The Church of the Future, Here and Now
In a previous blog post, I alluded to a church of the future that is here and now.
One example of this type of church (which is a concept, not a building) was founded by Father Greg Boyle, a Jesuit Roman Catholic priest ordained in 1984. In 1986, he became the pastor of Dolores Mission Church, a very poor East Los Angeles parish in a community notorious for its gang activities. (Back then, nearly a thousand people were killed by gang activity every year.)
Father Greg understood that his first task was to deal creatively with gang problems, so he started a special school that allowed his gang members to earn their high school diplomas and opened a daycare center so his female gang members could find work.
After the 1992 riots in Los Angeles, Father Greg saw a new pathway. He started Homeboy Bakery, which became the foundation stone for building more businesses, such as Homeboy Tortilla Strips and Salsa, the Homeboy Diner at City Hall, Homeboy Farmers Market, Homeboy Grocery, Homegirl Café and Catering, Homeboy Silkscreen and Embroidery, and Homeboy Café and Bakery at the American Airlines terminal at Los Angeles International Airport.
In 2007, Homeboy Industries built a $8.5 million headquarters (not a church) in a gang-neutral location in downtown Los Angeles, offering various educational, mental health, and social services to gang members, ex-convicts, and their families.
The Homeboy program has changed the lives of hundreds of gang members and offered employment to some three hundred high-risk former gang members in their social enterprises and headquarters. More than ten thousand community members utilize these services annually.
Father Greg built his church by practicing unconditional love to people society had rejected and provided the opportunity for them to transform their Good Friday lives into Easters. Some did, and some didn’t. But the door was always open for them to return and try again. (In 2024, Father Greg was awarded the Presidential Medal of Honor for his work.)
The church of the future is all about accepting everyone unconditionally no matter where they are on their life’s journey with lots of forgiveness and an overabundance of caring. Everyone in that community understands without being told that this church is carrying out the wishes of Jesus to love and minister to “the least of these” (Matthew 25:42).
I suspect many gang members and their families become involved in the Dolores Mission congregation because they lived the Easter story. I have worked with gang members in my past ministries on three different occasions. Each experience proved to be rich and fulfilling as I witnessed the transformation (Good Fridays to Easters) of so many young people’s lives.
Another ministry that went on for seven years was when Anne and I worked in jails and prisons, tutoring our student inmates so that upon being released, they too could experience an Easter transformation.
Jesus and the church of the future will be much more interested in loving “the least of these” than building expensive churches and developing a priestly hierarchy full of rules and regulations.
Me too! How about you?