I was just in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco over the Thanksgiving Holiday with a couple of high school students and about 40 people from a church that is actually concerned with the “least of these.” Our desire was to prepare a home-cooked meal to bring to the homeless instead of preparing it in some church building somewhere and inviting them “in” to ours.

Here are some snapshots…

I saw a little boy (2 years old) of an affluent family playing tackle football with a homeless little boy (2 years old). Unlike I had ever experienced before, I watched as two people couldn’t care less that one was affluent and the other wasn’t. I watched two little boys love each other and speak the love language of physical touch (along with uninteligable grunts and giggles). I watched a mom with tears in her eyes and a proud dad get it.

I saw families serving together. For these families, no longer is spiritual formation being outsourced to the church. Instead, they are taking the responsiblity of spiritual formation back into their homes. Is there anything more powerful than kids watching their parents follow Jesus?

I heard the inhabitants of Hippie Hill become inspired by a rag-tag group of Jesus-followers.

I watched tears form in homeless people’s eyes as they were asked, “Light meat or dark?” and actually got to choose.