Christ in the City members’ ministry is to “waste time” loving the friends they make, many who live on Philadelphia’s streets
By Jay Sorgi
for the Register
PHILADELPHIA - Both Dylan Kluthe and Elena Thomson recognize that their current home of Philadelphia is a far cry from Lincoln, the city where they both were born and educated at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL).
Yet each is seeing Christ’s face all over those in the most need, ministering in the self-titled “City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection,” in an area 18 times more populous than Lincoln.
They are living a life of compassionate missionary discipleship, giving Philly’s unhoused and under-resourced something that can’t be measured: Time, relationship, friendship and love through the Christ in the City missionary program.
“As Christ in the City, we are playing the part of bringing relationship into these people’s lives,” said Kluthe, who is in his first of a two-year commitment sharing the ministry of presence with individuals who live in the city which until recently had the highest poverty rate of America’s 10 largest cities.
The 20 Christ in the City volunteers spend much of their days simply walking the city’s streets, finding people who may be unhoused or battling poverty, and simply turning these struggling strangers into friends for a few hours and, in some cases, building lasting relationships of compassion through simple presence, listening, time and prayer.
“What we’re doing actually matters, in terms of even just acknowledging someone is a human being, and is in front of us and worthy to be seen,” Thomson said. “The face of Christ.”
Thomson – who converted to the Catholic faith in 2024 – and Kluthe both said they came to Christ in the City from seeing the human story of homelessness while attending UNL.
“I was very on fire for the Lord, really wanting to do something radical, not your normal job,” said Thomson, who is spending her second year in Philly with Christ in the City.
“I spent the summer after I converted just trying to help [the homeless] in any way I could. I was searching for some more permanent way to do that.”
“Jesus calls us first to serve the poor. [That] really sat heavy on my heart,” Kluthe said. “Going to the SEEK conference and meeting missionaries from Christ in the City, hearing that before they want to fix anyone’s problems they meet, they’re there to love and encounter, [that] really struck me.”
Their mornings and evenings are spent in personal and community prayer to accompany their ministry on four routes in the city, sometimes with college students from Philadelphia’s many colleges and universities. Their middays include Mass, classes, and internships connected to the organizational operations, all with communal meals.
Both Kluthe and Thomson recognize that what they do brings no tangible, practical or concrete solution to solving even one person’s challenge of practical poverty. Many other charities, including the vast network of Catholic Charities of Philadelphia’s services, help with that God-given mission.
They and their Christ in the City cohorts from across America specialize in “wasting time” with those who hunger for connection, relationship and love as much as they need the mere basics of food, water, shelter and clothing.
“We’ll take them out to eat somewhere because they haven’t gone out to a restaurant for a really long time. Our friends have shown us their favorite spots in the city,” Kluthe said. “We play chess games with our friends. We watch movies with our friends in the library. There’s really a lot of different things that we do. But I would say for me personally, my favorite thing is just simply being on the streets with them and sitting down in their presence.”
“We’re not looking for the most efficient way to do ministry. We’re looking for the most loving way,” Thomson shared.
“The most loving way sometimes is spending our entire three-hour, four-hour time on the streets, literally with one person. Sometimes that will happen, and if it’s the only person that we reach that day or even if it’s the only person we reach that entire week, that’s going to be worth it.”
Kluthe and Thomson live communally with 18 other Christ in the City missionaries from around the United States. They pray together, eat together, take classes together, serve together, recreate together in what leaders at Christ in the City regularly call a “school of love.”
“It’s not like I’m really bringing anything particularly special. I don’t have any skill that I’m bringing out onto the streets,” Thomson admitted. “I’m literally just talking to someone. I’m literally just sitting with someone. The Lord doesn’t need me for this, and yet he chose me to bring his love to the streets.”
“It’s just so humbling,” Kluthe said, “going out and loving the poor, getting to experience just such strong, zealous love for these souls as Jesus would feel for us.”
The mission is changing Kluthe and Thomson’s hearts. It acts as a school not only of love, but of trust and of being in the moment, the kind of lessons that allow God to do the work from the seeds they plant in the hearts of the needy in America’s sixth most populous city, and perhaps its grittiest.
“Most of the time, our days are filled with conversations with people that we’ll never see again,” Kluthe shared. “We really just have to learn to trust that the Lord is using this mission for good in these people’s lives and that he is going to do the heavy lifting and that he needs us to play this small part in their story.“
“We’re looking for being able to spend the time with the one person who’s in front of us in that moment, and not worrying about the next person down the line,” Thomson said. “We’re just going to let the Lord work where he has us.”
Courtesy photos
