This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program originally aired on 3/7/23. To listen to the program, please click HERE.
Jamie Mitchell: Well, welcome back to another edition of Stand In the Gap today. I’m your host, Jamie Mitchell, director of church culture at the American Pastors Network. And today, we continue our series of programs that we’ve labeled Seeds of Revival. Boy, this has been a timely series. But today, I don’t want to consider a seed of revival but I would like to take a look at the fruit that has come from revival and maybe even will reappear today.
In preparation for this series, I did a lot of reading on the historical accounts of revival globally and, in particular, the unique movements of God that took place in our nation. As we discussed a few weeks ago, our nation was founded in the middle of the first great awakening and many of the founders were greatly impacted by the spirit’s work. As I dug deeper into the US revivals, I began to see something interesting about some of the outcomes.
As God began to break and even rebuild the hearts of God people, many were moved to branch out and begin amazing ministries. What was really fascinating was that many of what we used to call or commonly as known as rescue missions were born coming out of or directly influenced by these great revivals. Historical rescue missions like the Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago, McAuley Water Street Mission in New York City, even the YMCA which had its inception, not being a fitness and health place, but a place where refugees of brokenness and destitute lives could come and get help.
But one of my favorite stories of all of this was the revivalist Billy Sunday, who was redeemed out of an alcoholic background. And so, when he would have his citywide crusades, he would challenge the host churches to link arms and start rescue missions for their city. Many rescue missions throughout America have their roots in one of those revivals. The question is, what is happening with the rescue mission in America today and how has God used them and is it fair to say that one of the fruits of spiritual revival in God’s people is having a burden or being motivated to reach those who are struggling, in trouble, in need of the love of God?
And today, our theme is taking it to the streets, the power and the purpose of the rescue mission. And to help us is the president of Citygate Network, which was formerly known as the Association of Gospel Rescue Missions, John Ashmen. John, welcome to Stand In the Gap. Thank you for clearing your busy schedule to help us understand the vital and unique role of the rescue mission.
John Ashmen: Thank you, Jamie. Great to be with you. Thanks for the invitation.
Jamie Mitchell: John, let’s start with the basics. Tell us a little bit about Citygate Network, your ministry’s history and what exactly Citygate does in regards to rescue missions across the country.
John Ashmen: Well, Citygate Network is the association that works with missions. And to answer one of the questions you brought up in your introduction, Jamie, rescue missions are alive and well and probably as strong as ever. We have more people that are really concentrating on ministry on the streets, as your theme for the day suggests, than ever before. And so, since no one ever trains anybody how to run a rescue mission, think about if you’re running a rescue mission or a city mission as they used to be called, and by the way, many of them don’t have the word rescue or mission in their names these days just as culture changes, names change, nomenclature changes.
But when you’re running one, you’re running a hotel because you’re sleeping people, you’re running a restaurant because you’re feeding people, you’re running a church, you’re running a school. You do HR, PR, buildings and grounds, fundraising. And there are a lot of people coming in from a business background who don’t understand ministry principles and then there are people who come from a church background who don’t understand business concepts. So, Citygate Network is the go-to for all these people. It’s the gathering place, if you will, to answer their questions. What do you do about, who else is doing, what happens when the government says and you put all of these things together.
And so, we provide the education, training, resources, public relations, protection and things that ministries working on the front lines need every day.
Jamie Mitchell: John, you heard my opening and our theme here at Stand of the Gap, the Seeds of Revival, and the inception of many of these rescue missions coming out of response of revival of God’s people. Why do you think that is and how is it that revival and work with those who are in trouble? Why do you think that there is that connection?
John Ashmen: Well, I think when somebody is convicted by the Holy Spirit and there’s a life change, they look around and they say, “Where do I start?” And they know that Jesus was very interested in the poor and powerless and so they start there. You take a look at Luke 4:17-21 where He goes to the temple to preach and He opens the scrolls. And, in Luke 4:18, He says He came to proclaim release to the captives and bring good news to those who have been made poor by oppression. And so, that stuff, a first place to start and I think that’s what many people feel that they need to do to get on the ground level to make a difference in society and for the cause of Christ.
Jamie Mitchell: John, one of the things we talk about here is that, before people can have freedom, they have to experience liberty. And one of the things I’ve noticed over the years when it comes to the rescue mission is that you are all about setting people free from those things that oppress and bring freedom. You can’t have freedom without liberty. And that’s still true today with the rescue mission, is that correct?
John Ashmen: Well, it is and rescue missions really have changed their focus for years. You talked about the origins of it, rescue missions started in this country from the work that happened in England and Scotland. There was a guy during revivals back in Great Britain named David Nasmith. He lived in Glasgow and he looked around, again, during this industrial revolution and looked at who were the poor people, who were the ones that were going to really be taken advantage of and he saw chimney sweeps, if you can believe it. Look at all these young kids who missed school because they had to climb up these city chimneys and work and he thought they’re never going to have a chance to read. And so, he had started a school for chimney sweeps and that was the first mission or city mission that we know of, it was called the Glasgow City Mission.
And that came across the Atlantic a few years later. In fact, Nasmith himself came across and traveled rivers and got off in river towns. Somebody handed me the other day something that was a mission in Albany, New York that Nasmith had started but their focus there was on slavery and getting people safe and further up into New York and even into Canada and that was what the mission did. City missions that we know that work with the hungry, homeless, abused and addicted, we trace it back to a guy named Jerry McAuley, who was one of these immigrants-
Jamie Mitchell: John, hold that thought, hold that thought. When we come back, we’re going to talk more about Jerry McAuley and the rescue mission and its inception here at Stand in the Gap.
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Jamie Mitchell:
Well, welcome back. We’re discussing rescue missions. You might have one in your town or city. We have a number of them in the Raleigh, North Carolina area where I live and they do an amazing work. John Ashmen is the president of Citygate Network and is helping us understand this important ministry. John, you got cut off there at the end of the first segment, you just had mentioned Jerry McAuley. McAuley Water Street Mission, I know it well. When I went to visit my grandparents in Newark, New Jersey, leaving Long Island, we passed it, my dad was involved as a supporter. How did the hop from Glasgow to America all take place in the history of rescue missions?
John Ashmen: Jerry McAuley was an immigrant who lived a life of debauchery and was sentenced to Sing Sing Prison. A lady came by and brought him a Bible and he was miraculously converted on that damp prison floor up the Hudson River and he said God told him to go back to his neighborhood and, if he would clean them up on the outside, God would clean them up on the inside. So, he went back and he started a place called Helping Hand for Men and Helping Hand for Men mission was 1872.
He married a former prostitute named Maria, they worked missions all over that area. The mission that he started was eventually called the Jerry McAuley Water Street Mission and then Maria started one called the Cremorne Mission in 1885 for former prostitutes. They were called soiled doves, a mission for soiled doves. And so, that was where missions started to grow out of Manhattan and go across Pennsylvania and up into New England and down to the south.
And then you mentioned Billy Sunday, you talked about many of the people that would come from one of his revival crusades and get involved in missions. He did more than that. Actually, McAuley would leave his last night honorarium or offering in that city for them to start a mission if that city did not have a mission, that’s what Billy Sunday did. And so, that’s where many of them started.
And then the association really started in 1906 as the National Federation of Gospel Missions. A federation is a bunch of people who don’t generally like each other but they have to get together to share certain resources and values and these were people who were coming from very different backgrounds and different places. And so, they did find that they had camaraderie once they got together through this national association. That changed in 1913 when it became the International Union of Gospel Missions, that name remained until 2000 when it became the Association of Gospel Rescue Missions and then we changed the name to Citygate Network just for a number of reasons in 2018. So, that’s the history of missions.
One of the other things that I’ll point out is, many of these missions, since you’re talking about the revival in those times, many of these missions had the word union in their name. Union Rescue Mission of Los Angeles, City Union Mission, they were all over. Union was a word that many organizations put in their name in the late 1800s, early 1900s when they weren’t a denominational work. They were called a union ministry, it means they worked across denominational lines. The same with the American Sunday School Union, things like that. And so, if you have a mission, if listeners have a mission in their town that’s got the word union in it, it’s a carryover from days gone by but I’m sure it’s known by that name and so they don’t change it.
Jamie Mitchell: Somebody would say that it would take revival for some churches to work together. And so, we can see how they start to unite to do work together, especially if a revival actually did come in their city. But probably early on, John, some of these rescue missions and city works, alcohol was the main vice afflicting people. And today, there are various addictions and life dominating issues but also in the 1920s and ’30s as I read. Things like the depression and stock market crash, unemployment, poverty was a big issue. What issues are people facing today that the rescue mission is uniquely able to address? And just, I think, help our people understand all the different facets of ministry that a rescue mission may be confronted with.
John Ashmen: Well, let’s walk through the decades, Jamie, since you brought that up. And the reason I want to do that rather than say what’s happening today is because the problems that the missions inherited decade after decade never went away. It was not swapping something out, swapping one problem for another, it was adding on. When Jerry McAuley went back to his area in New York to start his mission, it was really the hoodlums and the ruffians, the immigrant gang members that he was working with. And then, in the 1920s, of course you had prohibition from 1920 to 1933, but alcohol still was strong and that’s when a lot of focus was on alcoholics and people coming in with general substance abuse.
Then in the 1930s, you had people who were just hungry and jobless and so they’d stand in line all day at the factory to see if they got chosen for a particular shift and, if not, they went to the mission to stand in line to see if they could get something to eat and a place to sleep. In the ’40s and even into the ’50s, you had people coming back from the South Pacific or Europe or Korea, many of them with PTSD, undiagnosed back then in most cases and they showed up at a mission, really, just totally that lost their way. And then in the ’60s, you had new kinds of drugs and that culture with hallucinogenics and people showing up of with missions with that.
In the ’70s, very interesting time, we started unlocking people that were chained to the wall in what we called insane asylums and said, “Hey, take these psychotropic drugs and you can live with your family.” And after taking the psychotropic drugs, about 30% of them stayed on it and moved back with their families but the 70% went out into the streets. And then in the ’80s, you had all those excesses and cocaine was present, a lot more drugs. In the ’90s, you started seeing homelessness and that’s still the theme today with all of these other things that I talked about over the decades coming along.
So, homelessness is where we are concentrating but we’re also starting to see human trafficking again a lot these days. And we’re starting to see kids aging out of foster care and LGBTQ kids being thrown out of homes or running away and that’s making its entrance into the missions these days as well.
Jamie Mitchell: Wow, that is just fascinating to watch that. And you’re right, John, these problems don’t go away, they just seem to pile up. John, today, many churches have support groups and specialized ministries to address many of these problems that the rescue mission has been handling for decades. The rescue mission is not there to replace the church but how does it work alongside the church and how can the church partner with the rescue mission and even leverage what it has to offer?
John Ashmen: Well, one of the things churches have to do today is understand that feeding people is not the answer. There are a lot of people that look at Matthew 25, 31, 46, a lot of pastors who look at it and they understand the difference between the sheep and the goats and they look at what Jesus said about I was hungry and you fed me, I was thirsty and you gave me a drink, I was naked and you clothed me, I was a stranger, you welcomed me in, even I was in prison and you came to visit me without getting into the theology of that and who Jesus was actually talking to.
They look at all of those things and go, “What’s the first thing we could do here?” well, feed. And so, you’ve got youth groups that take pizzas down to the park and pass them out or you get a buffet line going on somewhere in an alley and people go home thinking, “Okay, we’ve made a real difference.” Well, actually, the youth group goes back after giving out those pizzas and the youth director talks to them and how did you feel, what were the experiences of the people you encountered and they had this wonderful thing that’s about the youth group. The people they fed the pizzas to are still down in the park, waiting for somebody to come by tomorrow night with macaroni and cheese and they haven’t done anything there. Most churches don’t know how to do a follow-up on a lot of the things that they’re doing.
And so, if you were to read the book When Helping Hurts or Toxic Charity, you know that, with feeding people without an exit strategy to get them out of the conditions where they are, it’s just evil. You’ve got to make a difference in their lives. Most churches can’t do that, that’s where they need to partner with a rescue mission or a similar ministry that’s making a difference, looking at the long term work that missions are doing.
Jamie Mitchell: And if you can get a really good partnership going between a work like a rescue mission or places like we’ve talked about on here, places like America’s Keswick, and help churches actually come alongside and say, “Hey, look, we’ll help with follow up,” boy, it can make a tremendous difference. Friends, I hope you’re listening and one of the things we’re doing with this program today is, if God is stirring in your hearts, it may be that finding a rescue mission or finding a ministry as John is describing today in your area or maybe being a catalyst, and we’ll talk about that later, being a catalyst for your region or city or town or county, we would believe that God could use you and maybe other believers in your area.
The uniqueness of the rescue mission continues today, bringing forth amazing fruit. In my study, it was interesting, I found, John, that Fanny Crosby, the great hymn writer, was also blessed and encouraged and had a role in rescue missions. Matter of fact, she wrote many hymns to help with the rescue mission ministry, one being Rescue the Perishing. When we come back, we’re going to talk about the challenges that rescue missions face. We’re talking about the fruits of revival, what happens when God does revive you, move you to want to make a difference. Come back and join us for our third segment.
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Our theme today is taking it to the streets and we’re having a discussion with John Ashmen and the ministry of rescue missions, many of them born out of revivals in our nation, revivals that take place in cities. And John, before we go any further, I want you to share about Citygate Network and how people can support what you do, how they can find out about your ministry and why they would contact you.
John Ashmen: Well, believe it or not, Citygate Network has a website and it is citygatenetwork.org and, on that website, you can find all kinds of things that are going on in missions. We have a list of more than 315 organizations that are part of Citygate Network and we encourage people to support the mission in their local neighborhood just to be part of that. Of course, Citygate Network, you can donate to Citygate Network as well as we provide those frontline services to the people who are serving, that’s something that’s easy to do. And you can find out a little bit about the history that we’ve been talking about earlier on our website as well.
You mentioned in the last segment, Jamie, that Fanny Crosby composed Rescue the Perishing and, the prolific songwriter that she was, she also did Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior and Blessed Assurance and He Hideth My Soul and Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross. And her piano that she composed those on is on the second floor of the Bowery Mission in New York City. And so, there’s just a lot of history in the Christian circles that can be found or tied to rescue mission.
Jamie Mitchell: Yes, absolutely. John, as a pastor, one of my concerns was that ministries like rescue missions was not just giving, as they used to say, three hots and a cot. Food and a bed to sleep on but really was presenting the gospel, trying to make a spiritual impact. And we have seen, and not just in rescue missions, but in churches and all effective ministries, we have seen at times mission drift. And I gather that part of what you do at Citygate Network is to really help rescue missions be effective. But why does that happen to organizations? What do you think causes that mission drift at times?
John Ashmen: Well, a lack of focus but a lot of it has to do with not understanding where the culture is and people keep perpetuating what I called an inherited complaint. I’ve talked about that in a lot of seminars and things that I do on this. When I’m talking about a complaint, every ministry starts with a complaint from somebody and it had to do with one of those things we talked about as we stepped through the decades and talked about what’s happening. But in many cities, people are running missions with an inherited complaint. It was somebody else’s complaint and they’re just keeping it going. They need to be looking around to see what can we be doing right now that really is more effective.
I did this at one of our early conferences when I came 16 years ago and said, “What’s your complaint?” because most missions were just doing that disaster relief work that you were talking about. And I put a soapbox in the middle of floor and had a cordless mic and I said, “Let me hear your current complaint. What are you talking about or what should you be talking about?” and I turned around and not much movement.
Finally, I heard some rustling and this girl came up behind me, grabbed the mic and she stepped up on the box and she says, “I’m sick and tired of seeing all these young girls come to our city on the bus and they have nowhere to go and they get snatched up by a pimp and we never hear from them again.” And then a guy jumped up and he said, “I’m really angry about all these young people who are going in and raiding their parents’ medicine cabinets and get all of these prescription drugs.”
And I turned around and there was lines going both directions, people wanting to get up. What we say is you’ve got to be current but you also have to keep the gospel paramount, foremost. One of the things that I talk about is the need to use words and, when I say words, there are a lot of people these days that they are involved in ministry but it’s not to make converts. They want to work with people and they want to fight human trafficking and care for AIDS orphans and end poverty but, without the words, people have no idea, in many cases, where this is coming from because their spiritual engagement is not where it used to be. Whether the message of the cross has become secondary to serving a cause is a question we have to ask. When you use the words, it makes a difference.
A lot of people are talking about that statement that we often accredit to St. Francis of Assisi about preaching the gospel and, if necessary, use words but, without the words, the message is lost these days. And that’s how you do not go to mission drift when you keep the gospel paramount but you still settle this. When there was a change in our culture, go back a hundred years or more than a hundred years, you had that great divide with the Federal Council of Churches coming up with their publication Social Creed and the fundamentalists coming up with something that really had that name, a testimony to the truth. And over the 20th century, liberalism and modernism went one way and Orthodox and fundamentalism went the other way.
Interestingly, it was the rescue mission that stayed on the middle ground and they were the ones that were preaching the gospel but still taking care of people’s physical needs. They’re still there today, I have not seen mission drift. We focus on that, we do all kinds of seminars on that and so I’m pleased to say it’s very strong in our member organizations. That’s not to say every organization that has the name rescue mission on it is still gospel centered, there’s some that kept that name but that’s not where they may be. But most of those that are part of Citygate Network, I would say even all, are those who have not drifted from their original core mission of making sure the gospel is paramount in this formula to help the poor and powerless.
Jamie Mitchell: John, as I’ve talked to friends of mine who are in different ministries like this, they just keep coming back to the fruit, the fruit, the fruit, the outcome. There are plenty of drug detox places and all kinds of behavioral modification places out there but it’s really when we get the gospel into the heart and the mind and into the life of a person that the redeeming, transforming work of Jesus Christ, that’s the edge, that’s the power, that’s what really people need. And why we would drift from that is foolish because then we begin to be like the world and that’s never going to help us fulfill what we want to.
John, as you interact with many of these mission directors, there are a lot of challenges and struggles that they are facing today. What are some of those unique challenges that rescue missions face and how can we support, help and pray for them?
John Ashmen: Well, certainly, government involvement in this work because homelessness, for example, is such an important issue in politics these days. Everybody’s stepping up to the microphone to claim that they’re running for some public office is confronted with the fact that homelessness is either issue number one, two or three on the docket that people are concerned about. And so, the government wants to step in and they’ve got some great programs.
Housing First is something that the government pushes but they push it as if it’s the only solution in many cases. Some of that is loosening up a little bit but that has been the case. And the government can work with people’s physical poverty but they don’t know how to work with their spiritual or relational poverty which is why many people are on the streets in the first place. So, trying to work in a local continuum of care, a city with all of its services where Housing First is getting all the government money and Housing First is pushed as the solution.
The current administration is pushing it with stipulations of things like we want to push Housing First and we also want low barriers and we also want gender-affirming care and we’re saying we work with people and services are what’s important. Not just putting people in a house and say everything’s going to be fine now that you have a base of safety, because many of those people don’t know how to stay in a house and so that’s unfortunate in the long run. But when you put people in connection with services, it makes a difference. Housing First will not mandate any services but, if you require people to be in services for drug addiction, services for education and for career development and for mental health assessments, those are the things that pay off in the long run. So, that’s one of the challenges we have.
Another big challenge right now is in many places, ministerial exemptions are being challenged. You have governments in some states that are saying you can hire anybody you want with qualifications that they have to be a Christ follower if the position is ministerial. But if we don’t see the position as ministerial, then you cannot discriminate on somebody whether or not they’re a Christian or they’re a lifestyle or things like that. So, we have a mission just last week in Washington DC, filed suit against Washington State because they would not allow them to hire only Christians to work in their thrift store. And thrift store is a place where there’s a lot of counseling going on, particularly when people come in to shop or even to drop things off.
Fundraising is another challenge.
Jamie Mitchell: John, hold that thought. We’ll be back in just a moment to finish up this conversation about rescue missions here at Stand in the Gap.
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Jamie Mitchell:
Welcome back to the fourth and final segment of Stand In the Gap. We’ve been looking at the history, the purpose, the impact of the rescue mission throughout America. Our special guest, John Ashmen from the Citygate Network. John, last segment, we had to stop mid-sentence of what you were talking about regarding the challenges and the different struggles that rescue missions. Take a minute and just finish up. You were talking about, obviously, their need for support. Any other challenges that rescue missions are facing today?
John Ashmen: Yeah, sorry about that, Jamie. I’m not hearing your transition music to go into your breaks and so I’m continuing to run down the road and run right through your barrier there.
Jamie Mitchell: No problem.
John Ashmen: But we were talking about fundraising, that’s really important these days. Because most missions, in fact, virtually, all I could say that are part of Citygate Network, do not take government funds. Because when you take government funds, you have to comply with certain things the government would want to do about who you can hire and what you can do in your buildings and who gets to sleep where and all the things that are entangled with in our culture today and some of the things that I’m listening to that your station is talking about during the breaks. And so, we’re dealing with missions that have to raise money all by private funding and they do.
We have missions that raise millions of dollars every year. Our largest member organization has a budget of 75 million and much of it comes from government funds. Another one I was with too recently, 44 million, and all of it comes from privately raised funds. And so, fundraising is certainly still an issue. We work with people on both sides of the political aisle. I’m in Washington quite a bit, we have a DC forum coming up for our members to talk with their lawmakers and people and agencies. This whole thing with government is important.
We say the Republicans love what we do, they understand the motivation but many don’t understand poverty real well and we’ve been asked to come and explain that in some of the Republican study groups. The Democrats, they love the work that we do, they just don’t understand why we don’t take government money to do it. And so, we have to walk a fine line when we’re walking with government but the government does present many of the challenges that we’re seeing these days.
Jamie Mitchell: It’s interesting, John. Just a little side note, when I went to Raleigh, I was helping out an organization, a ministry that was going into low income government housing. And being around an environment, I always thought it was interesting that most of these apartment units that they were creating for subsidized housing all have a community room in their midst because the original intent was to offer seminars and groups and training for the people who lived there and those things never came to fruition. And most of those community rooms are used for storage of appliances now but they’re there with the intent that we weren’t just going to give a handout but we were going to actually try to provide services and touch that but that never worked out because they didn’t have what we have to offer.
And that’s what I want to talk to you about in the few minutes we have left. John, I first want you to talk to the pastor who is listening. In a minute or two, what would you say to a pastor who’s listening either who has a rescue mission in their city or doesn’t. How can a pastor be a influencer or help in the rescue mission work?
John Ashmen: Well, first thing I would say is get involved with the mission and use it as a classroom, use it as a place to teach your people about hunger, homelessness, abuse, addiction, all these things that we’re seeing today. Churches have great intentions. We talked earlier about feeding being the number one thing that most do when they look around and say what’s the easiest, what’s the way to get involved. Many go beyond that, I’m not minimizing that but there are very few churches that know how to deal with somebody who’s been a crack addict for 18 years.
And so, you need to look at a rescue mission as the place where people can learn how to engage with those who are suffering and have these issues. Mental illness, which is so high and on the streets today, and addictions and are scared to death because they’re escaping a pimp and have no idea whether he’s around the next corner. Those are the things that people in a mission are trained to do and they can work with church leaders to do that. Many missions today have a director of church relations and they do studies with them, with small groups or adult Sunday school groups or college and career groups and there are places to be engaged in a mission that’s more than just feeding people.
A lot of people say, “What can we do?” Well, let’s go down and we will feed at the mission. Rather than feed in the park, we’ll feed at the mission. And when do they do it? They usually think of Thanksgiving or Christmas. Let me tell you, people who are on the streets get hungry the second Tuesday of April also and so it’s not just the holidays. And then there are places where many missions are still doing chapels but they’re also doing conversation specialists during meals.
And you come and you sit down at a table across from people who have come in off the street and you’re eating with them and you look across the table and you say, “Tell me your story,” Tom or Bill or Mary, whoever it is there. And, “Wow, I can’t believe it. Have you ever spoken to your father since then? Let me tell you my story. Let me tell you how change came about in my life.” You go back to second Corinthians 5:17, life comes with a reset button. When people who are on the street know that and somebody has experience tells them that, it really has an impact in their life.
Jamie Mitchell: I remember being in Nashua, New Hampshire in their rescue mission, sitting down with one of the residents who was staying there and hearing their story and, to my shock, I was talking to a man who had a PhD and now was homeless. And it just rocked me that here was a man, intelligent, advanced degrees but he needed a place to sleep and he needed a meal and it really affected me. I’ll never forget that experience. John, if somebody is listening today, they don’t live in a metropolitan city with millions of people but they may be in a town of 5,000 and there’s still a need like this. You have about a minute left. Is there an opportunity for towns like that, places like that, to start rescue mission and where would they get the help to do that?
John Ashmen: Absolutely. And first of all, don’t be surprised, many smaller towns do have missions. They may not be called a rescue mission but there are ministries that are part of Citygate Network that are included in that. And then, on our website, there’s an area where you can learn how to start a mission or how to engage with a mission. So, a lot of the details are there including all the things about the eight S’s of life transformation that we’re doing. You talked about three hots and a cot or soup, soap and salvation, which how people used to think about missions, it’s very different these days. We take people through eight different steps all the way to seeing them turn around and serve the people that they once used to be part of.
Jamie Mitchell: You should go to the Citygate Network website, you will find that. I have them sitting in front of me, I printed them out for myself because I thought they were so great, John. Saved, sober, stable, schooled, skilled, secure, settled, serving, giving back to the community. What a great outline for what your ministries do. John, thank you so much for joining us today, shedding light on this tremendous outreach to cities. Hey, if revival happens, God may move in your heart to get out of your comfort zone and to reach out, you do that. Find a place where you can serve in your area. Join us again tomorrow for another Stand in the Gap and, remember, lead with courage.
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