Contact: Christine Valentine-Owsik, Valentine Communications, For: Our Sunday Visitor 215-230-8095, cowsik@osv.com
HUNTINGTON, Ind., April 12, 2011 /Christian Newswire/ -- Many people are repulsed by prostitutes or even beggars holding cardboard signs. Yet their attitudes toward the poor and homeless often reflect deeper fears, says the Chicago founder of an outreach program for helping homeless men escape poverty, addiction, and sexual sin.
Early on, even he remembers thinking, "Can't they just get a job?"
Emmaus Ministries founder, Deacon John Green, a self-proclaimed 'good boy, with good grades, who grew up in a good home, in a wealthy neighborhood, graduated from a good college' ... discusses how he went from the idyllic streets of suburban Akron, Ohio to helping those trapped in the inner-city sex trade of New York, and later, Chicago, in Streetwalking with Jesus: Reaching Out in Justice and Mercy (Our Sunday Visitor, March 2011, 200 pp, softback, illustrated).
Serving some of the modern-day 'lepers' in our midst, Emmaus Ministries was begun over 20 years ago as a result of Green being struck by the horror of a homeless man throwing himself off a midtown-Manhattan building -- right before his eyes.
"I will never forget the sound of that suicide," Green recounts in Streetwalking. "Falling from the top of the New York Port Authority Bus Terminal, his body must have been moving close to fifty miles per hour. The slap as he hit the unforgiving concrete pierced through the 2 a.m. clamor of Times Square. People screamed. A passing cop blew his whistle. Sirens soon wailed in the distance. I sat in a light blue van at a stoplight not more than ten feet from where he landed. My eyes caught the blur of his falling body just before I heard that sickening sound. I recognized him as a homeless man from the neighborhood. But I didn't know him. I didn't know his story. But I knew how it ended: he had made his way to the top of the Terminal, stripped off all his clothes, and jumped. Why? I have no idea. But it changed my life."
While in college in the mid-80s, Green -- a Catholic at a predominantly non-Catholic school -- found himself continually being asked about his faith. The constant questioning, about everything from "why do Catholics worship statues?" to "what is the difference between imputed versus infused righteousness?" spurred him to examine his faith much more closely.
Then he began to examine what it entailed beyond the parameters of a 'nice Christian life.' Green knew there had to be something more ... so he devoted himself to living a deeply intentional "missional" life. He volunteered at an inner-city Chicago ministry aimed at helping women prostitutes. That's when Green saw a group of men clustered on a street corner that he'd never recognized before.
"Those guys over there are prostitutes, too," a female colleague told him. "But nobody works with them; nobody cares about male prostitutes." But John Green would.
Streetwalking with Jesus is a compilation of Green's real-world lessons in working with destitute men on the streets of Chicago. It contains some 20 true stories of guys who struggle to escape the imprisonment of poverty, addiction, and sexual sin -- and illustrates the joy of service and outreach to a societal subculture that most people would plainly disregard, much less evangelize for Christ. His former part-time work as a psychiatric technician in a hospital provided him great training for understanding addicts' mental-health issues as they grapple with recovery.
Each chapter-story sobers the reader into a realization or perspective he's never had before. Plus it includes links to evocative songs, a scripture reflection, discussion questions, and a prayer. Readers will be inspired to plumb deeper the meaning of a mission-filled life.
"People often ask me what they should do when they meet a homeless person on the street," says Green. "I'm a firm believer that the last thing you should do is give them money. A handout rarely helps. What they need is your time, touch, or talk. Street people hardly ever get paid any serious attention by the rest of society ... whether due to fear or business, people simply don't take time for them ... A personal conversation can be incredibly healing."
Green is invited to speak worldwide on his urban ministry, evangelization, and peace and justice work.
In his "Foreword" to Streetwalking, Francis Cardinal George, OMI, Archbishop of Chicago, writes, "Meeting and walking with male prostitutes might seem far from the road to Emmaus that Jesus walked after His resurrection (Luke 24:13-35). Those whom Jesus met didn't recognize Him at first, and male prostitutes on the streets of Chicago often don't recognize Him, either. Deacon John Green walks the streets humbly, shows God's mercy to all, and lives justly in right relationship to all sinners because he knows the power of God's forgiveness in his own life (Micah 6:8).
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