I’ve had the privilege of working for Hope into Action for the past seven years. We provide supported housing for people experiencing homelessness, but we are passionate about offering far more than just accommodation. By partnering with local churches, we address not only the poverty of resources, but also the deeper poverties of relationship and identity.
Our support is holistic, empowering individuals to move towards independence, restored dignity, and a fresh start. It is an attempt to do exactly what Paul calls us to in Ephesians 5:2:
“Walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”
Stretching and shaping
That passion drives me to explore further and seek deeper understanding. So when I was given the opportunity to join Jon Swales’ Mission, Theology and Ministry for the Margins course, I hoped it would stretch and shape me. I wanted it to deepen my understanding of homelessness, challenge my theology, and equip me to grow in new ways.
Jon delivers the course with real emotion, passion, honesty, and a deep love for God. Rich in powerful real-life stories and biblical teaching, it runs over ten months and covers topics that have taken us on an emotional rollercoaster — drawing us closer to God’s word while sitting with the pain and discomfort of homelessness.
Topics including Addiction and Recovery, Trauma: Hope for Healing, and Helping without Hurting have each encouraged me to reflect on my own practice and ask honestly: am I walking in love, or just going through the motions?
Spiritual depth
For anyone working with, or feeling called to support, those on the margins, this course offers both practical tools and real spiritual depth.
More than anything, it is deeply rooted in real-world ministry and shows what it truly means to love like Jesus — slowly, sacrificially, and with our whole selves.
Heaven on earth
Last Sunday, my colleague Rach and I travelled to St George’s Crypt in Leeds, to meet Jon and see how his Lighthouse project works. This is what we wrote when we returned about our experience:
Welcome. Acceptance. Realness. Honesty. Openness. Pain and hurting, sitting alongside healing and hope. A beautiful space, with shared stories around burgers and rice pudding, mingled with the smell of weed, nostalgia, brokenness and love — and the tangible presence of Jesus. A little glimpse of heaven on Earth.
Slow and ordinary
What we witnessed at St George’s Crypt was Ephesians 5:2 in action. Paul uses the word walk deliberately — because it implies something slow, steady, ordinary, and daily. The work in Leeds was not rushed. It was prepared with love, respect, and dignity.
Guests arrived to a warm cup of tea, sitting amongst friends from the street and friends from a church community offering compassion without pressure or judgement. We sang together, prayed together, and ate together — sharing stories of trauma and pain, but also of hope, love, and acceptance.
This is walking in the way of love.
Love in our context
So how do we carry that into our own context? Everyone reading this will be in different context, each with different roles, but all of us can walk in love in the everyday.
With our colleagues, it might be the tone we use, our patience, the way we notice those who are finding life hard and show up for them with warmth. Walking in love isn’t shown through grand gestures: it lives in the quiet ordinary, remembering that while we juggle many plates, a colleague might need a slower pace because of their own hurts.
With our tenants, it’s remaining calm when trauma is displayed through anger or a lack of respect for house rules. It’s giving dignity to someone the world has labelled and dismissed. It’s seeing the person and not the problem, holding boundaries whilst showing genuine compassion and empathy.
Reflecting God’s heart
Paul roots this love in the love Jesus showed: how he moved towards the marginalised, giving them his time, attention, and compassion. Every time we choose to listen rather than rush, every time we empower a tenant or show up for a colleague, we are walking in love and reflecting the heart of God. Paul calls this a fragrant offering – an act of worship.
A great example of that patient, persistent love was shown in a gentleman who I shared the peace with at Lighthouse last Sunday. Jon later told me how this man had been showing up to Lighthouse every week for four years before he spoke a single word.
Through love without judgement, he found a place safe enough to worship, experience God’s love and to share the peace with a stranger’. Four years of slow, steady, ordinary walking in love.
May that be our prayer as we go into this week. To walk in love – slowly, steadily, courageously – so that those we serve feel seen, valued, and held in dignity.
“Walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us.” Ephesians 5:2
Debs Green leads Hope into Action Norwich. She is leading a seminar with Rev’d Jon Swales at the conference Rooted: Homelessness Ends in Community on 20th May.
Jon Swales’ Mission, Theology and Ministry for the Margins course is highly recommended.
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