![]() 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.
1 Comment
Hellen
2/7/2025 03:35:42 am
Indeed the Church, us, need to go back to the basics, what Christ came to do - meet the needs of His pesole -
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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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