of others we've got to be God's shoulders and God's hands nobody wants to know what you know about Jesus if you're not there to help them if somebody's hungry or doesn't have clothes they don't care what you've got to say about Jesus you've got to lift people up a certain amount for them to be in a position to do what you're called to do you're called to share the good news of Jesus Christ you're called to share why you've got a reason for your faith you've got an opportunity to make a difference in people's lives and if you're a good steward of your time you'll do that more and more and more what else would you like who are some of your community partners that make it possible for you to feed all the people you feed each week yeah so our one of our community partners that's really local is Augsburg Lutheran Church the building that we're in is a gift from them and so we we are grateful for that but ELCA World Hunger is a huge supporter of our our feasting ministry along with the Moravian Church and so yeah we apply for a lot of different a lot of different grants to be able to do what we do Jesus has brought so many people to us yeah and what's really cool is it's just so such a ecumenical partnership across the board Jesus said Lord when did we see you hungry and feed you when were you thirsty and we gave you a drink he said I tell you because you did it did not do it for the least of you these you did not do it for me let's be sheep and not goats this week let's find a way to make a difference in the lives God puts in our pay up. This is the Truth Network.