Hope Place Church of the Nazarene is reaching the recovery community in Corbin, Kentucky, by demonstrating God’s love in tangible ways.

Hope Place began out of the Basket Ministry of Corbin First Church of the Nazarene. The Basket Ministry is a registered Nazarene Compassionate Ministries Center that distributes household sanitary items like dish soap, laundry detergent, and toilet paper to ease the burden on families struggling to make ends meet.

In 2021, Lorie Crawford, who was leading the Basket Ministry at the time, was asked why the ministry wasn’t a church. So Crawford asked the families they served if they had a home church, and only three out of the 50 families said yes.

“A lot of times the crowd we draw, the people that are down and out, or in recovery, they are intimidated to come into the church,” Crawford said. “They feel for whatever reason like they’re not worthy.”

To combat the stigma of entering a church building, Crawford and Hope Place began holding services outside, under the church’s picnic shelter. They travel to sober living houses and drug rehab centers to pick people up and bring them to the church service.

In the last year, Crawford looked for ways to expand their ministry. Eventually, a woman approached the church and asked if they’d be willing to buy her property, and Crawford immediately took interest. The house was located directly behind the shelter Hope Place had been using.

After some discussion, the woman revealed her asking price. It was precisely the number that Crawford had to spend. 

“I never said that number was what we had,” Crawford said. “It was a God thing. This house is what we are supposed to be doing.”

Several Hope Place members were finishing their recovery and asked if the church could help them find a place to live.

“A lot of them have burnt bridges, and they don’t have anywhere to go,” Crawford said. “So we just prayed about it and felt like we were going to turn [the house] into a sober living home to help them and continue to disciple them.”

A recent community walk fundraiser was held to help fund remodeling and repairs the house needed to fulfill its purpose as a sober living house. Residents from the sober living homes and rehab centers Hope Place has connected with have been assisting in the remodeling process. Hope Place hopes to have the sober living house up and running by the end of spring.

Crawford hopes it can help connect residents to the church so that Hope Place and even Corbin First can help walk alongside them in their recovery and continue to share God’s love.

“I want people to have that relationship with Him,” Crawford said. “I think that sometimes we complicate things. We make it too hard when God wants to be in a relationship with us. So it is our love for God and His people that we want to see them set free. We believe that through discipleship, He can do it.”