by Lane Kadish ’20
As he sits across from Steve and Robert, cracking jokes and asking how their weeks have been, Pastor Jonathan Avery seems like a typical rugged Mainer catching up with some old friends over coffee. Steve is happy to show Pastor Avery his recently written personal memoir on his laptop computer, which he is very proud of. Robert describes his past few days: boring, he says, but he is thankful for the life that he has. Pastor Avery nods with sincerity, “Boring is good.” In fact, the three have known each other for only a couple weeks. Steve and Robert are guests at the Mid-Maine Homeless Shelter, and Jon Avery is the pastor of Living Water Community Church, a small Baptist church located in Oakland.
Upon arriving in the Waterville area, Pastor Avery identified the homeless shelter as a place where he could make an impact, a place where a lot of people are hurting and searching for community. Avery toured the shelter and met many of the staff, who later reached out to him to become a spiritual advisor at the shelter. “Seeing somebody take the first step to know who Jesus is and give their life over to Christ… a person that was on a path to hell and now they’re going to heaven, knowing that God used you in that way… It’s the most satisfying thing you’ve ever felt in your entire life. That’s what keeps me going back.”
Pastor Avery encounters a variety of people at the shelter and says that how guests react to his religious affiliation depends on who they are. He focuses on building relationships, talking with everyone that he can, getting to know them, and being a friend to those in need. Only then can he take one step further into having a religious conversation. “I can’t force people into Christ and I don’t want to. What I’m looking for is those open doors where someone is being drawn by God and wondering who this God is, and God puts me in front of their path at just the right time to be able to show the good news to them.”
Pastor Avery currently visits the shelter every week to speak to guests. In the future, he hopes to offer a weekly Bible study for guests of the shelter that are searching for answers and trying to learn more about God. He is also working with Maggie Simpson, a member of Living Water Church and a Mid-Maine Homeless Shelter board member, to develop a spiritual care system at the shelter.
Speaking of Pastor Avery and the homeless shelter’s other spiritual advisors, executive director Katie Spencer White explains: “I think anybody who comes here who is spiritually oriented can’t help but feel some of the Spirit. If you’re Christian, and using Christian speak, [they] are being the hands and feet of Jesus. … I think that, for a lot of people, just doing this work in the community with people who are suffering and in crisis is spiritual work.” White notes the role of faith in creating and maintaining the shelter: “This shelter, in particular, was midwifed into existence by the faith community. … Faith is its DNA.” She also encourages a broad definition of spiritual care tailored to each guest, asking simply, “How can we get [this guest] to be fully present in the moment, not thinking about other stuff?”
Beyond the homeless shelter, Pastor Avery wants to be a resource for the entire community and to show community members that they are loved and cared for. “What if the people in a community knew the church not by where they are located, but by what they do? That’s my goal, that people will see our church by what we do [for the community].” One challenge that Avery sees in this endeavor is that a lot of secular organizations don’t want to partner with churches. Additionally many separate organizations run independent programs, and rarely do those organizations or churches come together and work in collaboration.
A main source of confusion that Pastor Avery identifies is that many people think that if they are not religious, the church will not provide assistance to them. This is simply not the case: Living Water Community Church seeks to be a resource for individuals of all faiths and backgrounds. Manpower is a challenge, however. Having only one full-time employee and limited volunteers makes it difficult to bring their visions to fruition.
Living Water Community Church was founded on a principle of outreach and community development, and Pastor Avery is working to bolster this foundation. “Some churches stay within their four walls, and some… are going to look outside their four walls. This church is always the kind of church that wants to reach outside our own four walls.” The church allocates most of its discretionary funds toward an outreach budget that pays for community barbecues and appreciation packets for civil servants as well as housing, food, and transportation for those in need. Pastor Avery’s vision for the Living Water community is one of a “family on a mission,” a mission to be a “light in the community,” a source of comfort and support for those around them.