Poverty warriors rest and renourish
OTTAWA, ON—Porters at the Westin Hotel are more accustomed to toting the suitcases of rock stars and CEOs than the backpacks of jeans-and-t-shirt-clad street workers.
In late March the posh hotel across the canal from Parliament Hill again provided the setting for Street Level, a gathering of frontline anti-poverty workers from churches and organizations across Canada.
"The soaps are okay, but leave the towels," Pat Nixon, director of The Mustard Seed Ministry in Calgary, reportedly advised conference attendees new to such lavish surroundings.
For people who have friends sleeping under bridges, $300,000 might sound like an extravagant price tag for a four-day conference on poverty and homelessness.
Social justice
But the band of anti-poverty pioneers who organized the first Street Level conference in 1994 believes the conferences—this was the fourth—are helping Canada's evangelical Christians pay better attention to the call of social justice.
"No one is leaving here who's not prompt and ready to take on the world," says Nixon, who's been on the Street Level committee since the beginning.
"We are representing frontline street workers. Nothing else in the country brings these people together."
"We started Street Level because we had no voice," says Rick Tobias, CEO of Yonge Street Mission in Toronto. "We couldn't get our denominations to listen. We had to go outside the Church for support."
Times change
Fifteen years later, things have changed.
"There are lots more of us," says Tobias. The first Street Level drew 250 delegates representing 22 denominations. Nearly 400 delegates attended this year's event from 59 agencies that spent a total of $132 million last year to provide food, shelter, advocacy, dental service, health supplies, palliative care, education, employment counselling, work skills training and more for people without homes, fighting addictions, looking for work or battling mental illness.
In 2003, the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada organized the Roundtable on Poverty and Homelessness—which included the original Street Level organizers.
At the Street Level conference three years ago, the Roundtable unveiled a document which declared that "the care of poor and vulnerable people of all ages is a central tenet of our faith" followed by a clear call to action. They called it the Ottawa Manifesto.
This year they followed it up with a document on evangelism.
"We believe that the dichotomy of social justice vs. evangelism is, from a biblical standpoint, profoundly false," it states. "Bearing witness to the gospel involves calling people to a personal faith in Christ which includes a new vision of a just and compassionate society."
On the opening night of the conference, several hundred of those in attendance gathered on Parliament grounds for a short prayer vigil on behalf of poor and marginalized Canadians.
MPs from all four political parties in government also attended the conference's opening banquet.
During the four-day event delegates from homeless shelters, food banks, street missions, youth ministries, advocacy groups and churches swapped stories, attended workshops and absorbed the music of Steve Bell and the gentle words of Sister Sue Mosteller from l'Arche Daybreak.
Conference goers lounged in the lobby, stretched out on crisp sheets and swam in the hotel pool. Refreshing tired workers was the main goal says conference co-chair Tim Huff. "If they went home and felt cared for and in some way more whole than when they came, and a little less broken I'd call it successful."
Overheard at Street Level
"Your work is more valuable, more difficult than any government. No nameless, faceless government agency can replace the loving hand of a good Samaritan."
—Jason Kenney, parliamentary secretary to the prime minister
"When we worship together with broken people, we begin to discover that we are those people. This is good news for our broken hearts."
—Greg Paul, pastor of Sanctuary in Toronto
"[When my brother was murdered] I became a victim. I needed to discover a vision of justice that would be large enough, wide enough and solid enough to embrace both the needs of the victim and the offender….I discovered restorative justice."
—Pierre Allard, former assistant commissioner for the Correctional Service of Canad
"Jesus died, not only to save you, but to save your dog, and your cat and your budgie; God is as concerned about the rest of creation as He is about human beings."
—Terry Leblanc, national director of My People International
"The road home includes our spirituality. Native people are not atheists; we've always believed in the Creator. You just need to tell us about Jesus in a good way. Telling the story of Jesus in a Native way means finding Jesus in Native tradition: Jesus is good medicine."
—Sheryl Bear, supervisor of First Nations Ministry for the Canadian Foursquare Church
"There is a gift hidden, that God hides in the poor. The real leaders and the real teachers in my community I call unlikely teachers."
—Sister Sue Mosteller, International Coordinator for l'Arche
"God is pointing and leading the Church to realize that we need those in poverty and brokenness as much as they need us."
—Drew Toth, conference delegate from Southridge Community Church in St. Catharines
Dear Readers:
ChristianWeek relies on your generous support. please take a minute and donate to help give voice to stories that inform, encourage and inspire.
Donations of $20 or more will receive a charitable receipt.Thank you, from Christianweek.
