"What does the LORD require of you, but to do justice, love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God." Micah 6:8

Richard is only 15, but he's already lived in multiple foster homes. He passes his days in GED classes, meandering the perilous if frequently beautiful, boulevards of northeast Kansas City, Missouri.

Although Richard's current foster home is located in one of the highest prostitution and drug-dealing areas in the Metroplex, he is more afraid of not being loved for who he is than being hurt by street violence.

Richard knew nothing about the history of Independence Boulevard Christian Church when he walked into its grand, Tiffany-windowed sanctuary. He didn't know that the famous lumber baron, Robert A. Long, had built the church, a gym and swimming pool at the turn of the last century only blocks from his palatial mansion, now the Kansas City Museum. He didn't know that for the better part of a century the church teemed with thousands of members. All he knew was that a now-small congregation of humble, loving people welcomed him with open arms, worshipped alongside him and fed him homemade suppers at their table-based mission on Monday nights in the church basement.

As IBCC's environs diversified economically and racially, its membership diminished. Two years ago we were facing a dilemma: How to justify our continuing presence within a fortress-of-a-church, while just beyond the church walls so much poverty, suffering and violence held forth. The cost of maintaining a huge, historically-significant building was often exorbitant, and pledges decreased as members aged, died or moved out. By 2001, only fifteen percent of the congregation lived within the church's environs. We had an active membership of less than 80.

Prayerfully, we decided to consider a host of far-reaching possibilities, including letting things be as they were until members or money completely ran out; closing the church now, leasing it out, or merging with another congregation. But as each of these was explored, as we reorganized the staff, rewrote bylaws, and undertook the first audit in more than a generation, we kept hearing the audacious words of Jesus proclaim another option.

"That evening, the disciples came to Jesus and said, 'This place is like a desert and it's already late. Tell the crowds to leave so they can go somewhere and buy food.' But Jesus replied, 'They don't have to leave. You feed them'." Matthew 14:15-16

Then Jesus showed the disciples how to make a meal sufficient for a large crowd out of a few modest ingredients on hand. Suddenly, a new path was lit in our wilderness.

Reversing Robert Frost's poetic dictum, small as we were, we began to see that the only way through for us would be out - opening the church up and going out into the wider community in face-to-face Christian service. Rather than eradicate our former identity, we decided to build upon a new understanding of congregational "greatness".

Matthew's lesson and the simple, compelling words of Micah 6:8 became our theological pivot. We created the Micah Ministry as a "Churches Uniting in Christ" ecumenical mission of Independence Boulevard Christian Church. As a UCC minister serving a DOC congregation, we were already part way there.

We invited an ecumenical group of students from two seminaries and two Disciples' ministers to form a core team of pastoral counselors. We began in 2001 and opened Robert's Café the following spring, serving homemade food on Monday nights that we ourselves would enjoy eating. We serve our friends restaurant-style to counter their usual experience of standing on long, impersonal lines. Since then, we've added a Mom-to-Mom Mentoring program, chaplaincy to a battered women's shelter, a baby and clothing pantry, GED, computer training, AA, basketball and CampFire USA programs and a legal clinic. All these ministries occur simultaneously, in different spaces within IBCC.

With God's help, we serve about twelve-hundred meals a month, nurturing the "Richards" God sends our way and being nurtured ourselves.

Pastor Lee, writing for the "Disciples Home Mission Advocate" (2004)