A Catholic, a Baptist and a Mennonite walked into a bar and the barman said, “What’s this, some kind of a joke?” 

“I’m going down east to try to be reconciled with my father.” 

The summer had been warm and humid, and unlike many churches that can afford air conditioning, the church on the street had to find its own way of surviving the muggy evenings. 

When I started out on the Church on the Street, I gave little thought to some of the logistics of such a ministry apart from determining that it would be 8 p.m. onwards every Thursday evening.

Some nights it does not take long for the temperature to plummet. I don’t mean the thermometer, but the temperature of the street. 

Recently I found myself in the basement of a downtown church surrounded by a confirmation class of children, teachers and parents. The church sits in an area where the outreach of the Church on the Street is most challenging, and the class had responded to the call of Pope Francis in The Joy of the Gospel: “We cannot passively and calmly wait in our church buildings; we need to move from a passive ministry of mere conservation to a decidedly missionary pastoral mission.” 

It is a frigid evening, and the setting sun leaves the grip of darkness on the downtown area where hope and despair wrestle nightly for sovereignty.