Jesus Loves Detroit

Hello Folks, this is the inaugural blog of Jesus Loves Detroit Church! We envision regularly posting this blog, along with a podcast, and YouTube videos. We are neophytes in this world of communication, but are very excited to share these, along with our brand new website! We wish to share three of our favorite things, Jesus, Love, and Detroit. Our story began 10 years ago, when my mother-in-law, Dolores, was diagnosed with lung cancer. My wife Bridget was her primary caregiver, along with a healthy support system of husband, and other children. Dolores had top-notch medical care, health insurance, money, safe home, transportation, and family and friends to help her on this journey. As I watched Bridget help, and care for her mother, I was amazed at the love she poured out to her mother. It was sacrificial love that sometimes inconvenienced us, or burdened us, but we were so glad to offer help, and support to her mother. It was a higher calling, above regular life, to help someone at such a critical time in her life. Even though she was terribly sick, and dying, she put others first. She had planned an Alaskan cruise for her children, their spouses, and their grandchildren. She was determined to make it happen. Off we went, sixteen folks to a lifetime cruise. We partied, and Dolores was sick in her room, the smell of food making her sicker. We came back home, and Dolores died two weeks later. What stuck with me were three things. #1. The love Dolores had for her family, despite being in constant pain, and dying. #2. The love Bridget had for her mother, that superseded any other obligations in her life at that time. #3. That there were lots of people, who were sick, or dying, and had no health insurance, money, safe home, transportation, or anyone to help them!

Along with these realizations, and the financial crash and recession of 2008, I changed my life. I loved being a business owner, and chasing money. I had founded and nurtured several businesses in my lifetime. I opened my first restaurant at an age of 24, and had a small chain ten years later. Now, myself and my real estate colleagues, were on our way to being millionaires, and that’s all that mattered. The housing crash, General Motors and Chrysler failing, and Detroit filing bankruptcy, jolted me into reality! I had been chasing the wrong dream. I had gotten good, at things that didn’t matter. The career ladder I was climbing, was leaning against the wrong building! I had been a Christian for 27 years. Now it was time to truly be a follower of Jesus Christ, to study his instructions, and most importantly, to act and live them out, to sacrificially serve my fellow brothers and sisters, like Jesus had done with his life on earth. Put people first, over money and myself. I actively and regularly volunteered and joined two after-school programs in Detroit. Farm Stand Kids, and Growing Healthy Kids. Both operated out of Earthworks Detroit Farm, under the Capuchin Soup Kitchen. I started delivering Meals on Wheels, in two separate community’s. I became a reading mentor in Detroit’s inner city schools, under a literacy program, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing, and his wife Yvette, initiated. Jesus Christ is my model, leader, and helper. It was hard sometimes to put my comfort, my resources, and my money, to help others when I went without. I befriended a man named Stanley Roland Loyd, who was just starting his own journey with stage 4 lung cancer, that had metastasized all over his body. It started out as one man with a truck, helping another man, who needed transportation for medical treatment. It evolved into us being best friends, and spending a whole lot of time together. This was a season where I was either the main caregiver of folks, or part of a team of caregivers. In a few short years, my best friend Stanley died of cancer, my dad, Andrew died of cancer. My wife Bridget, died of cancer. My father-in-law Perry, died of cancer. My uncle Paul, died of cancer. My youngest brother , Dave, died of cancer. My mother Marion, died. At the end of this season, I was diagnosed with cancer. All this death made me realize, it all points to LIFE! Jesus, when asked what were the most important of the commandments answered, Love God above all else, and love your fellow man and woman better than yourself. All of the others will be accomplished if you do these two. I moved to a cabin in the deep woods. There is a chapel on the property that I spent hours, and days in. Reading, writing, praying, and thinking. After two years God told me, that’s enough time, you are now ready, move back downstate, marry Nancy, and put your heart into Jesus loves Detroit Church, or quit talking about it! Today, as I write this, the church is thriving after two years, along with my lovely wife and spiritual partner, Nancy. I am out of this cancer treatment, now over four years. There is a new cancer that is trying to get me, but seriously, this does not bother me in the least, after everything I have experienced. If you rely on people solutions, there is a good chance of failure. With God, all things are possible.

Detroit is my birthplace. My mom and dad were newlyweds, renting an upper flat in Highland Park, my dad finishing his education at Wayne State when I was born. We moved out of state for a while and then settled in the suburbs of Detroit. Detroit was the nearest big city, and it was DETROIT! Motor City, Motown, and Rock n Roll. Windsor, Ontario was just across the Detroit River, and for a buck, we could go play and fish there. As an adult, I brought my kids to Detroit regularly. We visited museums, inner-city churches, restaurants, and all the sports stadiums. We rollerbladed Belle Isle, and swam in the Detroit River, in Delray. When I ran the Free Press marathon for the first time in 1998, my three sons ran the 5k. Today our ministry of Jesus Loves Detroit Church, is to the beautiful street people of Detroit. Spending years on the street ministering to marginalized folks is our calling. Detroit is on a roll right now. Not for everybody, but economically it is headed in the right direction. There are thousands of success stories of folks making a go of it. Sure there are rough, depressed area’s. Just like your state, or town. I know, because chances are, I have walked your streets, and eaten at your shelters. The people of Detroit, are the most generous, loving, resourceful, artistic, entrepreneurial, tough folks I have ever met. When we feed, clothe, and shelter folks, they are extremely grateful. When we have a big ole Jesus Party, which we call a Feast, and feed up to 300 folks, we offer the rite of communion. You would be amazed and encouraged, on how many folks who want to participate in communion, or how many Bibles we give away, or how many touching friendships we have developed. It’s easy for you to follow Jesus when you are called from your warm couch, of watching the Detroit Lions play football, to a full Thanksgiving dinner, in your safe home. Try praising Jesus eating cold turkey from a Salvation Army truck, and sleeping in a shelter, in a folding chair with 200 other folks. These folks really know Jesus.

Thanks for reading if you have stayed this long. We hope to illuminate in future talks, the saving grace of God who created this universe, who designed a path for your life, whose spirit can be your helper, and how to live happy, joyful, triumphant lives, no matter your circumstances. Kevin

Christian Churches today in America, don’t really attract new members to church. They either attract folks who quit going, or they poach members from other churches. A very large amount of folks joining non denominational churches today, are former Catholic members. Protestant churches compete with each other with bigger and better stages, and bigger and better sound and light equipment, and bigger and better youth area, or a bigger, and better coffee shop, etc. Nancy and I went to a church for a fabulous Christmas Play last week, that actually had nose bleed seats. When the angels in the play started flying around, suspended on their trapeze wires, I believe the seats were higher up, than the angels. There are the Mega churches, there are the Mega-Mega T.V. churches, there are the medium sized churches, and there all the storefront churches. I see them all, and always wonder if they are doing any good in the community they are in. Here in Detroit I see all of these. Then I look across the street, and see burned up vacant houses. What happened? How did they let this happen? Why do they allow this to continue. The church is not a fort to hide out in, and defend yourself. It is a place to invite folks in, love them, and help them. I see hundreds of churches in Detroit in various levels of decay, just like the neighborhood around them. When did they become just like the world, instead of being Jesus’s bride, that he is coming back for. Great churches are everywhere in Detroit also. Churches that invest in their communities and congregation , and are too busy helping people to find time to play church. It irritated my mother to no end, to see churches of all sizes, empty all week, except for a few hours on Sunday morning. Jesus Loves Detroit Church’s goal is to be open 24/7/365, and why wouldn’t we? Most church doors are locked up, almost all the time.

Why do you go to church? Why did you leave? What would it take for you to start going again?
According to Carey Nieuwhof, and the Barna Group, here are the top 7 reasons folks don’t want to attend church anymore.

1.The Church is irrelevant
2. The Church Leaders are Hypocrites.
3. The Church Leaders are Moral Failures.
4.God is Missing in the Church.
5.Legitimate Doubt is Prohibited.
6.They Are Not Learning About God.
7.They Are Not Finding Community

and I will add the biggy,

#8. All they care about is the Money$.

These are the most common answers to not going, and I agree with all of them. People are busy today, probably a lot more than they should be, and are more busy than any other time in man’s existence. It really needs to fulfill them, if they are going to come. Should we all drive away from a Sunday service, critiquing the Preachers message, complaining how long it took to retrieve your child, and bemoaning the fact that we feel, we didn’t get fed spiritually today?! Or perhaps we should pray for the preacher, see how we can volunteer at the church, and start regularly giving, instead of just throwing a twenty in the plate?! Get involved, make it your church! One of my friends joined his wife for Sunday Service, at the church she regularly attends. He disagreed with the message, and used this as the reason to not go back. She also quit attending. What I would say is, there are another 10 million churches in the world, just try another! Its about GOD! Its about JESUS! Its about THE HOLY SPIRIT! Keep those relationships healthy, and God will direct you to another church. The American Church is to blame for making it boring, and uninteresting. They have taken the Greatest News anyone will ever hear, and marginalized it. The bible is Gods inspired truth, not the church. Read what a biblical church is, then compare it to your church. How does it match up. I used to say, “who needs organized religion, I can worship God in nature, or at home. ” Of course you can, but that is not Gods plan. I changed my view. He wants community. He wants us all in it together. He wants us to support, and encourage each other. The analogy story of a fire, demonstrates this best. Take a glowing red hot ember from a fire, and set it apart. It will burn brightly for a while, but eventually it will get cold, and burn out. If it stays in the fire with the other coals, it will burn brighter, and longer, and create a better glow! Lets all get back to the basics of Matthew 25, where Jesus illustrates what, we as individuals, and the church should be concerned about, and what we should be doing. Jesus is so serious it , he makes a graphic distinction between the groups of people who do these things, and the groups of people who don’t do these things! Read it in your bible, or google it up. Then tell me what you think. I ENCOURAGE YOU TO FIND A CHURCH THAT FITS YOUR FAMILY AND GET INVOLVED. HAVE A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS CHRIST. This is the most important thing I could ever spout out of my mouth, as your life depends on it! It really does! Our church is dead serious, as we deal with a lot of marginal folks, and their serious issues, and their dismal poverty. But throughout it all, we have FUN! Yes, church should be FUN! After all, the Creator of the Universe invented it, not us. Please read your bibles, please talk to God, and please don’t give up, and you will find your church! I close by asking you, to draw on all Gods love and power, Kevin Pelto

Inaugural Blog

CHURCH – Why You Don’t Go