“It’s good there’s poor people, because we can do mission now.”
“It’s good there’s poor people, because now they need us and when people are in need they listen.”
“It’s good there’s poor people, because we needed to salve our conscience by helping somebody.”
Like any good writer, I made those quotes up. Imagine how you would feel if you actually heard somebody say them? The thing is, I don’t think you have to scratch very far in many of us and our churches to find those opinions, however unspoken, however unrealised. Let me explain, and I will begin by saying some really positive things about the church generally at the moment.
The church (or a lot of it) is seizing the moment and being active among the poor and those in need, even parts of the church that didn’t used to do much. The support for FoodBanks, Street Pastors, School Pastors, debt counselling and so on is, without doubt, a Good Thing. And it is being (slowly) collectively realised that much of our contemporary worship is removed from the world in which we live, so there are (a few) songs that actually mention how we live (e.g. Bring Heaven to Earth by Andy Flannagan and Build Your Kingdom Here by Rend Collective). This is good. It almost goes with out saying that church pilgrimages like New Wine/Spring Harvest/Soul Survivor have a practical social action element to them. Brilliant. 10 years ago this was new.
Now to the crunch though. I was recently in a meeting of church leaders in which a speaker was talking about the link between government welfare cuts and church social action projects; he said that it isn’t and never was the state’s responsibility to care for the poor, but it is the church’s responsibility, and we should see the (positively spun) welfare cuts as an opportunity for mission. To my horror, there was a murmur of approval from many of said church leaders.
Reduced to it’s unspoken core, this says it is good there are poor people, because now we can do mission. For churches who were faltering to find a place and a voice in contemporary society, and who were not engaging with people in poverty in any meaningful way, it is so easily seen that way. I will now tell you why I think this is wrong.
1. Poverty should never be an opportunity for mission, but an opportunity for service. Service must come first. We serve the poor, relentlessly and selflessly and even if they never come to church we serve and serve.
Sutton Foodbank
2. Poverty needs more than sticking plasters. Martin Luther King said the church is great at being the Good Samaritan, but not good at going back to the Jericho Road to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Desmond Tutu said the church is great at pulling the bodies out of the river, but what we need to do is go upstream and see who is pushing them in. And stop them. Foodbanks are great, an essentially but TEMPORARY sticking plaster. There is one in my church but I don’t want it there – not because I don’t like it, I don’t think we should need them.
3. Tackling poverty is a long-term community-based issue, which means building relationships, asking questions of councillors and MPs, lobbying on behalf of those who do not have a voice. Finding out about people who are not me.
I feel passionately about this because I am so middle-class I know how easily it is to think you’re helping by buying Fair Trade, supporting a Food Bank and shopping in Waitrose. But it’s not enough. Can you write good letters? Write them. Can you argue well? Argue for the poor. Are you a shareholder who’s CEO salaries are outrageous? Tell them. Campaigning for a Living Wage, for example, must be done hand in hand with FoodBanks, as 60% of people on benefits are IN WORK.
We need to see the current economic situation not as a wonderful opportunity to do mission but a terrible opportunity to do service. Challenge your church leader. Ask them for a theology of poverty. Do a Bible study on Isaiah 58. And see what happens.
…
I’m thinking about joining Christians on the Left (formerly Christian Socialist Movement). Have a look for yourself.
the blog of kevin 
It may not be good that there are poor just so we can minister to them, but, given that then poor will always be with us, it would be good to see the Church being active on their behalf, because that is part of its job. It isn’t the job of government to provide handouts to the poor, in fact handouts are seldom the right answer, they build a dependency culture. Jesus healed a beggar so he didn’t need to beg, which rather shook his whole lifestyle. The Church isn’t doing its work when it just distributes Government handouts.
Society needs to care for and nurture the poor so they can achieve something with their lives and be free from dependency. The trouble is we no longer have a society. Society is built of culture and emotion. Our liberal, cultureless society is against all this. Everybody has rights and there is no system for dealing with conflicting rights. We don’t allow emotion, love, faith and other right brain things to come into our society, we must only think rationally and financially, and as history shows that results in the collapse of civilisation.
Oh that God would inspire his Church to get out there and speak up for society and for morality and for a different way of seeing and living. Oh for leaders prepared to be ridiculed for preaching the way of faith, and for politicians who will live a life of faith. Our civilisation is in terminal decline and the poor are a very large symptom of that. We must not turn our backs on them, but also we must not treat only the symptom but the whole illness that has destroyed our society.
I partly agree with you, but don’t see it quite so bleakly, as I can see that the church is often standing up against the rational/financial model, and is gaining influence as the wheels come off and the politicians/financial folk continue in denial.
The way to challenge it is to use our skills to do just that: to challenge it. I think people always think society is in terminal decline, and in order to arrest that each generation has to find ways to change it. Which includes the wisdom of people who have been around a long time and therefore have a sense of perspective.
If a have a small criticism of Foodbank it is that it’s founder allegedly has the objective to see an outlet in every town up and down the country…er no. It should have the objective of not existing at all.
Agreed!
Thank you for this, Kevin- I stumbled across your blog via Nick Baines’ site- but will come here again! I’ve been thinking a lot about both mission and service recently. I was really heartened and reassured to read your “point 1”- I am being increasingly uncomfortable with the prevailing view in my church that all “service” is ultimately about “mission”- and that every initiative which helps to serve the community (e.g. a café reaching out to the lonely; a toddler group meeting a need for local parents) is not succeeding unless it brings new people into the congregation. I’m all for mission and evangelism (though I think it’s more about life in all its fullness here and now, rather than guaranteeing people’s eternal destiny) but I don’t like the thought of stopping “service” initiatives if they are deemed to have no missionary value. Many thanks for your thoughts here!
Thanks Thomas, for reading and for commenting.