Had a good morning in a place I need to spend more time. A place where Christ following individuals are trying to help people, but in a way that forces the recipient to be part of the solution. A place where the leadership holds people accountable to the assistance they are seeking. A place I think a lot of people providing assistance to people need to serve.
For example. If you are requesting financial assistance for an electric bill due to not having a job. Not only must you provide you bill, ID, financial records, you must answer a handful of other questions. They check to see if there are any warrants out for your arrest and also IndianaUnclaimed.com to see if you have any money out there waiting for you to claim. Say you owe $500. They review all the info they've collected and may decide they will provide $125 towards that bill, in which they will write directly to the service provider. Before you get that cash, depending on your situation, you must come up with the rest of the funds to completely pay the bill somehow, attend at least one church session at a church of your choice, complete two bible studies just to get the person in the word at their home, look for a job in at least 10 places, and do all this within 2-weeks. You have to do all this prior to them writing the check. So, it makes you really work for the assistance. I felt like everything they were asking of someone was within a healthy boundary.
As I interact with more people in need and wrestle with thoughts on community development and understand more of who Christ is calling us to be, I need more situations like this to operate in. I quickly realize that I need to be in situations where I interact with those in need more often to know what is the right or the wrong thing to do. I can't continue operating out of my safe, comfortable area and feel confident that I know what's best. What I think is best, is typically jaded and best for me, not them.
Think about that you as you journey this week.. Are you spending time in the margins.
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I stumbled across your blog and know your feelings well. I am a fellow Hoosier and did some job training during a summer in Ft Wayne. i originally hail from Indy thought. A fellow Christian, I feel sometimes the system falls short or asks to much of some people in needing immediate assistance and has got itself in the position of doing this from extending a hand all too often to those who do not want to help themselves. I have gotten involved with Angel Food Ministries.....the program works for me here in our military town in southern GA. We are here as long as God and the Army says stay. It allows me to get the word of God to those in need but also to anyone as there are no qualifications to get Angel Food even a millionaire can purchase food for a savings in their food bill. The word of God is spreading here in our town and we have had reached two people that formerly did not know Christ at all.
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