At this time of year, many people are aware they can support people experiencing homelessness through the Advent Sleepout Challenge, a fundraising event through which groups are challenged to sleep out for a night to raise money.
Last year, the Church Urban Fund's Together programme provided more than 4000 beds for homeless people at night shelters across the country. These night shelters received support from more than 800 churches and thousands of hours of volunteer time to ensure that staying with us was the kind of quality time that created the possibility of a better future.
Our shelters take time with people; it's not simply somewhere warm and dry – it's rather the welcome, the hospitality, and the love that we show to that makes our places the warmest. Often, it's this warmth that begins to set people up for recovery, because it brings them back into a set of relationships that will support them.
Why do we do it?
This is Christian ministry at its most profound. We often talk in a fairly loose way about Jesus having a bias to the poor, but the reality is that that the bias is towards the 'Ptochos', which is best translated as the destitute. This means a bias to those who are so poor that they are outside of the system and of society altogether. They have no stake or place in what the rest of us often take for granted.
What Jesus offers to us in his actions and words is an alternative to the sort of society we have today, where homelessness is on the increase and where we are becoming a less welcoming, hospitable and loving society
What's a sleepout about?
The idea of a night 'roughing it' like this is nothing new, but it is an important opportunity for reflection and for identification with our excluded brothers and sisters and their place in the Kingdom of God. At the same time, where it is sponsored, it provides the resources we need to make our prayers and reflections a reality.
For some, a sleepout is a fun event for the youth group or members of the congregation more widely, sometimes a scout group, sometimes the church school. We have had a few Bishops and even an entire cathedral chapter.
For others, it is an act of solidarity and reflection. I had a 92-year-old phone me and ask whether it would be ok if she slept downstairs on her sofa; she wanted to use it as an opportunity for prayer, but felt sleeping outside might have been too much.
But for most it's about both having fun and taking part in an act of solidarity. For all sleepouts, we encourage an early start with a meal together as well as the opportunity for games and to hear stories about how the money raised will help those in need.
The Advent Sleepout Challenge has proved itself to be a positive and useful way of bringing people together around a positive activity.
What will the money be spent on?
Well, you will know, of course, that the number of people experiencing street homelessness is on the increase; that refers to those who regularly sleep out and those who 'sofa-surf' most of the time but occasionally end up getting caught out and sleeping rough, as well.
This is an area of need where we can, in churches, have a real and profound impact. We at Church Urban Fund do have a good track record of doing this. Since 2010 we have invested £10m into church social action through our Together programme. We work by meeting local problems with local solutions. We work with the positive assets that churches and local communities already have and encourage their use in addressing social need.
Homelessness is, at first sight, simply about not having a roof over your head, but anyone who has worked with people experiencing homelessness knows that the picture is a much more complex one. Often the cause is the breakdown of a relationship, or loss of a job; often it will be about the stresses and strains of a mental illness of some kind. The effect is that a person experiencing homelessness often feels completely excluded from society as a whole. Being homeless is really a profound threat to identity, to who we are as people.
When we set our minds to it, we are good at hospitality and a warm welcome in churches. We see people not as the sum of their deficits but rather as people with a God-given humanity and an intrinsic dignity. Our night shelter volunteers build friendships and invest in the lives of people experiencing homelessness. It's through this personal investment that we find the talents of those who come to us and help them rebuild their self-respect and sense of self.
Mark found himself in one of our night shelters. He struggles with depression and he was unable to manage the conversion of his benefits to Universal Credit, and so ended up on the streets. When he visited one of our night shelters he was given a welcome and it turned out he had a lively sense of humour and the capacity to make others feel welcome. The volunteers at the night shelter built on his strengths, helped him set up his Universal Credit and now he's back in accommodation. This year he will come to the shelter as a volunteer.
This is a small example, but it is indicative of a wider narrative. Some of the answers to homelessness lie in the way we treat people. When we nurture gifts and talents, invest in people, and give them opportunities to grow and contribute, we give them the best chance of flourishing. This is what all of us are offered by God though Jesus within the kingdom.
So, do please come and join us and host your own Advent Sleepout Challenge. I can't offer a warm night but I can offer a warm welcome.
Canon Paul Hackwood is executive director of the Church Urban Fund. Take the Advent Sleepout Challenge and transform lives.
