Robbie asked her pastor at Wellington Avenue UCC how they were Church to their 24 hour community. After all, the Church housed senior program, after school recreation, a theater, a Metropolitan Community Church congregation, as well as many other activities besides its Bible study and worship services. "What about people who are alone, isolated, or lonely at night?" she asked. As a result a conversation started, other pastors and lay leaders were invited to the conversation which eventually led 18 Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches to found The Night Ministry in 1976.

A minister was hired by the group to begin The Might Ministry. He was called to provide a visible and available presence at night along the streets of the community. He went from bar to bar becoming familiar with the night fife of the area, its nighttime workers, those who frequented the area, as well as the resources available for people in need. He spent five nights a week from 9 PM until 4, or 5, or 6 AM developing a regular circuit in his parish, getting to know the bartenders, some of whom he came to regard as his deacons. After a time he held workshops for bartenders on creative listening so they might respond to some of their despondent customers.

The Churches that called the street minister asked him to return frequently to the founding Churches to tell them who he was meeting, what their concerns were, and how the Churches could respond more fruitfully to the needs.

Over time, The Might Ministry discovered a large number of homeless teens in the area and decided it needed to add on a street ministry with a focus on these youth- in time the organization called upon the founding Churches to create a shelter program for homeless teens, which they did. As the ministry met more and more teens, they discovered the teens' need for health care and the barriers they faced in getting access to medical treatment or preventive health care. So, the street ministry developed a nighttime health outreach program using a 33 foot bus and hiring nurses part-time. The community of Churches held a dedication with Illinois Senator Paul Simon presiding.

As time progressed and with the advent of HIV and ADDS, more and more issues that arose had to do with this virus and its consequences. While staff of the bus program didn't do HIV testing, it increasingly dealt with issues of the disease, providing appropriate resource referral and support for getting tested and providing linkages to treatment. The bus staff and street ministers, who operated alone on the street, became trained in prevention activities and began carrying condoms to pass out, literature for clean needle usage, and fists of resources to help connect for more extended help. Eventually The Might Ministry staff spent time on the street working jointly with an organization that worked solely with female sex workers and another that provided needle exchange.

The street minister explains that often he can do no more than listen, as with the bartender working late one night who called him down to the end of the bar. The bartender told of his failing health, of finally being tested for HIV infection, and that afternoon learning he had tested positive. The man was devastated and frightened The street minister had no answer or adequate consoling words. Though also frightened by the maw news and his own inability to offer solutions, the street minister knew he could help by at least being with his bar friend Which he did

Robbie's vision led The Night Ministry to start with one staff in 1976, a street minister who worked alone until 1986. The organization began to grow with the continued support of the founding Churches and by then dozens of other Chicago city and suburban Churches. With a grant from the Chicago Presbytery a seminary student was hired part-time. Later a grant from the UCC Board for Homeland Ministries provided funding to start a shelter program for homeless teens. Grants from many denominational bodies not only started pieces of The Night Ministry's programs, but help to sustain them. Today as, many as 300 Churches and Church groups offer financial and in-kind support each year. The majority of volunteers in the programs come from area Churches. Each year a Christmas dinner is sponsored at two local Churches that feed 3,000 people on Christmas Day. The local Jewish Temple supplies dozens of the volunteers necessary for the gathering. A Muslim family provides food for the teen shelter during Ramadan.

Today The Might Ministry has over 45 staff, 12 of whom are clergy or religious. It has a budget that has grown from $10,000 in its first year to over $2,000,000. It runs a shelter for homeless teens, a network of youth shelter agencies, a health outreach bus that travels out six nights a week with nurses on board along with a street minister and volunteers to 12 different locations in Chicago, and it has street ministers in 6 different communities.

Last year it organized a conference on HIV/AIDS and the African-American Church. The conference gave the organization legitimacy to explore and eventually place an African-American street minister in an all African-American community of Chicago for the first time. Through working with local Hispanic clergy associations, The Night Ministry was able to hire and place a Latina minister in a Puerto Rican community. Support from local Churches in each of these communities has led to wide acceptance and new energy and creativity to address the needs of Marginalized persons of each of these communities. This past spring The Might Ministry organized another conference on reducing health barriers to youth that is hoped to bring together Churches and agencies around these issues. The organization provides strong leadership in advocacy around issues of HIV/AIDS and homeless teens that has changed laws and increased funding for diverse unserved people.

Not all interactions a street minister has are expected Walking into a crowded bar, greeting some of his parishioners, the minister was questioned by a young man "Is that a clergy collar you're wearing? " "Yes, " was the answer. At that the young man reached out angrily and lunged at the minister. Several people held the youth back until he quieted down. He demanded that the minister leave the bar because he wasn't going to have a &Ink anywhere the "two-faced holies " were. E youth confessed to being a sex worker who serviced as many clergy as he did the rest of the public.

In 1974 Robbie wondered where the Church was at night; where the Church was for people on the margins. Over the years, with a mission to "build relationships with people met on Chicago's streets at night" a small group of Churches built a response that reaches thousands of people a year. It reaches people from all walks of life around issues that are community wide, or specific to the diverse groups of people met in ministry.

The mission of The Night Ministry is also to "call the larger community, in particular the Churches, to the same mission." Thus, The Might Ministry has carried its program across Chicago, and offers what it has learned to agencies and Churches alike, and looks forward in the future to being available to others to carry out this important mission whether in Chicago or elsewhere.

Robbie's vision has been reached in her community, showing the possibilities for both local and area wide Churches to respond to people on the margins. Values have been articulated and lived out in the style of operating. It has been learned that consistency of presence is a hallmark to being effective. This consistency needs to be over long periods of time, throughout the entire year, and in a manner that is continually available. Going to the margins of the community; that is going to the people to be ministered with rather than asking that they come to you, has proven most effective in reaching those most difficult to reach, for it is in their realm of saf6ty that the relationship and trust is built that can lead to help and mutual learning.

An immense amount is learned from those on the margins. Being non-judgmental is key to allowing success to happen. The relationship built comes with respect and allows the person met to maintain self-esteem, and thus barriers are lowered between the various individuals. With mutual respect comes the opportunity to offer or even challenge the marginalized person to seek help and try harder to meet his or her own needs.

The Night Ministry staff, including clergy and religious, do not initiate or direct any conversation to the Bible or anything religious. The wearing of the clerical collar in the community speaks louder than any words can. Universally recognized dress of people in the Church, a person wearing a collar announces his or her presence and that he or she is "open for business." "Hanging out your colors," as one bartender said, let's people know you are serious. If requested by those met on the street at night, The Might Ministry staff will, however, respond to questions about the Bible, or religion and theology, or for prayer. Prayers are requested often and given.

The Church has the call to be faithful to its people and to God. It can be creative in any number of ways which gives it freedom and power, as its possibilities are not limited. It can be Church for whomever it chooses. Robbie Weisel, a young twenty-something woman, asked her Church to be present to the people she met~ her friends, at night. It did.