Here's our next interesting topic for the night. Do you all deal very much with people in the church asking the church for money?
My dilemma is this...people often come and ask me about this. I believe they ask me specifically because they believe they will be more inclined to get it because basically they see my compassionate, "huggy"affectionate nature and they think, "let's ask Pastor Deanna." Very, very frustrating. First, I am very uncomfortable about these situations. Second, I have nothing to do with making a decision on giving people money. Nada. But then I am "responsible" for the info and they basically expect me to pass it on to my dh or someone else.
I have told people in the past that I have nothing to do with it, or I tell them they will have to speak with those who make these decisions but they sometimes make me feel responsible with the info.
Have any of you dealt with this? One reason I hate to pass it on to dh is because it is just such a drain on him. He believes first, he's a pastor not a banker. Second he believes that according to the guidelines given in the NT, most people who ask a church for money don't qualify based on the instructions the bible gives for benevolence. Our leadership is 100% in agreement on handling it biblically. That's not the issue.
The issue is -- when you take a biblical stand on this of course you make people angry.
I guess I'm just venting with you tonight that it just bothers me when people come to me. At the heart of it, I feel like many times it's manipulation...because there is no reason they would think I'm in charge of money, but because of my nature they probably think out of all the staff they would be most inclined to get it from me.
So, would you do what I do --- pass the buck and just don't worry about hurt feelings?
I have a family in my church...one of the kids is in 4th grade and her brother is in 9th. The mom doesn't attend church at all. But she is ALWAYS using the church for money. Whenever there's an event, she just "assumes" that her kids are going to be covered. Our YP and I have started getting tough with them. For example, DH and I "hired" the brother to work on our children's set so that he could earn his $$ for Youth Convention. We did a kids' event last month and announced that kids needed to come to me by a certain date if they needed a 'scholarship' to go. No one came and talked to me, but we were holding our breath to see if the mom would be dropping her daughter off without the $20 that it cost to go. Her usual thing is to just have someone else pick her kids up, not give them $$, and then they're just stuck at the event and we have no choice but to cover them or send the kid home. But at this particular event, the mom actually paid up! I about dropped dead from the shock of it!
I'm still not quite sure what to do with people like that. My kids' ministry is full of kids whose parents don't have a lot of $$ and don't attend the church, either. So my dilemma is: do I get "tough" and refuse to let them come on events, but risk alienating the parents so they never show up? I mean, some of these parents are so uninvolved, they didn't even bother coming to see their kids in the Christmas program. To me, that is low! But Jesus loves them, too, and He wants to see them come to Him! Or do I drain my budget in hopes that the parents will see God's love shining through me because I'm so "nice" to their kids?
There must be a balance somewhere, and I am going to find it!!
Sometimes David handles these things himself. I have seen him many times go to a home with money or a shopping card. But we have a treasurer of the fund, and David still needs his approval. We tend to help a family once or twice. But we have many missionary families we are supporting each month, and a camp, so we can't like support a whole family all the time. It's tough to say no, but some people abuse this, and we usually know who they are. LW
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...... Then they came for the Catholics, and I was a Protestant, so I never said anything. And then, they came for ME, and there was no one left to speak up. Martin Neimoller, German Pastor, WW2
It is interesting to me - and I don't know if you all deal with this too but many times I will have a person write me a long letter or e-mail and it's usually syrupy sweet, like, "you all mean so much to me, you'll never know how much we love you...etc." detailing all the need for them to have financial help...or they will call and want to talk to me about it all the day long. So I will listen (or read) and then when I respond with compassion toward their situation but let them know I am not in position to make that decision nor will I pass the info on for them (they have to handle it themselves - I don't want to get in the middle of it) - even though I am extremely pleasant about it, and I do respond lovingly but once the "no" is given, I notice all the syrupy sweet niceties are gone, they are usually very curt and then we might not see them in church for months. This is even if they get the money. Dh says that he hates to give money to people because he knows then he is guaranteed to not see them or get a thing out of them (in the way of serving the church or being a productive "ministering member" in any way) for months. Then a few weeks before they spring it on you that they are in need again, you see them for a few weeks in church and whammo, you know it's coming..."can I talk to you???" Ughhhhhhhhhhhhh!
To me this has to be one of the top draining things of pastoral ministry.
One of the policies that our church has adopted is that we will only financially help a member of our church in good standing. We have a food and clothing pantry to help anyone who asks, but as it relates to financial assistance.that is something we have to say no to more often than not...
I have of course helped out some people with some small bills, however my story regarding this comes from a previous church experience..... One of our frequent attenders (a person who claims membership without ever joining but comes all the time) asked us to help her with her bills, at the time, we were "paying people to be our member" - because we had so many people draining the churches resources by their constant financial needs, that we were far too happy to help with. Well this particular time, my husband was not in the mood for the request and he decided to verify the need. The person was asking for rent money to avoid an eviction, so he called the landlord to determine that the amount she was asking for was far less than she would have to come up with and she was declaring to everyone that she did not have any money... So where was our $500 going to go - we never did find that out.... Well that night I prayed because I felt confused and God's response that night was that He had allows us opportunities to grow and if everyone keeps excusing us from learning opportunities we will not ever do so...
So I have learned that we are not always helping by pulling people out of their messes, some people need to learn how to pull themselves out... So that they can appreciate being out... Now of course I am not advocating that you leave someone in a ditch where they can not help themselves, but I do believe that we need to sometimes encourage people to stretch out...
