Wide welcome:
The essential ingredient is old-t imers
By Jessicah Krey Duckworth W
hen Greg Boyle, a Jesuit priest, welcomes a new- comer to Homeboy Industries, he begins with a conversation in his offi ce and invites the former
gang member to share his or her story. A 26-year-old ministry in Los Angeles, Homeboy Industries provides job training positions and free social services every month to more than 1,000 men and women who were formerly involved in gangs and previously incarcerated. Newcomers begin life at Homeboy working in
the maintenance department and then progress into vocational skill-building in one of six social enterprises. Boyle or a caseworker asks each client a question before they start their training: “Are you willing to work along- side your enemies?” By defi nition, a newcomer is anyone who has
recently arrived in a place or joined a group. Newcomers are novices—they haven’t spent a great
deal of time participating in the central practices of a community. By contrast, an old-timer is anyone who has spent more time in the community and thus has a better grasp of its way of life. On the fi rst day of training, Boyle accompanies the
newcomer to the maintenance department. Old-timers line up to shake hands with the newcomer and extend welcome. Inevitably enemies are shaking hands with each other, leaning into this new venture because each has made a choice to be there. Work resumes with the new client learning skills side-by-side the old-timers. Newcomers arrive each
month. Within the month they become old-timers. Older old-timers move on to vocational skill- building and become newcomers all over again in a new setting. New old- timers remain to welcome newcomers. No longer
Alex and Nelson (front) work together in the Homeboy Diner at Homeboy Industries.
Hector, James, Andre and Mario (last names withheld) work together as merchandise team members at Homeboy Industries. Former enemies work together and learn from each other at Homeboy, which provides services to people who were formerly involved in gangs.
enemies, the co-workers learn to cherish one another. In being cherished, homies (as the clients are called) experience what it means to be beloved and ennobled. In time they learn to see themselves, through their co- workers, as Jesus sees them: made in the image of God, as God’s child, as beloved. Trust develops because it is experienced through the
good work at hand and they learn the Homeboy man- tra: “We belong to one another.” Boyle and the Homeboy staff aren’t at the center of this
enterprise of welcome, but by standing at the periphery, nurturing relationships between old-timers and new- comers, they bear witness to the creation of what Martin Luther King Jr. described as the beloved community. Congregations welcome newcomers too. Typically
congregational leaders pour incredible amounts of energy into orientation sessions and the rites of baptism or affi rmation of baptism. Well and good. But all too oſt en, including old-timers as the essential ingredient of the newcomer welcome process is overlooked. Newcomers need access to relationships with old-
timers—not only leaders but established members who are co-workers in the vineyard. Congregational leaders are called to cultivate the relationship between old- timers and newcomers. T is year imagine designing a newcomer welcome process that includes old-timers, the essential ingredient, and get excited to bear witness to a community that cherishes each one as beloved and learns to belong to one another.
Author bio: Duckworth is an ELCA pastor and the author of Wide Welcome: How the Unsettling Presence of Newcomers Can Save the Church (Fortress Press, 2013).
March 2016 19
PHOTO COURTESY HOMEBOY INDUSTRIES
PHOTO COURTESY HOMEBOY INDUSTRIES
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