A Letter to Our Neighbors

This week, St. Paul’s has changed its policy about who can be in our buildings and on our property. Rather than simply share that policy with you, I want to provide some pastoral and theological context by addressing them as if they were written in a letter to our neighbors.

Dear Neighbors of St. Paul’s:

I am writing you today because our church has failed—failed to honor your dignity, failed to accept Jesus’ call to serve others in his name, and failed to care for you as fully as we ought. I accept responsibility for that failure, and I apologize for it. That may not be much consolation, and I am not asking you to forgive me or St. Paul’s, but I hope and pray that, in time, we will do better.

You are a part of our church community. It does not matter whether you are an official member of our congregation. (There are lots of people who come to church here every week who are not members.) It does not matter whether you show up for worship or take part in a class. By virtue of coming into our midst—by being physically present here on our campus—you are a part of our common life, and I am sad that our church has not found a way to welcome you as fully as we welcome others.

I know many of you by sight, which is to say your faces are familiar to me, but I must confess that I know only a few of your names. I see you coming to Community Meals, stopping by to use the restroom, and checking the Little Free Pantry and the Friendly Fridge. Some of you sit inside the Welcome Center or beside the fridge to charge your phones. Others of you seem just to need a place to rest for a while. Regardless, I am glad that you are here, and I believe that your presence makes our church a better place.

Over the last few months, I have gotten to know many of you much better because our church properties have become your overnight home. Early on Sunday mornings, I find you sleeping outside the Welcome Center, on the ramp beside the Narthex, or on one of our sidewalks. You are always polite and responsive to me when I wake you up and ask you to pack up your things before the day starts. Similarly, when I leave the office on a weeknight, you often greet me and wish me a good night. I am grateful for the neighborly kindness you demonstrate when we interact with each other. You help me remember what it means to draw the circle of belonging wider, which is why this significant narrowing of our circle is such a source of sadness.

I regret to inform you that you will no longer be able to spend time here at our church during the day. From 7:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m., all seven days of the week, only people who are taking part in a service, program, ministry, or church-approved meeting will be allowed here. Individuals may still come in to use the restroom, but then they will need to leave. You may still check the Little Free Pantry or the Friendly Fridge, but you may not stay here to eat a meal. Accordingly, we will no longer be offering free breakfasts on Sundays or free dinners on Wednesdays, but we will put any extras in the Friendly Fridge when the meal is over.

We will continue to offer overnight shelter on nights when the forecast is thirty degrees or below, but you will have to leave at 7:00 a.m. the next morning no matter how cold or stormy it is outside. On Mondays and Wednesdays, we will be open for Community Meals from 10:00 a.m. until 12:30 p.m., and you are welcome here during that time, but, at other times, unless you are taking part in one of our offerings, you will not be allowed to linger in the building or outside on the grounds. After 8:00 p.m., those who choose to sleep on the grounds will not be chased off, but, the next day, any items that are left on the property unattended will be thrown away without warning.

If that sounds harsh, it is. If that sounds unchristian, it is. The cold, hard, worldly reality is that St. Paul’s does not have the physical or cultural capacity to welcome as many people onto our property or into our building as have been showing up. Before we started offering the overnight warming shelter, there were five or six people without permanent housing who called our property home. Although it was not always easy, we were glad to welcome them into our church, to our table, and into our hearts. Once we opened the overnight shelter, however, demands upon our hospitality quickly grew, and now they have reached the breaking point.

As you may have seen, we had forty-seven people spend the night in our shelter earlier this week. On the one hand, that is a marker of real success—an otherwise unmet need in the community that is being addressed by our church. At the same time, having that many people come onto the property and into the building while it is being used for other purposes has begun to interfere with our other programs in detrimental ways.

The Parish Hall is not a safe place for young children to roam around during a service if our overnight guests have brought their dogs into the room. Although most of our neighbors abide by the rules, I regularly encounter people who are drinking, smoking, and swearing right outside the Welcome Center doors. Some of our neighbors have experienced significant trauma, and a few have mental health issues that make crowded spaces particularly difficult. The result is not only inconvenient or logistically challenging. It is genuinely unsafe. Parishioners and staff members are not the only ones who feel that way. Many of you, our guests, have stopped coming to the overnight warming shelter because it is too full.

None of those things should disqualify someone from being a part of our church community. We believe that Jesus came precisely to welcome those who could not find a seat at the tables occupied by members of the religious community. I believe that providing an overnight shelter in cold weather is the best thing our church has done during my time here, and I am committed to maintaining that important ministry. Unfortunately, we have reached the point where our ability to continue to offer that shelter, as well as Community Meals, is in jeopardy, and that is why we have adopted this policy change.

In order to be sure that we can continue to open our doors for the shelter on cold nights as well as allow unhoused people to sleep around the property when the temperature is above thirty degrees, I believe this change is necessary. Our staff has tried less drastic ways to create boundaries for the different groups that meet at the church, but, in part because our schedule varies every day and also because so many groups meet after business hours when our staff is not present to support them, those attempts have not been successful. This all-or-nothing approach is our last resort before asking the police to help us keep our property completely clear of our neighbors twenty-four hours a day. At that point, we would no longer have any right to think of ourselves as your neighbors, and I cannot imagine that.

Our church will be diminished by this policy—not only in terms of numbers but in terms of diversity. I want to caution you that, if you come to the church because you want to take part in a worship service or volunteer in our kitchen, you may have to stand up for yourself more forcefully than usual. People may try to tell you that you do not belong here because of the way you look or the clothes you are wearing. Those who want to take part in a ministry of the church are still welcome, though admittedly this policy does not leave much room for unhoused participants in our common life.

I pledge to do my best to continue to expand our understanding of who belongs here among us, but I must admit that right now I feel more defeated than empowered. If you want to share your thoughts about this change, please let me know. The rest of our staff and our volunteers are not responsible for our building policies. This decision is mine, so please direct your criticism and frustration at me. And, if you have suggestions for how we can be a better, more welcoming church, please let me know. I want nothing more than to be a place of universal welcome, and I need help with that.

In time, perhaps as the weather gets warmer, the number of people who come by our building each day may decrease, and we may be able to relax some of these policies. I certainly hope that we will find ways to expand who is welcomed here. Until then, all I can offer is my sincere apology that we are not doing better. I pray that we will do better very soon.

Yours faithfully,

Evan D. Garner