I am part of a neighborhood social media group. It is sort of like Facebook except it is geographically based rather than relationally based. It is a way to meet folks you live near and for the most part it serves as a notice board for community events, lost pets, and yard sales. However, over the Christmas season there was an uptick in people using this media as a means to “ask”.
The post typically offered a story of hardships, followed by a request for favors, gifts and/or money, and in one case there was a link to an Amazon wish list from which you could choose a gift to send the asker. Most disturbing was from a person claiming to be a single mom who posted pictures of her daughter, aged 5-7, to make the appeal more dramatic. Actually, this person posted several appeals with multiple pictures of the little girl. In a world of crazy and sick evil people I found these ads especially distressing. While I do not doubt that people have real needs, nor am I assuming these people were simply digital con artists trying to run a scam, there is a greater truth to be uncovered.
Ours is a small church but this year working in cooperation with another very small church, made up of Hispanic expatriots, we provided dozens of children with coats, blankets, clothes, and toys for Christmas. We were determined that all the needs made known to their home church would be met. So, what is the difference? In a word “Community”! While we did not know the children personally we were working in the context of community or a fellowship. Their church ministered to them and their families, their church leaders reached out to us and asked our church leaders to help. Our church leaders lead our church members to give. One part of the body of Christ served another. Our congregation’s giving was a force multiplier for our sister congregation’s ministry. We don’t have a lot of people who speak Spanish in our church so trying to minister in that community would be extremely difficult. But native speakers long in that community, but short on resources now have a stronger platform from which to speak.
As a consumer and materialistic society we have, to a great degree, disconnected sharing and community. A consumer and materialistic society sees others as a means to get what we really want, not for the people that they are. We in the church need to take this to heart. The resources we give need to be connected to or shared in the context of a relationship. When I served as a church consultant I once met with a church that did an annual “back to school” backpack give away. Every child in a particular grade at the local school got a free backpack filled with school supplies. Their hearts were in the right place, but I will withhold comment about their brains. They realized there were problems with their plan, one of which was that a lot of the backpacks were thrown away because children from well off families had better backpacks already. But they pressed on. When I asked how many families were part of the church because of this ministry I was told, “We had one family visit once.” Let’s count this for a moment: 4 years + 500 backpacks = one visit. Where did this fail?
Giving without a relationship simply doesn’t work. So, this year, let’s make a point of growing deeper in community and directing our resources to maximize our community influence.
No comments:
Post a Comment