Participants in this workshop met a panel with participants from different parts of the country and different ministries to introduce.

Doffing a red, yellow, and black pointed and bell-tipped hat, Sr. Carmen Barsody, O.S.F. (Order of Saint Francis) described the ministry of the Faithful Fools in the Tenderloin section of San Francisco. According to their literature, "God's fools, keepers of the Holy Grail, see the world in all its glorious absurdity and act on what they see." The Rev. Kay Jorgensen, a Unitarian Universalist minister and Barsody were the first two Faithful Fools. Sr. Barsody described the Tenderloin as a tough area, and full of homeless persons. Housing there and throughout San Francisco is expensive and scarce. They conduct a ministry of presence on the streets. The Faithful Fools also organize "street retreats" for people unaccustomed to the situation of the Tenderloin's homeless. The retreats "create the container to help people to move into an experience" which reveals their compassion to the people on the streets, and allows them to come to terms with their own pain around homelessness, chemical dependency, and poverty.

The Rev. Larry Hutchison, from First Unitarian Universalist Church, Detroit, Michigan, described deprivation of the church's part of the inner city when he arrived in 1995. Earlier "white flight" took away financial resources, and the area suffered. The church could have chosen to have closed off parts of its facility and become a museum, or to reach into the community: they took the later path and open its doors. By making the church a community center, it took upon itself a mission that people could join. The church has about two hundred members, but the mission includes about six hundred. Hutchison described in particular one youth program, in which participants confronted international economic interests, but was met with city and police fear and resistance. The church's position in the neighborhood insulated it from the worst of the police interventions, Hutchison reported.

The Rev. Elizabeth Ellis, the executive director of the Unitarian Universalist Urban Ministry (Benevolent Fraternity of Unitarian Churches) followed her agency's history of public ministry, starting with Joseph Tuckerman in 1824, to its ministry today. In particular, she mentioned an effort to relieve domestic violence in the Asian community; this action has itself been spun-off as another group. Ellis also talked about the current prison ministry effort. The UUUM is "always looking for partnerships" in its work.

Much of the current work of the UUUM is associated with the First Church in Roxbury, in the metropolitan Boston area. The original congregation ceased to exist and turned its building — in a predominately African American neighborhood — over to the UUUM. Recently, a new congregation has been organizing at the First Church in Roxbury building.

The area is rife with gang activity, drugs, violence, and death. In 1992, the UUUM, in conjunction with Unitarian Universalists for A Just Economic Community (UUJEC), developed a program in the memory of Damien Funderberg. The Damien Funderberg program both helps youth in the area, and helps them take their message to the suburbs so that the suburbanites can better understand and be willing to help. The youth present from this program led audience members through two exercises.

The Rev. Parisa Parsa is director of Renewal House, a shelter for women in crisis and center of legal, housing, and health care advocacy, and pastoral care. It is a program of the Unitarian Universalist Urban Ministry. She described Renewal House's work as "a model of accompaniment . . . to walk with people in a lonely, terrifying time." She said they "were moving forward with the gospel of Unitarian Universalism, which is love and justice."

Lastly, a representative from United Souls, out of the First Church in Roxbury, described their program of helping former inmates make the transition from institutional life to life in the wider society by providing job skills and personal help.

Reported by Rev. Scott Wells; formatted for the web by Kasey Melski.