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Solving Homelessness With $10 Bills? (or a turkey)

Joel wrote a great post on LA’s Homeless Blog, “Solving Homelessness With $10 Bills?”

I like his post because it tells a much deeper story. If we are going to affect the issue of poverty and homelessness the faith-based community needs to focus more on providing tangible long-term support for people than event driven campaigns.

Handing someone a free turkey on Thanksgiving or a free hotdog in a park on Saturday afternoon DOES NOT change a life. Don’t get me wrong giving to the poor is a good thing, but from my experience most churches (not all) hold outreaches as a marketing tool to promote their Sunday services and reinforce their self-perception as being good people.

Please, before you get mad – it’s OK to feel good about helping other people. The point I am trying to make is the next time you have a “compassion event” ask yourself and your organization if what you are doing is REALLY helping people.

Ya…I can hear you all now saying, “what about the Great Commission, we are changing lives by bringing people to Jesus.”! WAKE UP! The people on skid row and in that trailer park your team visits on Saturday probably knows more scripture then you do. Saying the sinner’s prayer did NOT get me off the streets. The reason my life changed is because people at the Dream Center loved on me and took care of all my needs (even when I didn’t believe) until i could take care of myself.

Everyone knows the economy is in the crapper. It’s going to get far worse before it gets better. When you are planning all those big outreach events this year, and I am sure many of them are great events, look at the dollars and see if all that money could be used to in a better way to help people, and please take an honest look at your events to see if they are being held for all the RIGHT reasons.

The amount of money faith-based organizations spend on events and promoting those events each year is enormous. Echoing Joel – “I’m wondering if this amount of money could be used more effectively.”

hmmmm?

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This entry was posted on Sunday, December 28th, 2008 at 11:11 pm 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.

  • Jen

    Wouldn’t an eternal focus be the longest term focus possible? It’s not the event or the $10 or the turkey or an extended stay in a place that meets basic needs. It’s not about who can quote more scripture. It’s about the amazing, trasnforming love of God that we have the opportunity to demonstrate. It’s about the Holy Spirit showing up and moving someone’s heart. God has the power to make that change in a second, five minutes, or a year. We show up, serve, and ask to be used in that very moment. We each have an obligation to check our motives and come with a pure heart. “Be careful not to do your good works before people to be seen by them. If you do, your Father in heaven will not reward you.” (Matt. 6:1)

  • http://hardlynormal.com hardlynormal

    Yesterday I received an expensive 20 page high-color glossy product catalog in the mail. The cover read “God’s word changes lives”. I don’t know how big their mailing list is but I would guess printing and postage alone might be over $100k. Hmmm, I wonder how much good $100K would do to change a life.

    The reason the very first small group of Christians were able to overthrow the powerful Roman Empire is because they told a better story. They built hospitals for all and not just the rich and aggressively made a difference with compassion. They didn’t run around trying to get a “souls” quota to puff themselves up and justify their actions – they helped people’s real needs!

    Most churches this holiday season spent an enormous amount of money on Christmas pageants. Outwardly they are saying it’s for “souls”, but they are really trying to fill their empty seats and grow the church. It’s a marketing game that has developed in the commercialized church over the years.

    Thank God the church is changing. Listen to this podcast http://www.charlestlee.com/?p=711 – not because of me but because of what Charles Lee says to his church.

    When the church got messed up God never said “build a new building”, “start a TV show”, “get a better worship leader”, “have a woman’s conference” – He sent a prophet to remind the church about the poor and that we need to take care of their needs.