As you all know, we are a new church. In a way this has been nice because our people know there is not money right now. BUT! we have a single lady in her 50's who comes. Her adult daughter and granchildren also come. She has 4 other children who are active in churches around our area.... one of them is actually in outreach ministries. The house she lives in actually belongs to one of her sons but she makes the payment and lives there. She has let us know that the house is in bad shape and she does not have the money to fix it. She has asked if we can help (we can't) and if we know who can (we don't). My personal conviction is that this is the responsibility of her grown children... especially the one who is gaining equity by her living in and making payments on a house in his name. According to her he does not have the money to help her and she has said none of the children do.
This can be ***sticky***, I agree. We are a new church plant too, and it seems sometimes, (please know I am not being judgmental) that some poverty level income individuals "prey" on new churches- they have already "worn out their welcome" elsewhere...
We had this situation late last year with a couple we ministered to with a Thanksgiving Basket. The wife was saved at our Thanksgiving service, husband rededicated. Anyway, to make a long story short, they continued coming to church. Great, right? Well, EVERY time they came they would corner my dh or myself complaining about having no money, or no food, wanting money. Well, we did pay their gas deposit so they could have heat on in the winter- but we paid the gas company directly (we've learned :) ) and continually took them grocieries, gave them rides, etc... but it seemed the more we gave, the more they whined (literally) or asked for money. Craig and I would NOT give them money- but did keep them in groceries, even helped them with job interviews. Well, we then found out they were hitting our people up for money- even when we would LOAD them up with groceries (we have been blessed to have a resource for this). They didn't have a car, and we were, along with one of our leadership team couples, giving them rides to and from church, and also when it would get incredibly cold, my dh would pick up the husband for work and take him in the evenings. It finally HAD to stop when we found out that they had cornered one of our VISITORS for $$$!!!! I was FUMING!!!!!!!!! My dh was not happy either and it is probably a good thing that we found out AFTER church. Anyway, we started saying, "No," sometimes when they would call- or we would encourage them to "find another way..." because we could not be their source... well, eventually, they stopped coming. We recently had a women's fellowship and one of my team called the wife to invite her and got an earful about how "church people should help one another..." Funny, I sure don't recall her helping anyone!
Anyway, we have had a few others try to take advantage of us- not many- but we quickly let them know that although we are there to HELP- more than that, we are there to EMPOWER them by teaching Godly principles and practical things that will help them more than we ever could. One thing I can tell you from experience is that most times, when someone approaches us with an EMERGENCY (and I'm talking regular attending church folk) we ask them if their priorities are in line, if they have been faithful in tithing, etc.... and about 95% of the time, they have NOT been faithful in tithing. Don;t get me wrong, Craig and I have definitely had our ups and downs- BUT I can't help but say we have NEVER gone without- God HAS ALWAYS been faithful- and we attribute that to being obedient in nringing our tithe and giving. Anyway- off my soapbox....
In your situation with the woman with the house, I'd tell her that we'd be happy to pitch in a few hours on a Saturday when she gets the supplies together, and leave it at that. If she continues to say, "I don't have money for supplies, etc." Just encourage her to take one project at a time, prioritize, empower her to think of ways to raise the money (yard sale, etc.) and trust God. All the while reminding her how happy your church folks will be to pitch some free labor in when she's ready to begin.
This is such a difficult issue. I dealt with my last one personally last year. A woman from our church who was a long term member came in and asked that we make her truck payment. It happened to be me she came and talked to and quite frankly probably wanted to choose me because I'm perceived in some ways as a softie by some people. Well, anyway, this lady is in her 40's I would guess, and has had some hard times, but haven't we all...
Anyway, I happened to know at the time that there was no money in benevolence and that particular month was a difficult one financially and I knew Larry's answer would be no. So, I went ahead and gently told her no. Well, she came unglued on me. Previously she had been nothing but a sweetie pie at church but she got so ugly with me I thought her head would spin around and I expected her to levitate at any moment.
She started raising her voice and really getting angry with me yelling about how much tithe she has given the church over the years and she tops it off with, "Do we have a vision commitment fund here??!!!!" (Duh, dumb question she knows I know the answer to.) I said, yes of course. She says, "Well, I've given to that vision fund every month, I'll have you know!" So she proceeds to ask me why people in need can't receive money from the vision fund. Forget the fact that she's obviously too dense to know that would be a mis-appropriation of funds. Hello!!!!! You don't just take from one fund and throw it into another fund. Uh, things like that can actually be prosecutable by law...hello! So, I told her that would not be even legally appropriate. And that her tithe had no bearing on whether we would pay her truck payment. Previous to this, I thought she was a rather mature believer who had some of the fruits of the spirit, but after she left my office I realized how immature she was and how empty her fruit basket truly was. Okay...so, she immediately left the church over it, and went to another church down the road who is hurting desperately for members and tries to prostelytize (sp?) people anyway...so they scooped her up right away and paid her truck payment and of course she gloated over how spiritual they were. But trust me, this will be interesting the first time they tell her no to something, she'll ditch them and be on her way to somebody else who will give her a bigger bang for her tithe. No loss here, that's for sure. The thing that surprised me was, I thought this lady had some knowledge of the Word...
Anyway, my husband believes that we should follow the bible - plain and simple. He really began to seek the Lord over the issue. We have a homeless ministry and ministry to the truly poor (who may not be homeless) and we feed and clothe them each Saturday. Sometimes we feed up to 100 people or more. It's a great ministry, called Hopetown. We also preach the gospel every Sat. and many people have come into our church through this, especially since dh and I have been the pastors - the people are not only coming on Sat. but becoming part of the body. Many got back on their feet and are now productive givers of time, money & talents in the church. We feel that this is our benevolence to the community and the church...(disadvantaged church members are free to come on Sat. too) Anyway, as far as other members receiving help, dh got sick of it when he felt like a banker more than a pastor. This is one of his dreaded things to deal with. Something in him tells him it's not right and taken too much advantage of in most of our churches and he wondered, "what pleases the Lord?" Surely we should truly help the honestly poor and those who think they are without hope. And, we do. But as far as in the church, Larry searched the scriptures and found that as far as benevolence within the church the bible is clear that in giving money to a church member the bible indicates they should be a widow, 65 or older, not remarried, who has no family to help her, and was benevolent to others herself before she got in the situation. In these cases, we meet the need, otherwise dh usually tells them no. It has to be a very special case for him to say yes.
Word gets around and once people know you have given money to one person they try the same thing. When dh paid a few people's mortgages or car payments when they were down and out, they told others and pretty soon he had a lot, I mean like 11 people in one month, ask for the same thing. He wondered, "how in the world do they even know to come and ask me?" It gets ridiculous! Same thing with church "scholarships" to events. It gets out of control. Couldn't we all use more money? I don't care if you make six figures, you still think you could use more, doesn't everyone? We have had people who live in $300,000 homes and drive two sport utility vehicles come and ask us to pay for their kids to go to camp. If that doesn't beat all, I don't know what does. They say they are a little short that month. Well, hello, aren't we all? I mean, I'm serious when I say dh and I make a very, very good salary. But when you have a family, it goes out as fast as it comes back in. So i agree with you Pastor Tara, in most cases it's lack of tithing, faithfulness, priorities, etc.
Also when people come and ask for help we point them to our financial breakthrough class - it's on Sun. mornings during the Christian Ed hour. We have a couple in our church certified through the Larry Burkett and they teach it. Any of your people could get certified through this or through Dave Ramsey's organization. Both excellent. We say, if you really want to get help - go to the breakthrough class. If they are serious, they will.
In my previous post when I was venting I just was lamenting that because i'm the sweetie peetie "huggy" pastor of the church body I think all these people come to me first thinking I will just give them a loving squeeze and put a check in their hand. I get tired of it. Thanks for listening!!! I think we can all help each other with these situations in giving pointers on how to handle it.
Sometimes it just helps to vent. I know the day that woman came into my office last year I was just so tired at the end of the day dealing with her tirade. I told dh, 'NEVER AGAIN." When people come and talk to me about benevolence, I steer them to somebody else immediately. And I think that's fair because honestly, I don't make those decisions and so why should I have to meet with them? Dh agreed -- since I have no decision in the allocation of the money, I shouldn't have to listen to the tirades. He handles it or has a deacon handle it and quite frankly the deacons look at it just as dh does now that he showed it to them in the bible. Many people just dont' realize that the scripture has spoken to the issue.
Ladies, you are so right. Many times when people are in need for whatever reason, they don't want to hear what the scriptures say. They just want you to help them. What they don't realize is that we are not really helping them if we give in to their pressure for money.
I love the idea of referring them to a financial breakthrough class. I have told my dh that this would be a great thing to have in the future. I get tired of people asking for money, but then when we have financial workshops (and they are always free), you cannot get those people to come.
I also like Pastor Tara's suggestion about the free labor. We tried that one time with a lady in our church. SHe not only wanted the men to come and fix her fron porch that was falling apart, she wanted the church to buy the lumber. Well, the biggest problem that I had was that she had at least 2 grown children who lived in the house with her. They should have been willing to contribute something, but you guessed it, nada. This is ridiculous! We had someone in our church to get upset over this because they thought that we could witness to the adult children by doing this. I don't think that it qualifies as witnessing to let adults live with their mother, let her house fall apart, and sit on their backsides and do nothing while someone else fixes it!
Anyhoo, I guess that is enough for now on that subject.
It sounds as if we've ALL learned from these situations! And you know by making classes available, giving them tools- it really is all about empowering people! If we all just took care of every need- we would be doing a HUGE disservice to these individuals. God desires that we be givers not constant takers-
We recently had a couple, who are very near and dear to us, both full of incredible potential go through a real hard time and they needed financial miracle QUICK- it tore me up- because they are a son and daughter to us- and I wanted SO bad to write a check (even tough they didn't ask)- but I knew that would NOT fix the situation. You see, their situation resulted from a chain of bad financial decisions and management. They had been living with her parents and we had told them it was past time to get out on their own- well, they were ready to move out, had made the deposits, arrangements, etc... and then they got hit with this emergency. When it happened they first tried to recoup their deposits- and though it may sound bad- I prayed, "God, don't let them get those deposits back! They need to grow up and take responsibility! Help them find another way!" Well, they DID find another way, although it made things tight. After it all, it was FUNNY- because they came to us to talk and were talking about how "burnt out" they were and tired, and feeling SO unsure... to which we smiled and said, "Yep, it's all part of growing up and taking responsibility!" We further explained that "self-inflicted" emergencys will burn you out- I mean really- ANY emergency will do that to you- but coupled with everything else- you feel downright lousy!!! We had a "get real" session with them and ministered to them and continued to "coach" them. That was a while ago and I am thrilled to report that they are in their own place, working harder than ever, making GOOD choices, blessed and highly favored!!!
It is SO hard sometimes- because, let's admit it- sometimes you WANT to write a check and fix it- and there are times we do- but REALLY teaching them Godly principles and EMPOWERING them requires more than $$$$$!
Let me just add that I grew up in a single parent family with an income below the poverty line, and my mom never once asked the church for money!
There was one time when things were really tight and we were almost down to NO food in our house, when a bunch of people from our church marched into our house one after another with bags of groceries saying, "These are from the Lord." What was really cool was that for weeks, my brother had been on this kick where all he wanted to eat was Honey Nut Cheerios. He was pretty little then and didn't understand that cereal was expensive and we just plain couldn't afford them. Well, sticking out of the top of the first bag brought in was an extra large box of Honey Nut Cheerios!! My brother grabbed the box and just carried it around the house for about 1/2 hour...still makes me tear up thinking about it!
But my mom always found a way to send us to camp, because she felt that it was important for us to go each year. We never got "scholarships" from the church. I received a private school education because my mom was a teacher there (free tuition for teachers' kids). I got myself a paper route when I was ten and continued it until I graduated from high school. This was what paid for the "extras," like youth ski trips and the like. To this day, I am the champion (topped only possibly by my best friend who grew up in similar circumstances!) of finding amazing outfits at thrift stores. Most of my outfits cost a total of $10 from head to toe. I also ended up graduating from one of the most expensive Christian colleges in the area. Still paying for it, but then who at my age isn't?
The point is, people need to learn to trust God and stop trusting the church to solve all of their financial problems! I look back in amazement at what we lived on as a family, because there is no way that we should have even had a place to live, let alone nice clothes and furniture, plenty to eat - heck, I've weighed more than I should since about my junior year of high school, lol - and a whole bunch of "luxuries" that the world says we shouldn't be able to afford. But God's math is not the same as ours!!
Puppetmaster, I had another thought as you were saying what you did...
We have some families in the church who are just as you described your growing up experience to be. They never, ever ask the church for anything. However many times the Lord allows us on staff to see a need although they by no means made it known. We have met many of those needs when they have presented themselves - of our own decision. For instance, there is a dear woman in our church who until recently was a single mother, not of her own choosing. Her husband had affairs and walked out. She is the sweetest woman in the world. Her ex husband is basically an idiot. Well anyway, she was a struggling single mom with 3 kids. She held down 2 jobs to make it work. Not only that but she served her heart out in the church, still does. She can be counted on for anything. I used to just burn with anger when I would see her doing all this and think of her ex husband. Anyway, with her it was not mis-management. She worked 2 jobs and she pinched a penny until it screamed. There were times Larry and I saw despite her best efforts, there were still basic needs they didn't have met. Several times we stepped in to help and other church members did too, but they never asked one time nor thought the church owed them anything.
It's interesting that the people who really need the help usually don't ask for it, and those who are mis-managing have no problem asking. Have you noticed that?
Deanna - That is definitely true! We had a family in our church who ended up getting all the expensive shoes, toys, brand name foods, and every new Disney video that came out because the kids were on every charitable list in town (Salvation Army Angel Tree, Toys for Tots, etc.).
My friend and I were talking this weekend about how people will believe 90% of what we tell them. We used the example of beauty. If I believe I'm good looking and I tell people that I am a hot number and that my husband is blessed to have a wife as gorgeous as me, and I project that attitude, then people will believe that I am. Same thing with poverty. Families like the one I was talking about project the image, "Hey, we're poor!" and people, sheep that they are, will say, "Yes, they are poor!"
Funny story: One summer our pastor's wife (who was my mom's boss and her best friend) asked her husband if the church could provide partial camp scholarships for my brother and me, just to help us out. He said, "No, I think we should save the $$ for people who really need it!" She looked at him in disbelief and said, "Do you KNOW how much this woman makes? I sign her checks!" He couldn't believe that we lived on that amount, and just assumed that we were doing all right because we didn't go around whining about how broke we were all the time. The philosophy I was raised with was, "You can be low income without being poor!"
