Springs Rescue Mission: A Rare Alliance Between Church and State

Two weeks ago I noted how Colorado Springs city officials a decade ago handed a $3 million federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) grant to Springs Rescue Mission (SRM) leaders. Later, City Hall gave $3 million more. That was because SRM, an explicitly Christian organization, was ready to help homeless wanderers in Colorado Springs, and no one else was ready.

Strict church-state separationists didn’t like it, but city housing executive Steve Posey noted that the HUD Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) contract detailed public benefits: “SRM would build a commercial kitchen; they would build an overnight shelter for several hundred people; they would build a day center with showers and laundry facilities. Nowhere in those contracts, or any ongoing contracts for public services to operate the shelter, did it say anything about SRM evangelizing or doing anything like that. What they said was that their doors would be open to everybody.”

Crucially, the contracts also did not say that Christians could not offer Good News to the downtrodden — they just could not force people to attend worship services, or make help contingent on making a profession of faith. Discerning Christians would not want to do that anyway. (As missionaries in China a century ago learned, requirements of that sort merely create “rice Christians” who get a full bowl by fooling over-eager listeners.)

Suspicion cuts the other way as well. Some Christians worried that accepting government funds would require SRM to give up its Christ-centered programs. Jack Briggs, a former Air Force major general who was SRM’s CEO from 2020 to 2024, pushed back against such fears and said, “The city has never asked us to change anything we say or do. They have provided us the opportunity to show Christ’s love. Now that’s not in the mission statement of the city, but caring for its people is. And we help them do that.”

The mutual respect of city and SRM leaders was evident during the 2015-2023 mayoralty of John Suthers. He spoke at a luncheon of leading pastors who said they wanted to help all of Colorado Springs: “What is your most urgent need in Colorado Springs?” Suthers asked them to help build the SRM campus. The pastors relayed that request to church members, who came up with $1.2 million to help create beds for 168 men and 40 women.

SRM took to heart Jeremiah’s advice to Israelite refugees in Babylon that I quoted two weeks ago: “Seek the welfare of the city.” SRM chose to become a “low-barrier shelter” that would keep out guns and drugs but admit people with mental illness or substance abuse problems. SRM, with a kennel that can house up to 46 pets, tongue-in-cheek calls itself the only animal shelter in Colorado Springs that offers lodging to humans.

SRMS is also unusual in having all its programs on one campus, rather than distancing them. Watered Gardens in Joplin, Missouri, is more typical in its mile of separation between the still-drugging drop-ins and those in long-term residential programs. Views differ on whether that’s wise. Some say “lead not into temptation” those who have recently kicked drug habits. Others say “lead into sobriety” addicts and alcoholics who see a better life is possible.

What moves SRM from “unusual” to “rare” is its alliance of church and state — and the way a court decision fostered such togetherness. In 2018, a circuit court decision made it seem likely that cities would be able to ban camping in public places only if they increased the number of no-barrier or low-barrier shelter beds. Colorado Springs officials wanted another 250 shelter beds, and SRM agreed to supply them if the city paid for a building remodel and provided operating budget support.

SRM gained support from not only friends at major evangelical organizations in Colorado Springs, but allies at secular agencies as well. SRM has worked hard to build partnerships and make room on its campus for the state Department of Human Services, the county Veterans Services office, and groups like Peak Vista medical care, Pikes Peak Workforce Center, No Smile Left Behind dental care, Diversus Health, and others.

Nevertheless, some think Christian and secular programs should be entirely separate. To them, the huge white cross on top of SRM’s four-story welcome center, and the bronze sculpture of Jesus in SRM’s courtyard, are an affront to the Constitution and American postmodernism.