Trading Places?

Have you ever looked at the Bible, read its stories, then looked at the government and thought the government is doing a better job of being the Church than the churches are?  I can’t help but get frustrated when I see the government giving charity to those on welfare, not because I am against welfare, but because I feel that that’s where the Church should be, helping those who are less fortunate and making a way for them to survive in a life-sucking society.   

It seems to me that the churches have taken themselves so far out of society (“be in the world but not of it”) that they can’t help the world that they are in, which is their very calling from Christ (Matthew 28:19ff).  This does not span just over the United States, but in the UK as well.  Let me explain.  I am right now living with a gracious host family where I live in a lovely home filled with the aroma of tea throughout the day (the daughter and I cannot get enough of it it seems), yet in the evenings I go into town and spend a few hours with young people from what would be seen in America as the “welfare community”.  

My question I ask daily is, how do I relate to them?  How can I minister to them in a way applicable to their lives?  Or more so how can I better minister to them?  A simple, yet somewhat scary answer is to live amongst them.  Look at Jesus as an example.  When He ministered to people He didn’t tell them to come to Him in order to receive the message (although many did follow Him), He went to them, came to their cities, entered their houses, in order to better understand them, better reach them, because He was immersing Himself in their culture, in their lifestyle, in their LIVES.  How better to understand someone than to “take a walk in their shoes”?  I can’t help but be frustrated amongst the blessings I have been given here because my desire is to reach the people of the “welfare community” known in these parts as the Burrendale, but in order to do so I must be immersed in their culture, understanding their needs on a daily basis so that I can fulfill those in hopes of fulfilling their spiritual needs when God sees a fitting time to do so.  I see how society and the Church should interact and encounter each other, but there is an absence in that the Church is absent, unseen, yet the government is plainly doing what the Church has ultimately been called to do.

I see how the Church (including myself because I am a part of the Church) ought to interact, but doing so is hard with minimal numbers, but my hope and prayer is for this vision to become a reality.  To do life amongst those living in the Burrendale, meeting their daily needs, and ministering to their spiritual needs in the same breath. 

“Heal my heart and make it clean, Open up my eyes to the things unseen, Show me how to love how You have loved me, Break my heart for what breaks Yours, Everything I am for Your Kingdom’s cause, As I walk from earth into eternity.”—Hosanna by Christy Nockels