With tax monies declining and county services being cut, where are the churches?

I had the opportunity last weekend to attend our local county budget hearing. Over several days the board conducted a handful of open hearings for community members to give their input on what NOT to cut. Over a period of several hours I heard plea after plea from people with real needs and concerns. From the single parent who was depending on the county subsidized childcare to ensure her child wasn't left home alone while she worked to the senior citizens who depend on the services, programs and meals offered at the frequented senior center to increase their mental and physical well being, EVERYONE HAD A NEED! Even the school district is looking at reduced staffing, canceled programs and services and higher classroom sizes, decreasing the quality of education offered. I do not envy the board. They have a difficult task ahead of them as they sort all this out and reconcile the monstrous deficit ahead of them.

As I sat there listening to everyone, I just kept asking myself WHERE ARE THE CHURCHES? We say we care about the community but what are we specifically doing to help meet their needs? We say we desire to live like Jesus and yet the county is the one striving to meet the needs of its community, creating programs and struggling to pay for services.

And that is when, as a fellow Christ-follower and member of the Kingdom of God, I became extremely embarrassed. Embarrassed that within our county we have over ONE HUNDRED churches. One hundred churches that for the most part are not focused on meeting the needs of the community. One hundred churches that didn't sit in attendance at these budget meetings, making lists of ways they could help. One hundred churches that have lost sight of their true Jesus mission, while all around them their community screams for help. But MOST of all, I sat there embarrassed that the county government is living more like Jesus than we are!

The economic crisis our country is struggling through is painful and disconcerting, but the ethos crisis our churches are living is deafening and destructive. We have lost focus of why we exist. We have become inwardly focused, isolated from the very people we were called to reach. We live a life that strives to build bigger buildings and create more programs for our members, while all around us basic needs for the community we live in such as childcare, education, safety and health are being threatened.

This economic crisis is an opportunity for churches to redeem themselves. If every church stepped up to the plate and committed to the county to help replace the deficit with people and resources can you imagine the Christ-centered revival it would ignite? I have heard people describe the church as the hope of the world. During this economic crisis why don't we step up to the plate and actually BECOME it!

We the church, in order to form a more perfect world, establish Christ, insure Kingdom focus, provide for community needs, promote Christ-centered lives, and secure the blessings of scripture to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this pledge to our Father, who art in heaven.