|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
You Are Welcome Here
 A unique Dallas ministry provides hope and love to those with mental illness.
By Steve Blow, Photographs by Dan Bryant
"Would I be welcome here?" the man asked. That simple question sent the
Rev. Joel Pulis's life in a whole new direction—a path that may, in
fact, be unique in all the nation. That's because even as Pulis quickly
answered yes, he wondered if he was telling the truth.
At the time, Pulis, a 1995 Baylor graduate, was the youngest associate
pastor at Dallas's Cliff Temple Baptist Church. As such, he had
informally landed the duty of greeting and talking with the homeless
and destitute who showed up at the church's offices. The church sits in
the Oak Cliff area of southwest Dallas, a part of town enjoying
economic revival but also home to some of the city's poorest and most
troubled residents. Normally Pulis merely exchanged a few pleasantries
with those who stopped by before referring them to the church's nearby
food pantry and clothes closet operations.
But Pulis had begun to sense that such well-practiced exchanges were
just a little too easy, a bit superficial, and dismissive of people.
"Some of them seemed to want to talk about spiritual needs as well as
physical needs," he said. "But we were pretty much focused on meeting
only the physical. It had all just begun to feel a little
disconnected—the charitable work and the church work."
The dirty, shabbily dressed stranger in the church foyer on that
day—homeless, by all appearances—had been more explicit in asking about
spiritual things, and Pulis welcomed the opportunity to minister to his
needs of the soul as well as body. Something was said about the man
returning for a worship service. But then came a simple, sincere
question. "Would I be welcome here?" he asked.
Pulis's mind whirled. "Cliff Temple is an open and progressive church.
Anyone is welcome," he said, reflecting back on the thoughts that raced
through his mind that day. "I immediately said, 'Yes, you are welcome
here.' But even as I was saying that, I felt like I was deceiving the
man. While no one was going to run him off, I really didn't know if he
would feel welcomed with open arms. He then asked, 'Can I wear
anything? Am I dressed okay?' And again, I said yes, but I felt like I
had deceived this man. I didn't think that culturally he was going to
connect."
 A New Direction
The encounter continued to weigh on Pulis's mind, and it wasn't long
afterward that he resigned his comfortable position as associate pastor
to young adults at Cliff Temple Baptist and began anew as a roving
pastor to a whole new congregation—the street people, the down and out,
and the disenfranchised who made their home in that corner of Dallas.
Taking its name from the place of Jesus' encounter with a Samaritan
woman, the new church was called the Well Community.
"This was January 2002. There were seven of us to start with," Pulis
(left) said. "And we simply began to walk the neighborhood on Sunday
mornings, talking with anyone we met along the way, having prayer and
trying to share God's love." The seven included Pulis and his wife,
Laura Leftwich Pulis '97; his brother and sister-in-law, Joshua Pulis
'01 and Celeste Sarpaulius Pulis '98; and friends Scott Coleman '86,
Kristi Kuykendall Coleman '87, and Michael Hammond.
All seven lived in Oak Cliff, and most had grown up there. They thought
they knew what to expect from their sojourn into the community. The
plight of the homeless and near-homeless seemed fairly obvious and well
documented. But while they traveled on foot—taking time to talk and
listen, and seeing up close the flophouses that dotted the
area—something unexpected emerged. "We began to see this invisible
population," Pulis said. "Everywhere we turned, we found people with
mental illnesses. I had seen some of them before and just assumed they
were homeless. But we realized there was this whole population of the
mentally ill that was below the radar."
Pulis, now thirty-four years old, had always felt a call to serve those
outside the usual reach of the church. His plan while at Baylor was to
head to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. He
only lasted a year there. "In seminary, there are these definite boxes
they try to fit you in. And I knew I was being called to something
different, to something outside the box." He left the seminary and
returned to Waco to study at the less traditional Mission Training
School affiliated with Antioch Community Church.
Four years after graduating from the program, Pulis found his mission
field on the streets of Oak Cliff. Seeing the devastation of untreated
and under-treated mental illness, Pulis knew he had definitely stepped
outside the box and into a ministry that would be his life's work. He
saw an instant connection between the mentally ill today and the lepers
of biblical times—a people suffering both an illness of the body and
the plague of social isolation and stigmatization.
Pulis had stumbled upon—or been led by God to—what many consider one of
the country's most shameful situations. Back in the 1960s and 1970s,
the closing of mental institutions across the nation was hailed as a
great step forward. Improved medications and increased understanding of
brain illnesses meant people no longer had to spend their lives locked
behind asylum bars. A new era dawned in which those with mental illness
were to be treated in their communities and live in small group homes
when necessary.
It was a grand plan, but the smaller local treatment services never
appeared in sufficient force after the big mental institutions closed.
The problem is especially acute in Texas, which ranks forty-ninth in
the nation in spending on mental health.
"Deinstitutionalization was great. These people don't need to be locked
away," Pulis said. "The whole move was to community support, but there
was no community and there was no support." That accounts for much of
the homeless problem that exploded on streets all across America. Pulis
discovered another group of the mentally ill that, though not
technically homeless, lived a life almost as cruel. They lived in
dilapidated, profiteering group homes that were shocking in their
squalor.
"One of the first houses we served had five bedrooms and four guys in
each room," Pulis said. "They were sleeping on the floor, and there was
feces all over the bathroom. We took a volunteer in to do some
outreach, and after just a few minutes in there he literally ran out
into the front yard and threw up."
Growing While Serving
Soon after its creation, the Well Community narrowed its focus to
minister specifically to those with mental illness. Coleman, who was
one of those who first went out to walk the streets with Pulis and now
serves as president of the board of the Well, said he initially
resisted the idea of focusing the ministry in such a way.
"I thought that would really limit our outreach. But as we discovered,
there were just more and more," Coleman said, laughing ruefully at his
early naiveté about the extent of that mission field. "Man, we haven't
had a problem with it being limited," he said.
As this new calling became clear, Pulis began searching around for
other ministries to the mentally ill. "I wanted to learn from them. But
what I was saddened and surprised to learn is that there were no
ministries to the mentally ill," he said. To this day the Well remains
the only faith-based provider of services to the mentally ill in
Dallas-Fort Worth. And as far as Pulis knows, the Well's Saturday-night
worship services represent the only church in the nation specifically
for those with mental illnesses.
"People who know the national scene tell us they're not aware of
anything like this happening anywhere else," said Coleman, who is
director of the missions and urban division of the Dallas Baptist
Association. It's rare enough that People magazine published a feature story on the Well last year.
From its modest start as a sidewalk ministry, the Well has grown into
an impressive, multifaceted operation—funded mostly by individual
donations. Though an independent ministry, the Well still operates
within the facilities of Cliff Temple Baptist Church. After a few
months as purely a street church, the Well began conducting Sunday
morning worship services at the church. Services were then switched to
Saturday evenings to better meet the needs of the congregation.
Though his heart was in the right place, Pulis soon realized that he lacked the expertise to address many of the
mental-health issues facing his flock. Fortunately, he did not have to
look far to find well-qualified help. His thirty-year-old brother,
Joshua (right), had been a volunteer with the ministry since that first
Sunday-morning foray into the neighborhood. It also happened that the
younger Pulis had the technical expertise needed. After graduating from
Baylor, Joshua began his career as a social worker with the state's
Child Protective Services. While working, he continued his studies at
the University of Texas at Arlington, earning a master's degree in
social work. Joshua joined the staff of the Well as program director.
"I had always felt a call to hurting people, so this was a perfect fit
with my calling," he said.
And the need was great. The Well branched out to begin weekday
programs. The Community Life Center is open three days a week now, but
there are plans to expand to five days later this year. A whole range
of services is offered—case management to help people navigate the
confusing mental health system, housing assistance, faith-based support
groups, a clothes closet, and a free lunch program. Above all, a visit
to the Community Life Center reveals a spirit of fun and camaraderie.
For members of the Well Community, it's a place to hang out and be
themselves.
"None of us quite realizes how important our social connections are to
our own mental health," Joel Pulis said. A special cruelty is that
those who already have fragile mental health often end up living in
social isolation that is further crippling to them. "There's the
scriptural command to love one another, and that's what we're doing at
the Well," he said. "We're creating a community where people feel
loved, where they feel they belong, where they feel needed. I think
that's the greatest therapeutic benefit we bring to our folks."
 Signs of Success
The greatest testimony to the Well is that it works. "We're having
success. We're seeing people recover," Joshua Pulis said. "We're seeing
people who were in and out of psychiatric hospitals when we first met
them. We've been working with some of them for two years now, and they
haven't been back. We're seeing progress, which is why we keep doing
what we're doing."
In fact, many first-time visitors to the Well see its handiwork before
they even realize it. Whether their contact begins with a phone call or
a visit to the Community Life Center, most visitors will first
encounter fifty-eight-year-old Anne White (left), church receptionist
for Cliff Temple Baptist Church. She is a well-dressed, well-mannered
model of professionalism. It's almost impossible to believe she
previously lived on the streets, her mind ravaged by schizoaffective
disorder.
"I wouldn't take my medications, and I would just drift from place to
place," White explained. "I was in and out of the state hospital in
Terrell all the time." In the winter of 2004, White was homeless and
doing her best to hide out in the warm, hidden corners of Parkland
Memorial Hospital, Dallas's huge public hospital. Over and over,
hospital security would drive her off. Dallas police would write her
tickets for criminal trespass, warning that after her third violation
she would go to jail. And finally she did get hauled to jail. In many
ways, jails and prisons have replaced state hospitals as the place
where people with uncontrolled mental illness end up.
Fortunately for White, her stay was short. A jail diversion program
placed her in a supervised housing facility. "And there I heard about
the Well," she said. "So the first Saturday night I was there, I got
dressed and I came down here. And I've been here ever since."
Once she was back on her medication, White's transformation amazed
everyone. When the church needed a new receptionist, she was quickly
hired. She has her own apartment now, takes her medications faithfully,
and rejoices in the stability of her life. "I'm so grateful, you just
wouldn't believe," she said.
The Saturday night worship services remain the heart of the Well
Community, and they are as distinctive as the ministry itself. Services
are conducted in the church fellowship hall, with seating at round
dinner tables. About one hundred people currently attend. The doors
open an hour before service time, and members are often there waiting,
eager to experience the bonds of fellowship that mark the Well. The
sound of lively conversation and the aroma of strong coffee fill the
air. Dress is highly informal. T-shirts and jeans are standard.
Personal grooming ranges from meticulous to nonexistent. But all are
welcomed equally.
In addition to his duties as program director, Joshua Pulis is worship
leader at the Well, and he begins the service strumming his guitar and
leading praise choruses. Spontaneously, a man joins him at the front
and begins dancing along to the songs in a freestyle interpretive dance
that looks more like an aerobic workout. Off to the side, a woman lost
in her own world dances to the music in what can only be called a
hootchie-kootchie style. The congregation is unfazed.
On this night, Joel Pulis preaches from Galatians on the fruits of the
spirit. He has learned to deal with the distractions that go with such
a congregation—members who pace rather than sit, others who blurt out
comments, and those who suddenly get up and noisily gather their things
in the middle of the sermon. But Pulis never misses a beat. His
preaching style is conversational and engaging, and most of the
congregation is right with him from start to finish.
Meanwhile, in the kitchen at the back of the fellowship hall, dinner is
being prepared. Different churches from around the Dallas area
regularly volunteer to provide a meal following Saturday-night
services. On the menu tonight is barley chorizo jambalaya, prepared and
served by members of Journey Church in North Dallas.
Journey Church's pastor, Danielle Grubb Shroyer '98, said she is
impressed by the Well. "There is something really beautiful in the
relationships there," Shroyer said. "And it seems like the Well came
about in the way these things ought to come about. It was very organic.
They simply recognized there was a need, and they filled it."
For a visitor to the Well, there can be no doubt that a need is being
filled. Given the opportunity to talk about their church, members
literally line up to sing its praises. Church member Paul Taylor was
especially eager to praise the church, and he sounded uncannily like he
could have been the man whose simple, direct question began all this.
"After fifty-five years of being in churches where I did not fit
in—whether it was clothing, finances, mental health, or what have you—I
found a church where I fit in," Taylor said. "I just love the people
here. I am at home here."
Steve Blow is a columnist for the Dallas Morning News. To learn more about the Well Community’s ministry, visit wellcommunity.net.
|
|
|
|
|
.jpg)
