SF Night Ministry celebrates 60 years

  • by Liz Highleyman, BAR Contributor
  • Wednesday November 13, 2024
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John Brett, left, director of community programs for the San Francisco Night Ministry, spoke after giving a pair of white gloves to Lutheran Bishop Jeff Johnson, a former night minister, at the organization's 60th anniversary gala held at the Tenderloin Museum November 1. Photo: Liz Highleyman
John Brett, left, director of community programs for the San Francisco Night Ministry, spoke after giving a pair of white gloves to Lutheran Bishop Jeff Johnson, a former night minister, at the organization's 60th anniversary gala held at the Tenderloin Museum November 1. Photo: Liz Highleyman

The San Francisco Night Ministry, best known for its outreach to people experiencing homelessness in the Tenderloin, celebrated 60 years of service on November 1. After walking the streets with ministers in small groups, attendees converged for a celebration at the Tenderloin Museum on Eddy Street, followed by a drag show at Aunt Charlie's Lounge.

"For 60 years, the Night Ministry has deeply listened to people at night, connecting them to their own spiritual resources through difficult times," said the Reverend Trent Thornley, executive director, speaking after the November 5 election. "With the recent election and the challenges ahead impacting our most marginalized neighbors the most, we will continue to extend our witness and compassion to folks, one encounter at a time, every night of the year. These days, people need every reminder that they are heard, valued, and loved."

Thornley is also an ordained minister with the Metropolitan Community Churches and a Buddhist dharma leader.

Founded by the San Francisco Council of Churches, the Night Ministry serves some 10,000 people each year, around 40% of whom are LGBTQ. The nonprofit organization, which has a staff of about two dozen, is primarily supported by donations from individuals and congregations; it does not receive city funding. In addition to spiritual care, night ministers offer help with access to housing, health care, legal assistance, and other services.

Although best known for its work with individuals living on the streets, night ministers — clergy members from multiple faith traditions — also reach out to people at bars and other venues in the Tenderloin and the Castro, and its care hotline serves a much broader population. In a report about the organization's 50th anniversary, former Night Ministry director the Reverend Lyle Beckman, who retired in 2018, told the Bay Area Reporter that the organization gets calls from people who are "fairly well off but lonely," as well as those dealing with grief or suicidal thoughts.

The Night Ministry hosts weekly Open Cathedral non-denominational Christian worship services at Civic Center Plaza and the 16th and Mission BART station, as well as monthly Open Shabbat Jewish services, Open Sangha Buddhist meditation, and an annual Drag Street Eucharist in the Castro during Pride Month in June.

A long history of service

The Night Ministry has a long history of involvement with San Francisco's LGBTQ community, offering "an inclusive witness of faith since we first stepped out on the streets of the Tenderloin and Polk Gulch and across the city in 1964," said John Brett, director of community programs and Faithful & Fabulous minister. The Faithful & Fabulous program engages the LGBTQ community through spiritual and community programs, according to the Night Ministry's website.

The late pioneering lesbian rights advocates Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin were early supporters of the Night Ministry. Leaders of the ministry helped organize a January 1, 1965, New Year's Day drag ball fundraiser produced by the Council on Religion and the Homosexual, which ended in a police raid, according to Brett. Religious leaders spoke out against the raid, marking a shift in how the San Francisco Police Department treated the city's LGBTQ population.

That ball, along with the Tavern Guild's Beaux Arts Ball, were precursors to the Imperial Court system. Original San Francisco Empress the late José Julio Sarria, a Latino military veteran, North Beach drag performer, and the first openly gay candidate for public office when he ran for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1961, was a "supporter and fan" of the Night Ministry, Brett told the B.A.R.

"When new lead night ministers were hired, they were taken to an interview with Empress José so that she could give them her blessing — and likely also flirt with them — to ensure that they were safe to work with San Francisco's queer communities," according to Brett.

In the 1980s, the Reverend Chuck Lewis, one of the original night ministers, worked with Bay Area churches to encourage inclusion of LGBTQ people and people living with HIV. In the 1990s, former Night Ministry head the Reverend Don Fox officiated at hundreds of memorials for people who died of AIDS, especially those whose families would not claim their bodies.

As part of the 60th anniversary celebration, Brett presented a pair of white gloves to Lutheran Bishop Jeff Johnson, a gay man and former night minister who last year was elected bishop of the Sierra Pacific Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Johnson was inducted into the Order of Church Ladies for Queer Rights.

Inspired by a longtime contingent in the San Francisco Pride parade, the order, part of the outreach Brett does to the LGBTQ community, attends drag shows and tips the artists "as a form of reparations for religious and spiritual trauma," Brett told the B.A.R. After the celebration at the museum, several attendees proceeded to Aunt Charlie's Lounge to carry on the tradition.

"Whether or not participants wear floral dresses or hats or pearls or carry handbags — all of which are optional — the required white gloves visually signify their witness for inclusive love from our church pews for our drag artist community leaders," Brett said.

For more information about the Night Ministry, visit sfnightministry.org. The care line can be reached every night at (415) 441-0123.

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