Brian, Jonathan, Wendy, Dave, Mike, Terry and Susan,

We are off to a rapid start in a very turbulent time.  Remember the question?  “Do you know of any churches that give a damn about our neighbors who are losing jobs, homes and resources to feed their families in this deepening recession???” 

Wendy who is the Communication Director for the Episcopal Church in Minnesota is embarrassed, as many of us are, about how little the churches in her world are doing. She writes: “I talked to 25 clergy, all of whom were prepared to talk about the effect the recession is having on their pledging and about particular individuals suffering job loss, etc. However, when I asked ‘what are you doing about it?’ I was met, quite literally, with silence, generally followed by excuses…‘well, that’s private…’ or ‘nobody wants to be embarrassed by talking about it’. To this date, nearly two months after the series ran and despite several open calls for stories about proactive churches, I still have not heard from one single church about anything new happening to support struggling individuals and families.” 

Wendy, I just found Saint Margaret, here in Factoria near Seattle has created some innovative ways to reach out to those being impacted.  First, they are inviting members to give Lenten Alms to increase their economic support for those in need.  Second, they have asked a broad range of professionals in their congregation to make their services available for those seeking help in financial planning, writing resumes, legal counsel, mortgage counseling, investment advice and spiritual direction.  Couldn’t many of our larger churches call on their members to donate time or maybe even teach courses sharing their professional expertise to hose in need?

Dave offered us a very passionate rant: “One reason is that churches spend 80-90% of their income on themselves and the needs of their own people. Staff salaries, facilities, equipment, maintenance, health benefits, etc.Think of what would happen if churches stopped perceiving the kingdom in terms of a Come To Us asset based model and replaced the buildings with meeting in temporary locations and/or homes. Instead of funding salaries and the expenses of assets, the church could meet the needs of people as this post addresses. How many billions of dollars do Christians spend a year on themselves and their church buildings? How would the kingdom of God be changed if we divested ourselves from our assets and staff salaries so that we could spend money on others?”

Did others enjoy Dave’s rant as much as I did? Dave, speaking of buildings as mainline churches in all our communities rapidly age in the coming decade I have a serious challenge for you and really for all of us.  Find a Christian organization in your community that is committed to working with the poor and encourage them to work with you to identify some of these church buildings that are likely to come available in the next 5 years because o declining and graying members .  Then before the buildings are sold to be transformed into upscale condos encourage the graying members to deed it over to the urban ministry.  Then challenge the Christian ministry to re-invent the church building to serve a growing need in the community such as the need for a job training center, or an after-school tutoring and mentoring center or perhaps re-inventing the church building as a residential monastic community for those who work with the poor.  Couldn’t we all join Dave and re-imagine ways God might use some of those church buildings that are going to close that too often are separated from us from our neighbors to be re-born as places to serve our neighbors? 

In The New Conspirators I describe how growing numbers of young people all over the planet are becoming urban Franciscans.  Check out Missio Dei in Minneapolis. These young people live in two households in Minneapolis and are also planting a Mennonite church together.  Their community and their church plant is all about collaborating with their neighbors to change their neighborhood.  Wouldn’t it be great if all of our churches could join these new conspirators in this deepening recession and become churches for others?  Is that possible for your church?  Where would you start?  

Brian and Mike shared how their churches… Marble Collegiate and New Hope Fellowship are reaching out in very positive ways to those being impacted by the recession.  I was particularly impressed by folks at New Hope actually moving beyond programs to creating relationships with neighbors in need.  Do you think you could talk people in your church into actually hanging out with those in trouble, regardless of whether they are middle class or poor, hear their stories and find ways to work together to help one another through these tough times?   

Part of what we do in Mustard Seed Associates is try to help Christians anticipate new challenges and create new ways to respond before they blow-up on our door step.  For example of September 7, before the meltdown began, our MSA team worked with 50 people to brainstorm recession preparedness strategies.  To be honest a lot of those participants couldn’t imagine the future we are we are grappling with but now but they still came up with some good ideas.  You will find some of the ideas in this article in Leadership Journal.  Let me know if any of these ideas might work in your church? http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/communitylife/communityimpact/areyourecessionready.html

Terry offers this response: “Your thoughts generated a new post at my place, in which I describe an idea that I’m shopping around: some old fashioned community organizing, hosted by faith communities.”   http://fathertlistenstotheworld.blogspot.com/2009/03/growing-together-building-community-in.html

One place for all of us to start is to join Terry in organizing people around meals to create communities of mutual care for these troubled times.

Susan has the last word in this series of comments.  Clearly she has a definite opinion about President Obama’s stimulus package.  Even though I have an opinion, contrary to Susan’s conclusion, I didn’t express mine.  But I would like to hear yours.  We are journeying together though the worst recession in 70 years.  In addition to calling all the followers of Jesus to create new ways to be God’s compassion to our neighbors near and far could you answer two questions?  What is your biblical analysis of: 1. how this economy became a bloody shambles and 2. how can we create a new economic order that is both more just and less volatile?   

Do you give a damn that this new global economy works much, much better for the upper 10% than the bottom 50% of our neighbors?  Is simply helping the global rich become much more wealthy the best way to help our poorest neighbors and hope it trickles down?  That should start a good debate.  Go for it.  I want to hear from you…join the conspiracy…join the conversation!!!  

Tom Sine 

www.thenewconspirators.com  www.msainfo.org mustard seed associates… creating the future one mustard seed at a time 
 

Read the original responses
 
 

My church, Marble Collegiate (www.marblechurch.org) started a new ministry for those who are jobless and/or seeking jobs. It’s a combination of support, networking, and workshops. They announced it weeks (months?) ago, in fact I was surprised how quickly they got it together.

I hope that is the case elsewhere!

Brian  Link

I keep getting the impression from folks that many are unwilling to help those in need because often they feel like “Well its their fault” as it relates to foreclosures etc. I’m amazed to hear things like that from people who follow Christ especially. It’s as if these people are moral failures because they made an unwise financial decision (as if that should be the standard by how we decide who to help or not help). 
The other excuse I hear is, “well we’re hurting too and can’t afford to help anyone else.” 
I hope we can find people who have put aside the excuses and are really working to help people. 
I can’t wait to hear the stories – and perhaps how they overcame the excuses within their own communities.

Jonathan Blundell » Link

http://reallifestimulus.blogspot.com/

Well, Tom, you’ve hit the nail on the head. As the Communications Director for the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota, I ran a whole series on recession and the church. Preparing for the articles,

I have to wonder if our institutions have becomes so focused on the bottom line that they are absolutely unwilling to look this beast in the eye for fear that it will give members an ‘excuse’ not to pledge. I also wonder if our church communities have become so sanitized that members are discouraged from sharing struggles because it might make them — and, more importantly, the rest of us — uncomfortable. Finally, I wonder if we are now so unwilling to share our abundances that we just don’t want to know or touch anyone who might need something we have.

Well, Tom, I have no answers. But I sure do have a lot of shame and embarrassment about the behavior of our churches these days.

Wendy Johnson »  Link

Our problem isn’t that we don’t have anything to give. Our problem is that we give it to ourselves and conveniently forget this as we let people in our communities struggle and suffer.

Do we wonder why there is little net growth in the kingdom? It’s because all we do is shuttle believers from one church to another. You can be sure if we pulled our money out of assets and put it into the lives of people, there would be a lot more interest in Jesus.

Jesus did not say, A new command I give you: build sweet, beautiful high-tech buildings and hire savvy church marketers. All men will know that you are my disciples if you have a cool worship center, edgy music, a relevant pastor and lots of programs. What was that new command and what blocks us from living that command not in convenient ways but in meaningful ways? As much as we may want to over-spiritualize it, money means something when it is used to meet people’s needs.

We think that stuff draws people to our churches because… well, because it does. But does it draw people to Jesus? What would happen if we committed to help one family make their mortgage payment for three months, regardless of whether they made a foolish decision or not? How many foolish choices have each of us made? I have made tens of thousands and God has never used that as an excuse to withhold his love from me.

Dave Reynolds » 13 days ago » Link

Hi Tom,

Well, here’s what we’re doing this Lent:

http://commontable.org/

New Hope Fellowship, the church we’re joining for Lent, is made up mostly of folks who are homeless, nearly homeless, or formerly homeless – some who have been struck by the current economic situation, and others who began struggling many years ago.

But to be perfectly honest: a) we’re doing it mostly because we’ve met these folks, and think we have a lot in common plus hopefully a lot to offer each other, and we want to get to know them better – not so much because we thought we should do something in response to the recession, and b) while we hope we’ll find ways to be helpful to folks who are struggling, and admittedly we have some ideas of what those might be, we’re mostly trying to enter into this relationship open to whatever God has in it for all of us together – so as for what our “helping” will look like – dunno. Ask us again in a few weeks. Maybe we’ll be the ones receiving help.

Good question, Tom. I hope we do end up being helpful, and I hope lots of other communities do too, and we can share ideas.

Peace, 
Mike Croghan

Mike Croghan » Link

Tom, you ask a good question, but embedded in your essay is a clear approval of President Obama’s stimulus. You might want to do some additional reading about the effects – intended and unintended – of his policies. When free market opportunities go into freefall, and tax policies discourage risk-taking, wealth evaporates. The less there is, the less there is for everyone, even those with hearts and wallets inclined to the work of Christ.

An essay in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal gives a succinct picture from this side. I think it’s important reading for any Christian who is worried about where we’re headed from here, and how churches can and should help.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123629969453946717.html

Grace and peace,

Susan

Susan Michaelson »  Link