This year, our Washington state campuses are partnering with Seattle's Union Gospel Mission for Easter, with goals of donating 10,000 pairs of tube socks, 10,000 diapers (sizes 3, 4, or 5) and 10,000 travel-size bottles of shampoo and conditioner. The Albuquerque campus is collecting donations for the Albuquerque Rescue Mission. If you have not donated yet, do. Below, UGM President Jeff Lilley tells us more about the Mission's mission.

UGM Riverton residents Jack and Tim after completing the Run to Help Haiti 5K with members of a Mars Hill Community Group last summer

Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission was started by several churches in Seattle during the heart of the Great Depression in 1932. Since then, they have not only sought to offer warm meals and a place to stay for Seattle’s homeless population, but also to show people who God is and how he can give hope in their lives. The Mission has a deep gospel-based mission, and has served thousands of people in the city of Seattle, including many members of our own church and even one of our elders, Pastor James Noriega. They also regularly partner with many area churches, of which Mars Hill is one. In particular, today, between 50 and 75 men, women, and children attend the Downtown Seattle campus, and about two dozen are currently going through the Doctrine class to become Mars Hill members. UGM's president, Jeff Lilley, was recently interviewed for the U-District campus' blog: UWD: Tell me about the homeless in Seattle. How many people are out there and why are they homeless to begin with?

JL: There’s just shy of 9,000 homeless people in Seattle. They are divided up our in shelters, on the streets, and sleeping in their cars. We don’t have a track on the ones who have lost their homes and are staying with their family and friends. Most people will say the contributors to homelessness are just the lack of affordable housing. But the reality is the vast majority of homeless are not a resource issue—it’s a relationship issue. If you or I were to lose our job, our money, and then eventually our house, we still wouldn’t end up on the streets. We would be staying with family or friends. We trust that people would reach out and catch us. So why are these people homeless? Whether they have mental health issues or addictive issues, they’re in a position where they’ve broken those relationships. They have burned people, stolen from people, or been violent and belligerent in their relationships to the point that their family and friends say, "Enough, I can’t do this anymore." At that point they no longer have a place to go and some give up. They just take to the streets instead of asking to stay somewhere. So there are a lot of different reasons why people end up homeless and in almost all of them for us, we refer to them as a relationship issue and notwithstanding, the primary relationship is their relationship with God. That’s that part that can redeem and restore their lives. We obviously believe that’s the relationship that needs to be restored above all else.

If someone has burned all their bridges with family and friends, how can you help that person?

We do a lot of what you might think of as a "Good Samaritan" kind of service. You pick a person up off the side of the road and take them to a place where they’re going to have their needs met, regardless if they’re aware that someone is helping them. However, our goal is to serve, rescue, and transform. So we don’t have just homeless shelters. We have recovery centers, then year-long residences, and transitional housing beyond that. Most of our year-long programs are in the 75 to 85 percent success level. That means that after three years out—after having graduated from one of our programs—they are still clean, sober, active, involved in a local church, and gainfully employed. We have programs that help them learn everything from how to deal with addictive behaviors to life skills to Christianity 101 and having a relationship with Christ. We have to invest in their life in a spiritual level first and foremost and our goal is not to simply get them clean but to lead them to a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. In that process, Christ and the Holy Spirit does additional work in healing and restoring not just their life but relationships too.

You’re working on 53 initiatives—that’s a lot. Tell us about some of them.

Adopt a Block is where we identify some of the lowest income levels in the neighborhoods throughout Seattle and we go in and design a program to adopt a block over the long term. The first one is launching in South Park. We’re bringing together about eight different churches, thirteen different ministry partners, and social service providers. We’ll also have a clothing drive trailer, food banks, mobile dental trailers, and a mobile legal clinic. A King County medical van will also be there providing medical assistance and other resources. That’s the kind of thing to connect churches to a community that’s really hurting. And not just a one-time drop off services, but rather to adopt that block, that family, that neighborhood, and continue to saturate it with resources. It’s loving a neighborhood that’s just far less fortunate. We just launched a morning watch van that goes out on the streets of downtown Seattle. Some businesses wake up in the morning with homeless people sleeping in the doorways and we look at it and say, "Why don’t we help solve this problem?" We have a van that goes out and actually wakes up the individual and does it in a loving, compassionate way. They offer them a cup of hot chocolate or coffee and a ride back to the mission or service of their choice for a bacon and eggs kind of thing. When the city wakes up, instead of having a bunch of homeless people sleeping in their doorways, it’s already been cleaned up. At the same time we’re doing it in a compassionate way and bringing them back to a place where people are going to love on them and share the gospel with them.

How can someone who has a heart for the poor be more involved with Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission?

It can be anything from donations to volunteering. We have a volunteer page on our website and have a wide variety of options from seniors to youth to jail ministries. If you’re a dental student, we have a dental clinic or we have legal clinics. We obviously have the homeless shelters for men, women, and children. There is just a myriad amount of opportunities.

You can read the full interview, in two parts, on the campus blog. Find out more about Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission online and connect with them on Facebook. Also, check out other blog posts about the Mission from this blog, including many stories about Community Groups that used MicroMission funds to serve the UGM.