In this compelling and heartfelt video, Pastor Ian Simkins of The Bridge Church in Spring Hill, TN, delves into the transformative week he chose to experience homelessness firsthand. With vivid detail and raw emotion, Pastor Ian shares insights from his journey—challenges faced, lessons learned, and the profound impact it had on his faith and ministry. From the streets of Philadelphia to interactions with the homeless community, his story reveals the depths of human kindness and the societal gaps that often go unnoticed.
Join Pastor Ian as he reflects on the importance of true, incarnational hospitality and the subtle, powerful ways we can embody the teachings of Jesus in our everyday interactions.
📺 Watch the full episode here:
https://youtu.be/Q5tvrlj9vkk
Visit my website:
https://itstartswithattraction.com
WE HAVE A NEW WEBSITE!!
Visit www.itstartswithattraction.com to check it out!
In this compelling and heartfelt video, Pastor Ian Simkins of The Bridge Church in Spring Hill, TN, delves into the transformative week he chose to experience homelessness firsthand. With vivid detail and raw emotion, Pastor Ian shares insights from his journey—challenges faced, lessons learned, and the profound impact it had on his faith and ministry. From the streets of Philadelphia to interactions with the homeless community, his story reveals the depths of human kindness and the societal gaps that often go unnoticed.
Join Pastor Ian as he reflects on the importance of true, incarnational hospitality and the subtle, powerful ways we can embody the teachings of Jesus in our everyday interactions.
📺 Watch the full episode here:
https://youtu.be/Q5tvrlj9vkk
Visit my website:
https://itstartswithattraction.com
WE HAVE A NEW WEBSITE!!
Visit www.itstartswithattraction.com to check it out!
Can you tell us about the week you decided to be homeless? What in the world are these?
Speaker 2:questions. How did you know? Did I mention that in a sermon?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you did.
Speaker 2:Did I kind of just like sneak it in and then move on Pretty much what happened. I could tell from some of the expressions People are like wait, what he did? What now Backup? Yeah, it wasn't even like a main point of this. Yeah, yeah, it wasn't even like a main point of this. Yeah, yeah, how much do you want to know?
Speaker 1:What led you to do it? What was it like? What changed in your life after?
Speaker 2:Oh, my gosh, I'd want to do. For as long as I could remember my parents are some of the most like, beautiful, faithful Jesus people. I know, and we disagree on a lot, but they you know grownups. Outside Detroit there's a thing called meals on wheels. I think we maybe have that here from as early as I can remember, even, like there was a conviction on, like on Christmas, before we open any gifts, we're going to go serve some people. We're just going to go serve some people. We're just going to go love on people. That was just like I'm so grateful for them and that that was just so ingrained. And from that, you know, we would help at soup kitchens. My parents for a long time hosted a breakfast in the basement of our church. My, my dad would drive a bus and pick everyone up and my mom would prepare this enormous meal for 80 homeless men and women Like just, it's just, I was always just around and I had always wanted to.
Speaker 2:I had discovered somewhere in that I was like man, I'm always the one serving and they're the ones being served. Like, no matter how many times we both come here, there's still going to be a hierarchical chasm that I was always interested in trying to break down. And it was lovely, and you get to know people's stories and names, but they still knew I'm the one serving, you're the one being served. And so I talked about it for a while with one friend in particular, and anytime we got close to kind of making it happen, he would, he would bail, and I don't. I don't know what happened, but finally I was like I'm just going to do it. So I had a couple of rules for myself. I would only, I could only use the money that I panhandled for. So, like I bought a little guitar and I wanted to go to a city where I didn't know anybody, so that I couldn't like bail. And it got hard Cause I knew that. I knew that it was going to be harder than I thought, and so I didn't know anybody in Philadelphia. So I literally just bought a plane ticket and from the airport. There's like a little trolley guy and he said where to and I said the city and he said where in the city, and I was like the middle, I literally didn't know. He's like okay, so he drops me off and learned a lot of hard lessons really quickly. One I'm not very good at guitar, so that was rough. So the first couple of days you know I was the first night I slept outside a hotel and they kicked me out of there. So I was like definitely just finding it. It was kind of rainy, I didn't make any money, so I think it had been two solid days before I'd eaten anything. And now I'm starting to freak out a little bit because this is not going how I had planned.
Speaker 2:I remember overhearing someone talk about soup kitchens or something. I remember asking a guy like hey, can you, can you give me some some Intel on where, where these soup kitchens are? And he got, he just he gave me this list of like all the different churches and rescue missions, and it was. I was like I think I was really emphatic in my gratitude Cause I hadn't eaten yet and he said he's like man, it's not a black thing or a white thing, it's a belly thing and we're all hungry and that like that just stuck with me for some reason. So I got, I got a meal and then I found this little community that had been sleeping under the overpass and I got to know these four or five people from there real quickly and one guy I couldn't believe it he was.
Speaker 2:He had a big piece of cardboard. He was sleeping on under the, under this bridge, and when I told him I was like trying to figure out you know where to where to stay, without even thinking about it, he like ripped this cardboard in half right away and he's like all right, you'll sleep on this. Like just, it was instant generosity. It was such a wild experience. But I think part of what I mentioned on Sunday was I was not prepared for how people would avoid me and like avoid eye contact, walk to the other side of the street, clutch their purse, like after just a week, that and that did something to my soul. That I thought, man, if I'm feeling the effects of this after seven days, I can't imagine after seven years I was much more aware of it than I think that I would be, but experiencing the generosity of this community and some of the stuff that they said, some of the stuff that was really simple.
Speaker 2:One guy in particular. His story was so ordinary. He was a laborer, and one day on the job he busted his arm. He didn't have any disability assurance and he didn't heal right, so he was out of work for like way longer than he planned to, and then he couldn't afford rent and he was kicked out of his house and that was 12 years ago, like it. Just there was no, and something that like really struck me was I have been given this social net, this family that I didn't earn or deserve. Like 150 people would have to die for me to end up on the street. They would all say, well then you'll stay in our guest room, you'll stay on our couch Like that just became so clear to me so quickly. Like this community that I didn't do anything to earn or deserve would keep me from ever ending up in a space like that.
Speaker 2:And some of these stories were like I just didn't have anybody, I didn't know where else to go, so I started turning tricks or I started selling drugs, I started whatever it was Like it's. But before that, though, I was like a. I was a middle-class dad, I was working at the steel mill like really strangely ordinary stories and that felt like that was a perspective shift for me. The other thing that was really hard was going to some of these rescue missions and soup kitchens Some of them were really lovely and others were not and so getting like a peek behind from that perspective, as someone being served, that changed something in me as a pastor and the kinds of ministries that I wanted to be a part of. And now it's I mean now it's been, oh gosh, 20 years, like some of those stories I think are just going to be with me forever, but have have shaped. Have shaped my thinking, I think, in ways that I don't even I don't even yet fully understand.
Speaker 1:It kind of goes back to that hospitality.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, mindset, exactly.
Speaker 1:At lunch. I don't know why this came up at lunch today, but one of our team members we were talking about tithing and one of our team members was talking about how it was interesting in the Old Testament like the sacrificial law, the way it included protections for people who were foreigners outskirts you know homeless.
Speaker 1:And it was. I mean, they said it was like the only religion that had the that built into it, and it just makes me think about our society now. And I mean, sure, there's like government programs and but yeah, there's such an opportunity to love on those people, isn't there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes, and I think it's. It's far more expansive than people realize. Like, yes, obviously, the meal, like food, shelter our physical needs, which I think is absolutely brilliant and necessary. I also think of, like, the number of times Jesus touches the leper that he heals is so compelling to me, because this is just conjecture, this is not doctrine. I'm assuming he could have just like pointed at him and they were good, right, just sort of like Jesus laser fingers, just boom, you're good. Why bother touching him? In many cases maybe it had been decades since that person had ever even been touched. I mean, by law they had to shout unclean everywhere they walked and everyone would step back, usually in horror. And this rabbi comes along. It doesn't just heal him, does what maybe they haven't experienced in a long, long time and like touches him.
Speaker 2:I think, man, if we're given meals but we're not making eye contact, like, we're missing a big part of the incarnational ministry of Jesus. I think it's part of why the incarnation matters. It shows that physicality matters. The material world has something to teach us of Jesus, of the kingdom. So if I'm just, yeah, man, if I'm just chucking coins out the window, that person might be grateful. But I think, in the way of Jesus, it's looking them in the eye and saying what's your name, man, what's your story? Like that, I think, is often the added piece that is missed, and it's what I felt so intensely.
Speaker 2:I think being on the streets is that, yeah, and it's what I felt so intensely. I think being on the streets is that, yeah, some people did the charitable thing, but you could tell I'm trying to get out of here as fast as possible and I'm not trying to prescribe anyone do anything one particular way over the other. I just think there's an incarnational side to ministry that can be lost when we're in a hurry, when we're only digital, when we're too distracted. You know those are the, those are often, I think, the enemies to incarnational hospitality, which is much slower, it's messier, but even I mean, think about the metaphors Jesus uses for the kingdom. He talks about yeast and bread, dough, mustard, seeds. Those are like slow, small things and we're so addicted to fast and results, and you know what I mean. Like incarnational ministry takes time, uh, and a lot of us, that's the thing we don't have, you know so how?
Speaker 1:how do we get more time?
Speaker 2:you can't, you don't get more time. You can't, you don't get more time. You make choices. I think that there's. I have a coach who says there are no decisions, only trade-offs. Me saying yes to a speaking engagement might mean me saying no to being at my kid's game. Is that a trade-off that I'm willing to make? Most of us are pretty good at making to-do lists. I don't know anyone who's making not do lists or stop doing lists. You know those are, those are. That's a harder list to make, I think because of a number of factors because we live in a hustle culture and because we measure our identity and value by our accomplishment and performance and all those things.
Speaker 2:I have asked that question. I became a father a little bit later in life. Most of my peers did the baby thing like a decade ago, which I understand why now I'm just tired. I'm tired man. But I will say, the silver lining, though, of doing it a little bit later in life is I feel like I have a much better appreciation for time. I think if I had had started having babies in my early twenties, I would have, I would have blinked, and they'd be moving out this year, and it is a grace to me that I feel very keenly aware of.
Speaker 2:I look at my six-year-old. I'm like I have you as a six-year-old for such a brief window. I don't want to miss it. I don't want to miss it. It's Jacob wrestling with God. Surely God was in this place and I was unaware of it. I don't want to live my life unaware of the activity of God. So I can't add. I can't add any more time to the 24 hours that each of us is given, but I can make choices that say that might be a good thing, it's not the best thing, that might be an opportunity or a whatever. I don't think that's not the most important thing right now, and those are very hard decisions to make, at least for me.
Speaker 2:I like saying yes to everything. I always have a little bit of FOMO. That's never gone away. Maybe that's the homeschool kid in me, I don't know. That does not come naturally at all. But if I enough times, though, have thought, god, I think I might be missing what it is that you want to do in me and my family by simply saying yes to everything. Give me the courage to say no to good things so that I can say yes to the best things, and I I'm. I'm still growing there. I got a long way to go, I think, but it's. I think it's a worthy prayer and one that we probably all need in some capacity.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah.