Worshiping with the Homeless

Abstract

A group of people gather together at Logan Square or Suburban Station in Philadelphia every Sunday afternoon. They call themselves a church without walls—the Welcome Church—because they don’t have a building. The members are people from different Christian churches and homeless people. The liturgy is mostly from the Lutheran Church, but it changes and adapts and adds what is needed. One day, they did not have Eucharist, but a homeless person said, “What about our Eucharist today?” The pastor said, “We didn’t bring the elements.” The homeless woman then opened her bag, pulled out a loaf of mushy bread, and said, “I got it.” And Eucharist was celebrated and shared. On Ash Wednesday, ² this church celebrated death and life in the midst of a bitter cold winter at Logan Square in Philadelphia. We heard stories of extreme poverty, abandonment, frostbitten feet, and dignity not heard elsewhere. ³ On Good Friday, we walked through the main points of the suburban subway station where homeless people stay to hide from the cold. This church started outside of the restrooms of this station, and the stations of the cross were the many places within this station: places to rest, dollar stores, abandoned places where they could hide, warm places, a women’s store, a place to eat, and so on.

Every people felt threatened by a people without a country.

—Jean Genet, Prisoner of Love