Preacher launches effort to help people who are homeless
A northwest Oklahoma City church hopes to become a transitional living community to temporarily house individuals experiencing homelessness and provide support to help them find permanent housing and a brighter future.
Clark Memorial United Methodist Church wants to build up to 20 small structures similar to tiny homes or tiny housing
units on its property at 5808 NW 23.
The Rev. Bo Ireland, the church’s senior pastor, is also executive director of what is being called the Lazarus Community at Clark Memorial.
The name of the new housing community comes from well-known scripture which told the story of Jesus raising a man named Lazarus from the dead.
“It’s a ministry that will be brining back those who are homeless to a restored state,” Ireland said.
He said plans for the transitional living community are already beginning to take shape. Most notably, the church has submitted an application with the City of Oklahoma City to rezone the church property for residential living. Ireland said the Oklahoma City Planning Commission may consider the church’s application sometime in September. The Oklahoma City Council will ultimately have final approval over the rezoning matter.
Ireland, 47, his wife Alanna, 46, and the congregation at Clark Memorial are attending to many of the details that still need to be addressed.
The Norman couple anticipated the groundbreaking for a new TLC Donation Garden on the church property. The event, which was to include volunteers helping to prepare the soil for future planting endeavors, was Sept. 4. The Irelands said they hoped that the Lazarus Community members would be able to learn about gardening as they help grow some of their own food.
Discussing all the plans for the new venture, the minister said it’s hard to believe that the Lazarus community was little more than a dream a few years ago.
What would Jesus dream?
Bo Ireland attended an Oklahoma United Methodist ministry conference event where he and other attendees studied the book “Dream Like Jesus: Deepen Your Faith and Bring the Impossible Back to Life” by Rebekah SimonPeter. Ireland said the author led the gathering.
Prior to attending the conference, the minister had led Skyline Urban Ministries Street Ministry that regularly took food and other necessities to the disadvantaged and people experiencing homelessness. He was part of the Homeless Outreach Mobile Ministry at Southern Hills United Methodist Church, as well.
“So we were already seeing this heartbreaking trend in homelessness,” Ireland said.
The minister also had medical troubles in 2017 that led to his befriending several individuals experiencing homelessness. Ireland said these relationships were formed after he suffered a series of seizures that kept him from driving to his classes at the St. Paul School of Theology at Oklahoma City University, 2501 N Blackwelder. Often, he walked along NW 23 to find coffee or lunch at a local eatery. He said he struck up conversations with those he met and learned about the different life challenges that they faced living on the street.
When Ireland was asked what Jesus would dream, he envisioned caring individuals living in a Godly community with the homeless and disadvantaged. The holistic setting would be intentionally designed to foster positive relationships and propel people towards achieving their best spiritual, mental and physical potential.
The Rev. Victor McCullough, an Oklahoma United Methodist district superintendent, said he wasn’t surprised by Ireland’s dream. He first met the enthusiastic minister as a seminarian and followed his pastoral journey when he became a young preacher in the Oklahoma United Methodist Conference.
“He had a heart for people and I knew his background. It was all very organic in light of the facts of Pastor Bo’s journey,” McCullough said. “He came out with a Jesus-like vision, Jesus-like dream at the conference.”
McCullough took Ireland’s idea to the Oklahoma United Methodist Conference’s board and the Lazarus Community was met with approval.
Momentum literally builds
Both McCullough and Ireland said the idea for the Lazarus Community wouldn’t have gotten far if it hadn’t been paired with the right church.
McCullough said Clark Memorial couldn’t afford a full-time minister and had lay pastors and a few ordained preachers serve in part-time ministry there over the last several years. He said Methodist Conference leaders like the idea of Ireland becoming the full-time pastor of the church. McCullough said New Faith Communities, a part of the Oklahoma Methodist Conference, will sponsor Ireland’s salary for at least two years.
He also said Ireland and the conference wouldn’t have moved ahead with the project without the consent of the church members, which came eventually. “Clark Memorial did not buy into this hook line and sinker, so this was a progressive sharing of this,” McCullough said. “So we commend the congregation for opening themselves.”
Ireland shared similar comments. “They were a church in decline and I think they were looking for a new avenue to reach their community,” he said.
To give the church members and other community members a visual idea of what the transitional living community would look like, Ireland and several volunteers built an 80-square-foot structure in his backyard and recently moved it to the church.
He said the model, which he likened to a hut, is smaller than the actual structures that will be built for the community. Those structures will be about 200square-feet and include a steel door, a window and bathroom. Ireland said each structure will function like a small duplex with two people sharing the living space with roughly 100-square-feet apiece for their personal use and a shared bathroom.
Cost for each structure is roughly $2,500 and Ireland said there may be other churches who will donate money for some of the units.
The minister said the Lazarus Community’s leaders will include him and his wife, who will live at the church. They also hope to have about five other people who will make up a core group of leaders to share life with each other and individuals who live in the transitional living units.
As for the inside the church, plans have been drawn up to transform some of the rooms into living quarters for the core group. Several rooms will also be available for medical and mental health professionals to aid Lazarus Community members on a regular basis.
Ireland, a former construction contractor, said he has developed plans for new male and female restrooms resembling locker rooms to be created in the church. They will include showers, which will be used by the community’s core group and those living in the transitional living units.
The minister said he can already envision the Lazarus Community as a thriving part of the community at large.
“I love the way God has just rained on this thing,” he said.
“This was a dream and it’s become a reality and I’m grateful for it.”