homeless man

There is this homeless man that has been hanging around Olive Springs for several weeks. He's just a kid, 19 years old, and it appears that he lives in his car. He's stolen food, scared a couple of people and then last week, he broke in to the church. Last night, he just appeared at a time when no one else was there and all the doors were looked, which confirmed our suspicion that he has been hiding in the church. It was creepy the way he just appeared. Due to the break in we had to call the police. It was a kind of scary and intense situation. No one knew where he was, we just knew he was in the church somewhere. The police searched the building and found him. I have never been apart of anything like that before. I have never felt afraid inside my own church, but last night, we did.

I am struggling with this. This guy, he is not like the homeless people that Shane Claiborne talks about. We have tried to be his friend. He doesn't want to talk, be friends, be apart. Nothing. He just wants stuff from us. He is aggressive when you have nothing to offer and the police suspect that he is on meth. That is the struggle. I want to be an advocate for the poor and homeless. I want them to be able to come to the church when they need help, but I don't want to be stupid and careless with other people's lives and safety. I know that Christianity is not safe. But I am not willing to risk my life over giving this guy a piece of pizza. Maybe that means I don't believe in the revolution the way I thought I did. I don't know what it means really. All I know is I get that feeling of uneasiness around this guy.

Today I feel like I've failed to be different. I still feel like we did the right thing, the only thing we could do, but I still hate it. So the question on my mind today, is how do we handle the homeless in this community? It feels hard to find the balance between caring for them and being careless about others in our church.