A few weeks ago, my heart was breaking over the unjust death of a black man and the destruction in south Minneapolis and St. Paul. I was worried about my neighbors with brown and black bodies. I was concerned for the business owners that had their businesses destroyed or badly damaged. I knew that our country already had an unprecedented high unemployment and people were low on resources. Public transportation was temporarily shut down, stores were closed and boarded up, streets were closed, and people were running high on anxiety. If you didn’t have a car (which is the case for many in the city) it was physically impossible for you to get food and supplies for your family. By Saturday morning I was overwhelmed and in a dark place.
Pastor Joanna suggested that I volunteer to help at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, a church in South Minneapolis just a block from Lake Street where much of the damage and fires were. “I think it will give you hope” she told me. The next day I loaded my car with a few supplies my friends and I had collected and headed to South Minneapolis. I was willing to do anything to help reconstruct my city; sweep, haul garbage, move debris, board up windows, paint, you name it and I was up for it. I found myself in a line of volunteers moving boxes of food and donations into Holy Trinity Church. Hundreds of people had brought donations to their neighbors who had just lost their Target or local grocery store within walking distance or no longer had a job or a business to go to the next day. Hundreds of people in need came to receive these gifts.
My job involves going into a lot of different non-profits for a short time volunteering. Food centers, clothing distribution, food pantries are all things I frequent with kids all over the country. I have been in the clean and well organized and the very dirty. Sometimes the most unorganized are the ones filled with the most heart and spirit. I know I haven’t seen it “all,” but I can say I have seen quite a bit and not a lot catches me off guard anymore.
What I encountered started out as fairly normal but as I volunteered longer I realized what was happening around me. Holy Trinity Church is a large facility that does a great deal of work in and around their neighborhood. However, they are not a large distribution center. Before announcing they would collect food and personal items, they did not think this would be their weekend plan. With no time for planning or structure it was the definition of a “grass root ministry.” The needs were eminent, and the response from the church and surrounding community was immediate.
I arrived and started asking people who looked like they knew what was going for how I could help. As I grew more familiar with my surroundings new people approached me and asked how they could help. I put them to work too. By the end of the day 5 of us had risen to leadership roles: making decisions, planning for the next day and deploying action teams to sort, clean, or relocate items. We checked in with each other often and asked options on how things should be set up. We communicated a lot but didn’t have time to learn more than each other’s first names.
As 7:00 rolled around and the city curfew was quickly approaching the 5 of us stood together: exhausted, thirsty, and hungry with our hands on our hips talking. At that point we realized that none of us were in-charge and only one was associated with the church. From what I could tell the rest of us just wandered in off the streets like the other hundred or more volunteers that day. I’m sure there were staff members and leadership from the church there in other areas, however, in the part we were working I never encountered a person with any actual authority. Everything was organized but it had absolutely no leadership structure. And yet, it worked. People worked hard with good attitudes and intentions.
People in ministry often talk about something being “Spirit led.” Until that day I thought I knew what they meant. I thought it was opening ourselves up to carefully listening to the work of the Spirit (providing it fit neatly into our expectations, resources and time constraints.) Funny how the Spirit always seemed to go along with my carefully thought-out and constructed plans.
The work done at Holy Trinity that weekend was truly led by the Spirit. They threw caution into the wind and allowed that windy spirit to blow it around with reckless abandon. There wasn’t time for humans to over think it and mess it up. I drove home feeling better than I had in months, energized and filled with hope. In the past 3 weeks Holy Trinity has served food and supplies to an estimated 8,000 families and hundreds if not thousands of volunteers have donated their time and even more have donated items to be distributed.
I hope I never forget the experience of serving that day and always remember how it feels to have the Spirit truly leading a community.
