Neighborhood Ministries

When the church has a choice of dealing with government agencies or church related agencies, it seems to feel that the government agencies are more qualified. I was working for the welfare department when a church first approached me to help them develop a ministry to the poor. The church had no one that was experienced in working with the poor and knew I was a pastor as well as a Social Worker. While the government has many professional staff that have much that they can teach the church, many frontline government workers do little to deal with the problems clients face. While government workers have the training, they work mostly with paperwork and rarely get directly involved with clients. When I worked for the welfare dept., I sent out the forms and the client filled them out and sent them back. I reviewed the form and approved them, if they qualified. I was only supposed to contact the client if I had a problem with the paperwork. I wanted to help many of them and often went outside my assigned duties to help them, when I could, but I rarely had time to do much. Workers can rarely delve deeper into the client’s problems then seeing that they have the necessary paperwork and meet the necessary criteria, due to heavy caseloads. If they can’t help, they generally tell them to look elsewhere. On the other hand, church agencies often deal directly with clients and seek to locate other resources the client may have that they can use to help themselves. In addition, they are often aware of a wide variety of resources beyond their own which they can refer clients to. As a result, government agencies often refer clients they can’t help to church agencies like the Salvation Army who are more aware of resources available and have more time to help.

Christians wonder why so many people don’t like the church in spite of all the good they do. During the cold war between Russia and the US, both sought the favor of African and South American countries. Russia sent arms so dictators could control their people while the US sent food, yet the people rioted against the U.S. A study found that the US sent the food but left it on the dock. The Russians transported the food to the people and the people thought the food came from Russia. The Russians told the people that America was rich but refused to help them so they rioted against the US. The church today has turned Social services over to the government and para-church organizations. Since the para church organizations get their support from the community, not from the churches, unbelievers see them as community organizations, not Christian organizations. As a result, the people love the government and don’t like the churches, which they see as uncaring and unconcerned.

When the churches supported para church organizations, the churches worked along side the organizations and were able to meet spiritual needs while the organization ministered to physical needs. Clients suffer because most physical needs either derive from spiritual needs or create spiritual needs so the two are intertwined. Since the churches have divorced themselves from the para church organizations, it leaves the para church organizations without the resources to minister to the spiritual needs of their clients. Since those in need go to the organization rather then the church, the church no longer has the contact with those in need that would enable them to minister to the spiritual needs. Most Social Service units in the Salvation Army are attached to churches and the pastor and Social Worker work together to minister to physical and spiritual needs but most para church organizations lack that support.