On September 16, 2007, Trinity Vineyard’s Lazarus Ministry partnered with Safehouse Outreach and Daddy D’z BBQ Joint in an effort to be the hands and feet of Jesus to almost 700 homeless men and women at the first annual Lazarus Ministry Health Day in downtown Atlanta. Allison Mitchell, director of Lazarus Ministry, found inspiration for the day in the Homeless Stand Down, an event organized by the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless earlier this year.

Allison saw the Health Day as a unique opportunity to extend Lazarus Ministry’s mission to serve Atlanta’s homeless. “I think kindness is the first step for Trinity and Lazarus to matter and to make a difference here—going out of your way for someone, whether it is a person on the street or a person in the grocery store, because kindness breaks down barriers” she explained. “Health Day is just a larger expression of that simple belief.”

The Health Day is a third addition to the larger of Lazarus’ annual events for the homeless (the ministry also reaches out in smaller, but significant ways on a weekly basis). Approximately 200 volunteers staffed several stations, offering a variety of services to the day’s guests.

As the men and women arrived, they signed waivers stating their voluntary involvement in the Health Day activities and a stamp verifying they had signed in at the registration tables. Those working the tables noted the excitement of passers-by when they learned about the event, some offering help, others asking for more information about Trinity and the Lazarus Ministry.

After the participants signed in, workers directed them to the Medical tent, which served as the gateway to the other available services. Without a blue sticker indicating that they had gone through the clinic, the men and women could not proceed to the bar-b-q, hair and nail or clothing stations. Some balked at this, but most lined up to take advantage.

At the medical station, a volunteer asked about each person’s medical history, including any allergies or medications required for known conditions. Then medical professionals including nurses and medical doctors checked the patients’ blood sugar and blood pressure levels. An on-site pharmacy and first-aid station served those individuals with more severe conditions, and vans were on stand-by to take any in need of urgent care to Grady Memorial Hospital. But the healing went beyond the physical for some of the men and women, leading some volunteers to pray with their patients.

The clothing station offered each guest a voucher to take as much clothing as they could carry. The donated clothes, shoes and accessories filled an entire room to four feet high at Safehouse Outreach, and it took a week of sorting by hardworking volunteers prepare them for the Health Day. The joy and freedom brought by this sort of luxury was obvious: one lady declared gleefully, “I like jeans!” as she approached stacks of denim ripe for her picking.

Perhaps the most beautiful and moving scene of the Sunday event was the hair and nail station. The hair and nail team established a particular intimacy and connection with the homeless men and women as they worked to visually transform their guests—cutting hair and shaving beards, washing feet and trimming nails, putting on and giving away make-up. The meaningful and empowering experience of getting a haircut inspired two men—both former haircutters themselves—to serve others by cutting hair alongside the volunteers.

“What struck you the most was seeing people getting their hair cuts and smiling. This was an example of the impact of what we are doing,” shared Michelle Warhola, sign-in table volunteer. She noted how amazing it was to see the things we take for granted minister to people and affect them so deeply.

The afternoon concluded with a church service, the music and message provided by Trinity’s pastoral team. The men and women in attendance received the service with such enthusiasm that they immediately invited the team to come back every Sunday.

For Allison Mitchell, the high-point of the service was sharing the Lord’s Supper. “The actual visual of that moved me a great deal. We are all equal at the foot of the cross. That is a fundamental belief of Lazarus. We try to blur the “us/them” line and communion was so special—it erased all lines.”

After all was said and done, 200 to 300 volunteers fed 800 mouths—nearly and helped make 500 to 600 men and women feel "a little more human for a day.” That Sunday, all involved had the privilege of serving nearly 10 percent of Atlanta’s homeless population (6,800 homeless men and women).

As I prepared to participate in Sunday’s events as an observer and writer, I educated myself with numbers and statistics that quantified the reality of homelessness and illness both locally and nationally. I thought that somehow these digits and graphs would fill in the gravity and meaning of poverty as I considered and walked among these men and women. But while those numbers may leave an impression, they fail to give meaning, perspective and depth. Unsurprisingly, they end up leaving my mind blank and my spirit untouched.

I know and have known that Jesus has a heart for the “orphans and widows in their distress” (James 1:27). And I have held in my mind for years the truth in Matthew 25:40: “’I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’” But there is something beyond or beneath these verses that I have missed for so long. In order to really uncover Jesus in my encounters with the poor, I had to seek out for myself what church member, Tyler Lyle, meant when he wrote on the Lazarus MySpace page: “I saw a tiny glimpse of heaven on Sunday afternoon.”

At the Health Day’s hair and nail station, I watched as a volunteer poured water over a man’s feet, dry and gnarled after years of walking the streets in worn, ill-fitting shoes. If he ever knew the feeling of being prized or loved by someone else, he had probably long forgotten it. Yet she washed and massaged his feet as if they belonged to a prince. They were feet that carried a soul Christ loved and served and died to save. As I stood there, I realized that God’s glory, His very kingdom, dwells in acts of love and service such as these.

In that moment, I discovered that the poor, weak and beleaguered are not merely beneficiaries of Christ’s heart and mission; they are at the very essence of His purpose, being, person-hood, holiness and glory. God gloried in the loving, servant encounters scattered throughout the hours that filled the small downtown block we inhabited that Sunday afternoon. His presence and grace abounded. 

Any time we serve others in Jesus’ name as His Body, we perpetuate God’s glory in an intense, beautiful, majestic and counter-cultural way. And as we clothe, feed the afflicted and weak, commune and worship with them, we unveil for ourselves and the world a glimpse of Heaven.