Here’s the thing – The Church should be doing it. The Church should be doing a lot of things actually, but this thought crossed my mind specifically yesterday afternoon and woke me up again around 3:30 am: The church should be an option as emergency placement for kids coming into foster care.
We get emails all the time at the mental health agency I work at looking for emergency placement for children. Too often, no placement is found and the children end up staying at the social services office. One email stated a child would be staying at the police station until placement was found. Not being held for a crime, just being housed there.
The local church should be on the list of places that take emergency foster placements. They should be able to be counted on for something like this. To be a safe haven. They should be a safe place for a child in need to stay regardless of race, gender expression, sexuality, or religion. The church should be able to offer this and trust the power of kindness and the movement of the Holy Spirit so that they don’t feel the need or right to evangelize the child in the midst of a traumatic situation. The church should be able to provide their resources for this vulnerable population. Now how to actually get approved for something like that through the foster system is something I can’t speak to, but it should be possible.
And that got me thinking about so many other opportunities the church has to make a difference in their communities. Like so many other parts of our society, church has become increasingly individualistic. While it is great for people to live out their personal callings in their day to day life, we also need a more collective pool of personal resources within our churches. The church and the community around the church benefits from people working together in ways that individual people and families can not.
Many hands make light work. No single person must bear the weight of the ache of their community. This work is not just for the pastors or committee members. It is for all of us. Every single person of faith, young and old, should be committed to the transformation of this society into one of Holy love. Holy love is not angry, hateful, vengeful, or divisive. Holy love isn’t pushy or rude or dismissive. It doesn’t insist on being right. It trusts the power of the Holy spirit to guide and correct instead of taking it into their own hands.
What this looks like in action will vary among churches depending on the communities they are in and the resources they have. I live in the Bible Belt and can promise you, all the churches could do more. And they do many good things. They have food pantries and bookbags of love and host AA meetings. They feed the homeless in the winter and offer shelter during those cold nights. They are not at all without their merits and works of charity. But the need is more. Communities are in crisis. The church should be able to be the answer. There are a lot of roles that Social Services or other government funded agencies fill that the church could fill.
But in the past we have seen many cruel and harsh things done to the vulnerable by the church in the name of holiness or purification. Anyone who thinks that we aren’t at risk for that again hasn’t paid much attention, or is perhaps desensitized to it. There is an ugly streak running through some faith communities and those churches are a risk and a blight to us all with their divisive preaching and lack of humility, integrity, love, and honor. But even your average well-meaning church often is lacking the ability to act for various reasons: there are often too many rules and Books of Order and church board votes and the biggest donor or most prevalent family preferences to consider. They are a non-profit business and they have to worry about liabilities.
I’ve been in churches my whole life and I’ve been working in non-profit mental health for the past 2 decades so I’m speaking of what I know. This isn’t some naive idealism or uncalled for criticism. This is a spiritual call. The Church as a body of believers is not living and operating by The Spirit. It is far too worldly – run by fear and greed and selfishness and pride. It is too often haughty and legalistic and manipulative. There is a reason donations and attendance are down – and it’s not because people don’t want to follow the call of Christ – it’s because the church isn’t.
Church as a place of worship and fellowship has great beauty and purpose – but it’s not enough. We need more. We are called to more. We can find joy and rest on Sunday morning, and that should fuel us through the week to serve and make a real difference in our communities and the world around us. We should be hubs our of communities. The church has the opportunity to shift the needle towards good. To decrease poverty, homelessness, food scarcity, violence, addiction, isolation, prejudice, and abuse.
To do so we have to re-imagine the whole structure though. The routines, the budgets, the committees, the rule books, the expectations. If you’re part of a church, think about what it could look like if your church gave till it hurt of your church resources to your community. What would it take to open the doors more? What would it take to start getting to the root of some of the issues in your community? What would it mean for your church to be humble, to be justice seeking, to be radically generous and loving every single week?
The church should be trust-worthy to care well for the most vulnerable and for one another. The church should be active in eradicating poverty and injustice. The church should be working to dismantle all the broken and toxic systems in our nation and communities. The church should be helping people find jobs and get clean. The church should be advocating for those who have been hurt and exploited and manipulated. The church should be safe for all people. The church should be honorable and acting with integrity. The church should be working to interrupt the cycle of violence in communities. The church should be working to end hunger and homelessness in communities. The church should be digging down to the roots of the needs in their communities and should be tirelessly working together as a body of believers to bring heaven on earth to the very best of their ability. The church should be radical and extreme in it’s love and care for the all of God’s creation regardless of how inconvenient and uncomfortable it is. The church should abide no hatred and hold the people in power accountable on a regular basis. The church’s powers should be wielded against greed and corruption. The church should be bearing regular Fruit of the Spirit. The church should be the hands and feet of the gospel of Jesus. The church should lay down it’s desires to preach on culture wars and hot button issues, and put all it’s energy into the work of God. No more fear tactics, no more divisiveness. No more “us and them”. No more ugliness, cruelty, callousness, and coldness towards others calling it “tough love”. No more theological “smack downs” and “gotchas”. No more time for this. We have to let go of the old ways. We have to be committed to moving forward. We can’t get caught up in foolishness.
Radical love, radical mercy, radical grace, radical humility, radical generosity. It’s time.
Are we ready for that? Are we ready to stretch ourselves this way? Do we trust the Holy Spirit enough? Do we believe God will show up when we act in faith?
The Church should be doing it. All of it.
