The Daily Signal - City Attempts to Shut Down Church’s Ministry to Poor. Pastor Is Fighting Back

Episode Date: February 1, 2024

After seeing the needs in his community, Pastor Chris Avell made the decision to keep the doors of his church open 24/7.  “We're called to reach the lost 24/7,” Avell says, adding that this includes the “the hurting, the broken, the least of these.”  Pastor Chris Avell opened the doors of his church, called Dad’s Place in Bryan, Ohio, to the needy in the community so they know they have a place to find help 24/7. Dad's Place is “a place they can come if they're weary and burdened and find rest and true rest for their souls,” the pastor says.  Some people in the community, whether those struggling with mental health, addiction, or with physical needs, began frequenting the church and even sleeping there if they needed a place to stay. But several months after the church opened its doors wide with round the clock help for the needy, the city told Avell he had to stop.  “According to the city,” First Liberty attorney Jeremy Dys explains, “Dad's Place has converted itself from being a church and into a homeless shelter, which they believe is a change of use from the approval that the city had previously given for them to be a church. Well, of course, that's not true,” Dys says.  “This is a church and they're doing church things,” Dys says of Dad's Place, adding that churches throughout history have kept their doors open 24 hours a day in order to fulfill the Biblical mandate to serve the needly.  Avell, along with Dys, join “The Daily Signal Podcast” to explain how he is fighting to continue doing the work he and the congregation at Dad’s Place feel called by God to do. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Thursday, February 1st. I'm Virginia Allen. A church in Ohio is facing a legal battle after it began opening its doors to the homeless and needy in its community. Now Pastor Chris Avelle is fighting to continue during the work that he says, Scripture commands the church to do. Well, on today's show, I am sitting down with Pastor Chris and First Liberty attorney Jeremy Dice to talk about why the church God's place in Bryan, Ohio is taking steps in order to be able to continue to to minister to the people that they feel they are called to minister to. Stay tuned for our conversation after this.

Hi, I'm John Carlo Canaparo. And I'm Zach Smith. And we host Scotus 101. It's a podcast where you'll get a breakdown of top cases in the highest court in the land. Hear from some of the greatest legal minds. And of course, get a healthy dose of Supreme Court trivia. Want to listen? Find us wherever you get your podcasts or just head toheritage.org slash podcasts. It is my joy today to have with us on the show, First Liberty Senior Counsel, Jeremy Dice and Ohio Pastor Chris Avell.

Gentlemen, thank you so much for being with us today. Thanks for having us. Thank you. Well, Pastor Chris, you pastor a church called Dad's Place. I love that name in Brian, Ohio. And you're actually facing legal challenges right now as you're pastoring that community, those folks that attend your church and who have come to your church in order to find additional resources, additional help.

We're going to get into some of those legal challenges here in a second that you all are facing. But first, I want to talk a little bit about the community that you work in, the history of the church. Share if you would. what is the community of Brian Ohio like? And who are the people that are attending your church and that rely on the resources at Dad's Place? Well, let me start with the community because God really blessed me in a remarkable way. So I've shared before I used to be an atheist and whatever, but I've always loved Christmas time. You know, again, is it, you know, secular people like Christmas too.

And my wife and I moved to Brian, and there's a story there. but again, I wasn't a Christian when I moved. And we come to find that there's two things Brian is really known for. One is Spangler Candy Company. And they not only make Dum-Doms, the lollipops. I'm not, don't take that wrong. But they also make the candy canes. Like I think they're the leading supplier of candy canes around the world.

And so I'm like, that's Christmas. And then the other company we're known for as a company in Ohio Art, which makes the Etchusketch, which was featured in the, the movie Elf, which I like the movie. You know, so, I mean, I mean it sincerely, I moved here and I'm like, wow, God sent us to the world of Christmas, you know, elf and candy canes. And it's just a lovely community, a beautiful downtown. It really looks like you've jumped into a Norman Rockwell painting over Christmas time, just incredible with the lights and the scenery. And the sense of community here has always been incredible.

My wife and I grew up in the Chicago area, so much bigger the suburbs. And we noticed right away when we walk in. into a restaurant or something here in Brian. Everyone looks at you. And at first we're going, what the heck? And then we realized it's because everyone knows someone. You know, they're all just waiting and excited to greet someone. And it's an incredible community.

We just love it. And the people that come to our church are a bunch of different makes and models, let's say God makes all different types. And it's incredible because we have some, you know, a nice, healthy population of youth and some older people as well. and we tend to reach what I would refer to as the least of these. And it was kind of our heart from the beginning. As I said, I was an atheist, and my first church experience as an adult, I didn't want to be there.

And I felt very uncomfortable because I didn't want to be in church, and it looked and felt like nothing I was comfortable. with. And so everything for the name, as you noted, the name is Dad's Place. It's intentional. One, it's Dad's Place. It's Abba, Father, right? It's God's Place. And we wanted to make that clear. And two, it's meant to sound non-threatening, you know, without some big name that could be scary to the people we're trying to reach. We wanted to reach the people that were unchurched. Let's say the lost. You know, we didn't just want to be another church where we did, you know, there's nothing wrong being another church. But Brian has so many great churches. That's another thing about Brian. We have amazing churches in Bryant. And so we didn't want to just present something of the same, right?

We wanted to reach people that had stepped in the walls of a church or weren't comfortable in church and people who may have even been, we literally have some people who've been kicked to ask to leave other churches, and that's okay. And those churches had right reason. So hopefully I answered that question. I don't know. Yeah, no, you did. You did. That's beautiful. How long have you been pastoring at Dad's Place? Since 2018, Okay, quite a few years now. So you all made a decision last March that you wanted to live out the gospel in a really practical way and you decided, hey, we have people that live in the community of Bryan, Ohio that need a place to sleep at night. They're homeless. They might be, have hit hard times and they need a roof over their head. And so you decided we're going to open up our church for that purpose. Explain that decision. and what that has kind of looked like over the past almost year? Sure.

Kind of sort of. I sometimes get credit for being much nicer than I truly am. No, for real. Listen, our decision to open up, one, it was a vision God gave from before the church came to be. It was actually seven years between the time God gave the vision for the church, and we opened in 2018. But then he told us to wait on the 24 hours. And the 24 hours was not intended to be strictly. hey, we can be open and help the homeless. And I appreciate that. I know that's a great message going

out there. But our message was, hey, we're called to reach the lost 24-7, the hurting, the broken, the least of these 24-7. And that may, that person may walk through the door having be a millionaire because I believe the words of Jesus where he says it's hard for the rich to get in the kingdom of heaven. And so we're there for everybody. And so I get some more credit than I deserve for having this heart for the homeless, and I do have a heart for the homeless. But this is truly about the lost. This is truly about the disenfranchised for the people who, when they look maybe at the church in a global sense or in a national sense, and they don't see Jesus. And I certainly can't claim we do it better. But I do believe God's called us to do it,

perhaps a little differently in our community, because the other churches do it so well. They do what they do quite well. So you all made the decision. There's going to be no point when the doors of our building, of the God's Place building, are locked, that anyone in this community can enter through here, whether it's 2 o'clock on a Tuesday or 3 a.m. on Sunday night, They know that they have a place that they can come, but safe. Yeah, a place they can come if they're weary and burden and find rest and true rest for their souls. That's the idea.

And, you know, it's kind of, I see this when I read the word of God, kind of this idea that God has opened us, no matter what we've been through, no matter where we stand. If we just kind of answer the door, right? He stands at the door and knocks. You know what I'm talking about? and if we just answer the door, he comes in and what dines with us and us with him. And so that's part of the vision, you know, is just to be that place 24-7 because God has equipped us to be able to do that. And so it was time. So do you all have folks on staff who are constantly staffing the church then 24 hours a day?

We have volunteers. You can call them staff. You know, if the difference is a paycheck, they're volunteers. Forgive me. But who do so willingly and do so quite well. And one thing that's absolutely marvelous, miraculous, miraculous, and beautiful is these aren't the people you would identify. What I mean by that is no one would have picked these two guys out and said, hey, these are going to be the guys God will call. Right. And I think that's remarkable because I think we see that in scripture that God so often calls the people we would overlook.

Like if I could say so, I know I'm long-witted, but our worship leader is an 18-year-old girl named Addy who has, autism. And if you have a conversation with Addy, you'll notice she has a very unique voice. It's like gruff and it. It's bizarre, if I can use the word. And so no one would have looked. We were praying for a worship leader. And no one would have looked at Addy. Like that wasn't your first thought, right? You look for, there were people and maybe another pastor was helping out say, hey, maybe this person can come and this person can come. And one Sunday morning, Addie goes up. And she just starts leading worship. And it was one of those moments where you just saw it. You go, this is God at work. And from that, and man, the tears were flowing, the hands were raising.

People who never really understand what it meant to worship and spirit and truth before were worshiping God. And you just look and go, wow, God. That is not who I would have expected. And yet you truly, God does that because then all the glory goes to him, right? And so again, sorry for this long, but it answers, but I'm passionate about this. And so, yes, we have people there 24 hours, and they're not the people you'd expect, but they do it incredibly well. So you all opened the doors, 24 hours.

That happened for several months, and then the city of Bryan, Ohio, came to you guys and said, hey, we have some issues with what you're doing. What was the city objecting to? What is the city objecting to about y'all having your doors open 24 hours a day? Well, pardon my, if this is wrong, Jeremy can correct me, but my hope would be that's how it happened.

What happened from my perspective was they showed up one morning with a sign and a letter saying we were violating the law and that we had 10 days to stop without providing from my perspective and my attempted outreach, what I believe I did, any remedy or any, any way to work together or even any understanding of what was exactly expected of us other than stop. And so it was quite surprising when that happened, quite unfortunate when that happened, and it seemed that right away, from my perspective, their ears were deafened. Like there was just, at that point, it was too late. And so it wasn't the way I would have hoped it happened. And it was hard, very hard, very scary for the people. We have a lot of people who would have been diagnosed with something like PTSD, anxiety, all those type of things. And this put great fear in them. You know, they had a place where, and I don't mean in the sense of this is where I stay.

Okay, I mean in the truest sense of the word, they had a home for the first time. Somewhere where they belonged, somewhere where they were loved, somewhere where they experienced the true love of Christ, they had a home. And can you imagine how terrifying it was for them to have these guys come, a police officer, a zoning guy, things above their head, to be honest, come and threaten their home. And to witness that as a pastor, caring for them. his flock to witness the fear and the anxiety, the stress. Their peace was broken for a moment. Yeah. And that was just heartbreaking. That is. It's that question of what happens now and what's

going to happen to me. Jeremy, I want to pull you in here. Your first liberty is serving as legal counsel to Pastor Chris as they navigate this. When that letter was a, you're a person. I'm a person. You're delivered to them when they were told hey you guys have to stop doing what you're doing explain what exactly the church was the city was telling the church you can no longer do x y and z what was their rationale and what were they demanding that they stop but according to the city dad's place has converted itself from being a church and into a homeless shelter which they believe is a change of use from the approval that the city had previously given for them to be a church well of course that's not true. This is a church and they're doing church things. In fact, caring for people and having

their doors open 24 hours a day is something that the church has done, well, I mean, immemorial. It goes all the way back to Moses and to, you know, probably even Roman culture or Greek culture where they would have the literal sanctuary, right, where you could seek refuge from those who pursue you. And so it's something that the church has always done. In fact, there's been novels written about people seeking shelter inside of a church. The hunchback of Notre Dame comes to mind and other things like that. So this is just a church being a church. It just so happens that one of the greatest needs in Bryan, Ohio, is for those who are, for one reason or another, unhoused. There's a housing crisis in Bryan, Ohio. There's not enough places for people to seek shelter. And so for this church to act like a church and provide

a place of safety for those who are either unhoused or perhaps they just need a place to get away from some instability at their home overnight or for the day or something like that. Now the city has been putting the squeeze on this church to abide by its rather onerous ordinances that ratchet up in terms of aggressiveness. Typically, in my experience in litigating these cases for a decade, the city will sit down with a pastor, sometimes their attorneys as well and figure out a way to move forward. Well, that didn't happen here. Instead, the city went all the way to the end of the line and filed criminal charges against this pastor for trying to do the right thing. Now, there's a lot more that happened, of course, between the first notice of this occurring and the criminal charges being served on the pastor outside of his church, on Sunday morning, in front of his parishioners as he's walking into the church building to lead worship services. But there's not less than that that has occurred. It's just been one act of intimidation and bullying by the city after another. Now, of course, so many cities have various zoning laws and strict regulations on what you can and can't do in certain spaces.

What would you say to the argument of, well, you know, the city is just kind of operating within its rights that it has written down and laid out as it relates to something as wonky, but as zoning laws? Well, there's a lot to be said on that. Number one, they're not abiding by their own zoning laws. And to the extent that they are, they're using those policies in a discriminatory manner inconsistent with the Constitution and federal law, as we've alleged in our complaint just filed. But to the extent that they have laws that require certain things of churches and other houses of worship in their area, well, by no means would the church want to avoid any of that. They have sought their appropriate permissions.

They have received the appropriate permissions previously to become a church in that area. I should remind everyone that before Dad's Place moved into this building, it was used as a church by another church. So it's not like this is an uncommon thing in the city of Bryan, Ohio. It was only when people started hanging around there that the city would rather not occupy the set of an otherwise beautiful hallmark movie. You know, Pastor Chris talked about the town being Norman Walkwall kind of thing and this beautiful Christmas set. Well, there's a lot of hallmark movies that might take place in a town like that. Brian, Ohio. But, you know, the clientele that this church serves may not make it to the front stage of that Hallmark movie, which is unfortunate. And leads us ultimately to the question of, well,

where do they go? It's clear that Mayor Schlaid doesn't want these parishioners at this church near her pretty downtown square. So where does she intend to put them? Perhaps she would like to invite them inside of City Hall for them to seek shelter there. She's not made that offer. Maybe she has a church that she attends, that she would like to invite them to come and find safety. That offer has not been made either. So I don't know ultimately what her motivations are, but what she is saying through her various agencies there in Ryan, Ohio, is that these unloved and marginalized people continue to be unloved and marginalized by the very city who's supposed to account for their safety. And here you have a church that's not only accounting for their physical safety, but caring also

for their soul, something the city cannot do or do very well. And, and the city, you know, and the thanks that they're getting is to have their pastor arraigned on 18 different criminal charges. That's unacceptable. And that arraignment just happened earlier in January, correct? That's correct. Okay, great. Where do things stand in the legal process right now? What stage are we at?

What's next? Yeah, well, hopefully we're on two tracks. One is criminal, one is civil. On the criminal side, Pastor of Al has pled not guilty to those charges, and we're going to be vigorously defending those charges. and trying to avoid any conviction that he may stand for before a jury there. But on the civil side, we have adjusted things with the city. We've tried to kind of write the power imbalance that has occurred. Just yesterday, we filed a federal complaint in federal court

listing 10 different ways that the city has violated the Constitution and the federal law that governs this situation. We're seeking not only an injunctive relief to keep the city from using their ordinances in a way that discriminates against the free exercise of religion by dad's place, but we're also seeking punitive damages against this city who has gone beyond what is reasonable into the category of what the Supreme Court calls callous indifference. And I think that is the best way to describe what Mayor Schlaid and her city leaders are doing to this church. They have been callously indifferent to the needs of this church,

and certainly have been indifferent to what is required of them under the law of the Constitution, in the laws of the United States. Pastor Chris, I think that for you, you know, so many people have, I know, have applauded the work that you have chosen to do at Dad's place of serving the least of these, really, in many ways, and people that in a moment need help, need support. But then it's a whole other conversation to say, not only are we going to do that,

but we're going to keep doing it against opposition. We're going to fight to keep. keep doing it. Why are you continuing this fight and saying, hey, I'm going to dig in here and I'm willing to even fight a legal battle over this so that we as a church can continue serving the people that we feel called to be serving. Well, I believe that ultimately I'm answerable to God. And I honestly can't help myself. Like I love God. He rescued me. He saved me from my sin and from death. And I just, I love giving gifts, and this is a way I can give gifts to my God.

And I truly cannot help myself. And so I don't want a legal battle. This is not something that drives me at all. I don't get any joy out of this. I've got to stand firm. I've got to continue to do the work God's called me to do and trust him throughout the process and Lord forgive me. I'm not always great at that. There's been times where I've just been praying and going, God, this is so much, this is so difficult. It would be so much easier just to walk

away. But man, I can't. I just can't. My love for him moves me to do these things. And so we'll continue. Jeremy, do we have a sense of the timing of how quickly this could be resolved? Well, it could be resolved right now. Mayor Slay could simply withdraw the charges against Pastor Chris, and she could move away from directing her fire chief, police chief, and zoning enforcers to inappropriately apply the ordinances of Brian, Ohio, against this town in an effort to intimidate and bully them out of the downtown area. She could end this today, and we would welcome that very thing. But it doesn't seem like that's going to be the case. And so if that's a situation, the next thing up legally for us would be to do a little bit more briefing, tell the court. our arguments. And then in the very beginning of March, there is a hearing scheduled on our request for an injunction. And at that time, I think it'll be real clear. Is the city prepared to defend itself

and it's illegal and unconstitutional behavior? Or is it more concerned about the people of Brian Ohio, including its churches, and how they're sending a message that churches and those on the edges of our society are unwelcome where all the pretty people are supposed to be? And so my hope is that Mayor Slade will see the great benefit that Dad's Place provides to Brian, Ohio, and stop its actions. It's bullied one church out of the downtown area already. They're 11 miles away in another town now. They're trying, again, to bully this church out of the downtown area. Unfortunately, they run up against the Constitution, and they're not going to be able to do that.

Pastor Chris, I want to give you the last word here. You mentioned that, you know, so many of these challenges right now that you guys are facing, But it is frightening for those that have come to rely on Dad's place. What's your message to the people in your church, to your congregants right now? What are you saying to them to encourage them and let them know that you all are in this, you're in the fight, and to kind of keep the faith through this challenge? Yeah, well, first, my message to them is we walk by faith, not by sight. And we know that whatever happens that we can see out here, God's working behind this.

scenes to make all things good for those who love them and are called according to his purpose. And my main message to my church is we don't repay insult for insult, but we repay insult for blessing. And so our responsibility as the church is to not heap on the city, the mayor, the police. We allow our legal counsel to do their thing. And our responsibility is to bless those who persecute us. our responsibility is to pray for them. And we've encouraged our church to, again, represent Christ well in all of this.

And so we don't pick up a sword and cut off the ear of the very people we're trying to reach, as maybe Peter might have done not to throw him under the bus, right? Who were here to heal the ear as Jesus did. And so that maybe they might be able to hear our message, which is that Christ came because all men had sinned. And while we are still sinners, he died for us. And he rose again so that we might have eternal life in him. That is the message of the church that all who would repent and put their faith in Christ will be saved.

Gentlemen, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate your willingness to join, to explain this situation, to share your heart, Pastor Chris. This has been just really, really a blessing to get to hear the work that you all are doing, Jeremy Dice of First Liberty and Pastor Chris Avel of Dad's Place in Brian, Ohio. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you. Thank you. And with that, that's going to do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for joining us here on the Daily Signal podcast. If you have not had the chance, make sure that you check out our evening show every weekday around 5 p.m. We bring you the top news of the day. These are the headlines that you need to know to stay informed.

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