Faith Works 5-8-2026
Jeff Gill
Understanding your own faith, and others
___
This Saturday, May 9th, there are some worthwhile opportunities in downtown Newark to learn from.
Newark Homeless Outreach is on courthouse square at 10 am with a memory walk, and their “Steps of Change” display of empty shoes, representing the invisible homeless around us. The walk is meant as a fundraiser, and you can find them online or social media whether you go on the walk or not. They will be feeding the hungry at noon a few blocks east as they do every Saturday, rain or shine, summer or winter, all year ‘round.
From 11 am to 8 pm a block and a half south of the courthouse, at the Canal Market District, there’s a Food Truck Festival, hosted by the Licking County Coalition for Housing. Some thirty trucks with food for every taste will be set up, and this, too, is a fundraiser, along with some information displays for their work all through the year, entering their thirty-fifth year in 2026.
Housing and homelessness weave through the Christian Bible, and in other sacred texts. Faith is a perspective that knows a tangible home is often elusive, and the solidity of feeling at home in the world is what people hunger for. How to find such a place while being a pilgrim people: that’s a tie that binds us all in faith, and in service.
Many different religious perspectives find helping and serving people who are for a season without housing a central tenet. My own tradition’s gospel according to Matthew includes Jesus saying “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” That same book, in the 25th chapter, talks about how serving the hungry and dispossessed is the same as serving Jesus himself. That’s created a deep history of ministry in those areas.
There’s a pillar, as it’s called, of Islam called the practice of “Zakat,” sharing from your income with those in need. In Judaism, “Tzedakah” is part of how faithful believers participate in the “repair of the world,” or “tikkun olam.” This work of justice is not just an ethical suggestion, but usually called a “Mitzvah,” or a “commandment.”
When I have worked with youth groups, I’ve found going to experience different Christian traditions, and having interfaith religious experiences as well, have been crucial in helping them (and their parents) understand their own practices. You see your own church more clearly when you come back from viewing things differently. Service experiences often do double duty in helping people develop their faith through actual practice, directly helping others, but in so doing usually encounter perspectives other than their own.
It’s also Mother’s Day weekend, speaking of common, shared experiences of humanity. My mother was always very supportive of ecumenical and interfaith experiences, sometimes when other parents were not so excited (or so I would learn later). To be blunt, her mother had some major issues with different faiths; then Mom went to college, and had both Catholic and Orthodox roommates. What she gained from those experiences, she wanted her kids to have, too.
This is also why, almost every year, I try to put in a column an exhortation leading into the summer inviting readers to visit worship services while on vacation, and even better, of traditions different than their own. Although, even if you just visit a church “like” your own, I guarantee you’ll see things differently there.
And if you do, I hope you’ll write and tell me what you learned from the experience. Even if it’s just “I’m glad to get home and worship the way we do here!” But I bet it will be a bit more than that.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he’s looking forward to some time on the road this summer. Tell him about your worship along the way at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on X.
Jeff Gill
Understanding your own faith, and others
___
This Saturday, May 9th, there are some worthwhile opportunities in downtown Newark to learn from.
Newark Homeless Outreach is on courthouse square at 10 am with a memory walk, and their “Steps of Change” display of empty shoes, representing the invisible homeless around us. The walk is meant as a fundraiser, and you can find them online or social media whether you go on the walk or not. They will be feeding the hungry at noon a few blocks east as they do every Saturday, rain or shine, summer or winter, all year ‘round.
From 11 am to 8 pm a block and a half south of the courthouse, at the Canal Market District, there’s a Food Truck Festival, hosted by the Licking County Coalition for Housing. Some thirty trucks with food for every taste will be set up, and this, too, is a fundraiser, along with some information displays for their work all through the year, entering their thirty-fifth year in 2026.
Housing and homelessness weave through the Christian Bible, and in other sacred texts. Faith is a perspective that knows a tangible home is often elusive, and the solidity of feeling at home in the world is what people hunger for. How to find such a place while being a pilgrim people: that’s a tie that binds us all in faith, and in service.
Many different religious perspectives find helping and serving people who are for a season without housing a central tenet. My own tradition’s gospel according to Matthew includes Jesus saying “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” That same book, in the 25th chapter, talks about how serving the hungry and dispossessed is the same as serving Jesus himself. That’s created a deep history of ministry in those areas.
There’s a pillar, as it’s called, of Islam called the practice of “Zakat,” sharing from your income with those in need. In Judaism, “Tzedakah” is part of how faithful believers participate in the “repair of the world,” or “tikkun olam.” This work of justice is not just an ethical suggestion, but usually called a “Mitzvah,” or a “commandment.”
When I have worked with youth groups, I’ve found going to experience different Christian traditions, and having interfaith religious experiences as well, have been crucial in helping them (and their parents) understand their own practices. You see your own church more clearly when you come back from viewing things differently. Service experiences often do double duty in helping people develop their faith through actual practice, directly helping others, but in so doing usually encounter perspectives other than their own.
It’s also Mother’s Day weekend, speaking of common, shared experiences of humanity. My mother was always very supportive of ecumenical and interfaith experiences, sometimes when other parents were not so excited (or so I would learn later). To be blunt, her mother had some major issues with different faiths; then Mom went to college, and had both Catholic and Orthodox roommates. What she gained from those experiences, she wanted her kids to have, too.
This is also why, almost every year, I try to put in a column an exhortation leading into the summer inviting readers to visit worship services while on vacation, and even better, of traditions different than their own. Although, even if you just visit a church “like” your own, I guarantee you’ll see things differently there.
And if you do, I hope you’ll write and tell me what you learned from the experience. Even if it’s just “I’m glad to get home and worship the way we do here!” But I bet it will be a bit more than that.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he’s looking forward to some time on the road this summer. Tell him about your worship along the way at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on X.
