Pastor Stephen Joyce of About My Father’s Business Outreach Ministries, a Grace Brethren church in Washington D.C., once received a call from a radio station asking, “Are you the church always out working with the homeless?”
Ask someone on the street in Washington, D.C., if they’ve heard of About My Father’s Business, and chances are the answer will be yes. There isn’t an ethnic group, social group, or age group the church hasn’t ministered to in some way. Pastor Joyce says that he’s frequently asked, “How did you get in there to do ministry?”
His answer?
“They asked us to come.”
Since their founding 12 years ago, About My Father’s Business has been fiercely pursuing Jesus’ command to “love the least of these.”
“We do a lot of street ministry,” the pastor notes. “And when I say street ministry I’m not talking about suburbanite street areas, I’m talking about down in the guts of the street where the hustlers and drug dealers are. The people we reach out to are usually the kind many would be scared of.
“Sometimes when I go out to minister, people tell me, ‘Oh, you just came here to get your feel-good. You don’t really care about us,’ and I tell them ‘just watch,’” Joyce continues. “That’s the key for a successful ministry: do it more than once. Then do it again. And again. And again. Show them the love of Jesus.”
About My Father’s Business does outreach every weekend, and has developed ministries such as teen Bible studies, mentoring groups, and aerobics classes. They often work with other Grace Brethren congregations, hosting mission trips and collaborating on outreach projects. They have planted two churches already and are in the process of planting four more. As their ministries grow, so does the harvest, as they demonstrate the steadfast love of Christ…again, and again, and again. – by MariJean Sanders
(This story was first shared in the GraceConnect eNews, No. 1. Subscribe here.)