You probably never even noticed that the lights went out in Georgia last week. Well, actually the lights didn’t go out in all of Georgia but just on a little 3.8 acre spot only a few blocks away from the Georgia State Capital which has been the home of Blood n’ Fire Ministries for the past fifteen years. It was fifteen years ago, nearly to the day, that the very first service was held in an old warehouse at 188 Martin Luther King Blvd.. That service started a significant revolution among the homeless in Atlanta. It was there in that pre Civil War brick warehouse that literally thousands of hurting and wounded souls found, if nothing else, a little band of misfit people who actually cared. It was there that hundreds every day were treated to a ‘hot and a cot’. (A hot meal and a place to lie down out of the weather at night) Many of the great spiritual leaders of our time made their way through that old warehouse in those fifteen years to see the phenomenon of the poor and homeless actually being loved and treated with dignity, something that is almost non-existent today in American religion. Dan Cathey, CEO of Chick Fil-A, saw it as important enough to include it in his “Vision and Values” tour; a VIP tour with Chick Fil-A store managers from all over the world, in which they were taken to less than a dozen strategic points around Atlanta that Cathey deemed “where it was happening”. Those visitors would leave the elegance and status of the Coca Cola Tower and head straight for 188 MLK, where they would rub shoulders with those who had no home, and in most cases, no hope. It was there in that warehouse that at least one of the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted was arrested. Church groups from all over the world found their way to Blood n’ Fire to see, and feel, what was happening there. Most of those groups left there changed, never to be the same again. Strategically located in the heart of the ‘projects’, (Grady Homes and Capital Homes) Blood n’ Fire was maybe the only light that some Atlanta’s most ignored and rejected citizens would ever see. My ‘great’ friends, David and Janice VanCronkhite, founders of BnF, walked away from the guarantee of wealth and comfort years ago to spend their lives in helping the poor get a toehold on life. Then there was that $50,000 a month budget which no one knew where it would come from, it just did!  Criticized and unsuccessful, for the most part, in the eyes of the world to rehabilitate the multitudes of homeless men and women….but only if you don’t ask those who found food, shelter and genuine unconditional love….and hope there; and not if you ask the Father, for it was His heart being ‘fleshed out’ there on a daily basis. Why sell? Forced out by urban renewal at its best. Last Thursday when the papers were signed with Georgia State University, an era ended. That’s the night the lights went out in Georgia. Somebody should cry…..