April 13, 2007
Benevolence
A family in our church who’ve been members for over 20 years was going through a rough time. The family of seven consisted of a husband and wife, four children and an elderly mother. As the wife was undergoing chemo and radiation treatment for breast cancer, the husband had a seizure while at work and was forced to take some time off. Finances deteriorated rapidly and they didn’t have the money to make the rent payment. “We were going to be evicted in 24 hours and it took everything I had to ask the church for help. It was desperation and a last resort.” The couple was told after speaking with one of the ministers they would have to go through financial counseling with the benevolence committee before the church would give them any assistance. Referring to the new church guidelines the minister said, “That’s just the way we do things now.” Let’s get this straight, 24 hours to call a meeting, undergo financial counseling, and get approval. I’m sorry, but I just can’t see the early church requiring the needy to jump through hoops and over the obstacles in order to get help.
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4 comments:
Pardon me for sounding very shortsighted, but it sounds to me as if your church isn't that great of a congregation. Why do you still attend such an unloving church, aren't there other churches in your area that would appeal more to your tastes and are very missional in their activity? I do not mean to offend, it's a serious question that I hope you would search a serious answer for, you can control where you serve can't you? I have been in unhealthy situations and I have always tried to stick it out, but it was finally best for me to move on to ap lace God was moving. Please, I wish to not come across as harsh, merely concerned.
-Kris
Gail;
-----I can see three possible reasons for this church’s failure to come directly forward with assistance for this unfortunate family.
-----The first possibility (but definitely not a probability): the church has little intention of helping those in need. I know three people who attended (or attended) your church recently who are not what we can exactly call “social spotlights“. All three have complained about being brushed off the sleeves of the up-scale leaders of that church. In fact, they all three have so similarly expressed the sentiment that they have been signaled to leave that I really wonder if the leaders are subtly or directly telling them to scoot-and-scat off to some other church. And I will never forget the sermon in which the preacher informed the congregation that their troubles do not matter. Well, the first possibility is at least worth a thought - if enough fuss is thrown up before assistance is given, maybe the beggars will leave with their empty cups in hand.
-----The second possibility: the church thinks that if they make it troublesome enough to acquire its assistance, those who do not really need it will give up and go away. Those who do need it will weather the Tom-foolery, because what else can they do? I can see this possibility as having a bit of reason, but being short of heart and sincerity.
-----The third possibility (I think a probability): the church has become totally McDonaldized. Everything must be done efficiently and along drawn out and orderly lines. Every situation must flow down the same channel and be given the same treatment so that nobody will have to bear the risk of making a decision. It may have simply been determined by good-hearted thought that whoever needs some assistance obviously could also use some financial acumen. So the “financial counseling session” was probably thrown into the gear-works of the “benevolence” process. Anyone who requests a bit of assistance trips the machine into motion, then gets sucked into the mindless gear-works. Who knows what could happen to his desperate situation while he is being wound around the gears.
Hey Kris,
Please don’t worry about sounding harsh, shortsighted or offending - because you aren’t. Can we control where we serve? Yes and no. Yes, I can choose and control where I serve, however I believe God has placed me with this particular body of believers. So in reality, the control is in His hands and not mine. As of yet, the Lord has not given me marching orders to look for another church. There are areas where my church, as you stated, “isn’t that great of a congregation”, but the same can be said of other churches, including those described in Revelation. We all have a few warts! In the New Testament, rather than shopping around for a church that’s appealing to our taste, Paul puts emphasis on working things out with one another. That being said, I will tell you I believe all churches, to one degree or another, are struggling with the same issues I see in my church. In the church we are accountable to one another and I feel it’s important to examine (and discuss) our actions and attitudes. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Kris.
Kris;
-----I know you asked Gail why she stays at that church. And I know she will give you a good answer. But for the sake of your gaining even more perspective, I will tell you why I stayed at that church, too. I was baptized in that church thirty-eight years ago, when it was on the corner of South Third and Cascade. I watched my dad and the brothers and sisters he knew dig deep and hard into their pockets twenty-seven years ago to build the current facility for a place to worship. Nearly ten years ago I began to watch certain people bring in new people with new ideas who formed a power-structure by which to seize control of the church. They completely changed the character of the church and told whoever did not like what they had done to go worship elsewhere.
-----For most it was that simple. They went elsewhere. And more people came into the church who supported its new makeover. But to some it could not be that simple. They suffered through both the building of the facility as well as having it taken away from them as a place of familiar worship. I could not merely label them as wrong for not letting go of what they knew as worship in the facility they built for worship. They were being mistreated by good-intentioned leaders. Because that mistreatment was plainly unscriptural, and because James 4:17 says that if you see what is right to do and do not do it, to you it is sin, I had to make every effort possible to convince the leadership of the generosity, the sympathy, the concern for one another’s interests, the pleasing of one another, the doing good to one another, and the impartial service to all the brethren to which the sincere Christian is called. I felt responsible to make as much effort as I could, in as much as I knew what the Word of God says about favoritism (Malachi 2:1-9, for instance).
-----And that is why I stayed. I told my wife many times that it would be easier if those who were offended by the new favoritism of the leaders would just leave. Then I could no longer feel guilty about participating in its new contemporary character. But they didn’t, and therefore, I couldn’t. I had to stay and speak the truth until I was called a liar and thrown out.
-----And finally, speaking the truth in love does not end with mistreatment. There is so much to say about two thousand years of underbrush grown over what the church should be as defined by the Word. I find Gail's church to be a convenient example of much of this underbrush. So I write often about that underbrush, and the comfortable place of healing the clearing would be if the underbrush were sincerely removed. I think it is love to desire the church to be a soothing place for those the Lord desires to shelter. I think it is love to point out some of the underbrush and say, “You really ought to take your binder-weed outside, I think your brother’s foot keeps tripping in it.”
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