Open Door Sunday

Message Transcription

Chad: Good morning, church. That's so good to be with you this morning. My name is Chad Wheeler. I'm here with my wife, Jamie, and we're with Open Door. Got a lot of friends from Open Door visiting today as well. Glad to have you all. All here having our backs. Um, man, it's so good to be with you all. Uh, on this Sunday each year to share with you about what God is doing across the street. Um, I know a lot of y'all, but every year there are new faces in the room. So, uh, who who may be introduced to open door for the first time today. So I want to just tell you a little bit about who we are and what we do. Open door is a church and a community organization that works with people in poverty, homelessness and sex trafficking. We are like was mentioned earlier just across the street on 13th Street. So one block south of here. We have been around for 27 years this year. Yeah. Pretty wild. And you may know this or not, but 27 years ago, Broadway stepped out in faith and started Open Door as a ministry, and we were called Carpenters Church. In those days, we got our name from Carpenters Kitchen just across the street over here. We are a church that grew out of the kitchen. And, you know, for a lot of years we were in this neighborhood and then moved over to South Overton neighborhood, um, creating a place for people to connect with God and each other. And in 2011, with Broadway's blessing, we became a separate entity and then changed our name to Open Door and have been really doing a lot of the same things, but some new things as well.

Chad: We're still a ragamuffin bunch of people, uh, meeting together to seek God and and try to love each other. But we also have a couple of different programs now. Um, the longest one that's been around for a lot of years is our community center. It's a place where anybody can go during the day and connect with somebody who is interested in their story, wants to know their name, is there to kind of support them day after day. A lot of those people are right here in the room. Um, and then we have two housing programs, one, our supportive housing program, which provides housing to people coming out of chronic homelessness. And tonight, there are 80 people in that program that have a home through open door supportive housing. It's pretty incredible. Just seems like a few years ago we started with two our first two people in housing in 2015, 2016 and 80 people. Tonight we also have another housing program now called Survivor Housing. Jamie is the director of our Survivor Housing program, and that program provides temporary housing to survivors of trafficking and their families. And tonight, there are 55 people who have a home in survivor housing. So pretty. Incredible. We would not be here at all today. The two of us would not be here without y'all and your support. So, uh, can't say thank you enough. That's part of the reason why we love being here and sharing this story. Because it's not just our story. It's your story. And we're so grateful for the ways that you have partnered with us over the years.

Chad: You know, as we started 27 years ago, 17 years ago this year, the elders of Broadway Church of Christ really took a very serious leap of faith and hired two young people in their 20s to help lead Open Door. And, you know, if there's any kind of risk taking, that was it. But thank God we have been, uh, had you to support us and had God walking with us all these years. So today we are going to share some of the great things that God has been doing. And I think this clicker is working. Is it? There we go. So Scripture reading for today comes from Matthew seven seven. Jesus in the sermon on the Mount said, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be open to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, it will be opened. In the sermon on the Mount. Jesus here is giving us a calling with a promise. Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you. At open door we encounter many countless people in need. Sometimes, however, the people we meet, including ourselves, we don't always know what to ask for. We may not even be able to imagine what we could seek, and we sometimes have few, if any, doors at which to knock. Today we want to share the story of one woman at Open Door who faced such a challenge and the ways that God has responded.

Jaime: We first met Annie at our community center. It's open every day for anybody to come in, like Chad mentioned, for a cup of coffee, a shower, a place to connect with resources, but more importantly, really a place to get out of the elements, to take a break from just the harshness of the streets. And it's hard for a lot of us to even imagine what it would be like to spend day in and day out on the streets. Not just am I having some feedback. No, no. Good. Okay. I can hear it. So maybe it's just me. You guys are good. Then we're good. Just my head. Um, but it's just a place to to really get to know people. And a lot of times when people first come in, they have a street name because part of being on the streets is trying to be anonymous, right? Trying not to let people know a lot about you because their safety, um, and not being known. I'll tell you.

Jaime: Okay. What's up here? Uh, there's safety and not being known. Okay. So, um, a lot of times people come in and it's, you know, whenever they're first getting to know us, they don't know for safe, they don't know what's really going on. And we're a little crazy in there, right? We're trying to get to know people. Um, and so she first came in and is there just to take a shower. She's very familiar with the street. She's in her 40s at this time, and street life has been the life that she's known her entire life. Um, if you can imagine that. And so she's coming in and and just coming in kind of for some of those basic resources. She's in that really mode of survival. Right. So I just need to get my basic needs met. Um, and so she comes in, but then she keeps coming back and some of our team that's there starts to get to know her as a person, starts to get to know her name, start to build some rapport with her coming in. And over time they start to learn a little bit more about her story. And she had grown up in this area in Lubbock and some of for some of us that have grown up here, it's hard to imagine if you haven't grown up in an environment like this.

Jaime: But from the time of of really being born and the family she was born into, she was born into really a space of darkness, um, she grew up in a family that from the time she was young, she was being used and exploited. She was around a lot of really dangerous things in her home. Um, that was the only world that she knew. And so for those of us, a lot of people in here have young kids. I loved the video earlier. That was great. Um, and we're really intentional, right, about the environment that they start in because we know how important that is. We know that that shapes the rest of your life in a lot of ways of what you think of the world. Right? Because that's your own world. And so she's starting the world, seeing people as unsafe as people who hurt her, um, really not caring about her needs, just caring what she can provide for other people. And so as she gets older, this is her view of the world. And so her assumption of people is we're just here for exchanges. We're not here because we're made in the image of God, and we want to know each other, and we want to live into this good life and be able to participate in community and all these things that a lot of us have found.

Jaime: But we're just here to survive and we're here to get through, and people are here to hurt you. And so she's coming in in that mindset. And over time, the team at the community center, because they're so loving and they meet people where they are, just like God does with us, meeting us where we are, sitting in the darkness with us, sometimes sitting in those spaces that we don't even imagine a future because we're just trying to survive. And they do that with her. And through that, she starts to build trust with them because she sees that they're legit about what they're saying, that they do care, and they do see her for who she is and where she's at right now. And so over time, as that trust is being built, she learns that we have another program about survivor housing. And a lot of times on the streets, um, you know, it's easy, like Richard mentioned, to see somebody and say, well, why don't they have a job? Or why isn't this happening? But one of my friends would tell me, you know, I don't know if I want to get this job. I got offered a job today and I'm celebrating. I'm excited for them. And they said, I don't think I'm going to take it, because if I take it, I might lose it.

Jaime: And I don't know if I could lose one more thing right now. And so even just applying for a program, even applying for housing to do something new is so risky because you don't know if you're going to be able to succeed or fail, and you're not sure if you can even handle one more failure. But she's brave enough and she applies, um, and because of our eligibility, she gets in. And so we bring her into survivor housing, we bring her into that, that first home unit, and she's just overwhelmed that it has locking doors. It has kind of the basics that she needs to get in there. It's a place of dignity. We create it like a home space. Um, and she's overwhelmed because she's still living in the shame of that darkness and that that is her value, that those experiences, what happened to her are actually more about who she is, is the lie that she's believing right now. She's still in that lie, but she starts to get to know us, and she hangs in there. And a lot of times we'll come by and she's not there and we can't find her. And she's she's lost at another house and she's out there coping in the only ways that she's been taught how to cope.

Jaime: But we'll find her again and bring her back and say, it's okay, come on, come back over. Let's try again. Right. Let's try again this week. And she'll do it again and again several times. But every time, instead of her coming back and us saying, you know, I told you so, or you shouldn't have done that or you're kicked out, we say, hey, we love you, let's work on this. What's going on that you feel like you need to get your needs met in the trap house, right? What's going on that you feel like you can't handle what's going on right now, but to use. And let's develop some different skills. Right. We know that you're better than this. We know that you're worth it. And so we get to kind of our first three months, every couple months in survivor housing, we do what's called a quarter kind of review or. Goal setting, and we use that space in a lot of ways. But one of the things we do is we let people write down a survey of how they're feeling and how things are going for them and how we can do better. Because sometimes whenever you've you've lived in that world, it's really hard to just tell somebody something to their face because you don't know if they're going to kick you out or, you know, whatever.

Jaime: And so we let people write, and a lot of times we find people can fill up pages of writing because they're able to just get it out all on paper and not worry too much about what people are thinking. And so one of the things that she writes, even after those first couple months, is I feel like a lost cause. And you would think, what? After a couple of months, right. She's been in a safe place. She has all this support. But you have to remember, she's had 40 years of people telling her through words and through actions, that you're not worth anything, that you don't have a place kind of in this real world and the other world. And so even at that time, she says, I feel like a lost cause. But she goes on to say and tell us, but if there's hope, then it's with you guys. And so at that point, we start to realize she is starting to feel safe. This base is being built because otherwise she could have left and not ever come back, right? But that safety is there and that belonging is starting to build from there, just like God creates for us.

Chad: But if there's hope, then it's with you guys. Annie's story reminds us a lot of the father of the boy in Mark chapter nine. His son had been mute and suffering from seizures his whole life since he was a child. And he encounters Jesus and he famously says, if you can. If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us. For their whole experience, their whole lives, they had known nothing else. I can imagine that, uh, they begin to accept that this is just the way it is. This is what life is going to be. Um, and the the challenge to even believe that something could be different. So whatever criticism somebody might offer to this father, uh, I can relate, and I think a lot of us can. And yet it Jesus helps him with his unbelief. For Annie, for four decades she had suffered. She'd been a victim of abuse and exploitation. She'd known nothing else. There had been no rescue and no relief. And yet, as Jamie says, as she drew near to Jesus, experienced in the safety and the community of a group of women at Survivor Housing housing, she saw the demonstrated love of God. And she said, if there's hope, this is where it's at. She was beginning to imagine something could be different. She's beginning to picture what hope could be. And often that hope is only first imagined as it is seen in the life of God's people, as it's demonstrated through others.

Chad: Jesus promises that those who ask will receive, those who seek, will find, and those who knock the door will be opened. And yet, God often reveals this hope and fulfills this promise in flesh and blood through his people. You know, while our experiences may be very different, many of us, I imagine, have had similar revelations. I distinctly remember as a 17 year old meeting other teenagers who loved Jesus and were serious about following him, and it was one of the first experiences in my young, young life that I had kind of seen this picture, and it was a picture to me of what life could be like. Their relationship with God was something that I realized that I wanted. And so for the first time, really in my young life, I knew what I wanted to seek any experienced safety, belonging and love within a community of women that demonstrated what life could be like for her. And she started to believe that hope might be possible. You know, we often discover what to seek by revelation, by seeing tangibly what this new life could be like. But on the other side of that, I also believe that God often uses people to respond to those who ask and seek and knock. So now we're going to share some of the ways that God responded to Annie.

Jaime: A lot of times when we're talking with people, um, a lot of you guys probably had this question when you're little, what do you want to be when you grow up? And a lot of times, whenever we're first meeting people coming into the program, we're kind of asking some of those questions. And the response we've often gotten is, you know, I never even thought about that because I didn't know if I would live to be 18. I didn't know if I'd live to be 20 or 25 because of all of the chaos going on in my life. And so even whenever people come in and we talk with them about, tell us about your goals and your dreams and all those things, a lot of times people don't even know what those are yet, because they didn't even think they would have a future. And so this is one of the beautiful things that we see with God is he says, I want to give you a hope and a future. I want you to see yourself, you know, kind of going forward in something else. And so she comes in and she's starting to see some of those things, and she again is sharing more and more of her story. And she said, you know, I've been to every rehab around here. I've been to every program, every psychic and all of these things, and nothing has ever worked. But what's different here? And, you know, we had asked her what? So what's different here? Why are you starting to find some traction here in what's going on? And she said, you know, I really think because this time it's my choice in what I'm getting to do in those other programs, which nothing against those other programs.

Jaime: But she said people would tell me what to do all day, but then I wasn't able to really take ownership of it for myself. And so she's willing to start opening up her mind. And she said, you know, what are the opportunities here? And at Survivor Housing, we talk a lot about our job is to create restorative opportunities to thrive, because we really can't control the results of what's going to happen. We can't control so many things, but what is in our power and we spend a lot of energy on is trying to find opportunities, create opportunities, connect people to those opportunities so that then they can choose into those opportunities, what is best for them. And so Annie starts to connect with a lot of these opportunities because, again, she feels safe with us and is willing to connect in those ways. And so one of the things that she's able to get into is our therapy. And so she starts seeing one of our therapists and really starting to work through some of those core things that had happened in the past. Because if you don't have the healing from those things, you're just bringing them right into everything that's new and it's really going to complicate things, and it's going to kind of keep us cycling back every time.

Jaime: And so she starts to really sink into that. And during that time, we had a really neat opportunity to work with Refuge Services here in Lubbock that does equine therapy. So working with horses, and I got to tell you the first time we worked with them, it was hilarious. It was a group of our friends on the streets. We went out there and one of the girls said, what are we going to do out here? We're just talking to the horses like Mister Ed. They're going to just talk back to us. Uh, and I just about died laughing. And I thought, you know, if no one had ever explained it to me either, that's probably what I would think. Right. Like therapy with the horses. You're talking to them. They're talking to you. But no, it's it's a really beautiful space. Those of you who have animals, you know what a neat thing that is in your life. But it's a way for somebody who over 40 years has not had safety in relationship or intimacy to be able to bond with another living thing and to be able to connect with them, to be able to take care of them. And in doing so, you end up kind of caring for yourself. It's really, really neat and that helps build a base.

Jaime: And so she starts working through that. And during that time, she actually connects with some people that are here in this room for recovery support. So she can really start figuring out what she needs to do to learn how to cope differently than with her addictions. And what's neat about that is that, again, we're starting here with our team at Survivor Housing, but we're able to connect with other safe people in the community so she can again learn there is safety outside of just even this space, because we're not going to be able to be with her like this in this way forever. And so we want to start pairing her outside in that larger community. Um, during that time, she also connects a lot with her advocates who spend a lot of close time with her and our encouraging her, supporting her. Um, if she's, you know, ask some questions about school or things like that, they can connect her to those things and be with her through that process. But one of the neatest things that happens is that she's able to get what we call square jobs. So a job that is legal and on paper, and that has not happened for her in a really long time. And so she's able to get that job. And right now she's about to hit a year at that job, which is amazing. So really, really awesome for her, a year at a job.

Jaime: Um, and it's in customer service. And if you know that that's hard. That's hard on anybody, right? That's hard. If you've got great people skills and you're in a healthy mindset for people to yell at you or be mad about their drinks or whatever, uh, but whenever you're in recovery yourself and you are fighting tooth and nail every day to stay present and to work hard, that is really hard. And so it's amazing she's able to do that. But what also then. And start to build off these other opportunities. Now she can start building credit. She's able to get a vehicle to take her places. She's able to start investing in some other things like that. And so those those kind of smaller opportunities are what we see as small opportunities build themselves to other opportunities. And it's not just about having a job and a car and money, it's about what it means. This is somebody who, by no choice of her own, has not been able to take care of herself because someone else said, you've got to do this for me to take care of you, and you're not able to take care of yourself. We're going to do this, but this is somebody who now is finding, I have the confidence to buy what I need, when I need it. I have the confidence to pay off old things and feel good, that I have made things right in my life in those different areas.

Jaime: Um, you start to feel empowered and again, that grows into I can do something new after that. And so we see she then starts to transition from our transitional housing program into our rapid rehousing program, which the biggest difference there is that she now is on her own lease in her own apartment, and that she has been on in the spring. It will be a year that she's been on that lease, and that will be about the same time that she's going to be graduating from our program. And so in that space, it was hard to transition because it feels really scary. It's kind of another going out on your own. And so there are some bumps in the road, of course, but we were still there with her to support her. She was able to choose what apartment that she got because she's going to have the ownership of that. It's her space and it's it's her space to set it up. She gets to set up how she wants her home, the colors in it, all of those things that again, she starts to learn what it is to be able to have that space and not have to ask anybody else, not have to live in fear of anybody else in that space. That's just for her. And one of the other things she really, really loved doing is being in our art group. So we have a lot of art groups throughout the week, but a special one we did this last fall.

Jaime: Michelle Kraft helped us with it. It was this focus on this idea of currency, which in Spanish, I'm probably butchering it, but it's this idea of home in the place that you feel the safest and the most at home, not just outside of yourself, but within yourself, within your authentic self. And this is the journey that we see Annie on this whole time is coming more into herself. This outside environment has changed for her, but the way trauma works is that inside part is usually the last part to go. It's the hardest to heal from, but she starts healing even on the inside and creating home for herself on the inside and knowing who she is, knowing that she's loved, knowing she's a part of things, reconnecting with God. And through that, in the last couple of months, she's now been able to reconnect with her daughter. They haven't been able to have a relationship, and so now it's not where she wants it to be. She's always, always struggling and wishing it was better. But she's in that fight and she is in a place now, though, that she gets to speak with her. She gets to celebrate with her on her birthday. She gets to have visits with her, and I really believe she's going to get to a place where they're going to be able to spend a lot more time together, but it's got to start somewhere.

Jaime: And one of the things that Annie told us a couple weeks ago is she said, you know, in therapy and through these other things, I finally feel safe to grow up into that person that I was meant to be. And that only can happen in community. And that happens again when God meets us where we're at, and he allows those opportunities to come in, and he gives us people to walk with those things together because they are hard. Sometimes even the good things are difficult because again, if you've never known them, you're not trying to get back to something good. You're building an entire foundation, an entire home that's completely new. It's this image she used to say, you know, watching the TV as a kid and watching all these commercials. And she said, you know, that might as well be Mars, because I will never have that. I don't even know what that looks like to have a home, to have a family, to have food on the table. And now she's living into this new life and seeing that all of these things that God wants us to find that holistic restoration. And so she says, I feel like I have a choice in life that I never had before. I feel like I'm being rescued from an old way of life that I never chose to begin with. And in that she's finding freedom.

Chad: So in one of her recent meetings, Annie said, I'm really grateful for the inspiration and empowerment to finally see who I can be. Uh, it's it's so amazing when we get to share these kinds of experiences with people and see this kind of growth in somebody's life. Um, she's being inspired. God is breathing new life into her and giving her a vision of what this new life could be and who she really is and what she can see in the future. Something that she's never been able to see before. I hope you see in this story like we do, like the amazing miracle that it is that someone can ask and seek and knock and open a door to a new life. And the amazing thing that it is that God responds that we have a good father who responds to us sometimes in flesh and blood, sometimes by a friend in the neighborhood who helps us actually find the door, sometimes literal doors to open. Today, one of the things that we're asking of you is to continue standing with us, to be a part of God's answer, to be a part of God's response to those who are seeking, and to join him in opening the door to those who knock. You're going to have a moment to give today to open door. And I think that is happening online, and there's a drop down in the normal ways that you give here at Broadway. There's a drop down for Open Door. And when you give, you are supporting opportunities like Annie's finding. When you give, you are creating possibilities for someone to find a new life like she is finding. And so thank you in advance for for giving to open door and for the people that their lives are going to be changed in this upcoming year.

Chad: And thank you for the ways that you have continued to support us all these years, so that people like Annie could have the opportunity she's having today. Uh, while you're giving or, um, you may I don't know how long it takes with these online things, so, uh, um, but while you're giving, I'm going to pray for us. And then Gary's going to lead us in song. Father, we are so thankful that you love us, that you are a good father who gives good gifts, that you. You even give us the gift of being able to ask, being able to seek, uh, having an environment like we need and like Annie has needed, uh, where we can see what is possible. So for those of us and our friends and our neighbors who who can't even see a life that is different, give us revelation, give us inspiration, breathe new life into us to imagine what it is and what it can be to be with you. And father, help us answer the call to be a part of your response to the world. That when they ask, we will respond. When they seek, will help them find, and when they knock, we can be there to help them and sometimes walk with them through those doors that are opening for the first time. Thank you so much for Broadway and the way that they partner with us in your ministry in this community, and bless us all as we seek you and participate in the work that you're doing. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.