American Evangelical Church Buildings & The Exclusion of the Homeless

Lack of distinction between “church” and The Church has led to the idolization of a building and the exclusion of homeless persons within the American Evangelical Christian Church. When the true definition of The Church is understood, Evangelical Christians will seek to abide in Christ and thus include the homeless in sacrificial living that is unrestricted by church walls upholding a technical society.

The definition of the Church has been reduced and distorted to mean a church building within the American Evangelical church. Scripture defines The Church, however, as the Body of Christ. Colossians 1:18 says of Christ, “He is the head of the body, the church.” A conceptual rather than literal interpretation of this Truth has allowed for “church” to be loosely applied to specific entities that The Church may utilize, such as a building or the specific Sunday gathering that occurs for just a few hours on that one day. I have been accustomed to this kind of language of church throughout my childhood and into my adult years being raised in the American evangelical church and surrounded by it in my Evangelical Bible School. We “go to church”; that we are The Church in every moment has been a foreign and little-mentioned truth. The implications of this are abundant and reprehensible; one must first grasp what it means to indeed recognize that The Church is the literal Body of Christ in order to understand why.

As the Body of Christ, The Church is living and active. Hebrews 4:12 describes the Word in this way – the Word referring to Jesus. Thus, as the Body of Christ, The Church is living and active because she shares in the life of the Person of Christ. Consequently, the Church cannot be defined as a building because Christ is not manifested in a stagnant, manmade, lifeless building – He came to destroy the need for such temples (John 2:9). His Body is now His temple (John 2:21); the Church inclusive of every believer is where He dwells. Furthermore, The Church cannot be confined to a gathering for a few hours once a week because Christ is not only alive for only a few hours once a week and dead the rest. He rose on Sunday and He lives forever more (Revelation 1:18).

Colossians 2:19 says, “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority” When Evangelical Christians partake primarily in the reduction they have creation of The Church – church buildings – they not only limit themselves from daily living out Christ, but they communicate that the building is their head rather than Christ Himself, which is idolatry.

This idolatry is evidenced by an ugly tendency for American Evangelicals to distinguish any part of their lives that does not take place in the physical space of a church building or the timeframe of a techniqued church function or program as their “personal lives.” This separate segment of an individual Church member’s life may include their profession, their “family time”, social time or any number of hobbies and leisure that are not implicitly scheduled by or within the church building. This segment may even include personal quiet time or even prayers before meals and bed as a family, because herein they believe – and have been taught – that growth in Christ primarily exists. As He is not viewed to exist as The Body, The Church, and the church building is treated as the God-head, actual participation in Christ is thought to occur on an individual, private level rather than corporate. Church (Sunday morning service and other functions of the church building) is what the church does, everything else is merely an extension of that, and private and individual time with Jesus is where Christ actually is. In a sense, then, the Evangelical church is trying to serve two gods – one, a church building, the other, Christ. What is made clear throughout Scripture of serving Christ, whose Body is The Church and who Christians, by grace, actively share in is missed. Identity in Christ is misplaced in a building and Christ becomes a separate segment to that – separate from “church”, thus separate from the believer himself.

What then, should The Church be doing differently? The Church must partake in the living and active Christ within and outside the walls of a “church building” and throughout the whole week. To partake in Christ is inherently to abide in Him (John 15:4). For the Church to abide in Christ is to nourish her own flesh – the flesh of Christ. Isaiah 58:6-7 spells out at least in part what this looks like: “Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?” Yet ridiculously, Evangelical Christian churches isolate themselves from their own flesh when they exclude their own homeless brothers and sisters from worshipping with them as a lifestyle. Foolishly, they give to their “other hand” as though it were cut off from their body – as if it were dead – instead of inviting them into the Body in order that they too may be nourished by the life of Christ.

In this same vein of thought, outreach to the homeless (if existent at all) is also viewed as merely an extension of “church” – only in the context of a technical program – rather than a participation in the Church. Thus, outreach becomes a giver-receiver mode of communication. The Christian gives (food, clothing, advice, money) to “they”, who are poor and needy, rather than inviting the “receiver” into relationship within the Body where he, too, can give of himself to The Church. This inviting into as Scripture describes requires an actual pouring out of self – a partaking in the vulnerability and humility of Christ.

Luke 14:12-14 says, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors… But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you.” Evangelical churches tend to give of their leftovers to “dinners” for the homeless that that they themselves do not even partake in (“only 52% of US churches spend more than 10% of funds on ministry beyond their congregants” https://www.deseretnews.com/article/865663993/Researchers-explored-more-than-1100-church-budgets-2-and-heres-what-they-discovered.html) – food pantries, meals even hosted within a church building on a Sunday night, food deliveries, and so on; interactions that are given by the Evangelical church but not partaken. Luke 14 implies that Christians give true feasts of the best they have – fit for the wealthy – and invite the poor to share with them in it. Jesus Himself shows the vitality of this by His frequency of going into the homes of “the least of these” and sharing meals with them (Matthew 9:10-17). As homeless obviously don’t have homes, it is the Church’s responsibility to invite them in and share in feasting on the best we have to offer with them.

Assuming, of course, that the poor and needy are a priority of the evangelical church in the first place. Relevant magazine finds that only 1 or 2 percent of most evangelical church funds are allocated to the poor (https://relevantmagazine.com/god/church/4-ways-modern-church-looks-nothing-early-church). Minimal – if any – attention to the homeless is a direct refusal of the Church’s responsibility to share in Christ by His commandments throughout both Old and New Testament Scripture. Isaiah 58:10 says that “if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. This is more than giving what is comfortable; it is the Church emptying herself out in order to invite the hungry in. Similarly, Luke 12:33 commands, “Sell your possessions, and give to the needy.” And yet, the Evangelical Christian Credit Union found that “churches spend 83% of their budget on administrative expenses and only about 5% on charitable programs” (http://web.archive.org/web/20141019033209/https://www.eccu.org/resources/advisorypanel/2013/surveyreports20). Evangelical churches are putting more into the building they call church than into this direct command that expresses part of what it means to truly be the Church. How ironic is the fact that Evangelical Christians claim to be the Church, while refusing to pour out as the Church is commanded to do, and instead pouring into a building as if it is an idol? Ezekiel 16:49 speaks to the despicability of this, addressing Israel: Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.” How far over the line has the American Evangelical gone – bloated with excess and yet giving of it to a cushy building to make them all the more comfortable – and even then, rarely sacrificially. We act as if “building up the Church” literally means building up a church building with which we identify more than Christ, which is nothing short of idolization.

Matthew 5:42 commands, “Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.” There are no franker terms to clarify that the Christian’s responsibility is to respond first by giving, our second (or third or last) thought should be about dependency. Specifically speaking of homelessness in cities, if Scripture is not enough to convince the Evangelical church of the change that must occur, the flamboyant need in cities must. Chicago in particular ranked 21st among 32 cities in its rate of homelessness per 10,000 people in 2016, at 21.6 people (“FAQs/Studies.” Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, www.chicagohomeless.org/faq-studies/). Sheer prevalence of homelessness is disturbing, and yet should not be surprising. John 12:8 promises that “there will always be poor and needy among you.” This is no excuse to simply exclude ourselves from the issue, however.

For one, homeless persons face a higher mortality rate, the average life span of a homeless person being shorter by about 17.5 years than the general population. The average death of a homeless male is about 56 years old and 52 years old for a homeless female. Most deaths result from harsh environmental causes such as hypothermia, while another large portion of deaths among homeless results from tuberculosis as infections run rampant on dirty city streets (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5739436/). It is not uncommon for a homeless friend of mine, Jeff, to report multiple deaths of people he knows within the homeless community on a weekly basis during the Chicago winter. Clearly, eternities are at stake. Eternities hindered by an exclusion from the Body of Christ. Quite frankly, it is cruel for Evangelical churches – especially in cities where homelessness is blatant – to not be proactively inviting homeless people in.

On a more personal level, I have conversed with several people who are homeless in Chicago adamantly who feel that the Evangelical churches in their close vicinities are not doing enough to positively impact the issue of homeless in general; in fact, homeless people are inhibited from unity in the Body of Christ because evangelical churches send a clear message of un-inviting them. For example, a homeless couple whom I am very close to used to sleep every night in the courtyard of a well-known and iconic evangelical church in Chicago, where on any summer night ten to twenty homeless people could be spotted surrounding the building on makeshift beds. Already the inside of the building itself was not available to them, but recently even their presence outside of it has been prohibited. The homeless people I know who once slept there said that they did so because they felt safer there, being a church. However, now even the outer walls of a building which Christians claim to be church cannot serve as a safe place for those in need. Consequently, many homeless friends of mine would not fathom attending a Sunday church service (if they were even allowed to enter in) when that same church won’t even attempt to cushion their basic need for safety (insert interview link here).

Beyond the building itself, the misunderstanding of what it means to be The Church (day in and day out) has prevented Evangelical church-goers to first meet homeless people where they are at on a relational, sacrificial level. As alluded to before, programs are in place which may provide food or even evangelical attempts to the poor, but these most often occur on a giver-receiver basis and hold safety, comfort, and certainty as a higher priority than “with-ness”. Evangelical churches hold programs at the doors of their church buildings – many a church in Chicago hosts dinners for homeless to come to and pick up a sandwich once a week (which is hardly sufficient). The image that immediately comes to mind is an assembly line of homeless people taking food from a line of “sacrificial servants” who doll up food with no more interaction than a mere “here you go”, and “have a nice day.” While this is not of little value, it falls gravely short of Scripture’s constant call to humble ourselves by dying to ourselves and meeting people where they are at.

Christ gave of His very life to meet people where they were at – in their sin – humbling Himself to walk the dirt of the earth with them. Can Christians not at the very least abide in Him by sitting in the dirt with those who are homeless, and giving beyond the point of comfort? Christ brought people into the Body by walking with them – He didn’t say, “come eat food from my hand once a week and you will be saved.” He went to where His disciples were said to them, “come, follow me” (Matthew 4:19) and proceeded to walk with them through daily life, forming deep relationships with them so that they might partake in His person daily. By inviting people to do life with Him, He also offered them the opportunity to serve Him. In the same way, the Evangelical church must invite homeless people into the Body of Christ by meeting them where they are – beyond the constructs of set programs and functions – and including them in the vulnerabilities of life in order that they might use their God-given gifts to serve Christ in the Church.

One possible response to the issue of exclusion homeless persons from the Church could simply be to follow the steps of first meeting them where they are at, then develop relationships with them, and finally invite them into the Sunday church service in a church building. However, this answer is deficient by the inherent limitations of the physicality of a typical church building, and again, its inability to be all that the Church is in that all of life does not take place in it. Rather, all of life takes place in Christ whom dwells in every believer every moment as they sleep, wake, breathe, eat, etc. The most holistic and competent response, then, seems to be the implementation of house church.

For one, the home can naturally provide for the physical needs of a homeless person. Whereas an evangelical church building design does not typically include showers, beds, closets full of clothes, a kitchen, or at the least an open door, each of these elements are intrinsic to the necessary design of a house. Perhaps more importantly, this requires the evangelical church participant to more literally follow God’s command to sacrificially empty themselves by actually giving of what they have – their own food, clothes, showers, space, and beds. Within the comfortable culture of American Evangelicalism, this may seem excessive. However, Scripture commands us to do nothing short of this. Leviticus 25:35 says, “If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you.” This means that even though a Christ-follower may know little about a homeless person – his or her history, baggage, ailments, risks – he should by faith invite even this stranger into their home. Safety and comfort are never prioritized in Scripture over sacrificially providing for those in need. To do so necessitates something that has been largely depleted of the extent of its meaning in American Evangelical culture – faith.

Furthermore, opening one’s home to the homeless strips the evangelical church member of their faulty distinction between The Church and church. Now, he must live out his participation in The Church within the comfort of his own home daily. He must take the family he inherits within the Body of Christ literally to mean that his wife or child is no more related and dear to him than his homeless brother or sister in Christ. The idea that meeting with Christ occurs primarily in private individualism is rightly restored to a corporate partaking in Christ in daily life within the corporate Church which now exists even in the home.

As far as Sunday gathering, Homeless persons can now feel both included and at ease by participating in the Body of Christ in a home that they already know welcomes them because their physical needs are being met there. The disturbing correlation between leadership roles such as preacher or worship-leader and performance is done away with without the presence of a stage facing rows of pews, thus allowing homeless persons to step into these roles without feeling the need to look or act a particular way. Not only that, but their ability to serve Christ by building up His body with their God-given gifts – rather than only acting as “receiver” – can be utilized as they participate in normal family responsibilities, like meal preparation, or teaching children, exhorting parents, or any one of the gifts that we share in with Christ day by day.

Lastly, but certainly not least, financial giving normally allocated to an evangelical church building can actually be rightly allocated to the poor and needy, as Scripture requires. 1 Timothy 5:8 says, “But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” The household of any believer, as Ephesians 2:19 clarifies, is made up of every member of Christ’s body. Therefore, anyone who belongs to Christ – homeless or not – is part of this household and should be provided for by The Church. A house is a necessity of any evangelical Christian (or person, for that matter) and consequently already being paid for. So, church gathering in a home liberates funds normally distributed to the building and maintenance of an exterior church building to be given instead to those who deeply need it.

Again, this is not to say that house church is the only Biblical answer, but that it seems to be the most sensible Biblical answer. For one, house church intended to properly function as the Church by inviting homeless people into daily life includes rather than excludes them from the Body of Christ. In doing so, the American evangelical Christian church steps up to more properly abide in Christ who is the Church by sacrificially partaking in Him every day.

As believers, the American Evangelical church holds that Jesus is the only hope of mankind. It is high time that that we no longer exclude those who, because of their constant suffering, cannot find even false hope in the from being invited into the One True hope of Jesus. The American Evangelical Church must cease to continue to maintain the traditional understanding of church which is passive at best to the homeless. Rather, comfort of tradition and familiarity must be put aside to make room in the heart and home of the Church for the poor.