Out With Night Minister Doug
By Michael P. Evans
It’s nine o’clock on a warm Friday night in September, and I’m meeting Night Minister Doug Binzak for a walk through the Tenderloin. He tells me he’s taking me to visit his parishioners.
Our first stop is at what Doug calls a “man cave,” an open garage on Hyde Street whose owner, Alex, has intentionally made it a community gathering place. Neighbors are welcome to stop by and spend time there, provided they respect a few boundaries: no drugs and no disruptive behavior. Alex is strict about these rules because he has a teenage daughter. He wants the space to be safe for her, but also for the community around him.
In any other neighborhood, sitting in an open garage on a Friday night would be ordinary. But this is the Tenderloin. And Alex says that that’s the point. He’s created a neighborhood living room and explicitly shares hopes that he’s making it a safer and friendlier place to be.
Doug describes chaplaincy in the Tenderloin using the language of a church. The people he meets on the streets are constantly moving. There’s no guarantee that people he meets in a location on any given Friday night will be in the same spot the following week. These are “Christmas and Easter churchgoers,” he says. The core of the congregation, however, includes more permanent community members such as bartenders, shop owners, police officers, and everyday residents like Alex.
From the “man cave,” we walk a few blocks to the police station, where Doug checks in with an officer nearing the end of a long shift. She’s tired and ready to get home to family. Before long, conversation turns to an important pastoral matter: what kind of pizza tired police officers might prefer if a certain Night Minister happened to arrive bearing food one evening. For her, it’s cheese. “I’m like a kid that way,” she says.
A short distance away, two women greet us.
“You’re Father Michael, right?” one calls out to Doug. She’s referring to Night Minister Michael Mallory, whom they met on these same streets the night before.
“Nah,” the other answers. “Michael’s shorter than you.”
They tell us they’re enjoying a night out before one woman’s daughter turns nineteen at midnight. “Thank you Jesus she’ll finally be old enough to go out on her own,” the mother jokes, with perhaps an ounce of sincerity beneath the humor.
Other conversations emerge as we walk. One man, grateful for the chance to decompress after a stressful day, tells us that making visual art is one way he cares for his soul. Another young man offers us blessings in Arabic for serving the community.
With that last encounter, it strikes me just how much vibrancy, humanity, and spirit are out on these streets at night, long before a night minister ever shows up. There’s community in Alex’s garage, behind the desk at the police station, among mothers celebrating their children, in an artist finding restoration through creativity, and in a stranger offering his own blessing on the sidewalk.
And Night Ministry begins by showing up to meet all of it.
After nearly two hours, Doug and I part ways. He continues his Friday-night circuit, while I walk a short distance to meet my spouse and enjoy a drag show at Aunt Charlie’s, the Tenderloin’s last remaining gay bar.
By now, I recognize that I’ve accompanied Doug for more than a night walk. Instead, I’ve been treated to a tour around one small corner of his parish. It’s not always clean or friendly or safe. But it nonetheless has familiar corners, familiar faces, and the occasional stranger who sees a collar and decides to say hello.
Behind me, the neighborhood carries on. Somewhere on Hyde Street, Alex’s garage is still open.
