Free Minds completes first year!

CitySquare provided the classroom space for this amazing, innovative educational experience!

Free Minds is a transformative resource that Dallas is fortunate to have available.

 More to come, I know!

Shining eyes

Wendy

I met Wendy on "the Corner" over a year ago. 

At the time, she "lived" in the old, abandoned house behind the Merandino brothers service station at Louise and Malcolm X Boulevard. 

For several months I tried to engage her in conversation, but she was extremely non-responsive.  She avoided me no matter what I did. 

On more than one occasion, I observed her talking to herself--later I realized that she was discussing how to deal with me and what to make of my presence, my bottled water, and my afternoon snacks.

My preliminary judgment was that she was dealing with some sort of fairly severe mental illness and/or possibly alcohol or substance abuse. 

As the months wore on, Wendy became more and more approachable.  I finally figured out that Wendy wasn't severely mentally ill at all, and she wasn't addicted to anything, except food and laundry money, neither of which she had as often as needed! 

She appeared to be alone on the streets (hold onto this idea and keep reading!).

Estranged from her mother and family, she had some fairly deeply rooted "trust issues" when it came to people, especially men.

She resisted shelters, mainly because submitting to their rules and routine would have meant surrendering the last vestige of dignity and self-respect that remained in her life.  She was grateful for the place to sleep, even though it had no benefit of functioning utilities.  At least, on most nights, she was sheltered, dry and protected from the harshest parts of street life. 

To be frank, my connection to Wendy opened up for the first time after I overheard her ask a guy on the street if she could "borrow" a cigarette.  After hearing the request, I walked over to the service station and purchased a pack of Kools.  When I handed them to Wendy, I thought she was going to faint.  The fact that I gave her what she asked for without conditions or judgment seemed to blow her away, especially coming from me. 

As I got better acquainted with her, I began to provide small gifts of cash and food to help her survive.  She can stretch $20 farther than anyone I think I've ever met. 

Wendy now has an apartment very near my house in Old East Dallas.  She's off "the Corner."  Well, sort of. 

On most Thursdays, when I go to "the Corner," I see Wendy.  In talking with her about her new home, she always makes it clear to me that she comes back to her old neighborhood because that is where her friends remain.  I've experienced this time and again.  Homeless persons who work out housing, often simply cannot just walk away from their friends no matter how good their personal fortunes may have turned. 

Community trumps personal progress on the streets. 

Wendy is a hoot! 

She is a friend. 

I'm glad I know her. 

I expect we'll see even more of her once CitySquare's new Opportunity Center opens later this year. 

Attack poverty for real!

Here's a note I picked up from "Attack Poverty."  It is right on!

Want to help the poor? 

Abandon old donor-recipient model.

Embrace partnership model that values God-given creative capacity in everyone!

The Wealth of the Poor

 Order your copy of The Wealth of the Poor today! Call toll free 1-877-816-4455 or go to Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble.

What people are saying about "The Wealth of the Poor"

I'm back from vacation and finished your wonderful book. . . . To me your book was all about taking risks, especially taking the risk of really getting to know people as individuals and uniting with them as neighbors.  I also loved how you took risks - like being honest that what you need most is financial support versus well-intentioned gifts of volunteerism that don't involve true personal investment. . . . I love how you say, again and again, that we are really all the same and that it is the simple things that people often need the most like the freedom of privacy. My favorite part of the book was Principle 5 and I agree completely with you!  Some times you just have to hold hands and jump.  And of course I completely agree with you that it is time to move beyond the concept of charity.

Michelle Corson, CEO

Champion Impact Capital

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Your book is already as dogeared as a college freshman recycled textbook. The wisdom, insight, humility, and acknowledgement that we all need to remain both student and teacher, is highly respected and deeply appreciated. 

Michael Samuelson

The Health and Wellness Alliance for Children

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If you haven't got a copy of Larry's book, you need to!  

Dr. Bob Biard

Texas A & M Adjunct Professor

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This book should be read by anyone interested in urban ministry in America today.

 Dr. Jerry Jones

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It is a good read--I learned a great deal about your early efforts that I didn't know.

John McStay

Dallas business leader

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Simply put, this is the best, most readable, and most powerful book on the social implications of the Christian religion that I have read.

Richard T. Hughes

Distinguished Professor of Religion at Messiah College

Director of the Sider Institute for Anabaptist, Pietist, and Wesleyan Studies

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Larry James is an inspiration to my life.  Each time he speaks, I learn something.  May God use this book to do for many what Larry has done for me:  to remind us of the value of every single human being.

Max Lucado

Bestselling author

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Thank you for sending me your book--a testimony in the most profound sense. You lived and wrote in the open, which opened up space for others to find their own way. I love your idea of a business card with an asterisk. And I love that the credo of CitySquare on the next to the last page could be true.

I would have left out a lot of the running argument with the parts of the church that still want to ask about evangelism. And there was more bible than needed. I looked for your honest statement once that you said "I believe more and more in less and less." The church--at least the part of it that has a heartbeat--is emerging there, I think. So I argue less and less with the old church, hanging with people who believe deeply, but simply. So I wonder if you, like me, are still waiting for the moment to write an honest theology.

Your book does make me long for time together.

In the meantime, you'll see the book sales leap by at least a dozen or more copies as I recommend it. 

 

You've done a good thing.

Gary Gunderson

VP Faith and Health Ministries

Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center

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Call today, toll free  1-877-816-4455 to order your copy of The Wealth of the Poor:  How Valuing Every Neighbor Restores Hope in Our Cities by Larry M. James.

 

Molly's blessing. . .

People often question, sometimes lecture, and express concern that the work we do at CitySquare is "not really about faith."  I suppose people think that because we make none of our services, activities or initiatives dependent upon our neighbors being involved in overtly religious activities.  Like all of our various activities, everything here is based on the complete freedom of our neighbors to choose what they desire to take advantage of. 

What people with these concerns don't understand is that faith lives on the streets and in the poorest ghettos in the inner city. . .and I do mean "lives." 

A few weeks ago, a very frail and troubled woman handed me a piece of paper that I've been carrying in my pocket ever since she passed it my way.  We'll call her "Molly" here. 

Molly deals with severe bi-polar disorder, and possibly schizophrenia.  She doesn't talk about faith much, but she knows I'm a minister.  Possibly she wrote the note because of her faith, or possibly because of mine, with the note being a gift she thought I would appreciate.  Either way, I consider the act very spiritual. 

Here's what Molly wrote:

Lord Jesus, bless my friend
the spirit of joy and happiness
to all who are in your care and
help the will of God's SON who
save all our lives
forever
for only Love not hate

As I've said so often, the witness comes back more powerfully than it can be offered from here.

Talk, and then there's talk

"Today it is fashionable to talk about the poor. Unfortunately it is not as fashionable to talk to the poor."

--Mother Teresa

The "Grief Buckets" of Turner Courts

“We carry grief in buckets here,” the wrinkled, dried up,

Old woman told me.

“Everbody done lost somethin’ round here. . .everybody!”

“I’m tellin’ ya.”

A job.

A house.

A car.

The lights.

The water.

A marriage.

A child.

A grandchild

A momma.

A daddy.

A man.

A woman.

A brother or a sister. 

Freedom.

Respect.

Options.

Health.

Voice, a say.

Hope.

"And it’s sure ‘nuff real stuff!”

“Everbody done lost somethin’ round here. . .everybody!”

“Did I say to ya, we carry our grief in buckets here?”

"Sure 'da truth, brother."