When temperatures drop, the City of Medford announces the opening of a severe weather, low-barrier warming shelter, and local news outlets quickly report it. Like many in our community, I am grateful whenever steps are taken to ensure people do not freeze during extreme weather. Preserving life should always matter.
However, one line in the city’s messaging stood out:
“The shelter does not require religious affiliation or drug testing to enter.”
At first glance, this may seem harmless—perhaps even reassuring. But messaging matters, especially in a community where the Medford Gospel Mission has been serving for sixty-seven years. When examined more closely, this phrasing reveals how ideology can quietly creep into public communication and, over time, distance cities from community partners who have actually done the work.
When Neutral Language Isn’t Neutral
The Medford Gospel Mission has never required religious affiliation in order to receive emergency services. Like many rescue missions, we are openly Christian. We pray, share the Gospel, and offer chapel services and optional discipleship as part of our ministry.
That is different from requiring religious affiliation as a condition of entry—something emergency shelters generally do not screen for or enforce. In most cases, the question is not, “Are you a Christian?” but rather, “Are you willing to follow the shelter’s basic expectations while you’re here?”
So when religion is singled out in a public notice, a fair question arises: why mention it at all?
Unlike sobriety testing or ID requirements—actual barriers that can prevent entry—religious affiliation is not something people are typically screened for at emergency shelters. Including it in “low-barrier” language does not clarify access; it signals a value position. It subtly suggests that faith itself is a barrier people need reassurance against.
How Ideological Language Shapes Perception
The way cities talk about shelter does not just inform—it forms perception. Language shapes how the general public understands homelessness, who they trust, and where they believe responsibility lies.
For the broader community, this kind of messaging reinforces the idea—often without evidence—that faith-based organizations are exclusionary or conditional in their care. Over time, it reshapes public understanding and erodes confidence in organizations that have long served faithfully and consistently.
This rhetoric also affects people who are actually seeking help. Public language shapes expectations. When religion is framed as something individuals must be reassured against, it can unintentionally discourage people from approaching faith-based providers at all—providers who may be best equipped to help them. For individuals already struggling with distrust, fear, and trauma, this adds another unnecessary layer of hesitation.
What Experience Actually Shows
Decades of direct shelter experience tell a consistent story. Very few people decline shelter because it is Christian. When religion is cited, it is usually by a small number of individuals who are broadly hostile to people of faith and resistant to any form of structure. This is rare and not representative of the broader unsheltered population.
The primary reasons people decline shelter are well known: autonomy, trauma, mental illness, substance use, fear of congregate settings, and distrust of institutions in general. Misdiagnosing the problem leads to misguided solutions.
When faith-based shelters are pointed to as the reason people avoid shelter, responsibility is misplaced and the real barriers remain unaddressed.
Do We Need Recognition?
The Medford Gospel Mission does not need recognition from the City of Medford for the decades of emergency shelter work we carried out. From our founding, we provided this care without receiving government funding. We did the work because God called us to love our neighbors as ourselves, not because it would be acknowledged.
In Medford, this history matters deeply. For decades, the Medford Gospel Mission operated emergency shelter 365 days a year, long before the City had its current shelter infrastructure. From 1959 to 2020, the Mission provided emergency shelter without requiring religious affiliation, while also maintaining sobriety standards and clear expectations aimed at restoration. During periods of extreme cold, those requirements were consistently relaxed because preserving life mattered more than program structure. In 2016 and 2017, the Mission also operated a seasonal low-barrier winter shelter in response to community need.
In 2020, the Mission made a deliberate and prayerful decision to step away from the emergency shelter role and focus our resources on individuals who were ready to pursue meaningful, lasting change. This was not because the need disappeared, but because the shelter landscape in Medford had changed. Well-funded, government-supported nonprofits stepped into the emergency shelter role and, in doing so, redefined how sheltering would be delivered in our community.
Rather than duplicate services that were now publicly funded and administered, the Mission chose to concentrate on what we are uniquely called and equipped to do: walking alongside men and women who are ready to address the root causes of their homelessness and move toward restoration, stability, and transformed lives.
What is difficult, however, is that this history—both our decades of emergency shelter and our intentional transition—is now largely ignored in city messaging and public conversation. The Mission’s long-standing role is rarely named or remembered. Instead, the narrative has quietly shifted, as though emergency shelter work began only after newer, publicly funded efforts were established.
This is not about recognition or funding. It is about accuracy. The way shelter is described—especially to those hesitant to accept help—shapes perception and behavior. When public messaging emphasizes that religious affiliation is not required, it subtly frames faith-based shelter as something people need reassurance away from. In doing so, it redirects trust rather than building it and quietly overlooks both the Mission’s decades of service and the reasoning behind our transition.
A truly neutral and inclusive statement could simply say:
“The shelter is open to anyone who wishes to come inside during severe weather.”
That sentence preserves access, respects dignity, and avoids unnecessary signaling.
A Final Word
As a community of faith, we are grateful whenever our city takes steps to protect people in dangerous situations. We pray for wisdom for city leaders and staff as they respond to severe weather and the real risks faced by those living outdoors.
We also pray for those who are caught in cycles of poverty, addiction, trauma, and homelessness—that they would come to recognize that real and lasting change is necessary and possible. Every person is fearfully and wonderfully made, with God-given dignity, purpose, and worth, no matter how long the road has been or how heavy the circumstances feel.
At the Medford Gospel Mission, we believe true hope involves more than survival—it involves transformation. We pray that those who come through our doors would not only find shelter and care, but would seek and embrace real life change grounded in truth, accountability, and the restoring love of Christ.
Finally, we pray for the local Church. We are deeply grateful for the churches, volunteers, and partners who faithfully show mercy and grace as they walk alongside the Mission—reaching the lost, gathering the reached, and bearing witness to the hope that does not disappoint. May we continue to serve together with humility, courage, and love, for the good of our city and the glory of God.
Partner with us in God’s work of relational restoration.