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We can end homelessness. It is doable!

This thought kind of just happened by accident through two events.

I was working on a marketing strategy for a retreat and conference center on the East Coast in a very rural city and I happened to put the address into google maps and did a search on how many churches there are nearby. The results shocked me!

Then last Thursday Pastor Matthew stated he had heard that if every church took in just 2 homeless people the problem will be solved. Hmm…I started thinking about that I went back to google maps.

Let’s play a little game. Go to google maps and enter your church address. When the box appears click on “Search nearby”. Type in the word “church” and hit enter. Then on the left menu column you’ll see the option to “refine by:” Click on “distance” and look at the number. Now click on “15 miles”. Take that number and multiply by 2. If the churches in your area just helped 2 people each that would be the total amount of people helped and the end of homelessness or poverty is doable. Very doable!

Now I am not talking helping people by leading them into the “sinner’s prayer” and leaving them with toothpaste and a bottle of water. I mean really extending yourself and actually helping just 2 people out of poverty! Every church can help 2 people, can’t they?

As an example I didn’t want to use Los Angeles just because it is a large metropolitan area. The number is so huge it freaks me out! So this example will be more real I used my last physical address in Missouri. Within 15 miles of my old address there are 2,580 churches. Within 45 miles there are 9,243 churches. If each church helped just 2 people (a month? a year?) that would be 18,486 people helped out of poverty in St Louis. I might be wrong here but I believe the number of homeless in the St Louis area is less than 500 on any given night.

So I realized two things here. Solving homelessness is doable and the Body of Christ can actually make a serious impact if we just put our words into action. Also, as is right now, the church is selfish and blind. We believe we are helping people but if we just step back and see the real truth we would be aware of how little effect most churches have on the world.

I sure hope this is a wakeup call for someone!

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This entry was posted on Monday, September 1st, 2008 at 9:58 am and is filed under My Big Mouth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • http://www.joesindorf.com jsindorf

    here’s your problem: NIMB (not in my backyard)

    We could buy us time to solve the energy problem if we put up windmills, solar farms, nukes and drilled for oil and gas — but nobody wants that stuff in their neighborhood.

    The majority of the church people in America want to help the poor and homeless, but not if it means they need to move into our communities. So, instead of every church helping two, maybe we need to look for 10% of churches who are willing to help 20. It seems more realistic. Maybe the other 90% can take an offering just one Sunday a year to keep the program functioning for a week.

    You’re right… it really is doable. But if we count on everyone or every church to do something, it will never happen.

  • Sarahllv

    While I would like to think that it is doable, I don’t think it is… even if we do what Mark suggests.

    There are two reasons for this:

    1)… In Matthew 26:11, Jesus himself said that we will always have the poor with us. And isn’t being poor one of the major, if not the major reason why people are homeless? Of course it is. If you are not poor… if you have enough money, then there is no reason for you to be homeless. Unless you choose to be or you are mentally incapacitated somehow.

    So if Jesus is correct, then we will always have the homeless with us because Jesus said that we will always have the poor with us. Does that mean we should do nothing? Of course not. Does this mean that we shouldn’t try and implement Mark’s strategy as a church? Of course not. What it does mean though, is that Mark’s strategy is only a temporary solution. Nothing more than that.

    2)… Mark’s strategy is a temporary solution because it doesn’t address how long the church is suppossed to help a homeless person. For a week? A month? A year? 10 years? How long do you support an able-bodied homeless person before they should be required to take care of themeselves?

    One of the reasons there will always be the homeless is because it is a fact that there are truly lazy people out there. This is confirmed by the Bible in such places as proverbs. Not everyone who is homeless is lazy of course, but many exist among the homeless. Many times we can’t know who they until we start helping them and see how they respond, but when you discover who they are, what do you with those? Support them forever?

    However long we decided to help him, eventually we would have to let him go back to the street and back to his previous homeless existence. Which means that we will still have the homeless with us.

    As a church, we absolutely should do everything we can to help the hurting, the poor, the homeless, and the lost. Absolutely. But solving the homeless problem is not doable if our goal is to solve it altogether. We will always have the poor with us. We will always have the homeless with us. Jesus said this would be the case.

  • Jackie Carpenter

    I hate to be negative…but. I have to say that many of the people I meet who are homeless are very complex, with many issues to address. Entrenched alcoholism, chronic bottom-level self-esteem, anger management / social ineptness (eg very low ability to let comments go over your head, instead, getting upset / angry / defensive). These are so difficult to tackle. This is a long-term commitment, and to betakne on lightly. I’ve said to church-people in the past, before you give this person the hope that you are there for them, think, are you prepared to have this person in your life forever? Because otherwise, you will end up being yet another person who’s let them down, and will thus inadvertently become yet another factor lowering their self-belief.

    Comments?