Ohio Pastor Fights Back After City Attempts to Shut Down Church’s 24/7 Outreach to Poor, Homeless

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 that includes the “the hurting, the broken, the least of these.” 

Avell’s church, Dad’s Place, in Bryan, Ohio, is “a place they can come if they’re weary and burdened and find rest and true rest for their souls,” the pastor says. Bryan, a town of some 8,600 people, is located about 64 miles southwest of Toledo.

Some people in the community, whether those struggling with mental health issues, addiction, or physical needs, began frequenting the church and even sleeping there if they needed a place of shelter. 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,” he 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 needy. 

Avell, along with Dys, joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to explain how he’s fighting to continue doing the work he and the congregation at Dad’s Place feel called by God to do.

Listen to the podcast below:

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