feeding the hungry
Recently, I read an article that talked about how a church’s desire to feed the homeless in the surrounding community was met with a lot of resistance from its wealthy neighbors. Picture this, every Sunday morning a large group of homeless people came out of the woodwork to have breakfast outside the church. They stood around eating and listening to the message that was being shared inside. (Sounds good to me!)
The pastor called it the “Lord’s work”. The neighbor’s basically said we don’t care whose work it is, move it somewhere else.
To make a long story short, this situation has escalated to where it is actually being disputed in federal court in Phoenix. You can read the article HERE.
Have you ever heard of anything like that happening before? I know of several times where pastors have worked to do the “Lord’s work” and help the poor and needy in a community and the wealthier neighbors rebel against it. I’ve heard so many similar stories like this I have to ask,
“Are there situations when it’s not ok to serve the poor and needy?
What do you think? Would you be upset if the church was doing this in your neighborhood?
After spending a week in a country where most of the people live on very little and seeing kids begging and/or trying to sell you things it makes you realize how much we take for granted. Then you hear stories such as these where not only are the people taking what they have for granted, they are trying to hold people back from helping those in need. The sad part is, if the “wealthy people” win in court, people will soon forget what happened. Then eventually some will say that the church is not filling it’s role in caring for the needy. Sounds like a no win situation for that church. This sort of thing drives me crazy!
ugh man.. what a story. The question you asked should be a no brainer, it just sucks that a church is trying to do something good but and they are meeting resistence.
Now I dont know what to say about the section of the article where there were some cars broken into ect.. that ugh i dunno I mean there has to be a line where they take responsibility of the people being there if stuff like that happens. But I dont think it should be that they stop doing the breakfast and reaching out to the community.
me too jeremy. and yes, it definitely sounds like a no-win situation. where all have you traveled?
i hear that adam. i hate that stuff has happened to their cars, etc., but that still seems like a small price to pay for helping others. although my car hasn’t been broken into in this type of situation. when it all comes down to it, the situation is harder than it first appears.
I went to Mali, West Africa. From there we went to two villages. We also were in Dakar, Senegal on our layover on the way to and from Mali. Tons of poverty in all places. Especially in the cities.
wow. would love to travel that much. congrats to you friend. but yes, there is a lot of poverty in the world. a lot in east nashville too…
I’m actually upset that more churches aren’t doing this. To answer your question, in my opinion it’s never ok to not help the poor. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to be doing? I guess it’s a hot topic for me right now because I’m immersed in it at the moment, I usually don’t comment on strangers blogs
Thanks for posting it though!
Keely, thanks for the comment. i agree with you – more churches definitely need to be doing more for the poor.
Our church has adopted an unreached people group in Mali. This was our first trip of many over the next several years. I was fortunate enough to be able to go on this trip with 5 other guys. It was a great trip, one in which we saw 5 guys choose to follow Christ in a village we visited.
I love the fact that you are getting so involved in your neighborhood. There is tons of poverty here in our own backyards. Because of the size of our church, we are fortunate that we can do international missions as well as local missions.
this makes me sad..really sad. This is exactly what we’re supposed to doing. This is the heart of the gospel–and what Christ continually spoke about-loving in action. I can see why the neighbors feel at unease because of those incidents, but I feel like they are stereotyping all homeless people as bad people. It’s a sticky situation, but it was never meant to be easy.
The reason it sounds good to you Matt, is because you are a real Christian. Many who claim to be, are not. Jesus will say to many, ‘depart from me, I never knew you.’
It is important in our fellowship with Jesus that we allow Him to know us,too. If we are honest with Him, He can change our lives. He has the power to fix everything and no thing is beyond Him. Many people like those at the above mentioned community fail to realize that EVERYONE is poor and needy in SOME ways. On the poverty stricken, it is easy to see their needs; on others it is harder to help when we cant see whats wrong. But — it is never wrong to do the right thing!
thank you mary. hope you’re doing well!
JJacob, i agree with you completely. most of the things Christ calls us to aren’t easy. unfortunately, and yet that’s how the real adventure begins!
hey man..so I was interning today..and I came across this statistic, and I thought you’re post.
” People experiencing homelessness are not a static group; homelessness is a “revolving-door phenomenon.” It is estimated that over the course of a year, between 2.3 and 3.5 million people will experience homelessness, of which between 900,000 and 1.4 million will be children.”
I don’t know how up to date it is, but we have a long ways to go.
You know for so long we have looked at homeless, poor, and needy as those who will not work, those who had but threw it away on drugs, etc. We always want to make ourselves look good for what “we have accomplished,” and not what we have “been blessed with.” I have never had to wonder how I would pay the bills, and to that I am thankful, but I have family members who have and are there. Out of my blessings I try to reach out to those in need. Can I save the world. No but I can make a difference in one’s life at a time. I do not understand the thinking of those who think they too cannot fall. I mean, did they get on top because they stepped on others backs, or because others lifted them up. Should we not be about lifting others up whether to feed, cloth, or house them? This is what it means to live in community. In charity, we feed, cloth, and house. Through humanity we provide and teach them ways in which to provide for themselves. If we only provide charity then we keep them in the state they are. But if we do both then we have brought them out of poverty. Let’s be about both.