The Outdoor Church is an outdoor ministry to homeless men and women in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We offer prayer services and pastoral assistance outdoors in all seasons and all weather in order to be accessible to men and women who, because of shame or embarrassment, hostility or illness, cannot or will not enter conventional churches. We take the church to those who cannot or will not reach it on their own. The Outdoor Church is non-denominational and ecumenical. Our clergy, staff and interns are Methodist, Congregational, Roman Catholic, Baptist and Episcopalian, among other denominations.
It is the mission of The Outdoor Church to reach most of the homeless men and women in Cambridge who live outdoors and to provide them with spiritual and material sustenance.
The Rev. Jedediah Mannis, a minister of the United Church of Christ, the Rev. Pat Zifcak, a vocational deacon in the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, and the Rev. Jean Chapman, a minister in the American Baptist Churches USA, are the ordained staff of The Outdoor Church. Clergy from churches throughout Cambridge regularly preside at our services on a rotating basis.
The Outdoor Church regularly holds short prayer services in Porter Square, under the mobile sculpture near the T station, at 9:00 AM and on the Cambridge Common, near the tall Civil War monument and directly across from Christ Church Cambridge on Garden Street, at 1:00 PM every Sunday throughout the year. Following the services, our lay and ordained ministers carry sandwiches, pastry, juice and clean white socks through Porter Square and into Harvard Square and Central Square, where a meal and communion are offered to any homeless people they encounter. In addition, we offer an outdoor Compline service every Thursday night following a meal served to homeless men and women at Christ Church.
Like conventional churches, The Outdoor Church offers a broad array of pastoral services to its congregants, including visits to prisons, jails, hospitals, detox centers and shelters. The staff of The Outdoor Church regularly appears in court on behalf of congregants, conducts memorial services for homeless people who have died on the street or in a hospital and offers pastoral counseling.
While The Outdoor Church is not itself a social service agency, we work closely with the many local and state agencies and institutions that provide social services to homeless men and women in Cambridge. We connect people on the street with much needed help and provide them with information about meals, shelters, detox centers and programs, shelters for abused women and children, legal support and medical assistance.
The education and training of students and seminarians is an important part of the work of The Outdoor Church. It is a field education site for the Harvard Divinity School. Students and seminarians from schools within the Boston Theological Institute as well as area school undergraduates regularly accompany and assist our clergy and lay volunteers.
The Outdoor Church reaches out to sheltered as well as unsheltered people and encourages members of our supporting churches to participate fully in our work. Clergy from our supporting churches throughout Cambridge regularly preside at our services on a rotating basis. Youth groups from a number of area churches make sandwiches for us and attend our services.
Rev. Mannis regularly preaches at our supporting churches and at suburban churches throughout the Boston metropolitan area to spread the word about The Outdoor Church and to raise money. Churches and individuals throughout the Greater Boston area and foundations across the country support us.
All of our staff bring additional professional gifts to the ministries of The Outdoor Church. Among the staff members are social workers, lawyers and teachers. We encourages our staff to use these gifts in pastoral service to our congregants. For example, Rev. Mannis, who is also an attorney, provides pro bono legal services to homeless men and women both outdoors and at shelters throughout the Cambridge area. Since 1999, he has represented or advised more than 200 homeless men and women in Boston and Cambridge.
