Nov 20 2009
Judge says Phoenix church cannot feed homeless
It’s one of the many good deeds for which churches are known, but now a judge has ruled that feeding the homeless is against the law. The ruling is against CrossRoads United Methodist Church in north-central Phoenix and it says that the church is operating as a charity dining hall, which breaks a city zoning ordinance.
The area where the church is located — Central and Northern avenues — is zoned as primarily residential. Charity dining halls are considered businesses.
The controversy swirling around the church’s weekly pancake worship service started last spring when neighbors complained about an increase in the number of homeless people in the neighborhood, panhandling, burglary, public intoxication and vandalism, among other things.
“We can minister to the poor … that’s a given,” wrote Rev. Dottie Escobedo-Frank on the CrossRoads Web site. “We can hold a worship service for them out on the front lawn. We just can’t feed them. We can’t fill their bellies with warm food. We might as well just go to the street corners and start handing out money, in hopes they will make their way to some food, because you are not allowed to do it at church!”
Read more here.
[From me]
I guess Scrooge came early.
What do you think?
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I live in a residential neighborhood where there is a UMC that wanted to set up a hundred-child day care. It is a small neighbor hood already flooded with crossing traffic, vandalism, property theft and burglary. The ministry would have been to the underprivaleged, that is, those on welfare. The problems it would have caused were tremendous. Beside city ordinance, there is also convenants to be considered. The church sued the neighborhood, not withstanding that the land that their church sits on was a gift to them by the original covenant agreement. They simply believed they could steal the property rights of their neighbors in the name of God. From the sounds of this, Crossroads is trying to do the same thing. During the trial it was reveald that it is the modus operandi of the UMC. They try and establish charities where there are laws that restrict the use of property and to hell with their neighbors. If the neighbors complain, the church, with bags of cash in hand, sue. The UMC is not known for its orthodoxy and it is not a single church in a single neighborhood, it is an enterprize. The former pastor here ran homless and low income ministries out of rentals he owned. He went so far as to get an increase passed in the city budget to increase housing subsidies by a million dollars a year. The UMC liberal, far left organization. They believe as do all leftists that their neighbors property is theirs.
And what, the Southern Baptist Church is known for it’s orthodoxy??? LOL
Thomas, you are calling what is good, evil and what is evil good. The so called leftest and liberal UMC of which I am a member is making a difference in this world where it matters… Where people live.
All over the world we feed, clothe, and minister to people in community WITH them. Just as Jesus did, we take this sinful world as it is, not as we would have it.
The little UMC where I attend, averages about 150 people each Sunday…. and we FEED 300 families monthly. The government and other organizations don’t. A sister church nearby feeds kids afterschool and runs an after school care program, and feeds 150 to 200 people soup every Saturday. They average fewer than we do in attendance.
This ain’t bragging. It’s no brag when it’s fact.
Please read Isaiah 61. Before you cast a stone, see if you are as dilligently following Jesus.
Andrew
I find it pretty interesting given your comments on Larry David’s show, in which you congratulate yourself for keeping sex, drugs, and all things immoral out of your home that you would say something as idiotic as you did concerning this article. The article itself says “neighbors complained about an increase in the number of homeless people in the neighborhood, panhandling, burglary, public intoxication and vandalism, among other things.” So, am I to assume that you would be just fine and dandy with some bum offering a syringe or a 40 ounce to your kids? Or maybe a homeless woman offering up a sex act to your children for money? Welcome to the world of the homeless, and I speak from experience because I used to be one of them. Since I cleaned up my act I’ve been blessed with a little one and I will protect him from these monsters, as they often are, at all costs. If that means keeping them in the inner city where they have quite a few options for help, so be it. I do not want them messing with my wife or my child in my neighborhood, and I would lay a baseball bat straight into their kneecaps if I ever saw such a thing. If you were worth a pint of piss as a father or husband, you’d do the same. Now, before you jump on your high horse about how Jesus felt about the poor, remember this: Jesus was a master of timing. He was all things to all people, at the appropriate time and place. Sometimes he prayed, sometimes he partied. And sometimes, he never said a word. TIMING. I also think that an organization like a church that pays NO PROPERTY TAXES ought to keep it’s trap shut about zoning laws. Churches are lucky to get what they have, and people who don’t attend the church ought to be able to keep their communities as free of bums and drug addicts as possible.
What if the church had a pedophile pancake service- how
would you feel about your kids rubbing elbows with them?
First, if the zoning laws and covenants prohibit the activity, there should be no question. They should not do it.
Second, if it’s really their passion to minister to the homeless, they’d feed them anyway, but they’d do it where the homeless people are.
Our church ran afoul of some zoning laws in an addition we wanted to build, and we pulled strings to get a variance (unsuccessfully). I’m of the opinion we shouldn’t even try. We should comply in matters like that.
Interesting conversation. I see it ranges from that type of Church isn’t a real church anyway, worthless fathers who don’t defend their children by kneecapping the homeless , and never resisting zoning laws.
Aren’t we to engage the Scriptures at all in thinking about this? At least one commenter does with his excellent post about Isaiah 61.
I am asking, how do we look at the above situation in light of Matthew 25? What Jesus Himself read from Isaiah 61 at the start of His ministry? Amos? Paul? James?
There is a lot of Scripture to support the UMC, and btw, my and my neighbor’s property all belong to God. Just curious.
How do we look at the above situation in light of Matthew 25?
The same way we look at the entirity of scripture: God’s Word. I doubt you would find many Christians on this blog who will argue against the inerrancy of the scriptures. The real question… Is the word of God sufficient?
Kudos to the developers of the neighborhood for setting aside room for a church. But the perception of a church apparently was wrong. The church is not a social club, a community center….it is a rescue mission and is there to render aid to the depravity of man. Yes the ill in our society is real. There are poor homeless who drink, who use drugs, who prostitute themselves, and the sinful world is filled with all sorts of behaviors we want to shield our children from. However we must teach them to LOVE all.
Br. James, I was thinking the words of Amos earlier in regards to this story and how the people of this community in Pheonix are choosing to….
…trample on the heads of the poor
as upon the dust of the ground
and deny justice to the oppressed. … Amos 2:7
With enduring love in Christ
Andrew \o/
P.S. : If I was the pastor of this church in Pheonix, I would urge the church to politely comply with the law…. relocate… and shake the dust off my feet.
Dozer..
I simply do not see where a citizen’s insistence that laws …. including the enforcement of zoning ordinances .. is trampling the heads of the poor, or denying justice to the oppressed. The homeless don’t need justice, they need mercy. And that can be shown and accomplished without breaking any laws by simply going where they are, and feeding them and ministering to them, there. If that were truly the issue, they would’ve done that and this piece would never have made the news.
Lot’s of interesting posts here… My name is Mike Ricker and I am the pastor of Prodigal’s Home. I lead the ministry that moved to CrossRoads UMC in January 2009. We’ve been dealing with misinformation (as in some of the post here) since these issues started in July 2009.
I have not posted anything on any blogs since all this began in an attempt to avoid tossing gasoline on the fire but would be willing to answer questions you may have regarding this issue. It’s been on Huffington Post, CNN, and lots of local media and I am not going to start going to the 1000s of blogs now writing about this issue…
But I’ll chat about it here if it’d be helpful!
Mike
Good morning Pastor Ricker, I will email you.
Br. Patrick,
I received your e-mail and will give a brief overview here and if anyone has any questions I’ll be glad to answer… nothings off-limits with respect to questions and with the exception of issues of confidentiality I’ll answer the questions.
We began 3 1/2 years ago in a local park serving the homeless and poor. No Bible study. No worship service. We were helping people by serving them a meal and listening to their stories. As time moved on we began helping with some other basic needs (blankets, hygiene kit, helping to get ID).
In May 2007 we moved (after being forced out of the park by local LEOs) to the parking lot of a Mexican food restaurant. In July 2008 we began holding a worship service after the breakfast in the same Mexican food restaurant parking lot.
In December 2008 we were asked to move because in the 19 months of being at the restaurant we had grown from 30 people to 250 people weekly.
In January 2009 we moved, at the invitation of the pastor and church council, to CrossRoads UMC. This church is about 1.5 miles from where were previously located and is at the far north end of an relatively affluent area. Within 1/2 mile there are million dollar homes and pockets of extreme poverty.
One thing that has been very misreported. This is not a “feeding program”. We are NOT a traditional “charity dining hall” or in more colloquial terms, a “soup kitchen”. We have a weekly worship service with a breakfast meal. Period.
For four months no neighbor said anything or had any problem. My best guess is because they had no idea what was going on and there were no problems.
In May 2009 we had a gentleman end up in a alleyway for several days just north of the church. One of the neighbors ended up lighting his belongings on fire. ALL the neighbors came out because of the fire and this started off a chain of events leading to where we are today.
There are lots of issues raised by neighbors. One is they want to “protect the children”. That’s great. So do we. What does this mean? In this process they suggested we move to a St. Vincent de Paul dining hall close to where we were previously located at the Mexican food restaurant. Problem is St. Vincent de Paul wouldn’t let us go there (we asked back in May 2007).
The other interesting part of this is that there are MORE children in the same radius this dining hall is located than a similar radius surrounding the church. It’s just in an area of poverty. So it’s not really about “protecting the children” but rather protecting THEIR children. All well and good. I have a 20 year old daughter and I want her protected as well.
This leads to the next problem. The argument fallacy this “feeding program” leads to higher crime. In fact (and yes we’ve checked out the data with the City of Phoenix Crime Stats web page) there has been a 35% decrease in crime in the area the complaining neighbors live in and a 38% decrease in crime in the immediate one mile radius surrounding the church. In the same time frame for the City of Phoenix and even the police precinct we are in there has been only a 15% & 17% decrease respectively.
Other arguments the neighbors make are baseless. We are taking people away from needed services… In the words of my 20 year old… WHATEVER…. we are not, and have never claimed to be a “social service agency”. We are a church holding a breakfast and worship service in which ALL are welcome. About 1/3 of our folks live outdoors, 1/3 are indoors but not self-sufficient, and 1/3 live indoors & pay their bills.
This is probably enough to get a conversation going
Mike
Dozer,
I appreciate your comments to “comply with the law”.
Here’s my thoughts on that… in the 1960s there were still signs in windows of restaurants, laundromats, and businesses that said “Whites Only”. Should we have complied with that law as well?
What about the two women (Shiphrah & Puah) who rescued all those young Hebrew baby newborns that Pharaoh had ordered killed? Should they have complied with the law and moved on? Moved on where? Where should we move the homeless to this time?
There are just laws and unjust laws. We are NOT called to follow unjust laws.
Mike
By all means… I agree with you. You are not called to obey unjust laws. You are a … planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor. Isaiah 61:3
From the Declaration of Independence
“We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it….”
Thanks for posting this article. Such displays of ignorance in our country are nothing less that shocking.
Just recently came across your blog, and I love the photo with the hockey stick!