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In the City of Churches, there’s another new congregation in a not-so-new spot.
It meets Sunday mornings at 301 W. Superior St. in Fort Wayne, and, yes, says organizer Milisa Johnson, the site is the Fort Wayne Rescue Mission shelter for the homeless.
The congregation is called Good Shepherd @ The Mission, and it’s an outreach of 500-member Good Shepherd United Methodist Church, 4700 Vance Ave.
Johnson says although Good Shepherd @ The Mission’s services at 10 a.m. Sundays are attended by some people who are staying at the mission, the congregation serves more than the homeless.
She says members also come from the mission’s neighborhood and elsewhere in the Fort Wayne area, with some traveling from as far away as Huntertown and Churubusco.
“It’s a small congregation, and some homeless people come, but we’re serving a lot of different people there,” she says.
The Rev. Stacy Downing, Good Shepherd’s associate pastor, says the congregation at the mission grew out of the church’s focus on being a multisited Christian community. Good Shepherd also operates Open Arms Ministries, a 75-member multicultural congregation at 5311 Hessen Cassel Road, she says.
“We believe … that we need to be in the neighborhoods where the people are,” Downing says. “We believe there is value to having a Christian home in your neighborhood.”
Donovan Coley, chief executive officer for Fort Wayne Rescue Ministries, which operates the mission, says the congregation replaces a non-denominational congregation led by Amos and Elizabeth Zehr.
The couple, from the Leo-Cedarville and Grabill area, were involved with the congregation, known as The Mission, for more than 50 years, he says.
Good Shepherd @ The Mission came on board on Palm Sunday in 2008, about a month after Coley, who serves as a part-time preaching pastor for Open Arms, was named the mission’s CEO.
Those who stay at the mission are not required to attend Sunday services, Coley says. The mission also has nightly chapel services.
Johnson, 48, in inside sales, and her husband, Dean, 50, a medical records archivist, lead the service Sundays. “It’s unique,” she says of the congregation, attended by about 25 people a week. “It’s a little bit smaller and intimate. And it’s always filled with praise and praying and a message and music – every weekend.”
