D.C. Church Without Walls

Pastor Harris shares the Word of God with a growing congregation.

New Vision in the City, an FMC plant in Washington, D.C., is quite literally a church without walls, where reaching the lost in one of the capital’s toughest neighborhoods and beyond is a welcome challenge for the gifted and enthusiastic Oren and Joan Harris.

Beginning in June 2003, outreach to the Kenilworth area of the city involved knocking on apartment doors, giving away school supplies and turkeys and extending innumerable invitations to worship and Bible study. Within a couple of months three salvations were reported and a growing number were being transported to worship in a team member’s home in the southeastern part of the city. The first service was held on Palm Sunday 2003; four people were soon led to Christ. Oren’s weekly Bible study has garnered several more converts.

One of the most powerful outreaches of New Vision in the City is the Harrises’ ministry to teenage girls in a nearby halfway house. These young women are caught between reforming and returning to school, and heading back to jail. “They’re at a very hurting point,” says Oren, “but Christ can meet their needs.” The Harrises hope to follow up with the girls (and their families) after they leave the home. Already four of them have found new hope in Jesus.

Joan also ministers in a very personal way to several women, one of whom recently said she’d never had a friend like Joan. The women realize that Joan’s “not churchy.” She’s just, as she says, “showing them the love of the Father.”

The Harrises face many challenges in this wide-flung ministry, not the least of which is finances. (The disenfranchised don’t have much to tithe, and despite Oren’s being bivocational, money is tight.) But as Joan says, they’re not too worried: “We’ve experienced too much with God. And we know it’s not about what we do — but about who we are becoming in Him.”

Joan (left) and Oren (second from right) with church family members.