A Place for People: God’s Heart for Ministry, Redemption, and Compassion

This place is for people.

Some of the people who come to us may be dirty, crazy, sniff solvents, drink to excess, but they are people, and this place is for people.

Staff are important, and without them we wouldn’t be able to do our work, and they are people, and this place is for people.

Some people don’t do things the way we would do them. They may be slow, naïve, devious, lazy, sickly, argumentative, but they are people, and this place is for people.

Some of our clients may be annoying, cloying, demanding, exasperating, frustrating, shiftless, lazy, ne’er-do-wells, but they are people, and this place is for people.

Equipment is important. It is expensive and enables us to do our work well and efficiently, and we must be good stewards of these gifts of God, but this place is for people.

We must be careful not to forget that most of the gifts made to the Mission are for the ministry to the people who come here, not for the staff or for the Mission as an organization. They are for people, and this place is for people.

- Alex Zeidman, 1984

A Life Shaped by a Place and a Call

I grew up at The Scott Mission. And I didn’t just grow up there, I worked there for almost thirty years.

That place shaped my faith, my understanding of ministry, and my sense of what the gospel looks like when it is lived out among real people with real needs.

I haven’t worked there for several years now, and that distance has brought a sense of clarity, not criticism, but clarity. Sometimes you only fully see the heart of something after you’ve lived inside it for a long time.

The Founding Vision: People Before Everything Else

My grandparents, Morris and Annie Zeidman, founded the Mission in 1941.

They didn’t begin with policies, intake protocols, or registration systems. They began with hungry people, cold streets, open doors, and compassion rooted in faith.

Structure came later. People came first.

That instinct matters, because every ministry eventually faces the temptation to reverse that order.

“This Place Is for People” — A Needed Reminder

There came a season when some of the staff, who were good and faithful people, became deeply concerned about keeping the floors clean, protecting the building, running programs properly, and following procedures carefully.

None of that was wrong.

But my father, Alex Zeidman, sensed something drifting. So he wrote the declaration This Place Is for People.

It wasn’t angry. It wasn’t dismissive of order. It was a reminder:

• Rules serve people

• Buildings serve people

• Programs serve people

People do not exist to serve the institution.

When the Tension Becomes Real

I remember a moment around the winter holidays.

A pregnant woman came asking for a food hamper. She was emotional. She was crying. She was hungry.

One of the staff was preparing to turn her away. Not out of cruelty, but because she wasn’t registered.

The rules existed for good reasons. But compassion was standing right there, asking to be seen.

Sometimes love requires flexibility. Ministry that forgets the human moment has lost the heart of God.

God Responds to Groans, Not Forms

In Exodus, God says, “I have heard the groaning of My people.”

God responds to cries — not credentials. To need — not paperwork.

That doesn’t mean chaos. It means compassion always has the final word.

Yeshua Makes Compassion the Measure

In Matthew 25, Yeshua doesn’t ask whether procedures were followed perfectly.

He asks one question:

Did you see Me?

“I was hungry and you gave Me something to eat…Whatever you did to one of the least of these, you did to Me.”

This is not sentimental kindness. It is sacred compassion.

A Home for the Homeless

The early Messianic community understood this well.

They created belonging before stability. They offered identity before acceptance.

They became, in the words of Biblical scholar John Elliott, a home for the homeless.(Elliott, John H. A Home for the Homeless: A Sociological Exegesis of 1 Peter, Its Situation and Strategy. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981)

.That vision aligns with Isaiah 58, with Yeshua’s ministry, and with the best instincts of the Mission at its healthiest moments.

What Thirty Years Taught Me

After thirty years of service, and now years of reflection, this is what I know:

Buildings matter. Programs matter. Systems matter.

But they only matter if they serve people.

From my grandparents’ founding vision,to my father’s written reminder, to a pregnant woman asking for food...

God’s heart has been consistent.

This place is for people.

And any ministry that forgets that has forgotten the heart of God.