Behind a church surrounded by rolling prairie on the outskirts of Castle Rock, Colorado sits a donated RV that Joe Ridenour called home for a year after he lost his job during the pandemic. Being able to live in the RV, he said, allowed him to avoid returning to his native Kansas City, where he was afraid of backsliding into using methamphetamine again. Ridenour, who now has a maintenance job at the county fairgrounds and rents a room from a friend he met at The Rock church, said that without the church's help and the trailer, his drug use would have consumed him. Last year, the town of Castle Rock ordered the non-denominational evangelical church to stop providing shelter in the RV and another camping trailer for violating zoning regulations. The church responded by suing the town, located between Denver and Colorado Springs. On Friday, a federal judge ruled the church can continue to shelter the homeless in the campers temporarily while the lawsuit plays out. Echoing arguments made by other churches trying to serve the homeless from Oregon to Ohio, the Colorado church argues that helping those in need is religious activity protected by the Constitution. Its lawsuit is studded with references to the Bible’s exhortations to the faithful to take care of those in need. It also notes that surrounding Douglas County, one of the richest in the United States, has no other shelters for the homeless. The church’s property is not zoned for residential use and regulations forbid anyone from living in an RV anywhere in Castle Rock. The town has said it will “rigorously defend the zoning authority of communities,” but declined to comment on Friday’s ruling until officials had a chance to review it. In court, the town has argued the church could find other ways to help the homeless, like opening members’ homes to them or buying a property to house them in an area zoned for residential use. Earlier this year, the church had to turn down a request to let a mother and three children under the age of 7 who had been living in a car stay in one of the trailers, pastor Mike Polhemus said. Nearly a decade ago, the church began sheltering homeless women and children in its gym one night a week as part of a church network that took turns opening their doors to them. In 2018 the church began allowing homeless men to stay in the trailers after interviewing them and conducting background checks. The church network stopped its outreach to homeless families last year and The Rock was only able shelter to people in the trailers. After Friday’s ruling, Jeremy Dys, senior counsel for First Liberty Institute, which is representing the church, said he was sure the church would begin to welcome people back into the RVs as soon as possible. The lawsuit is based on both the church’s religious freedom under the First Amendment and a federal law intended to protect places of worship from being discriminated against in zoning decisions. The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, passed with bipartisan support by Congress in 2000, bars governments from imposing land use regulations that put a substantial burden on religious exercise without a compelling reason for doing so. It has helped a wide range of faiths build or expand places of worship but has also been invoked in legal fights over efforts to help the homeless. Before The Rock filed its lawsuit, a church in Bryan, Ohio, filed a similar federal case this year after its pastor was criminally charged for allowing homeless people to shelter there. The church and city officials have been trying to negotiate a resolution to the lawsuit, which also alleges the city violated the 2000 federal law. Two other recent lawsuits also alleged a violation of the 2000 law. In March, a federal judge ruled a city on Oregon’s southern coast could not limit a church’s homeless meal services. St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church’s lawsuit argued the city of Brookings’ ordinance limiting the program to two days a week and requiring a permit also violated its right to freely practice religion. Last year, a Christian non-profit that was penalized and threatened with prosecution in the Southern California city of Santa Ana for feeding homeless people settled its lawsuit against the city after the Justice Department weighed in.