![]() Share now, to be able to Protect Later I've always been a little bit uncomfortable with the ministry of the church in the first century. The idea that a church would focus on caring for members, rather than for the wider community rubs me the wrong way. It's a lesson that I don't think was taught to me directly, but that I heard clearly. Here is the problem with that lesson. In the churches I have been in, we don't take care of our members, either. I mean, we are nice, and we take care of everyone's spiritual needs. At some of the churches we try to encourage those with less to take advantage of our pantry or thrift shop. But I've never been in a church where we sit down with people who don't have enough and say "can we figure out how to take care of your needs?" I know of one church that had an unknown person wander in, share his hardship tale, and the congregation came together to help him. They were cautious and slow, but spent time getting to know him, and then came through with help with housing, help with food, drove him to appointments, and more. It revived the place. It gave them a sense of purpose. It opened up discussions on what is the purpose of a church community. They could have instead worked on institutional issues--in his case it was the justice system--and worked to fix that system to be more fair. I hope that there are churches that are doing that, and maybe this church will turn to that work. But they were tiny, worn out, lost in the journey of how to save their congregation. This person was a simple enough project, directly in front of them, and welcoming of their care. A lot of people are going to need that immediate care in the coming weeks and months and years. Higher prices will hurt the poor especially hard. People who are transgender or are immigrants are at high risk. People who are Lesbian or Gay or Bisexual or Jewish or Muslim or have chronic illnesses or disabilities and more, are afraid. I encourage you to find one household, or one group of households, that are members of your church and figure out what they need. Figure out everything they need. Do they need help with accessing material resources? Do they need additional counseling, or a lawyer? Gather money and buy them what they need. Maybe many people in your congregation can work on finding someone a new doctor, doing research on places they can move that are safer, creating a support group for your member and their friends. This is not something you can do to a person in need. This requires working with. Start small. A few people who know the people-at-risk can gather with them and start the conversation. "Our church wants to provide you the supports you need. How are you doing and what kinds of things can we help with?" Unless your church has a history of providing in-depth support, they will not be able to imagine what you are willing to do. Perhaps you cannot imagine what you can do. Start small, but do offer ideas, like the possibility of checking in-weekly, doing internet research for them. Perhaps you can just help them turn off the news by promising to report what is going on in summary form. Perhaps they would like someone to talk to the school system about how they are being treated. Ask for permission before including a larger group in the discussion. Money does not solve everything. But it solves many things. Be direct in offering to pay for additional counseling or lawyers, or school lunches, or gasoline to get places. Obviously some people need more financial help than others, but even a middle class family could be overwhelmed by health care needs when the system seems so fragile. And moving, whether to another state or another country, is expensive. In the vein of hoping for everything, but expecting nothing, we want to be supporting these church members because we could get to a place where real people in our town or in our government are threatening physical violence against them. The better we know them, the more we have practiced being their support system, the more likely that we will be the church that stands between hate and our neighbor. Loving your neighbor as yourself may be a commandment that requires us to take significant risks. Get started now building the relationships that will make it easier to choose love over fear.
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![]() Share with Each Other There are a fair number of negative commentaries about the earliest church gatherings. They are disdainful of the Christian practice of caring for each other. The biggest rebuke is that it would be so easy for someone to cheat them--to join the church to take advantage of the shared wealth, rather than joining out of faith. In the early church, all of the wealth of the members was shared in common. We don't know exactly how that worked, but we know that it happened, not only from the witness of Acts (2:42-47), but because of the writings making fun of the practice. Sharing prayers, studying scripture, and eating in homes may have been the primary sharing. They gathered their resources, purchased what was needed for dinner, cooked, and cleaned together. Perhaps there was a more complicated plan. What kind of plan would we need in our churches today to replicate this practice? We are likely to face times in the near future where food prices go up, unemployment goes up, and government benefits go down. We should fight that, and we'll talk about those strategies later, but in the immediate context, we will have people in our churches, our neighbors, the family of God, who will need material help to get by. And isn't that what we do best--care for one another? The thing that helps households the most when facing financial difficulty is cash. Giving people money to spend as they choose is what gives the greatest support. It feels counter-cultural just to say that out loud! How do we just give people money? We could encourage people to give or take from the offering plate as it is passed, although in my churches there is little there to take (most give by check or online.) We could hand out $50 bills to those who come to worship, encouraging those with plenty to give it away, and those with little to keep it. If you prefer a more organized structure, people with excess in their budgets can create a fund that is distributed (once a month?) among those who don't have enough. I can hear all of your worries as you read this, because I have them too. How will we make sure that only people who need money are receiving it? Like the first century Romans, I can't help but worry about cheaters. But also how will we make sure that those who need money will choose to take advantage of the program? Should we figure out a line for what constitutes need? What if someone uses the money for alcohol or for illegal drugs? Although many pantries and other give-away programs have strategies for the receivers to qualify for the goods, those are in most cases not actually required. We are allowed to give what we have to whoever we want to. Sara Miles corrects a volunteer in her book Take this Bread: they can't steal from us, because we are offering it for free. And remember that we are talking about caring for members. We'll get to how to create a wider circle in a later conversation. Here I am wondering about just taking care of people that we know. Can we find a way to provide for Marla who sits on the back left; or Harold who sings in the choir, or Juan who comes once a month with his grandson? We have small ways of doing this now. We have the pastor's discretionary fund, which I hate, where someone comes in private to beg as carefully as they can, and the pastor decides who is worthy, and of how much they are worthy for. Our positive intent is to maintain confidentiality and allow the possibility of deeper care, but the impact is that only people who have the nerve to ask, to plea, for help have access to that fund. How much risk would we be taking if there is no explanation required--members of the congregation who need money are handed money. Is that over the top wild? We are incredibly concerned that it won't be fair. That someone who needs more won't get it or that someone will get more than they need. That someone will feel guilty for not giving, or embarrassed to receive. Perhaps, like the Romans, we are afraid that hundreds of poor people will join our church just to get their share of the wealth. Certainly that fear gives me pause. Don't we want more people to join, so they can help, and pledge, and hear the good news? (Wait, is that the right order?) We aren't really afraid too many poor people will join us, are we? The good news in the first century was that Kingdom of God was really, right then, at hand. I find it hard to feel that way right now. But if we could create small communities where everyones financial needs are cared for, wouldn't that be a miracle? Wouldn't that be good news? ![]() Another leadership meeting. Our pizza place is closed for the summer, so we've been meeting picnic style on the common. It's not optimum, some people are uncomfortable on the ground, if we meet on the park chairs we are in a row not a circle, so discussion is hard. So we set up a couple blankets out and walked around and told those hanging out on the benches that our discussion would taking place on the blankets and they are welcome to join us. One older gentleman came almost 20 minutes early to talk, so we visited with him until 4pm. Another regular from worship arrived right on time and we began with prayer and Bible Study. We are looking at Psalm 133: "how wonderful it is when people live together in unity". Pizza (from another store) arrived at 4:30 and we talked about how important eating is to creating community. We also discussed how to drink soda without cups! Six or so people from the surrounding seats came over to join us. Debbie, a young African American woman who had been at worship for the first time this morning, accepted her pizza but would not sit down. "I don't want to be rude" she said "but how is this church helping the homeless any more than anyone else?" Yes. How are we helping? I offered something about how we know we aren't providing housing or food, or the things people need the most. She offered other examples of things we don't do. I agreed. I went on to share that we are distinctive--that we are outside, so people can drink or walk around, or take a break. That we remind people that God loves them before they get sober. That we welcome all people, including those that are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender. I was at a loss of what else to say. Diane spoke up "I'm an alcoholic, and today was the first time I felt like I could stay in church, because I was drunk when I came." Dave said "I've been sober a long time, but I need to move around. I always come late." James said "And you guys really listen to us." Debbie pulled up some blanket and sat down. We continued with a discussion about what makes "unity" and what makes "community." Then we moved on to the business of the meeting. We have $600 in our budget from the offering. How shall we spend that money? Bus tokens, or bus passes. What should we do for a donation? Abbey's house, Jeremiah's Inn, Rachel's Kitchen. No, someone hollers, I want us to do bus passes. "Bus passes are for us. What do we want to do for other people?" This description of our meeting sounds so organized. Can you tell that all this is happening at once? At the same time a guy rode up on a bike, hollered for one our participants, and was told to get out of here. Two people went off to smoke, one volunteered followed, and for a few minutes we had two discussion circles 12 feet apart. Someone complained that this can't be bible study if we don't have bibles, and another handed him the printout of Psalm 133 and said "this is about community". Someone else complained that Abbey's house and Jeremiah's Inn get government money, so we shouldn't help them. Debbie called us all to attention. "I have an idea. How about we use the $60 that we give away to buy food for Abbey's House. Then we can meet a church in the area and make dinner for the women there. You know they have to get together and cook dinner for themselves every night." "Why $60?" "It's 10% of $600." "I want bus passes." "We can do that, too." "Shall we do dinner for Abbey's House?" "Yeah!" "All in favor say 'aye'." We passed the proposal just as lightening ran across the sky. "Someone pray us out." I said, "quickly!" Brian prayed for the homeless everywhere, and for the women at Abbey's house. We handed out the last of the pizza and raced to our various places for shelter just as the drops poured from the sky. |
My ThoughtsFor my organized thoughts, see my book Five Loaves, Two Fish, Twelve Volunteers: Developing Relational Food Ministries. In this spot are thoughts that appear for a moment--about food programs, mission, church, building community, writing, and whatever else pops into my head. History
February 2025
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