Draft in progress; November27, 2014
Hi all,
Thanks for taking time to dig into the “DO it in Your Area” section.
We think God may use the DO as a model for ministry, so we’re detailing the precepts,
thoughts, and nuts and bolts of the operation so you can pray and see if the Spirit moves you to
adopt anything you might see here.
It’s not just for outreach to the poor; you may get ideas about how to improve your car repair
ministry or craft sales. We pray that as you read about our convictions and the considerations
and hits and misses, you’ll see a glorification of God at work, Who informs us by His Spirit so we
can bear witness to the love of Christ.
Feel free to drop as a line with comments, suggestions, or questions. downtown@cbclife.org
By the way: You’ll see some sections marked “You can skip this.” These are illustrations or
anecdotes or thoughts which you can go straight past and still understand the main content of
this testimony.
The recipes
(Overall, we don’t go too spicy because of the digestion of many we serve; adjust according to
your own crowd)
Acadian Garlic Soup
(This is a batch adapted from The Great Garlic Cookbook by Sophie Hale.)
1 ½ heads of elephant garlic (or about 2 cups of packaged regular sized cloves, 1 ¾ cups of fresh
regular-sized cloves)
2 cups olive oil
40 cups low-sodium chicken broth
2 ¼ teaspoons ground thyme
2 teaspoons white pepper
24 egg yolks
Soup maker:
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Put about two cups of ice in large bowl and cover with water.
In a separate pot, boil about a quart of water.
When water begins boiling, add garlic and boil for one minute.
Remove garlic from boiling water and submerge in ice water.
Remove garlic and peel, cutting off root ends.
Slice garlic about ¼” thick.
Pour 1 ½ cups of olive oil into pot and heat over low flame. Add garlic. Simmer for ten
minutes, stirring with wooden spoon to keep garlic from browning.
8. Add 40 cups of chicken stock, five teaspoons of ground thyme, and two teaspoons of
white pepper. Simmer for 30 minutes.
9. Whisk egg yolks together and add ½ cup olive oil. Very slowly add about ½ cup of the
soup to warm the egg mixture.
10. Remove garlic from pot and place in blender, adding about ½ cup of soup. Blend, then
return to pot, whisking slowly.
11. Add the egg mixture slowly. Egg mixture should thicken the soup, not cook in the
soup (e.g. scrambled eggs). If the egg is hardening, stop and add more of the hot
soup to the egg mixture before resuming.
The sandwiches
Use a good multi-grain bread. Consider food allergies if necessary.
(Except for the gluten-free sandwiches, we use breads which are not guaranteed to be nut-free,
and there have been no problems. We did added a notice on our sandwich labels recently.)
Gluten-free
Our gluten-free sandwiches are simply a version of our other sandwiches, using gluten-free
bread. These are made first on a sterilized counter wrapped in service film before any other
breads are opened. We used to make four sandwiches (two servings) a week but there was
little interest, so guests are asked to request these specialty items two days in advance.
Ham Apple Hummus
2 slices multi-grain bread
4 ounces ham lunch meat
1 1/2 tablespoons hummus
1 slice tomato (2 small slices)
3 or 4 very thin jazz apple slices (almost transparent)
3 or 4 thin cucumber slices
Generous amount of spinach
Ham and Pineapple
2 slices multi-grain bread
4 ounces ham lunch meat
1 slice tomato (2 small slices)
2 tablespoons crushed pineapple
3 or 4 thin cucumber slices
Generous amount of spinach
Slightly Spicy Ham
2 slices multi-grain bread
4 ounces ham lunch meat
1 slice tomato (2 small slices)
2 1/2 tablespoons spicy lentil soup concentrate
3 or 4 thin cucumber slices
Generous amount of spinach
Turkcado
2 slices multi-grain bread
4 ounces turkey lunch meat
1 slice tomato (2 small slices)
3 or 4 thin cucumber slices
4-5 strips of fresh avacado
3-5 slices of Bellini mushrooms (1/8” thick or so)
Generous amount of spinach
Turkey Dijon
2 slices multi-grain bread
4 ounces turkey lunch meat
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 slice tomato (2 small slices)
3 or 4 thin cucumber slices
3-5 slices of Bellini mushrooms (1/8” thick or so)
Generous amount of spinach
Turkey Hummus
2 slices multi-grain bread
4 ounces turkey lunch meat
1 1/2 tablespoons hummus*
1 slice tomato (2 small slices)
3 or 4 thin cucumber slices
3-5 slices of Bellini mushrooms (1/8” thick or so)
Generous amount of spinach
Veggie
2 slices multi-grain bread
2 tablespoons hummus*
1 slice tomato (2 small slices)
3 or 4 thin cucumber slices
3-5 strips of fresh avacado
3-5 slices of Bellini mushrooms (1/8” thick or so)
Generous amount of spinach
*The hummus
This easy recipe makes about 16 cups of hummus. Frozen batches last for weeks.
This hummus tastes great and is about one-third the price of a good hummus at the grocery.
Give yourself an hour or so to make the spread and clean afterward.
Use a powerful blender with large capacity; it’s easy to overtax the motors on ordinary
blenders.
1 cup tahini (get it from an Indian-food grocery if possible and it’s likely to be much cheaper)
¾ cup lemon juice
4 fifteen-ounce cans of garbanzo beans; drain one
2 tablespoons freshly-minced garlic
2 teaspoons cumin
½ cup of good olive oil
Blend the tahini and lemon juice for one minute.
Add everything else, reserving water from one of the cans of beans.
Blend until creamy but not runny, adding reserved water as necessary.
That’s it.
The soup
Acadian Garlic Soup (based on The Great Garlic Cookbook) coming soon!
You can skip this:
Grocery shopping and other food tips
It’s best to make sandwiches with the freshest of ingredients.
Stock up on items which won’t go bad any time soon -- cans of crushed pineapple or ground
thyme, for instance. But bread, spinach, tomatoes, sliced mushrooms and such -- even if sold in
packages -- should be purchased the morning of your outreach if possible. If there are
leftovers, keep them for the following outreach and inspect them very carefully before use.
Don’t refrigerate bread (the non-gluten-free kind) or tomatoes; it changes the texture in an
unpleasant way. Don’t refrigerate whole garlic or apples.
Making the money count
In our area, we compared shopping at Costco, Safeway, FoodMaxx, and combinations thereof.
We factored distance, time spent shopping, and gas (but not Costco’s membership fees) and, in
the end, we found that by using Just4U coupons, we got the best overall value from Safeway by
an attractive margin.
For instance: Costco may have lunch meat for $5.99 a pound compared to Safeway’s $6.99, so - in quantity -- that’s a savings of $14 a week. Not bad!
But Costco is also 20 minutes further away than Safeway, so that’s about $2.50 in gas and 40
minutes in travel time. It takes much longer to shop and pay in Costco than Safeway. So let’s
be generous and say the trip takes an hour and a half instead of thirty minutes.
Many other items at Safeway are actually less expensive than Costco, too, so that’s a factor. It’s
also easier to select individual vegetables in the weekly quantity we prefer. So even before the
time and gas were figured in, the overall grocery purchase price was surprisingly similar; adding
the elements of time and convenience made the clear choice Safeway.
This isn’t to advocate shopping at Safeway (even if that’s an option); this advocates being smart
about your shopping.
For instance: We sometimes get tips which sound great, but don’t really wind up being a
bargain. Let’s say Trader Joe’s gives away bread a day before the “sell by” date to non-profits
on a first-come, first serve basis. Very nice!
Well:
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There’s no guarantee they’ll have the bread every week, or that we’ll be fortunate
enough to be first in line;
There’s no guarantee what variety the bread will be, or in what quantity;
With good bread, there often is a discernible and less-pleasant difference in texture
after it’s a few days old.
Let’s also add that you’ve now, by necessity, made two different trips for groceries
rather than one and used more gas and time.
Your situation may be markedly different and your experience opposite; we would be greatly
surprised if our God of such extraordinary compassion and creativity didn’t provide for each
outreach in a unique and joyous way. The point may be aimed more at folks who might not
think of some of these perspectives, but it is this: Be wise as a serpent and gentle as a dove.
Shop wisely and offer a glimpse of God’s love with every sandwich.
How we behave tells the world Who God is. We’re His ambassadors, and people who don’t
even believe in God look at His people at watch and say aha.
I’ll repeat this anecdote again later -- it’s a favorite -- but a great example of this is one fellow
we fed for the first time who later came back and said, “You can tell by the way you guys make
your sandwiches that you actually care about people!”
That’s what we want: little sandwiches that glorify God; that point to Him.
The DO Convictions
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We are to share the love of God with others.
We are to serve those in need.
God is inviting us to a banquet (Luke 14:15-24 (Matthew 22:1-14)).
In our outreach, we try to reflect God’s love and some tiny fraction of His banquet, abundant
life, and care for individuals.
We try to get to know our guests as individuals and be vigilant about not just processing a line
of people. Some folks prefer not to interact on that level, and we don’t insist upon it. We do
ask each guest for a first name and if they have a prayer request, but it’s important that guests
feel free and unashamed to not participate if they prefer.
We strive for quality. God’s banquet table must have wonderful food, so we try to offer
wonderful food we ourselves enjoy eating. Our sandwiches are tasty and nutritious, and we
offer options for those with some dietary needs.
That quality, combined with a dedication to dependability, steadfastness, and individual
concern give people some glimpse of Who the Father is. One guest said after his first visit, “I
can tell by the way you guys make your sandwiches that you actually care about people!”
We focus on healthy foods and restrict any sort of food which is not nutritional. Many people
get great comfort from food with little other value -- and we recognize that value -- but we feel
we should steer in the other direction. Most people in need are getting filling food which often
is quite unhealthy. We’re giving gifts, and we’re concerned about what our gifts say we think of
each guest about his or her worth. Handing someone an attractively-packaged gourmet
sandwich has a great impact; some guests have asked us where we buy the sandwiches,
assuming they were from a high-end deli! Praise God.
Another reason is that sustained diets of poor nutrition contribute not only to physical illness,
but mental difficulties like depression. We’re not currently serving our guests every single meal
they eat in a week, but at least one of those meals will be something not only filling, but of true
value to their bodies. We treat their bodies like temples and not disposals.
Toward that end, we also try to offer items which they might not be getting anywhere else: new
socks and underwear, full-sized (and sometimes larger-print) Bibles in four languages, sleeping
bags, tents, detergent, lip balm, moisturizer, and so on.
We know that God attends to details in our lives, so we want to show some small part of that in
our own thoughtfulness, as well. When chatting, we often ask our guests what they need and
how we could do better; invariably, each person has answered, “We’re just looking for hope,
and you guys are doing it. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”
We always say -- and it’s printed on every sandwich label -- that we’re doing this “in the name
of Jesus.”
Other Precepts
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Pray for God’s will and do that
Show that God is reliable
Be under authority at your church
Obey your government
Be careful about promotion; let God handle it
Be careful about drumming up funds; let God handle it
Stick to the precepts and don’t let personal aesthetics and preferences get in the way
Treat others as you want to be treated
Pray for God’s Will and Do That
You know a great way to build a fire?
Douse the wood with water and then pray.
Now, that might not seem an effective plan for your next campfire, but it worked great for
Elijah.
You know a great way to capture a city?
March around it a bunch of times over a period of days and then blow some trumpets.
That probably sounds like a foolish way to try to end combat, but it worked great for Joshua.
The point is: God’s ways are not our ways. Pray to know His will and do that. It may not be
your plan and it may even be a plan of which you recoil, but if it’s God’s plan, that’s where
spiritual success -- and better knowing Him -- lies.
Measure the instruction you feel you and your team are getting against the plumb line of truth - Scripture -- and by testing the spirits. If you know it’s from God, do it.
You can skip this:
In January 2013 (I think) we’d started getting our first stray donations of sleeping bags. I was
praising God and, during one worship service, I felt Him say that I should boldly pray for what I
wanted.
We were serving about 65 guests at the time, I think, and so told I God that I’d like 65 sleeping
bags in two weeks.
I think the number was 65 -- it might have been 60 or 70 -- but we wound up getting the word
out with our Lead Pastor’s blessing, and God was glorified by not only beating our two-week
target but finally providing donations for over 100 sleeping bags in three weeks. (There was
such abundance that we had to start telling people their cash donations might go to other
ministry needs!)
Well, that was a great success, so the obvious step is to begin planning the next drive. Pastor
Brad and I were co-leaders at that time, and we prayed for weeks for further direction and felt
no conviction whatsoever that we were to start planning another drive. Our Lead Pastor had
suggestions and Pastor Brad and I had to just shrug and say that God hadn’t given us any
indication, and as much as we wanted to do another -- backpacks? coats? -- we felt we had to
wait until the Spirit prompted us.
It’s not always easy to sit still, but don’t be fooled: Obedience is action, even if it doesn’t look
like it. If God’s instruction had been to do a… I don’t know… manila folder drive or something
else that didn’t make sense, I’d like to think that we would have joyfully committed to it.
The only measure of success is obedience. The plan’s of men are not God’s. Do -- in agreement
-- what you know in your deepest heart that He’s told you to do and you will please your
Beloved and give continued permission for the Spirit to inform and operate the ministry.
God trusts you with this privilege!
Show that God is Reliable
One of the beautiful things about God’s banquet is that He is always there in that image Jesus
gives us. He’s there with His guests. He is unchanging and will never leave or forsake them.
You can give people a glimpse of God’s steadfast love by being reliable. It’s important that
people know you will be where you say you’ll be when you say you’ll be there.
For some guests, the main reason they return is reliability.
The poor see many doors abruptly shut without warning. “That program no longer exists.”
“I’m sorry, but our funding has run out.” “That place used to be here, but it moved.”
How important it is for people to know Who they can rely on! And as Christ’s ambassadors, our
behavior -- rightly or wrongly -- tells the world something about “Who God is.”
One guest remarked, “This is the highlight of my week. Every week. I wait for this.” That’s
what I remember verbatim; he went on to say that whatever happened during the week, he
knew he had the outreach on Saturday.
That’s a glimpse of God, and we pray that such glimpses blossom into abundant lives among
people whose eyes of their heart open.
You can skip this:
A homeless ministry has existed at our church for six years, and this outreach (as of this writing)
has been part of it for three-and-a-half. (So when we’re talking about this phase of our church’s
homeless ministry, we’ve used the term “outreach” to distinguish it, lest we inadvertently put
words in others’ mouths!)
At first, we’d make two dozen sandwiches the first Saturday of each month and take them to
the University entrance of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library. It is private property with
public egress for which we’d received permission to do this work -- permission and spiritual
territory which were a huge gift from God for our ministry.
We rarely gave out all the sandwiches to passers-by, and, at each outreach, one or two people
would go inside the library (where people can have food, but can’t distribute it). We’d find
people who seemed to be in need -- the folks who had sleeping bags and many belongings with
them, for instance -- and we’d let them know there were free sandwiches outside.
We were steadfast about the time of the outreach -- which wasn’t controversial -- and the spot
itself, which sometimes was. Just a little, but more than one volunteer stopped helping out
because they thought we were wasting our time by not being more mobile.
But we felt God had given us a spot, and that was our place in the wall, and we needed people
to know that on these Saturdays at this time, these people would be here. It was part of
building trust and letting God plant those first seeds.
More people began to find us and even wait for us to arrive! We began making more
sandwiches and still weren’t quite running out, but now we were starting to know familiar faces
and pray with people more boldly and offer two outreaches a month: first and third Saturdays.
We quickly climbed to 65 sandwiches or so, and we’d seen our first guest born again on the
spot during that time. Praise God!
After about a year and a half, we were there every week, now offering 80 sandwiches, now 88,
and we had a blast the first time we made over 100.
God was giving us this amazing honor and blessing to find that, every week, He was bringing all
of these souls to us. We’re Christ’s ambassadors. How do we announce Jesus?
Be Under Authority at Your Church
If you’re a Christian, it’s almost certain that you should be in fellowship. (Hebrews 10:25) If
you’re in fellowship -- and especially if you’re in leadership in a fellowship -- you need to
recognize authority in that fellowship.
Maybe you want to try making a dozen sandwiches yourself and feeding those in need. Great!
But if you’re starting a ministry in which you avail yourself of a fellowship’s services, property,
amenities, or name, you should be accountable to that fellowship. That authority may at times
seem compatible or discordant, encouraging or uninterested, but that relationship is part of
God’s plan, and it’s important to humbly accept your position.
But then, you probably wouldn’t be reading this if you’re not a servant!
Be under authority in matters of operations. Keep correspondence, images, and financial
records in a secure but accessible area for those who may want to access it, whether a cabinet
with a lock or on a server. If nothing else, you’ll be setting the precedent for future leaders in
the ministry to be organized and accountable.
Obey the Rules
A ministry like this can innocently or contemptuously flout local laws. You’re doing such a nice
thing, after all, and you’re even obeying scripture about serving, serving the poor, giving a drink
to those who thirst! What could be the problem?
Well, scripture tells us to obey our government. That’s it. There are times when civil
disobedience is likely called for, but even then, Jesus provocatively commands that we turn the
other cheek, that we walk an extra mile. Heap coals on heads.
In many counties in the United States, feeding strangers (plural) in a public place violates local
ordinance. Some places also have laws about serving hot foods. To be obedient, find a place
where you can reliably have your outreach on a reliable schedule.
But it shouldn’t stop there. Just obey the rules.
Here’s an example:
For a brief time, we posted our outreach on Craigslist, in the “free” section, I think. But I
remember praying quite a bit about it, because we were maybe possibly maybe at risk of
violating a Craigslist posting rule about the packaging of food being distributed.
Our packaging was fine, legally, for most non-resale purposes, but whether we met or exceeded
the expectations of Craigslist -- our benefactor allowing us the privilege of free advertising in
their home -- well, I really wasn’t sure. In obedience to God, we observed Craigslist’s authority
and improved the packaging to more comfortably meet the criteria.
Informal counsel was inconclusive about and since I (I can only speak for me now) didn’t feel
comfortable in my spirit about continuing the postings, we dropped it after two or three
months, I think. And by then, the point was moot: News of God’s work began to spread and the
outreach quickly grew.
You’ll please the Father if you just obey the rules. If it doesn’t somehow make you renounce
what you believe in, just obey the rules. God sees and hears.
Draft in progress; November 8, 2014
*Please make suggestions by email -- david@cbclife.org