For Immediate Release
HUNTINGTON, Indiana, April 12, 2011 – Many people are repulsed by prostitutes or even beggars holding cardboard signs. Yet their attitudes toward the poor and homeless often reflect deeper fears, says the Chicago founder of an outreach program for helping homeless men escape poverty, addiction, and sexual sin.
Early on, even he remembers thinking, “Can’t they just get a job?”
Emmaus Ministries founder, Deacon John Green, a self-proclaimed ‘good boy, with good grades, who grew up in a good home, in a wealthy neighborhood, graduated from a good college’ … discusses how he went from the idyllic streets of suburban Akron, Ohio to helping those trapped in the inner-city sex trade of New York, and later, Chicago, in Streetwalking with Jesus: Reaching Out in Justice and Mercy (Our Sunday Visitor, March 2011, 208 pp., softback, illustrated).
Serving some of the modern-day ‘lepers’ in our midst, Emmaus Ministries was begun over 20 years ago as a result of Green being struck by the horror of a homeless man throwing himself off a midtown-Manhattan building – right before his eyes.
“I will never forget the sound of that suicide,” Green recounts in Streetwalking. “Falling from the top of the New York Port Authority Bus Terminal, his body must have been moving close to fifty miles per hour. The slap as he hit the unforgiving concrete pierced through the 2 a.m. clamor of Times Square. People screamed. A passing cop blew his whistle. Sirens soon wailed in the distance. I sat in a light blue van at a stoplight not more than ten feet from where he landed. My eyes caught the blur of his falling body just before I heard that sickening sound. I recognized him as a homeless man from the neighborhood. But I didn’t know him. I didn’t know his story. But I knew how it ended: he had made his way to the top of the Terminal, stripped off all his clothes, and jumped. Why? I have no idea. But it changed my life.”
While in college in the mid-80s, Green – a Catholic at a predominantly non-Catholic school – found himself continually being asked about his faith. “The constant questioning, about everything from ‘why do Catholics worship statues?’ to ‘what is the difference between imputed versus infused righteousness?’ spurred me to examine my faith much more closely,” he says.
Then he began to examine what it entailed beyond the parameters of a ‘nice Christian life.’ Green knew there had to be something more … so he devoted himself to living a deeply intentional “missional” life. He volunteered at an inner-city Chicago ministry aimed at helping women prostitutes. That’s when Green saw a group of men clustered on a street corner that he’d never recognized before.
“Those guys over there are prostitutes, too,” a female colleague told him. “But nobody works with them; nobody cares about male prostitutes.” But John Green would.
Streetwalking with Jesus is a compilation of Green’s real-world lessons in working with destitute men on the streets of Chicago. It contains some 20 true stories of guys who struggle to escape the imprisonment of poverty, addiction, and sexual sin – and illustrates the joy of service and outreach to a societal subculture that most people would plainly disregard, much less evangelize for Christ. His former part-time work as a psychiatric technician in a hospital provided him great training for understanding addicts’ mental-health issues as they grapple with recovery.
Each chapter-story sobers the reader into a realization or perspective he’s never had before. Plus it includes links to evocative songs, a scripture reflection, discussion questions, and a prayer. Readers will be inspired to plumb deeper the meaning of a mission-filled life.
“People often ask me what they should do when they meet a homeless person on the street,” says Green. “I’m a firm believer that the last thing you should do is give them money. A handout rarely helps. What they need is your time, touch, or talk. Street people hardly ever get paid any serious attention by the rest of society … whether due to fear or business, people simply don’t take time for them … A personal conversation can be incredibly healing.”
Green is invited to speak worldwide on his urban ministry, evangelization, and peace and justice work.
In his Foreword to Streetwalking, Francis Cardinal George, OMI, Archbishop of Chicago, writes, “Meeting and walking with male prostitutes might seem far from the road to Emmaus that Jesus walked after His resurrection (Luke 24:13-35). Those whom Jesus met didn’t recognize Him at first, and male prostitutes on the streets of Chicago often don’t recognize Him, either. Deacon John Green walks the streets humbly, shows God’s mercy to all, and lives justly in right relationship to all sinners because he knows the power of God’s forgiveness in his own life (Micah 6:8).
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Product Fact Sheet
Description:
Streetwalking with Jesus: Reaching Out in Justice and Mercy is an unusual perspective on ministering to an oft-disregarded fragment of the homeless population: male prostitutes.
Deacon John Green, through his Emmaus Ministries, has spent over two decades reaching out to inner-city men on the fringes of society in downtown Chicago, and has also worked with them in New York City, Guatemala, and Mexico. “They are the modern-day lepers in our midst,” he says. “There were almost no ministries which were interested in dealing with them.”
A successful middle-class, church-going Catholic guy, who grew up in the comfort of suburbia, Green longed for a way to live his Catholic Faith which went beyond a ‘nice Christian life.’ As an eye-witness to a homeless man’s jump-suicide from a building in Manhattan, Green’s life – and his ‘take’ on helping others – was forever changed.
Each of the 20 chapters in Streetwalking gives the reader a profile-perspective on a real-life homeless guy, though names and other identity-clues are changed to protect them. In the end, readers, too, are transformed in their understanding and examination of their own faith in light of these real people, who need real empathy and Christian help.
Interview Questions
John Green
Streetwalking with Jesus:
Reaching Out in Justice and Mercy
- You say you weren’t interested in being another Mother Teresa or Dorothy Day, so how did you become interested in helping homeless men who have addiction and sexual problems?
- This must be kind of a dangerous mission on a day-to-day basis. Tell us a bit about that, and what a typical day on the streets is like.
- Do these guys ever try to fight you or attack you, either verbally or physically?
- So, how do you ultimately make inroads with them spiritually? Do you take care of their health or basic needs first, and then work from that point?
- Is there someone you can think of, who essentially had a life going down the drain, who’s completely recovered and living normally now?
- What is it like to recruit workers for Emmaus Ministries?
- What can ordinary Catholics – who may be living that so-called ‘normal’ life – do to tune in to people in desperate circumstances, those on the fringes of society for whom most people might not pay a passing thought?
- Are you working in any new areas, or delving into any new projects right now?
About The Author
Deacon John Green
John Green first conceptualized starting a mission for inner-city homeless men while he was working as a full-time volunteer with the Covenant House Faith Community in New York City in 1986. John further developed his interests and gifts in street ministry during the summer of 1989, when he spent time working with homeless and runaway youth on the streets of Guatemala City and Mexico City.
In September of 1989, John began to reach out to men involved in prostitution in Chicago. Through conversations with hustlers and social service providers, John saw the severe need for long term support for this particular population of the homeless; thus Emmaus Ministries was born in November of 1990.
John was selected as one of "Tomorrow's Leaders Today" by the Public Allies organization in 1994 and was ordained to the Permanent Diaconate in the Catholic Church in May of 2002. In May of 2004, the Diaconate Community of the Archdiocese of Chicago presented "The Shared Ministry Award" to John and his wife, Carolyn, "for witness of diaconate ministry following from a partnership of love and service to others." In the fall of 2004, John was awarded the "Local Hero Award" from the Bank of America, which included a $5,000 donation to the work of Emmaus. In 2006, Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I., Archbishop of Chicago, nominated and sponsored John in the 2007 Fellows Class of Leadership Greater Chicago. Also in 2007, the Association of Chicago Priests recognized the work of Emmaus by presenting John the “Coordinating Board Award” at their annual dinner.
The Greens’ work has been featured in numerous radio and TV interviews and various magazines and newspapers.
John earned an MA in Educational Ministries from Wheaton College Graduate School in 1992, and a Certificate in Non-Profit Business Administration from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1998.
John, his wife Carolyn, and their four children live outside of Akron Ohio.