In a 2009 article for Christianity Today magazine, author Jocelyn Green gave readers a glimpse into the lives of different military officers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder—with special attention given to the responsibility the church has in ministering to those officers. She writes:

Nate Self's military record was impeccable. A West Point graduate, he led an elite Army Ranger outfit ...

For almost 10 years, Adam Bruckner, [assistant coach for the Philadelphia Kixx indoor soccer team], has made it his personal mission to help the homeless. Actually, "help" would be an understatement for what he does. Although he earns a modest income, he gives away practically everything. And when he decided that wasn't enough, he whittled his living expenses down to two items: gas for his car and ...

People call him "Shoe Bob," but his real name is Bob Fisher. He owns a small shoe repair shop tucked in a corner of a little strip mall in Wayzata, Minnesota. Average height, average build. Shoe Bob looks like your average, hard-working, churchgoing guy.

But he is not an average guy.

Shoe Bob is a radical servant who has found a way to help the homeless. He helps the homeless by rallying his whole community, ...

Recently, while inching along in traffic, I saw two men in conversation on the sidewalk. One man was seated on a box at the end of the freeway off-ramp. He was gray-haired and tired looking, and he held a cardboard sign with a message written by an unsteady hand: "Please Help." The other individual was a Latino man. They shared a brief exchange, and the Latino man walked away.

As I slowly drove by ...

When a gnawing crack addiction engulfed Andy's life almost two decades ago, he abandoned family and friends. He was sleeping on park benches in Chicago's exclusive Gold Coast area when another homeless man suggested he earn an easy $250 from a car that sidled to the curb. To feed the drug habit, Andy gave it a try and began selling his body to gay men at night.

"It gave me a false sense of feeling ...

In Portland, Oregon, the homeless gather under the Burnside Bridge. For more than three years, carloads of Christians from Bridgetown Ministries have shown up on Friday nights and ministered to these needy men and women. In addition to providing hot meals, shaves, and haircuts, some of the volunteers wash the homeless people's feet. Tom Krattenmaker, a writer for USA Today, was stunned by the display, ...

Shane Claiborne is a young Christian activist whose mission is to take Jesus and the message of the gospel seriously. Shane is one of the founding members of The Simple Way, a Christian community in Philadelphia. Their mission is: "To love God. To love people. To follow Jesus." Shane has taken the gospel beyond the streets of Philadelphia to the slums of Calcutta and the war zones of Iraq. In his ...

Philip Yancey writes in Christianity Today of an encouraging truth he heard from a young man named Mike who works among the homeless:

Mike told me that homeless people, having hit bottom, don't waste time building up an image or trying to conform. And they pray without pretense, a refreshing contrast to what he found in some churches.

I asked for an example. He said: "My friend and I were playing guitars ...

Ten years ago, Kevin Bradley was engrossed in the fast-paced, big-money world of Wall Street. A stockbroker with Legg Mason in Baltimore, Bradley and his wife, Marilyn, led a comfortable life.

But every day God was drawing him away from the rich to the homeless. He'd seen them each weekday as he walked to the office and had gradually learned to love the homeless people he met, often taking them to ...

In the summer of 2003, David Timothy bought an old van with 265,000 miles on it, with the help of his wife and a friend. They dubbed it SoupMobile and started taking food to the homeless of Dallas, Texas.

Timothy had wanted to open a soup kitchen for a long time, partly because he grew up poor and hungry, though never homeless. In the name of Christ, SoupMan—who calls himself a nondenominational ...