For many years, I have wanted to run a 24 hour church with special reference to homeless people. A place for them to learn faith. No hand-outs; no cash, alcohol or drugs, but an attitude of faith in God, learning to live in reliance upon him, showing love to people. Concern for neighbours a feature, expressed by daily local litter pick.
In the second half of 2006 I made a concerted effort to find a building in London. The project was to run over the winter. However, after many weeks of putting out feelers, it became clear that there were no empty church buildings available. I concluded that now was not the hour.
This church near Kew Bridge church looked promising, because it had been home to a piano musueum for years. It fell vacant in September. However, the London Diocesan Fund declared it was unsafe, and were unwilling to allow me to put in my own surveyor, or for me to fence off the unsafe parts of the building. Unsafe for whom, I wondered? I still feel sad about this.
So for the time being, I am continuing my piano teaching here in Woking. But my vision has never gone away.
I have become concerned about global warming and have prepared a talk about it. I am also leading and preaching at my local church after a gap of fourteen years.
David Pennant. Contact df.pennant @ ntlworld.com (remove spaces):
For information about me, click here. For my research into the current situation on homelessness, click here. For my personal preparation, click here.
- o O o -
You ask, how did I get a concern for the homeless? Well, it was a November day in 1989, and I was seated at my desk as Curate In Charge (without hyphens) when the phone rang.
“David, we must do stuff for the homeless.” It was Jane, one of our regulars. My heart sank. I did not need any more problems. I felt like saying Go Away, but what I actually managed was, “Well done, Jane. Go on telling us what God is saying to us about the homeless.”
My warm glow of haven’t-I-done-well only lasted to the Sunday evening service, where it got worse.
“We need to welcome the homeless poor into our house,” Jane announced to the gathering of twenty. My heart sank again. I couldn’t ask our people to take homeless people into their homes, even if it did come in Isaiah 58!
Over the next eighteen months we prayed and agonised over this issue. I littered the church with cardboard boxes for the Christmas services to focus our minds. We took gifts of food to the local night shelter.
I finally decided that we needed to keep the church open over the coming winter for people who had nowhere else to go. It was soon clear I was in a minority of one. Further, even if I had been Curate-In-Charge (with hyphens), I would still have had no authority to go ahead. The vicar of the parish was not keen.
By this time, I had decided that since Jesus never raised the subject of worship with his followers in the gospels, gathering together for ‘services’ was a hindrance rather than a help to a church. The key to doing church was obeying God, not meeting for worship. Coupled with my homeless leanings, I was not going to make a good Anglican vicar, so I withdrew.
I have spent the time since then giving piano lessons; I passed the ten thousand count some time recently. However, all things come to those who wait, and now is the hour. I am looking for the opportunity to show love to the hurting and broken. An inner city parish perhaps. Or maybe a vacant church building.
The full story can be read in my book The Priorities of Jesus . Thank you.
- o O o -
Two specific promises in Scripture that have come to my attention :
1. For provision. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things (food, clothing etc) will be added unto you (Matt 6:33).
2. For protection. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and he delivers them (Psalm 34:7).