Starlight Ministries: Taking the Church to the Streets

Welcome to the Starlight Ministries website!

Throughout the Bible there is a clear and consistent call to God’s people to care for the poor, homeless, imprisoned, widowed and orphaned. God empowers His Church to be a community in which these individuals are beloved and involved members. A recent survey of Christians found that while nearly 80% of them agreed that Jesus spent considerable time with the poor, less than 2% of those surveyed were actually spending any time with them (Source: Shane Claiborne, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical [Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006], p. 113). This gap points to the struggle of many believers and churches today to know how to bring the poor and marginalized back into our community. In Boston, the 2008 census counted a total of 7,681 homeless individuals on one night, an 11 percent increase since last year. This number doesn’t even include the thousands more who are “street involved” – those who primarily associate with those on the streets and are on the verge of homelessness. Most of those who are homeless or street involved desire relationships that offer mercy, hope and support for a healthier life off the streets, but not many people are looking to connect with them in return.

Starlight Ministries helps the Church build loving and mutually transformational relationships—real relationships—with individuals who are homeless or street involved. These relationships bring a tireless hope for change to folks on the streets, and they bring an opportunity for extraordinary fruitfulness to concerned Christians. Real relationships are the vehicles for God’s transformative love and power in the streets and in the Church.

Because Starlight has been developing these very relationships, between loving Christians and folks on the streets for nearly two decades, we are able to provide the support and the context for building these real relationships like few others. Our staff engages volunteers, churches, and folks on the streets in a dynamic network of relationships where positive steps towards sobriety, housing, and, ultimately meaning as a purpose-filled child of God are within reach—where what seems “impossible” becomes not only possible, but expected.

Read more about Starlight's approach...

2010 STARLIGHT WALKATHON
The 2010 Starlight Walkathon will be on October 16, 2010! Sign up to walk at www.firstgiving.com/egcstarlight.

Join us at our Pre-Walk Party on Sept. 10 from 6-7:30 p.m. at Hope Fellowship Church in Cambridge! Click here for more info.

NEXT TRAINING:
Date: Sept. 25, 2010
Time: 9 a.m. to 12 noon
Location: Christ the King Church, 99 Prospect Street, Cambridge, MA (Central Square). Directions here.
Description: Starlight will be offering two different trainings: Starlight Basic Training AND Volunteer Development Training. Starlight Basic Training is a basic framework from which to understand homelessness and what we as the Body of Christ are called to do about it, appropriate for anyone that thinks they might want to volunteer with Starlight, another church-based team, or if you just want to learn more! Volunteer Development Training is for those that are current or recent volunteers with Starlight or another outreach ministry or church and is designed to increase our knowledge and ability to effectively serve.