Homelessness- How you can help?
A special Thanksgiving conversation with Craig Rennebohm, the author of Souls in the Hands of a Tender God: Stories of the Search for Home and Healing on the Streets. For decades Rennebohm, a Protestant pastor, has walked the streets of Seattle, making contact with mentally ill homeless people and slowly drawing them into “circles of care” so they can find safe housing, receive medical and psychological help, and rejoin the human community(source: Publisher’s weekly). Craig will open your mind and hearts with his beautiful stories of love and compassion.
Radio Interview with Craig Rennenbohm
It’s rare that I can just look at someone’s picture and be filled with a sense of warmth and love. This is how I felt on just looking at Craig’s picture. You can only imagine how I looked forward and what is was like to experience a real life conversation with someone who has dedicated his life to homeless on the street.
My kids often ask me how people became homeless and why they were on the streets. I never really had an answer. My interview with Craig gave me answers. Craig’s book is a must read if you want to gain compassion and a true understanding for the difficulties of the homeless. The depth and breadth of Craig’s capacity to love were told story after story in these beautifully written stories in his book. Each of his endeavors was the ultimate expression of the power of non-judging, presence, and persistence, many spiritual practices that are hard to achieve in even one life time.
In the interview Craig talks about his mission with the homeless all began. While it’s a really sad story with an even sadder ending, it lead to many happy beginnings for others on the street.
Craig Rennebohm- Pastor, Working with Mentally Ill people on the street
Craig Rennebohm, D.Min., is Chaplain with the Mental Health Chaplaincy in Seattle. His pioneering work with the homeless mentally ill community is known around the U.S. and overseas. He has taught and given presentations in many local, national, and international settings, and he served for ten years with an international, interfaith working group on Spirituality and Social Work active during and after hostilities in Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina. He currently consults for Pathways to Promise, a national interfaith mental health resource. He also serves on the national advisory board of NAMI Faithnet and the Board of Directors of the United Church of Christ Disabilities Ministries.
Craig graduated from Carleton College in 1967 and Chicago Theological Seminary in 1970, where he worked with street gang members on the city’s South Side. He was ordained in the United Church of Christ and, as a pastor, served parishes in Lowell, Mass., and Seattle, Wash. In 1986, he entered the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, Calif., where he earned a D.Min. in pastoral care. He returned to Seattle in 1987 to found the Mental Health Chaplaincy, an ecumenical ministry working with mentally ill people on the streets and in the hospital. The Chaplaincy has grown to serve families, create mental health ministries in local congregations, and advocate for an effective and readily accessible community mental health system.
Craig’s methodology of working with the most marginalized members of our society has put him in demand as a speaker, teacher, and consultant by faith communities and advocacy groups. Since 2007, he has traveled widely, encouraging local efforts at mental health ministry and giving presentations and workshops centering on Companionship and other aspects of caring for those who suffer from mental illness.
Among his numerous honors and recognitions are:
- The Richard T. Greer Advocacy Award of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)
- The Tipper Gore Award of the National Council of Health Care for the Homeless
- A Seattle Post-Intelligencer Jefferson Award
- An Exemplary Service Award from the King County (Wash.) Division of Mental Health
- An alumni Distinguished Achievement Award from Carleton College
- Honorable mention for the Thomas C. Wales Foundation Award for Passionate Citizenship
Besides two decades of working as a community mental health chaplain, Craig draws on his own struggle with depression. The help of his parents and siblings, the support of his wife and children, the gifts of physicians and medicine, the skill and encouragement of counselors, and the presence of thoughtful pastors and caring congregations have all contributed to his healing.
Craig has chosen to share his life with people left behind by a society that can be uncaring. Through this sojourn with them, Craig has developed a ministry and a theology that teach the most basic principles of a Judeo-Christian faith emphasizing God’s unconditional love and the ever-present power of a healing spirit in all our lives. It is his firm belief that, in the act of becoming true neighbors to one another, we find the capacities to address local, national, and world issues such as poverty and conflict, and find within ourselves the grace to develop the skills and strategies that make possible a world of peace and justice.
