CHICAGO — Of the 55 million tourists who visit the Windy City each year, very few flock to Chicago's South Side – an area notorious for crime and battered neighborhoods that have seen brighter days.
Yet that's precisely where Kyle Martin, with a background in business and Bible studies, figuratively dropped his map pin. He saw something more: an outreach opportunity.
"There's a label of Englewood. There's a label of the Back of the Yards: Oh, it's tough. It's rough. Man, nobody wants you to come," he said on a hot and humid summer day referencing two South Side neighborhoods. "We've seen the opposite."
Martin has a passion for evangelism that has taken him across the country and overseas.
His latest stop encompassed an expansive South Side, Chicago block, where his ministry, Time to Revive, set up shop to share the Gospel by handing out thousands of pairs of shoes synonymous with a Chicago legend: Nike Air Jordans.
"We wait in line three or four hours in front of Foot Locker or Champs, [for] every Jordan release," said Jeriah Davis, who resides in Nashville but drove back to his hometown to volunteer with Martin's ministry outreach.
"To do it for Jesus – to do it for God, it's a beautiful thing," Davis reflected looking at the line of hundreds waiting for the shoe giveaway.
Footwear and Feeding the Multitude
The Texas-based ministry's Chicago event nearly hit its goal of distributing 5,000 Air Jordans. It handed out 3,800 pair in five days. A local ministry will distribute the remaining 1,200 shoes that were donated to Martin's Time to Revive.
During the June outreach, volunteers set up large tents, a mobile kitchen, and portable toilets to host the event – staffed with security, logistics coordinators, and hundreds of volunteers from more than 20 states and three who traveled out of country to participate.
"We have all these shoes, but we don't want to have it be mass chaos," said Time to Revive's Laura Martin, Kyle's wife, while guiding CBN News' camera crew on a tour of the outdoor operation.
"It feels like a process, like all the tents and all the stations, but the heart behind it is that people will be welcomed into a place," she explained. "We have a spirit of hospitality, and we want them to feel loved."
Many expressed that is what they encountered. Chicago resident Michelle Craig weathered both the rain and the summer sun for three hours.
"In our community, we do get hot. We get a little hostile," Craig said, describing the experience waiting in line. "We [are] built to be tough. Like everything is tough, tough, tough."
She told CBN News her patience paid off and her tough exterior melted away when she was greeted by the boisterous cheers of volunteers stationed at the first tent and staffed with people offering to pray with the guests and musicians playing worship music.
"When I made it inside, it was worth it, because I was going to leave," Craig admitted. Instead, she was overwhelmed by the love and hospitality she received and reduced to tears when embraced by a prayer volunteer.
"She was like my mother. She was so anointed, because it was so pure," Craig said, acknowledging she felt like she received much more than a pair of shoes. "I couldn't even stop crying."
During that warm welcome, runners were already working behind-the-scenes to match the correct shoe size for each guest. While they waited, other volunteers filled the time by relaying the message of the Gospel with Bible verses and colorful bracelets that illustrate the journey from sin to new life in Christ.
'Soles for Jesus': Paying Dual Dividends
It wasn't only Chicago residents who walked away with something they needed. Volunteers gained an intangible benefit that they said fueled their desire to share their faith in bolder ways.
Norma Berlin decided to sign up to help with Time to Revive after watching a documentary featuring Martin's ministry titled, "The One Who Hears: A Call to Obedience."
"And I [was] like, oh boy, what's God going to have me do?" she confessed. "So, I was like, oh no. 'Okay, Lord, I'm going to watch it.'"
Weeks later, Berlin was in Chicago learning practical ways to broach her faith in conversation with others.
While volunteering, she noticed a change in the faces of the people she was helping. She watched their guard gradually drop as they made their way from tent to tent. In her words, that "softening" reminded her of the depths of God's love and grace.
"God loved Ninevah so much," she explained, alluding to the Old Testament book of Jonah. "And he sent Jonah. He loves his people so much here in Chicago. He's like, 'I'm going to send an army to get you.'"
Martin acknowledged that his team wanted to meet the practical needs of the people in the community, but another goal was to move churchgoers out of the pews, to the streets, and to grow more comfortable about communicating God's rescue plan for the world.
"It really is fulfilling the Great Commission," he explained. "These volunteers are coming because they want an opportunity to go share the Gospel where they can actually see people's lives changed."
They did it through street ministry, round-the-clock intercessory prayer, Bible giveaways, and baptisms in a mobile truck.
Martin's "army" of nearly 550 volunteers recorded 240 people who made a profession of faith in Jesus and 150 people who received baptism during the week-long event. They also handed out 1,200 Bibles.
Part of the outreach included sending teams out each morning to pray with people in the streets. Afterwards, they would return and recount their experiences with fellow volunteers and ministry staff. Some could barely contain their excitement as they moved out of their comfort zones to share their faith.
That was true even for long-time or highly visible Christians, like Andre Toran – a volunteer who also serves as the team chaplain for the Chicago Bulls.
"It has challenged me to not only know what I believe, but it has challenged me to also share it in confident ways," Toran said of his experience volunteering. "We're built of flesh, and there are hesitancies that we have, as believers, that will stop us from doing certain things."
"I think this event has taught me to put the flesh aside and just get over yourself," he explained. "And that has allowed people to truly, I think, encounter the living Christ."
The outreach, dubbed "Soles for Jesus," partnered with another ministry called Texans on Mission. The group, which usually responds to disasters, provided nearly 10,000 meals for the volunteers and the people in the South Side neighborhood they came to serve.
"Why would we be doing something like this that's not a disaster?" asked Ray Gann, who led the Chicago field kitchen for Texans on Mission. "Well, there's no greater disaster than people that don't know the Lord and are separated from God."
A Wind of Change in Chicago to 'Change the World'
Chicago pastor Otis Davis has traveled with Martin's ministry working in other cities and states from Indiana to Montana. He had been pushing for an event in his neighborhood for 10 years.
"I saw there if God could change a small community and make a difference, he could definitely change Chicago," Davis told CBN News. "And if you can change Chicago, you can change the world."
His son, Dishon, agreed about the need for change. He grew up in the neighborhood with his brother, Jeriah.
"This is the Back of the Yards area where people shun away from. You'll get warnings: don't come to this area because of how dangerous it is," said Davis, who delayed his return to Boston, where he now resides, to continue volunteering in the outreach.
"This is exactly where salvation needs to be. This is exactly where God needs to be to make the transformation," he explained, describing the event as a symbol of hope.
The ministry often uses another metric to measure the effect of its work. There were no murders in either neighborhood during the time of the outreach. Chicago hit a 25-year high in homicides in 2021, while trending downward since 2024.
Seeing lives transformed is what prompted Martin to start Time to Revive and commit his life to Jesus's teaching in Matthew 28:19-20, which has now become his mantra: "Go. Make disciples. Baptize. And Teach."
"Statistics show that many, many people in America are not sharing the Gospel," Martin said. "And that really is our goal: to equip people to think, 'I can do this at a gas station. I can do this at a grocery store, or I can do this in my own neighborhood back where I live.'"
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