City Attempts to Shut Down Church’s Ministry to Poor. Pastor Is Fighting Back

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.

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