Homeless Hospitality Teams Forming

Our desire to see the local cause of Homelessness have a united 'Church of the City' front took another huge step last night! It was great to see a couple handfuls of local congregations represented at our Homeless Hospitality Team information meeting. To all of you - thanks for your willingness to explore this incredible possibility of being a key part of a individuals transition off of the streets! Your passion to make a tangible difference in someones life was contagious and there was great shared energy in the room. We hope to help turn a bare apartment into a furnished home for the next identified person here in the next couple weeks through the LB Connections effort. And then again. And then again. And then again!

In a season where the Lord particularly stirs the heart of His Church for those who are under-resourced here in our city, we need to be working together as local congregations. Wouldn't you agree? Is it fair to say that duplication of efforts (at "best") and haphazard random efforts (at "worst") seem to not really be getting the job done. In fact, things like congregations continuing to serve meals in the parks (which is actually illegal and is definitely not winning us any friends or partners here in the city...even on Thanksgiving!) or having multiple congregations calling us and asking if we know who they can give their "currently being collected baskets of food for needy families" to are for us confirmation that this might just be a case of best intentions that are needing just a little more coordination and focus.

(Got that off my chest. Whew. Off my soap box now. Brad)

This is where Kingdom Causes and our congregational Homeless Hospitality Teams come in! Please don't misunderstand, we are actually excited that people want to make a difference but we just want to make sure that things are done with people's actual empowerment and long term solutions in mind! There are a lot of great organizations and efforts already in motion and there is much more that can be done! The reality is that our homeless (and the almost homeless!) neighbors are facing a year round challenge right here in our city. There are many parts to this puzzle and there might be a specific role for each of us to be playing. Kingdom Causes Long Beach is here to help connect and focus our individual and city wide organizational efforts so that Kingdom resources can be maximized in the areas of serving our homeless neighbors!

For those that are still interested and were not able to make this meeting be sure to contact us if you want to learn more about how you, your small group, your business or your local congregation might get involved too! You can check out the list of needed items at the Kingdom Causes Long Beach website on the Homelessness page. Stay tuned for the next specific update about this exciting LB Connections project!