Walls of Freedom fills spiritual gaps of inner-city Winnipeg
Ministry goes beyond the blankets and into people’s hearts
WINNIPEG, MB—Recognizing the deep needs of a broken city, Walls of Freedom (WOF) Outreach Centre, located at 294 Ellen Avenue, is doing church differently. And those needs go far beyond the physical.
“We want to get the word out there that we’re not just about soup kitchens and warm blankets,” says church planter Jim Wiseman, a co-director of WOF along with his wife Jacqie. “We do that, but it goes way beyond that.”
Since its origins as a small outreach centre in 2007, WOF has been gaining momentum, now ministering to more than 800 families in some of the city’s roughest areas—the downtown core, as well as the North and West End neighbourhoods. Wiseman says it’s critical that those looking to minister to the marginalized do so on the home turf of their clients.
“We’ve got to go into their atmosphere and counsel them,” says Wiseman, who has been working on developing a guide for other inner-city church planters hoping to reach out to ‘un-churched’ urbanites. He adds that the success of WOF has been turning the heads of leaders across Canada, something he says he can’t take credit for.
“They’re hearing about stories…they’re saying ‘how come he’s getting so many people? How come he’s getting these drug addicts to change?’ It’s not me—it’s the good Lord,” says Wiseman, who recently spoke at a church planter’s convention in Ottawa. “But the atmosphere of how we do things is what draws people in. Some of the things that we do at our Sunday service are very different.”
One example is through its Sunday church service. Although WOF seeks to meet the spiritual needs of Winnipeg’s inner city first and foremost, a dinnertime meal is included following the 3 p.m. gathering in the building’s sanctuary.
“When the service is over, in most cases, a lot of cases, people don’t even want to go downstairs,” says Wiseman. “They want to sit in the sanctuary and have someone to talk with them and pray with them.”
Wiseman says he isn’t critical of other outreach centres that cater to the food and shelter needs of Winnipeg’s inner city, but notes that his particular clients are looking for something more than a hot meal.
“We are starting to see some real positive results,” he says. “They’re not just coming for breakfast. They’re coming because they want change, they want the Word, they want to be prayed for, they want Bibles, they want jobs and they want relationships.
“The Spirit of God is moving in the lives of these people like we’ve anticipated and we’re so grateful that the Lord is moving.”
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