Sharing Jesus on the streets of Canada's Murder Capital

by Daniel W. Barr

Street Reach Ministries (SRM) is a ministry that operates in the murder capital of Canada: Thunder Bay, Ontario. More specifically, the organization is headquartered at 516 Victoria Avenue East (its original location closed in October 2020). After wholesales changes in geography, demographics, scheduling, and chaplaincy, SRM opened in its current location in September 2021. When I arrived in January 2022, it was a reboot project barely three months old.

During SRM’s transition, wider society was preoccupied with the pandemic, overt visuals of racial injustice, and protest. Canada was waking up to the discovery of unmarked graves and learning about events that took place in residential schools. In this context, the idea of evangelism had the potential to be a powder keg.

The work of Street Reach Ministries relies on a street chaplain. That’s me. But the street chaplaincy isn’t a Divine Call; instead, it’s a contract between Redeemer Lutheran and Lutheran Community Care, a local organization which purchases my services. When I began this work, I didn’t know anything about chaplaincy. But given the absence of a Divine Call, I knew two important details about the people I would encounter: they aren’t asking for a chaplain themselves and they make me no promises. I resolved to spend a year earning the right to share the Gospel with people who owed me nothing.

Theirs is a neighborhood in flux due to challenges with housing, health problems, economics, and social issues. If you want to see what “loitering with intent” looks like, just take a stroll down the boulevard. The drug and sex trades thrive in this microcosm where the devious and the destitute converge to negotiate terms of survival. Some are treated like cattle or lab rats by local gangs. Others are the entrepreneurs. Most suffer a litany of afflictions that impede their problem-solving skills. All are treated like a blemish that wider society would rather forget.

Unto all of these, Street Reach Ministries offers respite from the chaos outside. Inside the building we offer simple services: a beverage and a snack; a clean place to sit and read and chat; laundry facilities; free telephone and internet. We provide a clean, safe, accessible, well-equipped bathroom. These are simple amenities. Some people on the street once had them themselves. Others were born without them.

There’s nothing distinctly Christian about these services on their own. A secular charity nearby offers something similar. But where there are choices, people return to the environment that they like best. I reckon church attendance has taught us that much.

A lack of volunteers for SRM meant the doors were only open for four hours on Tuesdays—hours which fell short of my obligation to Lutheran Community Care. Compelled to give them their money’s worth, I began walking the neighborhood alone in April 2022. This was an opportunity to interact with those who visit SRM outside the building, and to overlap with their social circles. It turned out to be a cool reception: “Are you lost, padre?” Those friendly familiar folks I saw on Tuesdays are hardened street dwellers. I was the vagrant in their domain.

Inside SRM’s building, I expect visitors to amend their behavior and language. Outside the walls, there is an equally rigid code of conduct that they expect me to honour. It’s not a place for the naïve. My only assumption is a soldier’s awareness that nobody has my six—nobody has my back. In all this, my wife, Connie, waits patiently for me to come home. I certainly don’t want her to have to come look for me.

These walkabouts didn’t increase visitor interest in SRM but I gained valuable insight. Outside the walls, people eventually softened. But not indoors. Why? The calm environment inside SRM makes it easy for others to eavesdrop. What you say has the potential to become gossip. SRM has a glassed-in office but it’s an office; it’s not familiar and it’s not private. The question “Can we talk outside, padre?” became a familiar invitation to talk to people on their turf and on their terms. Serving tables indoors had run its course.

MERCY FOR THE BROKEN

I generally avoided walking in alleys because they can be volatile places; illicit consumption takes place there. But one day, somebody I haven’t seen in weeks heads down an alley. That persuades me to make the attempt. I take a deep breath and follow him in.

He’s picked a popular destination. The ground is sticky with evidence of prostitution and drug use. In fact, my path is flanked by both activities in full view. He sweeps the ground with his foot and sits down. When he notices me approaching, he greets me with a toothless grin: “Excuse the mess, padre. My roommates are slobs. Pull up a stump.” I clear a place and sit down too.

He digs out his Bible, opens it to the middle, and thumbs back a few pages to Psalm 23. He speaks the Invocation and reads the Psalm out loud and says, “This is the Word of the Lord.” We respond in unison.

His face begins to strain and his conscience spills over into a familiar monologue: he hates his addiction. He hates his weakness. He hates his lot and the life he has made for himself. His confession crescendos and crashes to its logical conclusion: “I can’t do it, padre. I can’t do it, and I’m sorry.”

Amid acts of human depravity, two are gathered here in Jesus’ name. The Gospel moment unfolds. “Upon this your confession, I, by virtue of my office…” The same words of unconditional absolution that we hear in church puncture his despair, and he sobs bitterly. I slide over, drape an arm across his shoulders, and quietly sing “The King of Love My Shepherd Is” (LSB 709) into his ear. We hack through the Lord’s Prayer.

He prepares his potion, fills the syringe. His expression is a strange blend of resentment and shame. “Padre, you don’t have to stay for this part.” But I do.

Over the next few hours, he drifts in and out. I pray and watch for threat and crisis. Beat cops will be by soon. I ease him onto his side, and tuck a naloxone kit (in case of overdose), snack bars, and my calling card into his pantleg. Before he wakes up, his “roommates” will pick through his stuff and tear a few pages from his Bible.

On my way out, a woman says, “Hey, padre. Thanks for giving a shit about us.” Her face and neck are peppered with lesions. She has a fat lip, and her teeth are blackened and jagged. She’s sitting beside a puddle of puke. I crouch down, hold her hand, croak out the Benediction (Numbers 6:24-26), and take my leave. At the time it seemed so contrary: “The Lord bless you and keep you…” But am I so different than these? Are you?

My first memories of church are The Lutheran Hymnal pages 5 and 15, pump organ, pews near capacity with wellbehaved people in their Sunday best. By contrast, “Mean Streets Lutheran Church” is inelegant and pared back. It’s two or three in an alley or abandoned building adorned with graffiti and smutty slogans. The scent of carrion, sour milk, and urine swirl there until freeze-up in winter. But in both settings—church in the pew and church in the streets—I count just two demographics: the triune God and everybody else.

In austerity or opulence, there is no distinction: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:23). Beggars all, sinners come seeking the good portion which will not be taken away from them.

By December of my first year, I had connected with 34 such beggars filled with regret for taking the path in life they are now on—paths which have now intersected with mine. They are welded to one choice they wish they could take back, and they have to make a Sisyphean effort to silence the cascading guilt, shame, and fear of eternal consequence. Frankly, a ministry of “presence” is worthless to these people; they don’t need a house pet. They need the proclamation of forgiveness. They need their eardrums to vibrate with the promise of God’s mercy in Christ again and again. We all do—because we are all beggars who share a common addiction called sin.

More than a year since beginning work with Street Reach Ministries, my insufficiency remains intact. Gospel opportunities pass by quicker than I can respond. Following up with a particular person can sometimes take weeks, when even two days is too late. Sometimes naloxone and CPR don’t work; nobody walks away from that unchanged.

Although these people owe me nothing, I receive a vagrant’s reward: “Hey, padre. Thanks for giving a shit about us.” Though incomplete, the work is not in vain.

Rev. Daniel W. Barr is Pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Kakabeka Falls and Street Chaplain with Street Reach Ministries in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

Street Reach Ministries is a program of Lutheran Community Care, a Listed Service Organization of Lutheran Church–Canada. For more information on Lutheran Community Care and SRM, visit lccare.ca.