Ministry after the Massacre

Ministry after the Massacre

On Sunday, June 12, 29-year-old Omar Mateen stormed into Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, and gunned down 49 people and wounded 53 others. Shortly before the attack, Mateen called 9-1-1, pledging allegiance to ISIS.

Passion to end homelessness: Who's new, what's next

Passion to end homelessness: Who's new, what's next

As we enter a new season of even greater effectiveness, transparency and compassion, our intent remains: essentially to end homelessness in Central Florida. We have built a terrific foundation through the charismatic leadership of Chief Executive Officer Andrae Bailey and the attentive guidance of Linda Landman Gonzalez.

Central Florida makes strides to end homelessness but still has ways to go

Central Florida makes strides to end homelessness but still has ways to go

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Interfaith Leaders Urge Lawmakers to Expand Medicaid for the Poor

Central Florida faith leaders have signed letters to Florida lawmakers urging the state legislature and Gov. Rick Scott to expand health care coverage to hundreds of thousands of Floridians who can not afford insurance.

OP ED: "Working together, we can find real solutions for the homeless"

"Home for the holidays?" As many of us take that option for granted, there are thousands among us for whom a home is only a dream. Yet, I take heart in our community's new robust commitment to help the homeless across our region.

I'm excited: In almost 30 years as a spiritual leader of Northland Church and as an involved citizen in Central Florida, this is the highest level of focus and passion to help the homeless across this region that I have ever seen. As a board member of the Central Florida Commission on Homelessness, and a participant in CFCH's recent trip to Houston, I am seeing firsthand the tremendous momentum for creating solutions for homelessness.

We have some initial reasons for optimism. Recently, local leaders committed more than $10 million in just one week. Florida Hospital's huge multimillion-dollar commitment helped lead the way in this new beginning to provide permanent solutions for the homeless.

Just days after those commitments, more than 300 faith leaders from throughout the region joined together in an historic summit to address this critical issue. The room was packed with the top leaders, and almost every faith group of our region was represented. The event was hosted by Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer and Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs. The mayors talked about the critical role the faith community must play as the moral compass of this issue, and as those who serve on the front lines each day with the homeless.

By themselves, neither government agencies nor generous businesses nor faith communities can turn the tide for us. As a pastor, I believe it is critical to know the "times and seasons" of God — the divine moments that are ordained from above to see great change happen. I believe that this is the season for all citizens in our community to address homelessness in Central Florida.

In the next few weeks, you will see many of Central Florida's leaders on billboards and social media holding signs that say "Rethink Change," signaling the second phase of the Commission on Homelessness "Rethink Homelessness" campaign. This will be a call to action for every person in this community to get involved in his or her own way to help the homeless and the needy, to rethink what creating real change for the homeless requires from each of us in time, talent and treasure.

In the past, the approach in this community has been to delegate to others, to agencies and experts, the responsibility of addressing the needs of those on the streets. That approach does not make a real, permanent difference for most of the homeless population. The reality is that to actually solve the problem, we all need to be committed to doing something.

One of the greatest Christmas miracles would be for us all together to help those who are homeless find real solutions to get off the streets. Other communities in our country have been successful in addressing this issue; we can do the same.

One common denominator to their success turned out to be citizens compelled by their values and faith to act. Let's not wait for some other "Good Samaritan" to come along and do what we ourselves can do. We intend to show you ways you can participate, and there are many ways to share your blessings that will permanently transform the lives of the homeless and needy.

So as you sit down this holiday season with your family and friends, please think about all the blessings you have been given by your Creator, starting with a roof over your head and food on the table. Let us all take time this Christmas to remember those veterans, children, people with disabilities and struggling families who do not have the security of a home or even a warm meal this holiday season.

My thoughts and prayers will include asking what else I can do to help the hungry and the homeless in the days and months to come, and I ask you join me in that search. This is our community together. Let's ensure that this is the last Christmas many of the needy spend on the streets or in makeshift lodgings. There should be "room" for them in the inn that is Central Florida.

The Rev. Joel C. Hunter is senior pastor of Northland, A Church Distributed in Longwood.

The Cost of Homelessness: Central Florida Commission on Homeless Cost Analysis

Living on the streets isn't cheap: Each chronically homeless person in Central Florida costs the community roughly $31,000 a year, a new analysis being released Thursday shows.

The price tag covers the salaries of law-enforcement officers to arrest and transport homeless individuals — largely for nonviolent offenses such as trespassing, public intoxication or sleeping in parks — as well as the cost of jail stays, emergency-room visits and hospitalization for medical and psychiatric issues.

In contrast, providing the chronically homeless with permanent housing and case managers to supervise them would run about $10,000 per person per year, saving taxpayers millions of dollars during the next decade, the report concludes.

The findings are part of an independent economic-impact analysis that will be discussed Thursday afternoon by the Central Florida Commission on Homelessness.

"The numbers are stunning," said the homeless commission's CEO, Andrae Bailey. "Our community will spend nearly half a billion dollars [on the chronically homeless], and at the end of the decade, these people will still be homeless. It doesn't make moral sense, and now we know it doesn't make financial sense."

The vast majority of long-term-homeless residents have some sort of disability, Bailey said. They are veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder; men and women with mental illness; or people with severe physical disabilities.

"These are not people who are just going to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get a job," Bailey said. "They're never going to get off the streets on their own."

Last fall, the commission spent $15,000 donated by the Orlando Solar Bears to hire the Tulsa, Okla.-based company Creative Housing Solutions, which conducted the analysis. Researchers worked with local homeless outreach programs to identify 107 long-term-homeless residents living in Orange, Osceola or Seminole County. Using actual jail and hospital records, they tracked public expenses through the years to come up with the yearly average of $31,065 per person.

That figure was multiplied by 1,577 — the number of chronically homeless people throughout the three counties. In both cases, the figures were considered conservative.

"We didn't even include the money spent by nonprofit agencies to feed, clothe and sometimes shelter these individuals," said lead researcher Gregory Shinn, associate director of the Mental Health Association Oklahoma in Tulsa. "This is only money that we could document for the individuals we studied — and it's money that is simply being wasted. The law-enforcement costs alone are ridiculous. They're out of control."

The expense is particularly high for the city of Orlando, where many of the chronically homeless live on the streets. The most recent homeless census put the number there at about 900 individuals. In Osceola County, which has an estimated 300 chronically homeless residents, permanent housing for the homeless may be a tougher sell.

"The report's numbers actually reflect more what's going on in Orange County and Orlando," said Niki Whisler, homeless-advocate coordinator for Osceola. "Our priority here are our families, especially in hotels."

But for Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, the findings validate what he has already proposed, he said.

"I can't say I'm surprised by the cost," Dyer said. "We recognize that a large percentage of these individuals roam the streets of our city."

In his State of the City address in April, Dyer vowed to get a third of the chronically homeless — some 300 people — into what's called permanent supportive housing within three years. Such housing is typically a government-subsidized apartment with a case manager to ensure the tenant is getting medical and psychiatric care and other services.

Researchers estimated the cost of permanent supportive housing at $10,051 per person per year. Housing even half of the region's chronically homeless population would save taxpayers $149 million during the next decade — even allowing for 10 percent to end up back on the streets again.

"We're not going to bat a thousand," Shinn said.

Bob Brown, president and CEO of the Heart of Florida United Way, said the cost analysis underscored the need to take action on chronic homelessness.

"This is no longer [one person] from the Coalition for the Homeless saying we have to do something," Brown said. "This is a reliable consultant who has used proven methods for calculating the cost. Hopefully this will finally get the attention of community and government leaders. We can't wish this away."

Joel Hunter, a homeless-commission member and senior pastor at Longwood's Northland megachurch, said he hoped the faith community would help persuade parishioners that supportive housing is the way to go.

"We're going to need to present to them how much wiser it is to address this problem than to ignore it," he said. "I don't think there is a huge momentum to fix homelessness at the moment, simply because a lot of people don't see it in front of them every day. But if we can make the business case as well as the moral case for them, I think we can build a desire to help those who need it most."

ksantich@tribune.com or 407-420-5503

SOURCE: http://touch.orlandosentinel.com/?#section/1229/article/p2p-80272962/

The new evangelicals: A return to the original agenda of Christ

I am one of those evangelicals who, in Professor Marcia Pally’s words, have “left the right.” As a former President-elect of the Christian Coalition of America, I resigned that position and all other positions that would box me into ideologies that were becoming insidiously narrow and negative. As a 64-year-old pastor, I may not yet be representative of my generation or profession in my political openness, but I am one of a growing number of white evangelicals who are making biblically-based decisions on an issue-by-issue basis, in a wider circle of conversations than ever. We are put off by the “hardening of the categories” that is stifling not only intellectually, but also spiritually. Part of this transition is cultural. As Professor Pally pointed out, it is not only a generational shift that naturally declares independence from traditional religious reactions (especially paternalistic ones). The transition is for others a distancing from the institutionalism of the church and the inelasticity of a movement that began as personally charitable but has become dogmatically xenophobic.

The greater part of this change, however, is a generic return to the original agenda of Christ. As the world becomes more complex and less predictable, we are seeing a “back to basics” trend. It is an expansion beyond a preoccupation with the more recent monitoring of sexual matters, to a more ‘whole life’ helpfulness. It is the turn from accusation to compassion, and it is much in keeping with the priorities and example of Jesus. His focus on helping the most vulnerable is also our concern. Thus more and more evangelicals are expanding the definition of pro-life. They are including in a pro-life framework concern with poverty, environmental pollution, AIDS treatment, and more. And issues like abortion are being expanded from focusing on only “in utero” concerns—increasing numbers of evangelicals now see prevention of unwanted pregnancy and support for needy expectant mothers as pro-life.

More evangelicals simply want to live our lives according to our spiritual values—unselfishness, other-centeredness, non-presumptuousness—so that when people see “our good works, they will give glory to our Father in heaven.”

Lastly, practically all sustainable change is relationally based. In an increasingly connected world, an increasing number of evangelicals are developing a broader range of relationships, both interfaith and inter-lifestyle. These make us think twice before we declare those who have different values as adversaries. As we “love our neighbor,” we want to cooperate in ways that express our own values while allowing others to express their own.

Professor Pally has established a masterful and nuanced summary of the change in the evangelical political voice. I hope that we will continue the dialogue.

FIND THIS ARTICLE AT: http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2013/01/16/a-return-to-the-original-agenda-of-christ/

Young Evangelicals Calling for "Truce" in Gay Marriage Debate

As the battle over gay marriage heats up in this election year, one evangelical Christian writer is calling for a truce, fearing that the outspoken opposition to gay marriage among some church leaders could alienate an entire generation of religious youth.

“Evangelicals have been so submitted to these culture wars for so long, so that’s hard to give up,” evangelical writer and speaker Rachel Held Evans, 31, told msnbc.com. But “the majority of young Christians really, really, really want to stop with the political emphasis.”

Held Evans, who regularly speaks at Christian colleges, said the young Christians she meets are much more open to gay rights than are older generations, an observation backed up by polling data.

A 2011 survey by the Public Religion Research Institute shows the generation gap between young Christians and their elders is large, with 44 percent of white evangelicals aged 18-29 in support of marriage equality compared to only 12 percent of those 65 and older.

According to the same survey, nearly 70 percent of young Christians also agree that religious groups are alienating young people by being too judgmental about gay and lesbian issues.

“For young Christians, having gay and lesbian friends is just a part of our life,” Held Evans said. “It’s just really hard for us to see them as mere issues to debate, because we’re talking about our friends here.”

The shift is manifesting itself increasingly on Christian college campuses, including at Biola University in California, where, about two months ago, an anonymous group of students announced the presence of the "Biola Queer Underground," asking that the LGBT community on campus “be treated with equality and respected as another facet of Biola's diversity."

At Wheaton College in Illinois, a group of alumni known as OneWheaton coalesced in 2011 to express its support of the LGBT community on campus.

“OneWheaton understands that LGBTQ issues are difficult to process at Wheaton College,” reads a statement from the group. “We desire this to change for current students and wish to create such an environment, a safe place for them to process these issues and develop into the people they are meant to be.” In response, school officials have said they are open to having a conversation about homosexuality on campus.

To Held Evans, American churches’ attitude toward gay rights will play an important role in the retention of young Christians. In an article she wrote following North Carolina’s recent vote to ban gay marriage, Held Evans points to data mentioned in David Kinnaman’s book You Lost Me, which shows that 59 percent of teens who were raised Christian abandon the church when they become adults. One of the main reasons, the article says, is the church’s attitude toward gay rights.

Fellow Christian writer Matthew Anderson, 30, agrees that there is a generational shift taking place in Christians’ support for gay rights, but he is less convinced it’ll lead to any profound changes in the near-term.

“Those of the conservative side aren’t going away. They’re just going to be a lot more careful in terms of how they frame their positions,” Anderson told msnbc.com.

He also doesn’t think younger Christians are going to embrace more liberal views on matters of sexuality, including homosexuality.

“There’s going to be a large, less vocal, at least a substantive minority – it’s not an outright majority – of younger evangelicals who are going to take a broadly conservative position on sexual ethics,” he said.

That position stems from the conviction that God defined marriage in the scripture as between a man and a woman, Anderson said, and Christians don’t believe they have the right to redefine it.

For thousands of years the definition of marriage has been the same, said Pastor Joel Hunter, a spiritual advisor to President Obama. “And so, there’s some reason for the apprehension that says this thing is moving so fast that I wonder what the next 10 years will hold,” he told msnbc.com.

In Hunter’s view, the word “marriage” cannot be used to characterize a same-sex union, but he believes having this debate on a national stage offers a unique opportunity.

“We really have an opportunity to raise the level of respect, to raise the dialogue to where no rights of one group trumps another group’s rights,” he said, adding: “The scripture has certain listed sins, and we want to dissuade people from those behaviors, because we think in the long run if it’s in scripture then that’s not something that God approves of.”

Hunter, who leads a Florida megachurch, said he believes the government could establish a kind of civil marriage, which would not fit within the definition of Biblical marriage.

”We don’t 100% equate this as a part of the civil rights movement because for us at least a part of this is a matter of choice, it’s a behavior, and so it’s a different category than skin pigmentation,” he said. “Having said that, we want to be sure that all Americans do have citizens’ rights to enter any legal relationship that they want to.”

But finding compromise appears unlikely, Anderson believes, as most players on the national stage treat the debate as a zero-sum game.

“It’s winner-take-all, and there’s sort of no middle ground between the two positions,” he said.

While young Christians may be divided on whether gay relationships should be celebrated in the church, Held Evans said, they’re increasingly unified on their stance against legislative action, such as North Carolina’s gay marriage ban and others that will be up for votes this fall.

“The majority of young Christians really, really, really want to stop with the political emphasis,” she said. “Even young Christians who think that gay relationships are not God’s design, a lot of them will still say ‘but I think it should be legal for gay people to get married, because this is America.’”

By Becky Bratu, msnbc.com

FIND THIS ARTICLE AT: http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/02/12524736-could-gay-marriage-debate-drive-young-christians-from-church?lite