We're joined by Ken Peterson, the Regional Coordinator for the Central region of the Citygate Network, North America’s oldest and largest community of independent, faith-based crisis shelters and life-transformation centers.
Ken gives his unique insights into transformative growth, stories of connection, and shared wisdom on the importance of gathering in solidarity to uplift those dedicated to serving the most vulnerable in our communities.
Navigating the challenges of leading a rescue mission can often feel isolating, but Ken underscores the power of collective support and the Citygate Network's essential role in fortifying leaders.
Ken also shares his personal odyssey, from battling substance abuse to guiding others as a director within the rescue mission community. His testament to the redemptive power of faith and support casts a beacon of hope for all who seek change.
To learn more about Citygate Network, Click Here!
To learn more about TRM Ministries: Click Here!
To support TRM, Click Here!
We're joined by Ken Peterson, the Regional Coordinator for the Central region of the Citygate Network, North America’s oldest and largest community of independent, faith-based crisis shelters and life-transformation centers.
Ken gives his unique insights into transformative growth, stories of connection, and shared wisdom on the importance of gathering in solidarity to uplift those dedicated to serving the most vulnerable in our communities.
Navigating the challenges of leading a rescue mission can often feel isolating, but Ken underscores the power of collective support and the Citygate Network's essential role in fortifying leaders.
Ken also shares his personal odyssey, from battling substance abuse to guiding others as a director within the rescue mission community. His testament to the redemptive power of faith and support casts a beacon of hope for all who seek change.
To learn more about Citygate Network, Click Here!
To learn more about TRM Ministries: Click Here!
To support TRM, Click Here!
Dearly Father, we thank you for this day and your blessings and provisions.
Speaker 2:God, thank you for this time.
Speaker 1:And thank you for all our listeners. Pray that this episode would bless them and encourage them today. Father, in your holy name we pray, Amen.
Speaker 3:Hello everybody. You're listening to our Community, our mission, a podcast of Topeka Rescue Mission here on Wednesday, january 24th of 2024. We get some 24s.
Speaker 2:We do. There's a couple.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we're thawing out, we think for a little while anyway.
Speaker 2:Is it summer yet? No, I'm just kidding. We don't need to rush that In my month.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we don't. Yeah, there's another problem with summer.
Speaker 2:I was going to say yes.
Speaker 3:Give us a break.
Speaker 2:Spring. We just need spring to last for months and months and months.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we got a special guest that's from out of town today. Yes, we want to talk to him and we got to talk to him pretty quick here because he's got to get on an airplane.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:Get out of the area here, but we always have to stop and we talk about the specialness of the day. We don't have to, we can skip it. No, we're going to. This is National Compliment Day, that's here special. National Compliment Day, Amanda. So what do you have to say?
Speaker 2:That's why you wanted to proceed with it. All right, let's get to something.
Speaker 3:National Peanut Butter Day also, and Macintosh Computer Day. So for all of you Mac lovers out there, this is your day. So give somebody a peanut butter sandwich and stuff, but the nice. So, amanda, you as director now for almost two years, you've had a chance to go to, I think, three city gate network meetings, and so that's been kind of a cool deal for you to be, around other rescue mission folks at a location where you know all these people. I know it was very helpful for me in the early days to say hey, we're not alone here.
Speaker 3:And so real quickly, before we introduce our guest who's involved in City Gate, tell us your impression of City Gate Network.
Speaker 2:You know, I think City Gate Network is exactly what that says it's a weighted network, and what I love about it is there is everything from just fellowship and camaraderie and friendship to a wealth of wisdom. You know, there are professional groups where at any time I can get on and ask other CEOs all over the nation a question and get responses and it comes to my email and then I'm able to share those thoughts out with others, and so it's just an incredible support that we have and that we get to be a part of and then sometimes through that, people want to come here and see what God is doing at the Tepika Rescue Mission. So it's just been incredible, and I will say that one of the highlights for me on a personal level and a professional level is just the corporate worship times. So at the City Gate Network conferences, you know, we do a worship time at least once or twice together each day Thousands plus people in the room.
Speaker 2:Yes, and just from the song choices to, you know you might be talking to someone in a session 30 minutes before and you find out, man, their mission is really struggling with, you know, finances or this is really struggling because they may have just had a CEO pass away or something like that. And then you go into worship and you see them three or four tables over and you see them maybe be emotional. Or you see a song and you know I know a little bit of their story and you know to walk over there and to hug them while that worship song is playing and stuff. It's just incredible.
Speaker 3:The impact of this network of rescue ministries in the country and the world, in different places, is phenomenal. I mean, just remember going to Minneapolis and not Minneapolis. That's where you're from. Minneapolis and Minneapolis I'm another city and they just started a school for kids in their community. I was saying, oh, how amazing what people are doing, so we're going to jump right into it. We have Ken Peterson here who is the regional coordinator of the City Gate Network. Welcome to our community, our mission, ken.
Speaker 1:Thank you. It's great to be here in Tacoma and it's Tacoma Rescue Mission here.
Speaker 2:Listen to him. Sorry, topeka.
Speaker 3:It's probably warmer in Tacoma right now.
Speaker 1:Actually, I was the interim CEO in.
Speaker 3:Tacoma for six months. So that's still upper, Sorry guys. Yeah, though, I get it.
Speaker 1:Topeka Kansas.
Speaker 3:That's right. Well, Ken, this is not your first time here.
Speaker 1:I was here, when the Children's Palace was just being completed. You were the CEO of that.
Speaker 3:That's right.
Speaker 1:And I remember you talking about. What you really wanted to do was let the kids have a special place to come to and the community to see that rescue missions like to do things with quality and effectiveness, and congratulations.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you, this has been quite.
Speaker 1:For the minister you've built here and I have given it over to Amanda here and I think she's got the skill to carry it further.
Speaker 3:We're trying, she definitely does.
Speaker 1:So City Gate Network has been around since 1906. It started in New York at the Macaulay Mission, water Street Mission, macaulay Mission and it was originally started as the International Union of Gospel Rescue Mission.
Speaker 3:When I came on board, it was IUGM International Union of Gospel Mission.
Speaker 1:Well, there was actually a predecessor to that, but I don't know what the name was. Yeah, we weren't there then.
Speaker 1:And then they changed it to AGRM, the Association of Gospel Rescue Missions, a few years back. They rebranded, which so many ministries like to do nowadays, and rebranded at the City Gate Network, and there's some real significance behind that. It's from an Old Testament analogy that In the ancient mid-east all the cities had walls around them. They had an outer wall and an inner wall. When people would come to the city they would get inside the outer wall, inside between the outer wall and the inner wall, and they would look for the elders of the city. The elders of the city would help them find resources, food supplies and comfort and care.
Speaker 1:The vision behind Citygate Network is that every city in North America needs to have a Citygate mission where hungry, homeless, abused and addicted wondering people can come into the doors of the Citygate and find what they need. I tell people all the time as I travel and visit different missions and I talk to people about missions. I say everything a person needs to come out of poverty, hunger, homelessness and addiction. Modern-day missions have every resource available to help people if they're ready to do it. Of course, we have a number of mentally ill people on the streets and a lot of missions aren't quite equipped to deal with the level of mental illness out there. When it comes to food, shelter, clothing, educational opportunities, spiritual development, delivery services, job training, job placement, transitional housing, all of those things are available in almost every major city in America. Every major city in America has a Citygate mission doing very professional, well-rounded services to people. That's what Citygate is. There's nine districts in the country. There's the Heartland. You're in the Heartland District.
Speaker 3:It's the Heartland District. It makes sense.
Speaker 1:We've heard that before I'm a retired executive director from the Union Gospel Mission Twin Cities. When I retired from there, the president of Citygate found some extra money to a grant to hire three or four retired CEOs to go around and do mentoring, coaching, encouraging, visiting members' missions. I visited 175 or so in the past five, six years. My delight in doing that is to sit down with people that are in leadership. Lemann and I actually had this conversation earlier. Every leader and you probably have never felt this way.
Speaker 3:I'm immune to any feeling.
Speaker 1:Every leader questions themselves Did God really call me to do this? Somebody else can do it much better. I don't have the training. Maybe I should be doing something else. I think that's a theme anybody in leadership.
Speaker 3:I only went through that about every morning.
Speaker 2:Now you're still going through it, but just with me, right? Well, not the same way.
Speaker 1:I was sitting with a mission leader yesterday and he said Kent, I'm really tired. I said, yeah, I can see that. I said you're tired and you want to run away, right? He said that's right.
Speaker 3:So you encountered this because you've been there this is not a foreign turf to you to understand those challenges, pressures. I mean, you're an executive director or CEO. What's it like when you find somebody that's on the field with all of these responsibilities and not always in the most popular place because you're dealing with a subject matter, especially these days, that's hot on social media. Everybody's got an opinion about what to do about this. When they are just worn down, what's your? What do you do with that?
Speaker 1:Well, I like to sit down one-on-one with the leader and start talking about mission business. Okay, how's it going with you? What's your relationship with your board? What personnel issues are you having? What's your finances like? With the time I go through that litany, the hair comes down. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So this guy understands me a little bit.
Speaker 1:They start opening up and sharing, and I just try to encourage them and say well, listen, the mission was here before you got here. God has given you this tremendous privilege to serve in this capacity for a period of time and the mission will be here after you leave. And, by the way, every mission around the country is having the same issue, so you're not alone in it.
Speaker 3:That's right. That's a value, that's citigate.
Speaker 1:But the gift God has given me, since I have a pastoral background, is to lean heavily on Scripture and talk into people about where Scripture meets where they're at in life and their leadership. There was a new director in a town out in Oregon. This lady was on the board and the founder of the mission retired after 30 years. And this new director came from the business world. She was in communication and in marketing and I stopped to visit her like the first week she was on the job and she sat across from me and said I don't think I can do this and I just saw the like a deer in the headlights. You know. We just talked and I said God called you here. You got gifts and abilities and things that you brought to the table that God wants to use and we just had two hour wonderful conversation.
Speaker 1:The next year I saw her at the National Convention. She chased me down and said, ken, if you hadn't stopped I would not have stayed at this job. And it just did my heart so good to know that we can encourage one another in the Lord and lift one another up and realize there are hundreds of people out there doing the same thing we're doing. And that's where CitiGate comes in, because we've got tremendous training opportunities. We have webinars on almost every subject that you can find in rescue mission. We have district conferences, we have the national conference, we have the CEO summit, where CEOs from all around the country come together and talk about real life issues and leadership. And then we also have a DC forum, where mission leaders go to Washington DC and meet with their local legislators, congressmen and senators and people in the president's circle, you know, like the director of or the secretary of HUD and you know and bring the issue of homelessness to the national level.
Speaker 3:What I've seen over the years, ken, is a more understanding of the role of rescue ministries in the country and previous executive director John Ashman with CitiGate Network and how he really helped bridge the gap so that there was a presence in Washington.
Speaker 3:DC with policymakers, because you know that whole myth of separation of church and state how faith-based rescue ministries are on the front lines with so many people representing so many different churches and non-church, to be able to have the impact that they do, to be able to reflect to our policymakers on the hill, so to speak, what's really going on on the ground so they can make wiser decisions, and so you're part of that whole system, the network inside the CitiGate Network. It sounds like what you are is a coach that goes around with the players on the field to help them to stay on the field.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's part of it. I served as interim director at the Tacoma Rescue Mission and they had a really good senior staff, so my presence there was just to encourage them and to meet with the board and help them work through the issues to bring in a new director. And, barry, with all of your experience, I think you should be doing the same thing going around.
Speaker 3:Tacoma. I think they've already covered it.
Speaker 1:Anywhere people need help right.
Speaker 3:No, I am doing a little bit of that right now. I'm more from telephone calls and zooms, those kind of things, and what a joy that is. You and I were talking about somebody in Idaho that I'm on the phone with twice a week. A new director out there who's been to Topeka was fell in love with Amanda and the whole team here, and so she's doing incredible work, and so that's what you get to do now because of all of your experience. What, what, let me. Let me mention here too, when you came in 2018, I want to say whenever you put this building up, it was 2018.
Speaker 3:And so maybe it was 2017 when you came Okay, josh is not in this head 2017. And so you saw this. You went back and talked to leadership at City Network and you said you need to go to Topeka. And then we had just opened up the Children's Palace and John Ashman came with a film crew.
Speaker 1:Oh, yes, he did?
Speaker 3:He brought a film crew and he went through here and he said he called me ahead of time and he said hey, we've looked at all the rescue missions in the country and we've narrowed it down to five examples that we would like to highlight. Can we bring a film crew here? And I was quite honored. They had a couple on the west coast and one of these one in Canada and here in the Midwest, and so they came and we had great day together and they came in here and filmed this and our other operations. I hadn't been to a City Gate meeting for a while. I couldn't get out of town.
Speaker 1:So the real story behind that. I went back and reported you. That's where I'm going, John.
Speaker 3:Ashwin, you said Barry's drifted off.
Speaker 3:That's where I'm going, you. You went back and said you need to get with these folks in Topeka and they came here and it wasn't too long after that that they had just changed the name of the organization to City Gate Network from Association of Gospel. Rescue Missions, created this award called the City Gate Award, and so I went to receive that. It was just blown away. The thing is, I was told I had 10 minutes to talk and things were rushing so fast and I was told by the director of Young Life, who was kind of going to see this thing during that time, we have to narrow it down to five because we're running behind time.
Speaker 3:And then he said could it be two minutes? And I'm going oh my gosh, okay, whatever. So I'm standing up.
Speaker 1:You're lucky, I gave you two. I'm standing up.
Speaker 3:I'm standing up Exactly directors behind me, john Ashwin, and he said, barry, we're really running hard on time. We're running through this in 30 seconds. He said, could you do it in 20 to say thank you? And I said, no, I'm taking 60 seconds. And so I stood up there, took this award back that represented all of these different rescue ministries One of the greatest honors Topeka Rescue Mission has ever had to be. Say we're amongst giants. And they looked at Topeka and one of the big things was how we network with the community here.
Speaker 1:The amazing.
Speaker 3:Thing happened, but thank you for opening that door.
Speaker 1:Thank you for bringing Topeka Rescue Mission back into the fold and getting them active, and I remember telling you, Barry you've had all this experience and time that an organization needs people like you.
Speaker 3:Well, I think that's kind of what it took, because for me, because you get so involved in the local front day-to-day operations, and so, amanda, since she's been here, you haven't missed a meeting any meeting yet. You see the great value. You've taken more staff than I ever took to these meetings and they've come back. There's been transformational change in operations here, because you learn from another rescue mission, but also other rescue missions are making operational changes, by which they've learned in Topeka.
Speaker 1:Yes, so you know Tremendous growth going on. Citygate Network is the oldest and largest network of emergency shelters, recovery programs, transition of housing in North America. There's over 300 missions. I think there's 310 missions now. Yeah, Little mom and pop missions that operate on a $200,000 budget. Very large ones, missions that have budgets of $20 million and up. So it's amazing to see what God has done.
Speaker 3:Ken, we're so honored that you would come in here today and be a part of this, and you've got about six minutes before you have to get in your vehicle to get into an airplane.
Speaker 1:He just wants me to leave, so no, no love that.
Speaker 3:We'd like to do this a lot longer today, maybe all day long, but would you? You've been a rescue mission CEO. You've been an interim. You're representing this large network in the heartland of going around and encouraging and helping people to stay on, stay in the game. But before all that, you were starting to tell me how you even got into rescue mission work. You were driving down the road one day. Are you comfortable talking about that?
Speaker 1:I'll give you the whole story.
Speaker 3:Okay, give us a story. You got five and a half minutes.
Speaker 1:In 1972, I dropped out of the University of Minnesota and I bought a kilo of marijuana. I was living the party life and I had that kilo of marijuana in my trunk and I picked up a hitchhiker. He got in my car and said do you know that Jesus is coming back pretty soon? And I thought, oh, I picked up this wrong.
Speaker 3:Wrong guy, religious, not no, he was the right guy at the end of the game.
Speaker 1:Growing up Catholic, going to nine years of Catholic school. Of course I knew about God, but I didn't know that you could have a personal relationship with him. Before he got out of the car he says Ken, if you don't believe me, ask Jesus yourself. I thought how do you ask Jesus if he's coming back? Right, right? Well, for four years the Holy Spirit chased me down until I got to a point in my life where I couldn't say no. My party life was empty. My drug use was empty. My drinking was empty. I was going through a divorce. Life was tough. I was broken. I got on my knees and cried out to the Lord and he heard my cry, went in and talked to the pastor of the little church that I had been frequenting and he prayed with me.
Speaker 1:From that day on, the Bible just opened up. I couldn't get enough of the scripture. I was just soaking it in. Then I wanted to move back.
Speaker 1:I was living up in Duluth, minnesota. I moved back to Minneapolis St Paul area. I wanted to study the scripture. I didn't want to be a pastor, I didn't want to go into the ministry, I just wanted to find out what the Word of God. So I went to a three-year Bible college, graduated from there. When I was there I got remarried to a lady that has two kids. We've been married for 42 years now. Before I left Duluth, the pastor up there said Ken Joel 225 says I will restore to you all the years that the wormwood has eaten away. I had never opened up a Bible in my life. God would restore my life and that's what I needed. That's what I wanted so kind of fast-tracking here Today. I've been married 42 years to a godly woman. We've got five kids, 12 grandkids, and they're all followers of Christ. I'm the richest man in the world. But that promise 45 years ago God has made it all of a true.
Speaker 3:How did you know you were called into rescue missions?
Speaker 1:That's a long story too. Okay, so I finished Bible calling. I was preaching on an interim basis at the Glad Tidings mission in downtown Minneapolis, and I was Candidating for churches.
Speaker 3:So you thought a pastor role was probably where you were.
Speaker 1:I felt that the churches said, Ken, we can't have you because you're divorced and remarried. I understood the theology and where the church was at back then. So I tried to go to Mexico as a missionary. That didn't work. A little mission that I was preaching at. The guy called me up one day and said Ken, we're closing the doors, we don't have enough money, Nobody wants to take it. So me and another guy that I went to Bible college with took it over and we ran that little mission for 15, 16 years, Tag team in the preaching, and that cut my teeth in rescue work and I got a little burnt out. I went up and pastor to church for 11 years in Northern Minnesota and while I was there, the board chairman of the Union Gospel Mission Twin Cities walked in my church one day Over a cup of coffee. He said Ken, we're looking for a new director of the Union Gospel Mission Twin Cities. I want you to put your name in the hat.
Speaker 3:And that's no small mission.
Speaker 1:No, Four hundred overnight guests. You know at the time was eight million dollar budget and a hundred employees. And I said I can't do that. I've never run anything that big. He said, no, you got to try it, you got to do it. So I interviewed and they hired me. So I look back and everything I've done in life my drug use, alcoholism, divorce, searching for meaning in life, coming to Christ, running a small mission, pastoring the church, running a large mission, having all those leadership questions every day, like you said, right, Am I the right one to do this? Now? God's given me the privilege to go around and talk to others.
Speaker 3:So you understand the turf. Did you ever meet a Mickey Callum out of Oklahoma City? Okay, mickey Callum was first rescue mission director of our man. I went down to Oklahoma City I wasn't the director here. He came out in a full Native American chief's headdress costume because down Oklahoma you know his wife was Native American and he comes out. I've asked him for the director and he comes around the corner. I'm going is this Halloween, what is this? And he goes, fiecker from Topeka, puts his hand out and shakes my hand. He says welcome to Oklahoma City.
Speaker 3:I went out in the car and I said to my wife I think I made a big mistake. I don't think I want to go into rescue mission work. I don't think I'm cut out for it. But I stayed for a couple of days and we visited and saw his heart and Mickey had come through the doors of the Oklahoma rescue mission as a guest who was a chronic what he called hopeless alcoholic and he said rescue missions are the only place you can crawl through the front doors of hopeless alcoholic and drug addict and 10 years later be the executive director in the same place.
Speaker 3:And so what that taught me is we're all broken and sometimes in our brokenness we can help the broken even more when we find Christ is the healer and introduce them to the healer.
Speaker 1:Talk about brokenness. There's so much brokenness in our world right now. Our culture is crumbling, morals are crumbling, everything we knew to be true and steady. It's all kind of broken up and people are hurt and they have no place to go. I used to always tell my staff at the UGM in the Twin Cities we want to give a warm welcome to everybody, because everybody is made in the image and likeness of God. When they come into the mission, it might be the only time in their life they've ever felt the love and presence of God. Isn't that the truth? They come in de-shuffled, despondent, and they have a meal, they get some clothing, they get a bed for a few nights pretty soon. There's a little sparkle in their eye. You know their heads up and they look like there's something that's just taken over them.
Speaker 3:When somebody serves on the field and they get injured in the military, they get a purple heart. Amanda hasn't been here very long, but she's already got a purple heart and she's going to tell that story one of these days. We don't have time for that one right now, but I want to tell you what these are. Powerful, powerful experiences here because of the investment in people that other people maybe have forgotten, or people feel like they've been forgotten, but yet God has orchestrated to create something, starting in 1906 with a chronic alcoholic and a thief called Jerry McCauley.
Speaker 3:You know, people say why are you in the rescue mission worker? Who helped you get there? I said a hopeless alcoholic, but he was born before I was and he died before I was born. So we're here to say brokenness is part of life, but we don't have to remain broken. Whether you're living in under a bridge or an attempt, you're in a warming center, you're in a homeless shelter, maybe an abusive situation, wherever you are, jesus is coming back. That's true, and if you have not understood that, just like Ken, you can ask him yourself and he will speak to you.
Speaker 1:You probably have heard the song by Matthew West, Broken Things.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:Beautiful song Talk, I mean, it hits the nail right on the head. God uses Broken Things he does.
Speaker 3:He does. He can work all things together in anybody's life, and so Ken Peterson, regional coordinator, coach city gate network national operation here. Thanks for coming to Topeka, kansas, and visiting here again, spending some of your time with us.
Speaker 1:It's my honor to be here and congratulations to Topeka Rescumption and Amanda taking the leadership here. Just the hour I spent with her, she has the skill, the drive and the ability to make things happen. Good things are going to take place.
Speaker 3:God knows what he's doing, doesn't he. Yeah, so anyway, ken, again, thank you for being with us today. Thank you for listening to our community, our mission. If you would like more information about the Topeka Rescue Mission, you can go to trmonlineorg. That's trmonlineorg. Also, remember the City Gate Network, and I think there's a link there that you can find out more information about Ken's place that he represents, called City Gate Network. Thank you for listening to our community, our mission.