MT. COMFORT — They filled the living room, seated in a circle formed by a couch and chairs.
The dozen women and men gathered caught up on their week. A man talked about a Bible study with a colleague over lunch hour. A woman talked about the road to sobriety and getting to talk with her daughter on the phone.
Mo Wildey’s Bible was open on the coffee table. He read from the 10th chapter of Luke. As the group prayed, one woman began to cry, and the woman next to her patted her shoulder. They sang a chorus to close.
The weekly gathering at a house in Mt. Comfort is one of some half-dozen Yeshua Society groups that gather in a typical week. In the three years since the church began, it has formed various weekly groups that meet for Christian discipleship and also, in some cases, recovery from addiction. There’s a vision to reach out to people on the southeast side of Indianapolis, from downtown Indy into Hancock County.
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A few years ago, Wildey was a church elder in New Palestine. He had moved back from Tampa and had been running public relations agencies for years.
One inner-city ministry that had been a client approached Wildey about starting a church in an apartment complex. They asked him to go back to his church and see if it was interested. So Wildey brought it up to the leadership at Brookville Road Community Church in New Palestine.
They were supportive — of the project, and of Wildey leading it.
“The desire that Mo had to share Christ with others and help them out of poverty propelled Mo to start the Yeshua Society,” Kris Sorensen, lead pastor at Brookville Road, wrote in an email. “Our elders and congregation were excited to launch Mo and his team to begin this work and invite others to join him.”
Wildey said the monthly police runs to the neighborhood dropped by about 75 percent as the church got started there.
There has been a learning curve as Yeshua Society’s leaders have tried to follow what they feel God is instructing them to do. For a season, the church also operated a Christian elementary school but later felt called to focus instead on recovery ministry. Wildey said the school offered a valuable glimpse, though, into how families live in the inner city.
God “wants us to be his presence in places that are kind of tough,” Wildey said. “God gave us a heart for people who are struggling, not only with abuse, but also hurts of any kind.”
For Yeshua Society, which takes its name from the Hebrew for “Jesus,” helping those struggling often includes helping them climb out of addiction and/or poverty. Several of its weekly gatherings are Celebrate Recovery, a faith-based 12-step program, or support group meetings. Leaders are also cultivating a list of businesses willing to offer a job to people trying to make a new start.
“We are really against giving things away and doing things for people that enable them to stay in a bad spot,” Wildey said. “Our focus is going to be on working with people who have decided they want to get out of the bad situation they have found themselves in … They want to get out, and they understand Jesus is the answer.”
Matt Jouppi, president of Custom Exteriors on Mt. Comfort Road, said when he and his father and sister heard Wildey’s vision, it seemed like a good fit.
“We’re just trying to extend to them some more security — a good place to work, an opportunity to be around a family-owned and operated business,” Jouppi said. “We’re just really trying to give somebody another chance to succeed and further their growth.”
It’s a chance Justin Gribbins is grateful for.
He’s has worked at Custom Exteriors for several months now. Jouppi said Gribbins “has fit in wonderfully here” and is “a wonderful example of what God’s trying to do with this mission.”
Gribbins had tried to break free from addiction before, but he seemed to drift back to familiar routines. A second overdose, however, was a wake-up call.
He came to and found himself being loaded into the back of an ambulance, not sure what was going on. His mother and cousin were bawling on the front porch.
“It broke my heart,” he said. “That was a real eye-opener for me that I needed to do something.”
Gribbins connected with people from Yeshua Society who were coming to a Salvation Army rehabilitation center to lead Bible studies and Celebrate Recovery meetings.
“I liked the spiritual side of it,” he said. “They build a personal relationship with you, too. They really show the love.”
Having been clean for 18 months, Gribbins said he appreciates the family feel of the company and the ways a job and recovery ministry are helping him feel some stability in his life.
“I’ve got a great support system,” he said.
Like Gribbins, Joseph Jones met Wildey at the Salvation Army. He watched lifelong users gravitate to Wildey.
“He was talking about hope — hope that comes through the love of Christ.”
Today Jones is director of discipleship/recovery ministry for Yeshua Society. He said the work helps him in his own recovery and that, long after drugs and alcohol exit people’s bodies, they have to work on the inner issues that brought them to using in the first place.
“This isn’t a program,” he said. “It’s a lifestyle change.”
As he looks at different people in various houses, each with his or her own story, he sees how they are the same.
“We all come from different places,” he said, but “We’re all on the same page, and that page is God Almighty.”
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Yeshua Society has a service and meal at 10 a.m. Sundays at 90 S. Seventh Ave. in Beech Grove. That site is "The Hub" for the church.
There are also a few house churches and some recovery groups meeting in Greenfield and Indianapolis through the week, in addition to two residential homes in the Mt. Comfort area.
Leaders hope to eventually open a ministry center on the southeast side of Indianapolis with a minimum of 100 transitional beds for recovery purposes. The hope is to also have a day center for homeless people and a youth center.
Yeshua Society is also helping launch a church in Escandido, California, in the San Diego suburbs.
Information: yeshuasociety.org
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