Home

No Where to Lay His Head ...

Welcome to Anawim Christian Community

“Anawim" is a Hebrew word that means "the poor seeking God for deliverance." This Hebrew word is often used in the Psalms, including Psalm 37:11, which reads, "Blessed are the anawim for they shall inherit the earth."

Anawim Christian Community is a community church for the homeless and the mentally ill and interested middle class folks in Portland, OR.

We know that Jesus himself was homeless, as the ancient text says “The Son of Man has no where to lay his head.” (Luke 9:58) Also Jesus healed the sick and the mentally ill, welcomed the sinners and the tax collectors and invited them to follow Him. Even so, we firmly believe that the church should be made up of the outcast—the homeless, the mentally ill, the shut-ins, the thieves and the immigrants. We gather so we can obtain God’s power in our lives, even as we live for Him.

About Anawim

Poverty Issues

Teachings

The Good Muslim

There was a man traveling from Washington D.C. to New York and some terrorists kidnapped him, stripped his clothes off and beat him half to death, leaving by the side of the road, helpless...

Riff Raff in the Church

All the homosexuals and the drug dealers and sex workers and child pornographers came to Jesus to listen to him. And the conservative evangelicals and the Bible scholars denounced him...

The Recyclable and the Trash

I came to your town, hungry, and you told me to get a job. I was an immigrant, a mentally ill person on the street, a traveler and you refused me entrance at your doorstep...

Countless times a day, homeless people are rejected, falsely accused, harassed, ticketed, and even beat up, all for the “crime” of not having a roof over their heads or of being dirty or of carrying all their possessions in a backpack. The homeless are treated as the outcast of society, as those at the bottom of the economic ladder. Yet the homeless are not the cause of the evils of our society...

Anawim Christian Community

In 1999, Anawim became Anawim Christian Community, a church made up of the poor and outcast from “normal” society—the impoverished, the homeless, the mentally ill and those on public assistance. ACC holds low-key services and Bible studies, expecting interruption and questions throughout the services and low-key dress...