Ken Loyd Interview

Posted by Rachel on: 03.02.2008 /

with Karlene Clark

Karlene Clark and her husband Josh are currently planting a church in Springfield, Oregon. She is also one of the organizers of the annual Convergence event for women leaders. Karlene recently had the opportunity to interview her good friend Ken Loyd, pastor of HomePDX in Portland, Oregon.

Please tell a bit about yourself, where you live, what you like to do, and anything you want to share about what makes you Ken.

Here is my bio from OTM Live in Nov. 2007: Ken hangs out in downtown Portland, Oregon with his friends without houses and does mostly nothing special most of the time. He is not a sought after conference speaker and his book They’re Gentiles for Christ’s Sake has sold less than 1500 copies since 2001. He lives with his wife Deborah, a pastor, and enjoys hopscotch, crumpets, and doing nothing special. He has recently noticed that his nose, ears and waist grow as the years go by. Says Ken, “That’s Awesome! I was hoping that would happen.”

Tell us about HOMEpdx. What brought about the creation of this church? What inspired you to leave the Bridge to start this up?

About five years ago I was in downtown Portland and encountered a “street band” (that’s a story in itself) and asked them to play at The Bridge. They showed up the next Sunday with forty of their friends. At that time The Bridge was very near downtown and our young friends without houses showed up every week. We had no policy regarding soberness or stonedness so it worked out fine. They became a much-loved part of our community.

We lost our lease three or four years ago and had to move more than two miles from the city center. The number of my friends without houses dwindled to down to the last five or so who would brave the elements or police to get to us each week. I was angry with God and mostly pissed at everything else.

In October of 2006, Deborah, Pam Hogeweide (whom most of you know) and I were sitting around and someone asked, “Ken, if you could do anything, what would it be?”

I spilled my guts. I would go downtown and create a convenient local church for my friends without houses and if anyone wanted to come with me who lived indoors and had a job they would get to give a one year commitment, 10% of their income, and four hours a week to help create “a church that will never be about you, but always about the person coming in the door.” About a dozen hardy souls joined me, half lived in houses, half outdoors.

We started on April Fools Day of 2007 under the Hawthorne Bridge (that’s also a story in itself), alternately freezing or baking, competing with the bridge traffic overhead and rubbing elbows with suburbanites in town for the occasional festival in the park. Often they were curious, accepted our invitation to eat with us and some even gave us money. Sometimes it rained so hard we would have drowned had it not been for the fact that our little under-the-bridge island was on higher ground than the surrounding lawn.

Tell us about the people of HOMEpdx.

Well, my young friends who I went downtown for never showed up, except for those on our start team. Our city fathers had, in their wisdom, begun to use the police force as the leading edge of their “ten year plan to end homelessness.” They succeeded in reducing the number of young homeless in no time at all (so many of my friends just up and left town).

So now, today, our demographic is older, with a concentration in the 30 to 50 year old age bracket. 90% live outdoors year around. 95% or more are men. 95% or more are white. They are called “the hard to reach,” in the parlance of social work circles, because they get no services of any kind, except meals provided by volunteers. The fact that there are no services available in Portland for this age bracket strikes almost no one as ironic, given that if they were “reached,” nothing would be provided.

Each person is an individual of amazing beauty and intelligence, often funny and wise, optimistic, resourceful (how long would you or I last outside?), kind, caring, willing to help, strong, honest, willing to share with those who have less (how could that be?), never taking more than he/she needs. Most have had their dreams crushed over and over, yet they dream. Do you have a few hours? I could tell you more.

My friends without houses, are to put it simply, my friends. If you knew them, you would be afraid of them no longer.

Here’s what each knows, at a core level, about her/himself: “I’m invisible, defective, unwanted and not worth wanting. Good things happen to “normals,” not me. God does not want me either. I have no future, yet I will hope and walk on.”

What do they want? To be seen. To be respected. To be wanted. To be loved by a “normal” (that’s you and I).

We at HOME make the invisible appear. When we see them, they become visible to themselves. It’s better than magic.

What happens in a typical week in HOMEpdx?

Doors open at 12:30 on Sunday. Rushtogetcoffeestuffsetuphelpfoodbringersandserversgetpeoplesettledstartgivingoutsoxgreetasmanyaspossible…

We eat at 1:00
I talk for five or ten minutes. Past, current, future series: “Great losers of the Bible, like them, you can’t be bad enough, long enough, for God to give up on you. Trust me, I’ve tested this theory all my life.”

Then: mostly nothing special. And after that: more mostly nothing special until the last of our friends slings his pack over his shoulder and ambles down the stairs (we’re indoors now in an old Episcopal fellowship hall).

Then: we clean the place and head for the Yammi for beer and decompression. You’d be amazed at how little cleaning we have to do.

What are some realities faced by your friends that folks who have never been homeless might not think about?

No Laundry facilities. Harassment by police. Harassment by some citizens and many shopkeepers. Harassment in soup kitchens and by caregivers. Being invisible except for negative attention. Rotting feet. No showers. No medical help (but if they should land in an emergency room, the disdain is palpable and the medical “care” is grossly substandard).

It is next to impossible to get a job with no ID (commonly stolen along with all their other stuff or accidentally lost by the police), no cell phone, no address, spotty work history and/or felonies on your record.

Flip side: my friends have formed a community of their own. They hang out, take care of each other and make sure that newbies find the feeds and good squats.

What kind of relationships have you been able to build with other churches in the area?

We have different groups/churches feeding us on a two month rotation. Most of these groups are formed by interested people vs. being official church “outreaches.”

We fall in a no-man’s-land between those serving the younger homeless (perceived as “cute little puppies”), and the services for the older homeless (the traditional outlet for church volunteers).

I’m not good (ie: piss poor) at forging relationships of this kind. Others are much better.

What are your driving values as a pastor among the homeless?

I want people to hurt less. To hope and dream of a better tomorrow.

I know the thoughts I have for my friends, thoughts to prosper them and not to harm them, thoughts to give them a hope and a future. Somebody else said that, I think.

What are ways that folks from the outside could support HOME?

My friend, Kathy Escobar, who with her friend, Karl, does a church in Denver for a lot of single moms and people in recovery (“the suburban poor,” she calls them) says, “Don’t pray for us. Our prayer team is full. Send money.” She was kidding. Well, maybe she was kidding. She might have been kidding…what do you think?

What are your hopes and dreams for the future of HOME?

What we have learned about loving the people nobody else wants will spread to the church and then the world. All will be saved and come to the glorious knowledge of the Ken Loyd method of doing mostly nothing special (I’ll write the book).

Or

My friends and I will do mostly nothing special in downtown Portland, Oregon and share what we think we know with anyone interested. Then I’ll die and they’ll keep going.

What else would you like to tell us?

A sense of adventure is largely gone from our culture and the church. The professionals do the adventures while we watch and carefully protect our underarms from unpleasant odor.

Try this: throw yourself away. Not away away. Maybe just on Sunday. Instead of watching the professionals do church and filling yourself up on their pearls of wisdom and worship, try this: find a place like ours and throw yourself away on those nobody else wants. It’s the whole milk/meat thing (milk is what you suck in, meat is in the giving. Check out Hebrews).

Don’t move to Madagascar to save the lost. Don’t let your body be burned for the gospel (is “Gospel” supposed to be capitalized?). Don’t sell your house and car and stock portfolio to give to the poor. Don’t do anything spectacular. Do mostly nothing special for and with somebody that nobody else wants till you’re dead. Someone else will take it from there. Now, that’s special.

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