Poverty plays a significant role in the wider vulnerability of families, with links to low educational attainment, engagement in drug and gang culture, and poorer health outcomes. Coming from a background of poverty impacts a child’s life even before birth, with neonatal and infant death rates proving higher in poor families.
Of course, poverty has always existed and, by many measures, there is a much wider spectrum and distribution of material wealth now than there was 100 years ago. However, over the last few years, a perfect storm of factors has been brewing to plunge many family units into barely-tenable existences, from public sector budget cuts and welfare caps to zero-hours contracts. There is an increasing weight of expectation on the voluntary sector to support these families, members of which are receiving less and less in the way of public sector funding. Instead, churches and other Christian organisations have become a key part of this picture.
What does this mean for the Church and the Christian community? Are we doing enough to care for families that are vulnerable as a result of poverty? Firstly, we need to separate the government’s expectations for churches and faith groups to ‘step up’ and support the vulnerable from the message and instruction God has laid down for us in scripture. It is clear that God cares for the poor and expects us, as his hands and feet on Earth, to care. In Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus paints a very powerful picture of how our actions towards the poor are actions towards him. We are expected to love, care for and practically help the poor.
However, this is not the whole story, and I believe there are two key principles that need to be remembered when churches and Christian organisations start to think about engaging in social action projects. In Acts 6, the Early Church was in a similar situation. The number of widows who needed feeding was growing and this was impacting on the teaching ministry of the 12 apostles to the point that they needed to do something about it, so they appointed seven additional men to oversee the work. This is important whenever we think about starting a new ministry to meet the needs of our communities. It needs to be an addition to our core work of teaching God’s word, rather than a replacement.
Secondly, I would argue that it is important that projects, particularly where children and families are involved, need to be prayed into extensively and be considered with wisdom and discernment to ensure that the project is not just a ‘good thing’ but the ‘right thing’; the thing God has equipped you and your community to do. Starting a ministry with vulnerable people that has to be withdrawn due to a lack of skills, time or resources can be catastrophic for the community. The collapse of Kids Company and the impact on the communities the organisation was working with bears testament to this.
You are not just starting a group or ministry, you are committing to be there for those you are serving and with whom you are building deep relationships. You might think you’re just running a parent and toddler group and providing tea and toys, but it is more than that: you are representing Jesus in your community, being a Christian light to those that come. You don’t know what is going on in their lives, but hopefully over time, by being there, the ministry you are involved in (and, by association, your church) can become a normal part of their support network.
If, after praying and considering the call on you and your church to serve the poor in light of the above, you are ready to go and ‘do something’, here are some suggestions of ways your church could engage with the poor and vulnerable in your community.
THE ROLE
Appoint and invest in, both financially and with your time, a children and families’ worker. This can be a paid person or a volunteer with a substantial amount of time to give to the work. A paid worker is often better as it gives stability and definition to a role that a volunteer doesn’t always have. I would argue that although a Bible college education can be helpful in bringing together theological knowledge with the skills and knowledge required to work with children and families, it is not essential. What is far more important is a mature faith, a willingness to learn and train in the principles that underpin Christian children and families’ work and a servant heart, willing to walk the extra mile and spend time forming relationships with and nurturing families.
This does not mean that your children and families, work will be ‘sorted’ just because you have a dedicated worker. This is just the beginning. Your church needs to come together to form a team around your worker. Your worker is a human source of expertise and skill, leading and enhancing your work with a team, not an infinite, omnipresent superhero who can do everything by themselves. If you have a children’s worker already, pray and consider how you are called to support them, be that with time to help with a group, or something simple like a cake, made just for them, delivered to their desk. Love them and care for them because you would miss them if they were gone!
THE WORK
Consider how accessible your church services and activities are for families and others that are struggling financially. Passing an offering plate around during a service can put families who have very little to give in a position where they feel they have to contribute financially in order to come to church. To avoid the embarrassment of letting the plate pass, they simply opt out of church. Yes, giving is biblical, and yes, churches need money to exist, but there are, I believe, more accessible ways of providing people with the opportunity to give.
A simple shift could be having a box with a slot in your church foyer for people’s financial gifts rather than passing a plate around. You can still mention it in your newsletter or from the front, and you can still pray and give thanks for the offering without handing a plate around. Another shift could be in how you think about giving; valuing contributions to your community that are non-financial equally with the pounds and pence that get entered onto your church’s balance sheet. Giving is vital to the maturity of our faith, but it needs to be sacrificial. In families that are both money and time poor, giving time to with a project or ministry can be more sacrificial and have more impact than giving money they simply do not have.
THE COMMUNITY
Look closely at the needs of your community and whether your church is best placed to meet that need, or whether partnership with other agencies (or even deciding that your church is better suited to meeting a different need) would be a better use of resources. Different communities have different social makeups and benefit from different ministries and projects. If you don’t know what the most pressing needs of your community are, consider contacting your MP, school or local council to ask, or do a community survey asking people directly. You may be surprised to hear what people really need. Be prepared to do anything that is needed. ‘Feet washing’ and serving sacrificially can change faith and give real insights to servant leadership and the character of our own servant king.
One source of inspiration for churches is the Cinnamon Network, which works with and promotes a number of ‘best practice projects’ and is even able to provide ‘micro-grants’ to support the setup of these approved projects in communities across the UK. Christians Against Poverty, Make Lunch, Parish Nursing, TLG and Baby Basics are all supported by the Cinnamon Network, so its website is a great place to start for a church that is looking for ideas but has little experience or expertise in starting something from scratch.
If an organisation doesn’t currently exist that does what you need to do for your community, prayerfully consider with others who share your passion for your community and the children and families you serve whether you are equipped to set something up from scratch. If you have the passion but not the necessary skills or qualifications, ask God to show you either how you can gain those skills or to lead you to another Christian who has and can be a part of what you are trying to achieve.
Bearing in mind the challenge that we are faced with as Christians and the breadth of opportunities to serve the poor and vulnerable that are reasonably accessible to churches of different sizes and with different skills, is the Church doing enough? If the Church worked hard enough, could poverty be made history? The answer lies in scripture, where Jesus is discussing with the disciples the actions of the woman with the perfume at Bethany (Matthew 26:6- 13). He says, ‘You will always have the poor with you.’ In isolation, this seems like a depressing verse (although it is better to do something for the poor rather than stand by); however, it needs to be read with the next part, which states that ‘the good news will be told to people in all of the world’.
This is our mission: to share the good news with all people. Different people will need the good news to be shared with them in different ways. For those who are living in poverty in your community, it could that your church offering a school holiday lunch kitchen is the opening they need to explore what church is really about, so don’t be afraid to tell them. We need to be striving not just to improve the lives of those in our communities on a temporary, practical basis, but looking towards the goal: for those we encounter to be changed spiritually for eternity.
What could it look like?
Are you struggling with ideas to serve your community in this way? Here are some projects to draw inspiration from…
Make Lunch
What is it?
Make Lunch is an organisation that equips and supports churches to run lunch kitchens during the summer holidays, aiming to help alleviate holiday hunger. Make Lunch kitchens currently operate in more than 50 locations, and the number is rising all the time.
Why?
For families whose children receive free school meals during term time, the holidays can be really tough as they try to find enough food to make up for that shortfall that is usually met by school meals.
How can we get started?
After discerning whether holiday hunger is an issue in your community, gather together a group of volunteers to help you. This is quite a commitment and will require a number of people with different skills.
Who Let The Dads Out?
What is it?
Who Let The Dads Out? is a ministry that is run in local churches. It resources and equips dads and father figures to spend time with their children. Most groups start as dad and toddler groups, but some branch out into dad’s discussion groups, dad and children’s breakfasts and even dadfocused parenting classes.
Why?
The aim is to bring dads and children together, so they can spend quality time together while engaging with church and other families.
How can we get started?
You could get hold of the book Who Let The Dads Out? by Mark Chester, which explains the background and aims of Who Let The Dads Out? in an easy-to-read and accessible way.
Baby Basics
What is it?
Baby Basics is a small yet growing organisation which, through the local church, supports vulnerable new mothers through the provision of essential equipment.
Why?
With Matthew 25:37-40 as a starting point, Baby Basics demonstrates God’s love through helping women and families who would struggle to afford the items needed to give their babies a good start in life.
How can we get started?
Get in contact with your local midwife or health visiting team to establish whether there is a need locally. You will need to work with them, so building a good relationship with them from the start is key.
Katrina Thomas is project coordinator for CURBS
