In 2019, Pastor James Whitfield was cited by his city council for running an unlicensed food distribution operation. His church had been serving free hot meals to homeless residents in a park every Saturday morning for four years. The city said he needed a commercial food licence, event permits, and liability insurance. The fines totalled over twelve thousand dollars.
Not the Fight He Wanted
"I'm a pastor, not an activist," James says. "I didn't want to be in the news. I just wanted to feed people." But the citations kept coming. When he tried to comply with the permit requirements, new objections were raised. It became clear the issue wasn't food safety — it was that some residents didn't want homeless people gathering in the park.
James felt God pressing him to keep going. "I kept reading the gospels and I couldn't find the verse where Jesus checked the permit situation before multiplying the loaves."
Standing Firm
A civil liberties organisation took up the case, arguing that the city's selective enforcement violated religious exercise protections. The legal process took fourteen months. During that time, three other churches joined the Saturday meals — something that had never happened before.
The court ruled that the city had applied regulations in a discriminatory manner. All fines were vacated. But the bigger outcome was the coalition: seven churches now coordinate meals across the city, serving five times the number of people the original Saturday programme reached.
What This Means for You
Sometimes opposition to what you're doing is actually the pressure that expands it. James wanted to feed fifty people on Saturday mornings. The lawsuit led to five hundred being fed across the whole week. God's maths doesn't always make sense in the moment, but the results speak for themselves.