Pathway Ministries' path to transformation

PEORIA—When Peoria Rescue Ministries rebranded earlier this year to Pathway Ministries, it was just better describing what it had already become.

What started as a downtown rescue ministry serving coffee and doughnuts to homeless men 69 years ago had developed into much more. Its name needed to change (again) to reflect what it has become over the past several decades—a path to a better life for people whose hope was waning.

The path is:

• Crisis relief for those who are homeless, trying to start a new life, or trying to overcome an addiction.
• Transformation, which emphasizes education, training, and counseling.
• Transition, helping those who have gotten this far to establish a stable life through community and support.

But the growth and change needed to be better communicated to the community.

“Our mission statement five years ago became ‘Creating pathways out of poverty through Jesus with our neighbors in need,’” said executive director Jonathan Rocke. “As we made all those changes, we realized that it was only internally. Externally, people still really just thought of us predominantly as the downtown homeless shelter for men.

“We had high brand awareness (as Peoria Rescue Ministries), but we had low brand understanding. And so we began to really ask the question, ‘How can we communicate more clearly who we are?’, and that’s what ended up leading to the name change.”

Employing the help of Clear Design Group in Bloomington, the ministry officially adopted the new name in August 2023.

“Then in October of last year, we sort of treated it like a dimmer switch,” Rocke said. “We didn’t want to just flip a switch and say one day we’re Peoria Rescue Ministries and the next day we’re Pathway Ministries.”

Next steps

First, the staff was introduced to the change, then they began rolling it out to major donors, officially making the switch in January of this year.

Rocke and staff also had to make sure that the community didn’t see the update as a brand change, but as branding catching up with what the ministry had become.

“It’s really a chance to reintroduce ourselves and better answer the question ‘Who are we? What do we do?’” he said.

Besides the name, Pathway got a nifty new logo showing four arrows combining into a cross and pointing to a crossroads.

“It represents how we understand poverty,” Rocke said. “Poverty is brokenness that we experience in four fundamental relationships of life: our relationships with God, ourselves, others, and the rest of creation. In the logo, they’re all pointing to the cross because we believe that Jesus is the answer for that path out of poverty.”

The ministries

When it started in 1955 as the Peoria City Mission, the ministry’s key focus was on rescuing men and, later, women from poverty, abandonment, or addiction and giving them a shot at a better life, in the process introducing them to the Author of Life. That happened initially for men through its downtown facility at 601 SW Adams St. But over the years, its outreach to the community grew, offering more services to more people in different life situations:

• Women transitioning to a new life at its Women Residential Center, informally known as Esther House, located on North Allen Road.
• Expectant and new moms through its Women’s Pregnancy Center, now the Empower Life Center at 1825 N. Knoxville Ave.
• People needing life guidance through Barnabas Counseling at 1831 N Knoxville Ave.
• People needing work skills at its Victory Acres facility in Mapleton.
• Transitional help for men at its 1212 Community House.

The goal had become “lasting life change,” Rocke said. The “path” concept better represents the concept of a journey from crisis to transformation.

And on any journey, “it’s best to walk with others,” Rocke said.

“So we began to put services, programs, and education efforts around what would help take somebody who’s experiencing homelessness, addiction, or abuse, and animate them and help them move on.

“In essence, a pathway out of poverty through Jesus.”

That led their mission statement to focus on creating pathways out of poverty. Then the rebranding happened, but they needed help.

“We realized in this endeavor that this was going to take more than what we had internally,” Rocke said. “We needed to get some expertise. And to find somebody that had a heart for ministry. God kind of introduced us to Clear Design.”

Broadening horizons

One major change in the new name is the lack of “Peoria.” The ministry started in 1955 as Peoria City Mission, then changed to Peoria Rescue Mission in 1984. Just three years later, the name was changed to Peoria Rescue Ministries to reflect the growing number of ministries it was offering.

Dropping “Peoria” is reflective of the ministry’s growing geographical draw.

“We get referrals from across the state and even the region now because of the quality programming we have,” Rocke said.

The growing range of services offered continues. The 1212 Community House for men, a transitional house, is the ministries’ most recent addition, but its Reclaimed Center on Southwest Jefferson Street is nearly complete and will feature decorative works and furniture created from salvaged wood pallets and other materials. The center will back up across the alley from Pathway’s Peoria Mulch business at 1119 SW Adams St., which gets its mulch from Pathway’s Victory Acres in Mapleton, where men and women who have trod the Pathway Ministries path get work experience and create a funding resource for the ministry as well as they transition to a productive life.

Quite a path.

Pathway Ministries—numbers of care

100,000+: Meals provided by Pathway in 2023.

50,000+: Nights of shelter provided across the ministries.

60: Average number of women housed per night at the Women Residential Center (Esther House).

160: Average number of clients served per month at Barnabas Counseling.

478: Number of women served in the past year at Empower Life Center, including those coming for pregnancy tests and those being helped with material assistance for their babies.