EP 47: Front Porch Housing - Celebrating Nonprofit Launch

Life is hard. Life is hard for us all.

But we all, everyone sitting here has that individual to

call. If you have a dead battery, if

your kid is sick and can't go to child care, but you still have

to go to work, If you're going to buy a car, you have somebody

even call and say, hey, can I go to the buy here, pay here and

get a 30% loan? Is that a good idea?

And they're going to tell you, no, we all have that.

And the volunteers coming alongside the residents to be

able to create that new community, healthy community so

that in that two to three-year period when it's time to say,

hey, I love you, but you got to go.

Our residents are able to do that and they're do it

confidently because they have the community front porch.

I hope I'm without a job. I say that every day I walk

through is I don't want there to be neat and I'd prefer not to

work any longer. So if we could figure out a

solution, the community is what that solution is.

It's working through that. It's giving them a safe

environment. It's giving people to call that

they know are going to care for them in the long run.

Hey everyone, and welcome back to a special edition of the

Grace Church Members Podcast. We recently sat down with some

of our community leaders to talk about a few exciting updates at

Front Porch Housing. If you would like to watch a

video of this conversation, click the link in the show

notes. As you're listening, we

encourage you to share this episode with someone that you

think should know about Front Porch Housing to help them

expand their systems of support. Thanks for listening and I hope

you enjoy this conversation as much as we did.

Well, hello, my name is Scott and I'm your host for this

conversation. Today we're talking about Front

Porch Housing and we are getting an update and specifically

celebrating some things that are going on as they approach their

third year anniversary. Specifically though, we also

want to talk about the role that community relationships are

playing to the vital success of Front Porch Housing.

And so I have three friends with me today.

I have Jennifer Bryant and Mike, and I'm going to let them

introduce themselves. So hey, Jennifer, thanks for

being here. Thanks for having me.

Tell us a little bit about your you and what you do here.

Sure. So my name is Jennifer Dill and

I'm the Care, Recovery and Outreach Director at Grace

Church and also have various involvement with the funeral

bereavement coordination as well.

And specifically you work with Front Porch?

How? Yes.

So Front Porch is one of our community relationships that we

are trying to continue to to Foster and connect with.

And as you'll hear front porch housing was started at Grace

Church and now they are their own entity.

And so we are excited to see how we can continue to be connected

and have a growing relationship as not only they grow, but Grace

Church grows as well. That's awesome.

All right, Brian, what about you?

What do you do? Yeah.

I'm Brian Burgess. I'm the director over at Front

Porch Housing, which means I usually get the phone calls when

something's not going right. But really, I'm there for the

overall health and well-being of our participants, our other

organizations that are coming in and helping us out, and the

organization itself. Front Porch.

Yeah. And you've been in that role for

how long? So I've been in that role about

three years now. OK.

And currently oversee a staff of.

Currently overseeing a staff of about 22 account that are caring

for residents at front. Porch and how many residents?

So underneath our front porch umbrella, which is direct care,

we have about 118 adults, We have their dependents which puts

about another 100 kids in that. And then overall on the

property, we are just shy of 400 image bearers that are there

front porch. Wow, awesome.

Why don't you introduce this to Mike?

Yeah, this is Mike. Mike is with Newspring.

He's one of our relational partners.

And Mike, go ahead. Yeah, I'm a pastor at New Spring

Church, been on staff 11 years and I've been in a variety of

our campuses in the Upstate from Powdersville to Clemson to

Greenville currently and love building the church and trying

to fulfill the Great Commission with like minded churches and

organizations, which is I think why I'm here today.

Yeah. And for those that may not be

familiar, you were like directly right across, you're right

across the. Street, yes, we are as close as

you can be. If if we were any closer, we

wouldn't be neighbors, we would be family members, I guess in

the same household virtually right across Pleasantburg.

That's been great to see all that grow and develop

unexpectedly even as we've still a relatively new organization

front porches 3 years. You alluded to this, Jennifer,

but take us through either you or Brian kind of how Front Porch

came to be and then how it launched into its own nonprofit.

Sure. I think it's so it, it's all

started with one lady from our congregation that she was, you

know, moving towards the church and really experiencing a lot of

life change. And as if she was experiencing

that life change, she was trying to actually make physical

changes around her location. And that included housing.

And so she was running up against a lot of barriers to

find housing that she could afford that also was safe and an

environment that could be, you know, willing to help her in her

recovery. And so a lot of factors and a

lot of things went into into place.

And so Grace Church started with a corporate lease with a local

apartment complex to help this individual experience even more

recovery with her walk in Christ.

And there's just a lot, lot more details involved about how that

grew. And at the same time, you know,

it's just so neat to see that Grace Church just took the night

next step, wherever that meant. So that could be just looking up

an apartment complex, looking at the rent cost, just taking that

next right step to help this one individual.

Well, when that one individual we got her settled, the

floodgates kind of open for lots of individuals who were looking

for supportive housing. Yeah, who had the same type of

economic need in a tough housing market.

And what strikes me as this was 3 plus years ago and it's it's

only gotten worse over the last three years.

Yeah, that language of it started with one.

I I love that. And so taking the the next step

it it grows the opportunity to then purchase property at

Greenville Tech comes a real viable option.

Brian, is that when you kind of enter into the story?

Yeah. So I enter in just after the

purchase of the old Greenville Tech dorm rooms off of

Pleasantburg and Cleveland Street.

At that point, we were coming out of I think there was 48

corporate leases. That were so started with one

they are grew to 48, yeah OK, so 48 we got to make some different

decisions. 48, financially scaling, yeah, we were scaling

really quickly, yeah. At 48 it made sense to look at

what are, what's the next phase because you, you have the

financial wherewithal at this point.

So they became available in May of 22, the property was closed

on and at that same time front porch housing rolled out.

No longer Grace Church housing. It became its own. 5O1C3 with a

whole lot of support Grace. And So what what have been some

of those benefits of it coming out from underneath the the

church as a almost like a ascending organization if you

use missional terms. So it's his own nonprofit.

How's that helped any any difficulties or challenges that

have come with that? Yeah, I there's, there's a lot

of bonuses that come to it and a lot of challenges that come to

it. So we have been able to create

other relationships with other church organizations that are

willing to, to step in. We know that we have to have

community buy in in order to, to be viable in the long term.

Grace has been an amazing partner for us and continues to

be. But we we know the scalability

from 48 to an apartment complex that has 120 units with the

ability to continue to grow with a plan to to move throughout the

Upstate over the next 5 or 6 years.

We needed those other relationships in there.

Yeah. So talk about either one of you,

about a few of the different services as far as either, you

know, kind of wrap around services or types of holistic

care that Front Porch offers that makes these community

relationships so important. Yeah.

So with Front Porch, we took a, we took a lot of what Grace had

already established through classes.

So Regen is one of those that everyone kind of goes through

that and they're out in the community.

We don't host that on site, but we have great partners that are

able to to bring our folks into there.

We took Money Matters, which is a grace program and adapted it

to a poverty mindset for our folks and now allow a lot of our

relations to be able to step into that.

So using partner organizations or other churches to to bring

financial coaches in now we're going to walk with our residents

for the next two to three years in a financial standpoint.

Yeah, because it's important. I mean you mentioned having 20

staff, but twenty staff cannot provide the wrap around services

for 400 image bearers, right? So if you don't have volunteers,

you don't have ministry, right? Absolutely.

I think we average right now about 80 hours a week in just

maintenance volunteers. OK, we have 120 apartments.

That's 120 houses. Yeah, that's more toilets than

anybody wants to unclog. So the hours in just

maintenance. In maintenance, yeah.

In maintenance any. Idea on what the kind of the

relational component is over the course of any given day at that.

Point it'll completely change. She never know what you're what

you're going to walk into. But one of my favorite stories

that I always go back to is we have a resident who has been

trafficked for a large portion of her life, 30 plus years.

So trusting men is not what she does, but through the

relationships built through the men that are volunteering in

maintenance, through the men that have been placed in

leadership capacities throughout Front Porch, She is, she sent a

text message over to Leanne and said, hey, I just want you to

know that my thought of men has changed.

And so that is something that is completely unintentional and

it's done by volunteers who their goal is to just come in

and surf. Yeah.

And they don't know they're doing this back end work right

at the same time. Yeah, 'cause they're, you're

just asking them to be who they are.

You're not asking them to change for an audience for a resident.

You're just asking them to bring whatever gifts and talents got

is gifted them with and just be willing to be present.

Correct. So then when we have such, you

know, great community engagement, number of different

entities, you know, we've got new spring right across the

street. How did you get connected with

with Mike? So with MM coming in four or

five months ago, yeah, we had a resident that was coming through

new spring and we we started the conversation there with him and

I. They also have surveys that

they've come into front por yeah, I think three years now in

a row, but they've they've entered into some surveys there.

And so that relationship has started and we're really trying

to to build that. We do have some residents that

do attend through spring. We have some staff members that

are that's awesome right up the road.

So that's been a a great, great partnership there.

Yeah. So, so Mike, what's been your

experience as you come over to to Front Porch for the first

time? And then how has that grown over

the last? We are always looking for like

minded organizations out in the community to to do ministry

alongside of. We all have the same focus,

right? We're Christ centered and we

know that sin causes a barrier and relationship fracture

between US and God. But it's not only us and God,

it's us and other people. It's us in creation and it's us

and ourselves. And what I've really grown to

appreciate about Front Porch is the way that it truly is.

You say wrap around care, a holistic approach because

sometimes we can be so passionate about meeting a

particular need that we miss the bigger need.

And I'd say the gospel centric approach and the fact that

organizations that are trustworthy and integris that

are, that are truly trying to reach people for the gospel and

doing it alongside other churches allows us to focus on

what only we can do, which is discipleship and evangelism and

helping people use the word image bearer.

We're made in the image of God, but being formed into the image

of Christ and we can have the trust that there are just some

things that the church, if we try to meet every need, we're

not going to meet any need. And you know, there are very

specific things that Front Porch is equipped to do in resourcing

clients and image bearers to go from A to B, and it just works

really well in concert. Yeah.

So what are some of those pathways that you've really seen

traction with members of Newspring getting involved at

front? Yeah, You know, for example, I

met a guy a few months ago who was serving on one of our teams.

He had recently gone through a divorce, had some had had some

history of substance abuse that had some real ramifications

currently. So what Front Porch was able to

do, he's joined a discipleship group at New Spring in addition

to the serving team. He's been a resident at Front

Porch for several months. He's going through some of the

classes, some of the financial classes, going through Regen.

And these conversations and journeys are not without bumps

in the road, but I can see an upward trajectory and the fact

that it's helping resource him to go from point A to point B

and doing these things with his interactions and him being able

to live at Front Porch for the time being and being a part of

our church community, we are seeing him take steps forward

because he's got a plan and he is taking one step at a time

into that plan. It's not a hand out, but a hand

up. Yeah, that's amazing.

So that's a very intimate expression where you have a, a

member of the church who he's involved in discipleship

oriented ministry at the church and then he's got the support of

the community. That's like best case scenario.

How have you seen some individuals that are getting

plugged in on a service level by there?

It's through a serve day or something else.

How what are some of those, what are some of those pathways?

And then what are some of the stories that you're hearing from

people who are meeting these new neighbors?

Yeah. So for one, we as a church,

through a number of situations over the last several years have

really felt like we needed to be tithing on the tide.

So we give away 10% of everything that comes in at New

Springs and we try to be discerning with with where that

goes. And we have been sharing ever

since. Really, Front Porch came on the

scene. The relationship preceded me and

Lord willing, it will outlive me because we're all temporary in

our roles. But until Jesus comes back,

we're all like minded and trying to bring the gospel forward and

help people become more and more like Jesus.

So we have shared with our people, hey, if you give you're

a part of what's happening here because we're resourcing

organizations in the community and our serve days are an

opportunity for our people to get their hands and feet

involved as well as their pocketbooks and that grows a

heart. Yeah.

Tell us what those look like. How often do you do those?

Yeah. So we have a yearly serve day

that all of our campuses do that really allows us to leverage the

the air war of communication. And our hope is always that

these are opportunities for our people to hear a little bit more

about the organization when they go in.

And we've seen several people take opportunities to serve

either on a weekly or a monthly or in a consistent basis or even

like there's the three-year anniversary event that's coming

up that our worship leader, Malik is going to be able to

lead worship that. And it's just great to be able

to meet needs like that in a mutual in a mutual way.

There's a book that I, I wouldn't say changed my mindset,

but poured gas on it called Rooting for Rivals that some of

y'all may have read. But the idea is not that we're

competing for different pieces of the pyre resources, but we

all want to expand the number of resources coming into the

Kingdom. And as that pie grows, it's not

about the size of the individual piece, but it's about getting

more resources into the Kingdom. And what Jesus said that his

people would be recognized by their unity, right?

Oh, that's great. So how do you, Brian, kind of

take that mindset and try to share it with other community

relations to get them kind of involved?

Yeah, we have. Obviously, we're blessed with

the property that we have and we have tried to partner well with

other organizations that are doing good work.

We, we know that we're not a solution for everything, but

there are a lot of folks out there that are doing, doing the

work that we need to tap into. So folks like Jasmine Road and

Miracle Hills, Serenity Place, overcomers, they're not just a a

pipeline for us bringing in residents, but other resources

because I think right now, since September, we've had over 700

applications come in. Wait, so since September?

September of 20. Fourth.

Yeah, just a little later. Six months.

We have had over 700 applications come across our our

door and we're at capacity. So that's a lot of resources, a

lot of folks that need resources out there.

So our goal is to build as many communities partners as we can

and then get folks connected to those as we go.

Yeah, because thank the Lord that there's 400 people that are

somehow, you know, cared for in this way in this moment.

But it's really just kind of a drop in the bucket into into the

need. So what you're saying is through

modeling a care, hopefully there is inspiration, encouragement

and maybe providing strength for other organizations also just to

step in and do similar things or to do it to their strength.

So is there, so what's the plan? Is there a plan for our housing

to maybe multiply front porch housing and other areas other

parts of the upstate? Yeah, I mean, Lord willing and

the finances come in. Sure.

Yeah, we, we would like to. I mean, if you're, if you're

looking at the long term plan front porch, Yeah.

Ideally we would like to be able to get into Spartanburg and

Anderson and do something similar to what we what we have.

I don't want to own another property.

I prefer not to, but we really want to be able to take the

programming, take the housing component, take the.

The community relation aspect of that, take it to those

communities and build upon what we're seeing happening in

Greenville. So in order to do that again,

you got to have the the volunteer base, you got to have

financial buy in Mike, when you when you see folks that maybe

come over across the street, walk in the front porch, sit

down with a resident, maybe it's in the coffee shop, maybe it's

through a serve day. Do you see some changes and how

they began to think about the the housing crisis in the

Upstate and like, do you see like them being drawn more to

this type of ministry? Yeah, absolutely.

I feel like when we people come in and have immediate needs,

right? And I've, I've, I've seen

historically, even in the in the church setting that we have a

desire to meet those needs. And if we're not careful, all we

all we may do out of a heart to serve people and a heart to help

them is very candidly provide hotels for a week or an extended

stay. And the the latter condition of

the person is worse than the first because we didn't address

the true need. And I feel like because front

porch approaches people with compassion, because we can

approach people with compassion want to see them.

Biblical hospitality is not putting on a pink apron and

pulling out of the oven. It's moving towards people and

seeing more potential in them than they see in themselves and

taking risks. And those risks have a reward.

Because on the other side, people feel loved.

And when they feel the love of a Christian, often times it's the

greatest advocacy for the love of their Lord and Savior.

So that's right, I see front porch changing lives because of

the Christ centeredness of it and regardless of what people

are looking for makes me think we're doing a year of the Bible

right now. We're just reading through the

feeding the 5000. It says Jesus looked on them

with compassion and So what did he do?

The first thing he didn't do was feed them.

He opened his mouth and spoke. People need God's Word more than

anything else, but they need resources to come alongside them

as well. So certainly we've seen change

because of the way that people feel others moving towards them

in their time of need. But it doesn't stop with that.

It's bringing in the gospel as well.

Yeah, one of my favorite sayings is that we often see people as

problems in in the negative light.

We see them as performers in the positive when they can do.

And what we don't see is we don't see the person, you know.

And so I really feel like front porch is modelled.

Let's see the person, not labeled them as a problem and

not give them a few things so that they can perform better.

But how do we really kind of see them as image bearers, put

resources around them and care for them over a period of time?

I mean this is a multi year process right?

Right. So we're we're A2 to three-year

process. Usually you find that first year

you're just building trust. There's a lot of wounds and

trauma that I totally get that they don't trust us by year

three. I mean, the room we're sitting

in, just two months ago, we had multiple baptisms of folks that

would have never that when they entered into the program.

And that's ultimately because we're looking at the person in

front of us. Yeah, we're looking at their

individual needs. We are celebrating the small

movement that they make. And it may not be at the same

standard that we would say, hey, this is our standard for for

movement. Yeah.

But if it's something they've never done in their life, hey, I

opened a bank account for the first time.

Yeah. Perfect.

Like that's all I can ask for. You know, I went to I went to a

Bible study for the first time. Great.

That like those are the things that we celebrate because those

small little minor movements over an extended period of time

lead to success. And that's what our focus.

Is so Jennifer putting on your kind of Grace Church hat?

Have you seen a similar experience of our members really

growing and their lives changing as they've gotten involved with

residents specifically? I think about what Brian said,

we, we tend to run at such a fast pace that having to, to

slow down to and, and not make the residents our wins, the

residents wins or vice versa, but just meet people where

they're at. Have you have you seen examples

of that? Absolutely.

I know when we first got involved, at least I can speak

from the care and recovery side. So we did a lot of connecting

through providing support groups, such as classes for

those who are grieving or divorce or single parents,

things like that. And I remember we had two ladies

who led a grief group over at Front Porch and a couple of the

the gentleman that came in. At first they were maybe not as

talkative or on paper probably the two worlds would have never

collided. But by the end of the 13 weeks,

the 2 ladies who were leading the group, who are members of

Grace, the two guys were their favorite participants, I guess

you could say, because they really learned how to be

vulnerable and to open up about things that we would probably

just tell are, you know, a girlfriend or a guy friend.

They didn't have those the, that pathway to develop or community

around them. And so now they've kind of still

tried to keep in touch and those two ladies have led other groups

for us at front Porch and they're like, we just as long as

those two guys can be in our group, then that would be then

that would be great. You know, and in every group

because mostly because they learn to have community and

learn to model what it means to have connection.

And so it's just been, it's just been really neat not only to see

Grace Church kind of get have a community relationship with

Front Porch, but also to see that a lot of these residents

and folks at Front Porch have very different backgrounds, so

very different denominations that they come from.

And you know, we always say it Grace, Grace Church is not in

the Bible, but the local church is.

And to not have just Grace Church see the folks at at Front

Porch, but to have the church see them and hear them and to

want to move towards them. So I think that's been a big win

as well that the church is seeing me and not just Grace

Church. If that makes.

No, it totally does. Brian, I want you to speak to

some of the kind of business opportunities because I think

about, you know, you've got 2 churches sitting here with

thousands of members, you know, who are following Jesus and, and

they're coming to serve days and they're getting involved

relationally, but they're also sitting with folks in the

cubicles in the office space working out in the field,

believers and non believers alike that do care for our

community. What's your message to them as

far as let's just say they're involved, but they don't know

how to get their their friend involved or they don't know how

to get their workplace maybe awareness and involved.

What's what's our pitch to those folks?

Man, it's really just starting the conversation.

We are willing to step in to those conversations.

I mean, you can e-mail me if I'm on the website and, and say,

hey, we have this organization that I just, they really need to

know about you and we can start those conversations.

We have work organizations that are out there that have

established every Thursday they're sending volunteers out

OK throughout their organization.

So the the folks get to volunteer and sign up for it and

they're 100% supporting the their employee leaving for that

show. And are they coming?

Are they working on the grounds or is they?

It depends on the projects, right?

So they have established that they want to stay more in the

technical field. So it'll be from doing some,

some maintenance, they helped build out our new clothing

closets that we, we've established to doing a full week

of camp for our front porch kids during the summer.

They did a day of STEM activities with our kids during

a spring break camp. So there are a lot of different

ways to get involved. We take out all the skill sets,

right? And even the ones that don't

have skill, we'll bring you in too.

But we just want the people to to step on the front porch's

property, hear the story, become engaged, because that's really

where it changes come in. Doing a tour, you'd love to be

able to, to walk you through the playground to the library, to

the new child development center.

We're building out to show an apartment so you can see where

people are living with dignity and walking through all of.

That yeah, I, I, that's, I'm so glad you said that.

I mean, come take a tour, be a part of what's going on.

It is one of those things that you don't we can talk about it,

but unless you come experience it and if you came a year ago or

two years ago, things are always changing.

Things are always developing, things are always growing,

particularly because of some of the involvement from these

different community organizations.

All right. Well, as we wrap up, just

thinking about the future and what are what are some of the

needs, most pressing needs and how can we be praying for Front

Porch? Two good questions.

Most pressure, precious needs for us and pressing needs to

speak English is finances right? Monthly donors, people that are

willing to support so that we have the ability to plan and

process through our care. I mean just our counseling

services alone, we're predicting to be over $100,000 that we are

spending for counseling services for our residents.

And that number as we increase our resident count is going to

just keep on climbing. So that number was based off of

about 85 residents. We're at 118.

Yeah. And let's pause for a second.

I mean, you talk about counseling services, medical

care, child care. I mean, these are things that

are you not unique to front porch residents.

And so if you're out there and you benefit from medical care,

consistent medical care from child care, we know how

expensive that is from counseling services.

You know, we all need friends in our lives who are specialist,

who can, who can help us go to places that are are difficult

and need healing. Why not the same for our

residents? But those do come at a cost.

So, and as you're just scratching the surface, those

are just three entities that I just thought of.

And you don't have to give a lot of money.

We have a lot of people in the Upstate.

If a lot of people gave a little bit of money on a recurring

basis, that would make a huge, huge difference.

Yeah, it's a major impact to what we're trying to do and the

ability to plan going forward. You know, we're entering into

building out a dental clinic right to again, step into the

need when we have dental volunteers being able to come

in, giving them a safe place to be able to practice working out

a partnership with on secor and bringing in a nurse practitioner

on site right to to help with that healthcare.

We have a volunteer crew called the side garage that is there

guys giving away time working on cars and the preventative

maintenance that they're able to do is is amazing so that our

residents can still get to and from their jobs to the grocery

store. Transportation is a major issue

and the closest grocery store to us is 1.5 miles away.

Publix, Publix, so you are running a 5K to get your

groceries. I don't run a 5K.

So those are the things that that we really are are pressing

on an everyday basis. That's not kind of any other

emergencies popping up. We are working on education

scholarships for folks throughout our program.

Over the past three years, I think we've had 12 individuals

be able to get their GED. So it's making room for them to

be able to do those things and a GED currently I think is 3 to

$4.00 an hour more in their their earned income over that

over that time time. So you have a lot of volunteers

who are helping lower the cost of some of these services,

counseling services, medical, dental, but there still comes at

a cost. And so really we're just asking

particularly for some financial support to be able to do that

along with the volunteering and the specialty to be able to

continue and put both of those 22 ideas together.

Yeah, I mean, I know you could probably talk forever about that

because you you're in it every single day.

And we do want to keep the standard of care excellent and

even grow that standard of care thinking as we shift to some of

the volunteer opportunities. Anything specifically coming to

mind there? Child care, child care is one of

the major things I think the vast majority of our folks have

to go about 20 miles South in order to get child care.

All right. And then with us attempted to

launch and and get certified for a child development center.

That'll be child care during the day.

We still have classes, spring break, summer camp where we need

volunteers to be able to not babysit and not child care.

We use that as a loose term, but it's a discipleship opportunity

for the next generation that we are trying to help as well.

So it is that that's a major pressing issue for us.

Always our maintenance side. We we are about to have like a

truly blessing for us because we've three years in this

facility. That means we have about 28

graduations coming up in the next 6 months.

So that will be a big Press of residents leaving, but then a

big influx of residents coming in.

So maintenance is going to be one of those things, whether

it's just coming in and painting units to helping just move and

and turn over in that aspect of it.

I'm getting things from our warehouse location onto our

property. Those are going to be some

major, major needs coming. OK, so I want you to reflect on

this for just a 2nd 20, I didn't realize this 28 graduations

because it has been three years and we're talking about a multi

two to three-year residential process.

So take a second, think about a couple of those names and faces

of these graduates. What have you really learned

over the last three years? Yeah, it's life is hard.

Life is hard for us all, but we all, everyone sitting here has

that individual to call. If you have a dead battery, if

your kid is sick and can't go to child care, but you still have

to go to work, If you're going to buy a car, you have somebody

you can call and say, hey, can I go to the buy here, pay here and

get a 30% loan? Is that a good idea?

And they're going to tell you, no, we all have that.

And the volunteers coming alongside the residents to be

able to create that new community, healthy community so

that in that two to three-year period when it's time to say,

hey, I love you, but you got to go.

Our residents are able to do that and they're do it

confidently because they have the community front porch.

I hope I'm without a job. I say that everyday I walk

through is I don't want there to be neat and I'd prefer not to

work any longer. So if we can figure out a

solution, the community is what that solution is.

It's working through that. It's giving them a safe

environment. It's giving people to call that

they know are going to care for them in the long run.

And we have seen that from day one of residents moving in that

have zero trust for not just us as an organization or

individuals to I mean, I got an e-mail today of, hey, can you go

over this assignment for me? Because this lady didn't have a

GED and now is in college and finishing up and needs me to

proofread a paper going in, right?

Who never would have trusted me in the 1st place.

So you have moments like that. You have our the going back to

the guys that work on the cars normally, normally our residents

are used to transactional relationships where I give you

something, you give me something, these guys come in

and and do a repair on a car and just like, hey, thanks, you have

a good day, right? It's that sense of community

that has helped all of these residents move forward and then

continue to succeed because right now we're at I think 33

graduates prior to prior to this year and that's where we see the

success rate is that ongoing continued support for community.

And through Front Porch, we're inviting them back.

So our quarterly meetings are getting bigger and bigger every

year because we're inviting the graduates back, We're inviting

those supporters back. We're inviting in our other

relationships to to come in and pour into our individual, our

folks, just so that they they have that opportunity to

succeed. And Mike, as you're looking out,

you know, kind of picturing the faces of your congregation on

the Sunday morning and you're wanting them to go get involved

in opportunities like Front Porch.

What's your what's your prayer for those folks?

That they would find a way to use the spiritual gifts they've

been given, you know, First Corinthians is very clear.

Those were not given for just flourishment in your own

personal life, but to build the Kingdom within and beyond the

walls that they would discover and use their gifts.

You know, I talked about our yearly serve days, but one of

the things we put forward to people in our Connect classes,

which happen every month, are opportunities to serve within

and beyond the church. And so there are monthly

opportunities where people are hearing about Front Porch and

other organizations in the community that they can they can

serve with. And I feel like also the

fundamental recognition you touched on this, but none of us

are self-made people. Those of us that are in a stable

situation are products of either our parents or extended family

or friends. And I love what you said about

community because that is what each of us need.

How much do I take for granted that, you know, situations I was

in 20 years ago that my mom or dad or a close friend just

helped out with? They kept me from getting in a

difficult situation. Those of us who have been

supported have a responsibility to to help others.

And what Jesus said the greatest of among you will be your

servants. He constantly move towards

people and as we grow more like Christ and for a church that's

image bearing, whether it's Front porch or other

organizations when you're going to look for opportunities to do

work beyond our our own congregations.

Yeah. That's good.

That's good work, Jennifer. Any closing thoughts?

I so it's funny because I was talking to the executive

director, Leeann Cavan, and she had just expressed that there

there was a donor that said, you know, the issues being addressed

are broad and the need is great. So the support needs to be as

well. And so and I just thought that

was a good just kind of summation of and of what we've

kind of all been talking about is that the need, maybe it is

finances, maybe it is a yearly serve day, maybe it is leading a

group, but the need is great and the support is is needed as

well. And so it's just neat to see the

various ways that two churches can can come in relationship

together and partner together, connect with one another to help

those that are literally right in our backyard.

And I would highly encourage most churches that I've talked

with have a financial assistance or a local missions budget.

And it really is forward thinking to consider

organizations that you can resource through that rather

than just directly providing to people in need.

It is a weight lifted to be able to, to, to, to work with Front

Porch because when someone is in need and it's something that I'm

not an expert in, I know Brian and his team are.

And whether they are on the wait list or can just have an

interview or we can take some sort of step forward, there

really are benefits to doing life together.

Yeah, No, that's great. Anything else we've missed guys?

I think you said how can we pray for front porch?

I think it's just it's praying that the storm will always come,

but there will be light and all of our residents will face their

individual storms. All of our staff will face that.

And it's just praying for the ability to to endure and to work

through that because of what's coming at the other end.

Yeah, just the face to take it one day at a time and the

confidence that they're not alone and that God's provided.

It might not be in the way that they expected, but he's

providing the community so they're not alone and they can

walk and take that next step towards the light.

Yeah. That's a beautiful prayer.

Mike, would you close our time? Yeah.

Praying for the residents of Front Porch and also praying

just for the churches of our community that we would move and

that we would, we would be, we would know the privilege of

being involved in the ministry of other people's lives.

Yeah. Let's pray Heavenly Father,

thank you that we can come to you because Jesus went to the

cross and made a way for us to come into relationship with you.

You told us Jesus in in John 15 that that your people would when

we are unified will be a light to those in need and it's a

proclamation of the gospel. I I pray for front Porch.

Thank you for the first three years.

Thank you for the faithful endurance of the of the staff,

of the leadership, and we pray that you would continue to grow.

The. Heart of Front Porch that you

would continue to grow the resources and that you would

continue to draw people in need in because we know that Front

Porch is is sharing the gospel is helping people develop plans

and then resourcing them to to follow through on those plans.

I pray for the faithful endurance of the people that are

are coming into Front Porch and you're on the wait list to know

that today all of their problems may not be solved, but if they

are able to weather the storm with others and with you Jesus

that that there are bright days ahead.

We know we were all made in the image of God and because of you

Jesus, we all have an opportunity to be formed into

the image of Christ through a relationship with you.

I pray that that would be the case for each and every person

who comes through Front Porch. And as we celebrate three years

of Front Porch, pray that we will be able to continue to

celebrate more and more graduates, more and more

community, more and more resources coming in, and more

and more opportunity for people to step out of that poverty

mindset into a life that is on a firm foundation, first and

foremost because of you, but also with the practical skills

and resources necessary to to thrive.

Amen.