I recently received an encouraging email from Ward Kelley, a long-time reader of this blog and someone I consider an “online” friend. I asked his permission to share his comments with you…
Good morning. I got up this morning and decided I would read your book Put service back into church service. As I have been struggling with the whole idea of what church really is…I find that your writings in this area the most applicable to my station in life. Pages 66-68 concerning church programs and their need for a finite life, and of feeding “Jim Handley’s” family while he found a job struck a chord with me.
Last month my wife — the social creature with a big heart that she is — met a couple through a woman’s prayer group at the church we attend who was pouring out her heart about their impending homelessness. We took them out to dinner to assess their situation and after finding out they had not approached the church for assistance I suggested they request aid through the church benevolence fund.
She approached the church by phone, though they had been attending for some time, seeking $1,500.00 to help them move into an apartment. The finance leader of the church, without even so much as a conversation, said that a check for $250.00 would be left at the front desk for her. Something is better than nothing, of course, but the woman felt that since the man had not cared enough to inquire into their situation, that he did not care about them as people. She felt he was dismissive, and the $250, while very generous, was not nearly enough to actually provide any help to their actual crisis.
I called and left message for the finance pastor and received no call back so I cornered him at church. I asked him if he could fill in some blanks for me concerning this family and he had no facts. He stated they got calls all the time for money and couldn’t get the details on every one. I am aware this happens as I was involved with benevolence at a previous church. When I reminded him that they were not strangers but part of this church’s family… He couldn’t get away from me fast enough.
Is this how we are to treat family?
So I decided to take matters into my own hands.
I got more deeply involved searching out cheaper home alternatives for them and found several. Then I arranged a meeting to discuss in more depth with the husband his budget, and alternatives for them to live. My wife and I made it know that we were willing to help them bridge the gap with some financial and other assistance till they were back on their feet.
It was obvious that the work we did and the personal care we gave meant a lot to this family. My wife and I enjoyed it immensely as well!
Why didn’t the church do this for them?
Though of course, as you point out on your blog, since my wife and I “are the church” I suppose “the church” did help out this family…
In the end, the man decided to move his family in with his father rather than take one of the alternative routes I offered. A week later he asked for $300 to help with the transition. Had the finance pastor spent 15 minutes with this couple, listening, showing compassion, and guiding them biblically, he could have accomplished this in the name of the church.
Ironically this same finance pastor was busy preparing a “Church Event” of outreach to poor children in the community where they came to the church for free health and dental checkups, and haircuts. I cynically suggested to my wife that this was subliminally designed as a membership drive… Like so many churches they are expending massive time and money on programs to bring people in the front door, while they lose even more out the back door by not truly loving or caring for the people who are already there.
Again, a few weeks ago my wife found a young couple living in a tent behind a strip mall. She began by helping them by driving them around, and bringing them over to shower and wash their clothes. In subsequent conversations I believe that they are Christians … yet young and immature in the faith. Last week a storm blew through, knocked their tent down and soaked all their meager belongings, so they have been in our home since then. Some friends of ours offered to allow them to live in a travel trailer in their yard till they got back on their feet. We met last night as a group to decide a game plan for this young couple. My friend is also struggling with his role in the “church,” and is finding this sort of approach to be much closer to the way of Jesus.
Not all relationships are instant success stories!
Of course, it is critical to remember that even when serving others in such tangible ways, lives are messy, people change slowly, and there are numerous setbacks and we walk with people through their difficulties.
Take, for example, the couple that recently moved into our home with us. They were within one day of having the trailer ready to move into … and blew it.
The guy (James) took a day off from his contracting job to go over and finish the job. He decided that since he was off work that it would be a good day to buy a case of beer and get plastered. Once drunk he managed to get into a fight with the trailer owner’s son in law who was helping him. Needless to say, after being given a warning during our sit down meeting not to cause any drama … he was told never to come back.
After spending the night at an emergency department with him I directed my wife to take Mandy up to the local extended stay and pay for their first week.
It is frustrating in one sense working with dysfunctional people, even more so when they claim to be born again. Living in the south, everyone has biblical knowledge, and can talk a good game … but the discipleship, the love, the need to serve Christ are not present. We are going to continue to assist them, rides to work, church, grocery, etc. I reasserted to my friend and wife that sometimes serving Christ, and people, can get messy.
We don’t love and serve others for thank you’s or recognition, but to serve Christ.
Anyway, I think your writings in this and other books about the church are spot on. It is a struggle to make the transition, but I wanted you to know that your writings encourage me on to finding my place in the body of Christ, whether others find in unconventional or not.
Ward Kelly
Thank you, Ward! Your email is not only an encouragement to me, but to many others who are trying to follow Jesus in similar ways.
Here is a video from Keith Green that Ward sent along later which reminds us of this point:
Do any of you have similar stories to share about how God is using you to “be the church” in your neighborhood and community? Feel free to share them in the comments below!
Hmmm. Did you just post this today? Perhaps there is feed back on it’s way, but I was noticing how (yet again) you can get so many (almost viral) comments/interest in theological debate (on so many “principles”).
But when you post one such as this… there are not many naysayers. They seem to disappear!
Even if we are “cut to the heart” by the Love/Life/Spirit of Jesus to “go and do likewise”… it’s just not that exciting (some would say “sexy”), eh? It’s not something the natural man gets excited about.
What about the new man, created in Christ for good works?
May we walk in newness of Life.
Peace to all!
M.
Yes, this post just went up today.
Yes, this just went up today. As you say, theological and controversial posts tend to get more comments, but practical posts like this about loving others in the messiness of their lives often do not get many comments. But people are still reading them… and I hope posts like this are an encouragement for others to reach out and love others.
Church benevolence programs are awkward to run:
* Who receives;
* What do they receive;
* For how long do they receive;
The simple solution is $x.00 to all comers, untill the pot is empty.
That does nothing to minimize tge situation from reoccuring.
It does nothing as a long-trem solution.
It might, be need not be benificial in the short-term.
A variant is to screen people, and then write a check for $x.00.
This suffers from the same issues.
It is, unfortunately, appears to be the most common solution.
* Years ago, a crisis line I worked at had a list of churches, and the maximum amount they would give to a single individual. It was standard to tell callers needing rent-money to prevent eviction, to go to a dozen or more churches, none of which would provide more than one hundred dollars.
A variant I’ve seen popping up, is:
* Screen the requester;
* If they qualify, they get $x.00, but only if:
** This is a one time situation;
** The can obtain enough money to pay for everything, even though $x.00 is substantially short of the required amount;
The issue here is that the person can be five or ten dollars short, and come up empty-handed.
An approach I’ve seen one congregation do, is:
* Adopt the entire family;
* Pay for all housing, medical, grocery, transportation costs;
* Pay for any education/re-training the family members need. That includes paying all expenses for children attending an accredited academic institution;
* Untill the major bread-winner has been gainfully employed for three months;
This approach aims to provide a viable long-term solution, and prevent it from ever occuring to any family member, again.
One of the major issues with church-run aid is “conversion by bribery”. The result of providing aid only to members of the church. How to restrict aid to members of the congregation, without people “converting” or “joining” purely, or even mainly due to the aid that they receive, is a hard problem. One solution that almost works, is for nobody in the congregation to know about the programme. The deacons discuss who recieves the assistence, and provide it, without the recipient being any the wiser. Sometimes, but not always, the co-operation of the recipient is required.
Yes, these programs are very difficult to run. Although, I think in general, the church does a better job of it than the government. You are also right that sometimes churches use their aid to bribe or force people to “convert” or “make commitments” to the church.
I know I did this with marital counseling when I was a pastor. If people wanted me to counsel them, I required that they start attending the church regularly. This was, of course, “for their own good.” Ha!
Hi Ward. Thank you so much for what you are doing to show Jesus’ love to others. Most churches are not set up to handle such requests and most probably have no idea how to do so. However, if the requests come from people who are part of the church, people the church knows, of course the church should help those people.
People the church do not know are much more problematic. The system I have seen that worked the best was a system where all of the churches in several contiguous mid-size towns rented one small office that served all of the churches in those towns. One lady worked in that office. She knew almost everyone. When people who were mot part of any church approached any church, they sent them to that lady, who could help them with food, money and other essentials.
Many but not all of the people requesting help went to every church in town asking for money. Before the system was in place, the churches compared notes and found that as many a a dozen of them had given the same people money before those folks moved on to the next town, the next county and then the next state, getting money everywhere they went. This was not conjecture. I worked in law enforcement and dealt these issues regularly and saw the police reports. Some of these people had criss-crossed the country for years inventing stories to get money from churches.
I was also on the board of a medium size church. If we had fulfilled every request for money, we would have given out three to four times the church’s annual income in most years.
Most churches simply do not know how to handle all of this and quite often err on the side of giving almost no one money, including members of the congregation. Agreed, churches spend millions on properties and staffing, money that many of us think could be better spent feeding the hungry, putting a roof over the heads of the homeless, providing clean drinking water for the world, providing vaccines for many diseases than run rampant in the third world and so on.
However, there is a place for wisdom in all of this. Even though we may err on the side of giving to those who are con artists who do not need our resources, but make their living scamming people, does it not behoove us to make a concerted effort to at least try to make sure that our resources, time and money are going to those who really are needy? Every $ I give to a con artist is one less $ available for me to give to someone who really does need it. I think many churches don’t want to bother with that or don’t know how, but instead turn away most or all who knock at their doors. At best they offer “crumbs to the beggars” (the wording I heard the head deacon of one church say in regards to this issue).
Hi Sam:
I guess part of my point in this story was that the church to do the compassionate thing in listening to the requests, and instead cut a check so as not to get their hands dirty. This particular church does give some money to a county cooperative set up to deal with needs such as these. The manner in which the finance pastor dismissed meeting with them by acknowledging the churches support of that cooperative was disturbing.
I used to sit in on benevolence situations at a church I used to attend, they required all those who did not attend church there, who were looking for money to come sit through a service, and then we would meet. As a team, associate pastor and deacons, we would assess their situation. The church would ask them to bring in their bills and we would set up a budget for them. If there was a short fall, the church would meet the shortfall till bills were paid, or income increased. In every case I was involved the persons never returned because they either were scammers, or they didn’t want to change what they spent money on. But the church did try by meeting with, praying with, and offering a hand up.
I guess I just have a problem with a church that brings in 1.2 million per year not having more than a widow’s mite in the budget for helping struggling people…
Ward, I suspect we look at this very much alike. We agree about the way churches spend their money. You are talking about helping individuals you know. We do and have done that. At the same time though, we also work with hundreds on the streets and cannot invite each of them into our home to live and cannot help each of them with money.
For many years we thought it was no big deal if we gave with a sincere heart, and later found out the person used the money to buy heroine or crystal. A friend, however, who had worked with homeless longer than us asked us why we were helping people steal. We asked him what he meant. He replied that when we gave something to someone who was conning us we were allowing them to steal the item from the truly needy person to whom we would have otherwise given it.
It’s probably a matter of the way we look at these things, but we decided he did have a point and since that time have tried to give to those we have good reason to believe are really in need of what we can offer.
I do think we are on the same page Sam. Just to clarify once more, I am not expecting the church to care for all members with every request they make. The first couple needed one thing more so than money, they needed someone to sit down with them, show them the love of Christ by listening to them, and counciling them. Because I took the time to do so, they were able to get by with $550 rather than $1,500.
The second couple were not church members. My wife found them, and filled with compassion was attempting to help them. We did not expect the church to do for them as I hoped they would the other couple who were regular attenders. These folks, sadly, as it turns out are where they are for a reason. I don’t expect the church to set up an ATM for the unfortunate, but it would be nice if they would listen to people…and love people.It is much easier to throw money in the collection plate, than to get ones hands dirty. The church finance pastor did the equivalent for the first couple.
That said, when I sent Jeremy this note it was meant for encouragement, not discouragement. When God touches our hearts to help others, we must follow in obedience whether the outcome is good, or not so good. When we “step out in boldness” as Keith Green sang, God can do amazing things for others, and He may just do amazing things in our hearts. As I told my wife, we look at these situations and ask what God is doing in these people’s lives, when His purpose may be changing our hearts.
Ward,
Thanks for sharing some examples of what you are doing to help others.
This week I was talking to our neighbor (who has lived a very lonely life), and we found out he has surgery on Friday morning, and has nobody to take him to the hospital, so was going to pay a cab $40 to drive him.
His wife doesn’t drive either, and so she will be home alone for 5 days while he is recovering all alone in the hospital.
So I offered to take him to the hospital. Only then did I find out that he needs to leave the house at 3:00 am. Ha! But I am thrilled to do it.
I will also try to visit him in the hospital during those five days, and check in on his wife at home to make sure she is doing okay. I plan to pick him up and bring him home after the five days of recovery are over.
When I offered this, he actually teared up and said, “Nobody has ever offered to help me in any way before. Thank you.”
It is sometimes the simple little acts of service like this that make great differences in people’s lives. Thank you for loving others in your community!
Sometimes
Awesome. We often pass over little situations in people’s lives never knowing what an impact we could have made. William, you stepped out in boldness. Praise God!
1 Corinthians 9.
Ward,
First, let me say that I am so glad that there are those out there like you who are starting to “get it”. There are so many out there who say “I give my tithe to church, go see them if you nee help” and are content with that. Then there are those who hear God calling them away from the institutional expression of church into more personal and more natural relational expressions of church.
I became disenfranchised with the Institutional Church while sitting on the board of Deacons. We had a young single mother come looking for help with paying her utilities. She had been attending the church for some time, but when one of the deacons asked if she was giving her tithe to the church, she said that she could not afford to. After she left the room, the board voted to deny her request for assistance, after all, “If she would just trust God enough to tithe, then He would take care of her needs”. At the time, I really bought into the idea that tithing was obeying God, but when I studied the Bible, I found that one of the main purposes for the tithes was to provide for the poor. Today, most churches brag about giving 10% of their budget to missions work, and of that 10%, only a small portion goes to benevolence.
About six years ago, my wife and I stopped giving our tithe automatically to the church, and began giving to various ministries. Some times we pay for a motel room some times we buy hats and gloves for the homeless, sometimes we sponsor a group meal. We listen each week for what God would have us to do with that money, and then we spend it where He shows us that it will do the most good for His kingdom. I suppose that he could still lead me to give it to an institutional church, although he has not yet called me to do that.
Pastor FedEx
I feel we are in a similar place PFX. I often wonder if the leaders of the church would set a budget without their salaries included and without telling the congregation trust that enough was given to meet their needs. I’m Looking forward to who God will bring into our lives next
Hi… First of all thanks Jeremy & Ward.. Jeremey I started reading your stuff from few days. Your information is good & particular about this blog its an eye opener Ward its really good .
For a slightly different take on church benevolence:
_Toxic Charity_
Robert Lupton
Harper Collins, 2011
ISBN 978-0-06-207620-5
My wife and I started a home fellowship in April 2001, which grew to 50 by August. Most of these people were either unemployed or old age pensioners. All I wish to say is yes, we had the joyous situations and the disappointments. But today some of those people (we left the city by mid July 2004 and our group was shepherded to another group) are still in contact with us. That is such a blessing as we know from what depths some came and see where they are now.