Pittsburgh NCD Tour - House of Manna

Met with Eugene “Freedom” Blackwell and his wife “Free” at House of Manna and Homewood Rennaisance.   (A missional faith community and a non-profit – the describe it as two buildings with a bridge across).  They do super intentional relational ministry in a poor African-American neighborhood called Homewood.

Rev. Blackwell started as the pastor of a church which had been in the neighborhood for a long time, but as the members became more financially well off, it became a commuter church which didn’t serve the neighborhood any more.  Rev. Blackwell decided to start a ministry which would  really be of, for, and in the neighborhood.   They worship out on a street corner during the summer and have a building but are really intentional about merging their service work with their spiritual work and in particular about building trust and relationships in the community.  They started out by doing a ton of service work in the neighborhood and by going door to door, doing food and toy drives, and just hanging out at bus stops, street corners, etc.

Their worship is very participatory and very fitting for the community.  They use spoken word, hip hop, a DJ, and sometimes Rev. Blackwell preaches, but he has a team that rotates. They were really hard on discipleship and leadership development.   He develops 3 or 4 people at a time and sends them to develop other leaders themselves.

They said that one of the things they were the most proud of about their church is that when people come into the neighborhood and ask on the street “Where is House of Manna?” their members say “How can I help you?” rather than pointing them to a building or giving them Rev. Blackwell’s phone number.

They also said one of the things they believe in is not judging suburban churches who just want to give money to their project or who maybe send mission trip but don’t really commit to the neighborhood.  Everyone is where they are and they want to serve however they can and God uses that to further everyone’s ministry.  That said, they did have to turn down an offer for $100,000 one time because the restrictions that were on it did not match the identity of their ministry.

Because they serve an economically depressed neighborhood, most of their funding comes from other churches, grants, the Presbytery, etc. and they don’t necessarily see that changing in the near future.

They also really talked about their own personal spiritual journeys and how they really felt like the way they started the church put them through a spiritual refinement process where they were forced into relying on God because it was too overwhelming and too scary to think they could do it on their own.  They emphasized being spiritually centered and remembering that God is ultimately the only one that the church obeys and being faithful and taking leaps of faith is how God’s work gets done and how we get to see God’s glory revealed.  I felt like it was an appropriate last visit in that it was humbling, encouraging, and challenging.

They also had to launch multiple times with different groups and different parts of the community, so they said not to get discouraged if there were false starts.