A couple of weeks ago, Nikalie Monroe, decided to do an informal social experiment. She called places of worship asking for help with purchasing formula for a newborn. Less than a quarter of the churches she contacted said yes. The yes category included a Buddhist temple, a black church, a mosque, and a Hispanic church. Monroe did not have much luck with the mega churches. The social media posts went viral and she now has more than a million followers.
I’ve been chewing on this story for a couple of weeks. As someone who loves research, I have a couple of problems with her methods, but this is not an academic study, so I can let that slide. As someone who has received help from various churches, I was excited about every yes. I love that the Buddhists and the Muslim places that were contacted gave freely. But as a person who has worked in several administrative capacities at a Christian church, I am torn. What do you do when generosity and good governance are at odds?
Most churches that I know, and certainly the ones I grew up in, took up a benevolence fund offering. I never knew what the fund was used for. I just knew that’s where I usually put my dollars because I didn’t have an income to tithe, and I wasn’t about to put a dime in the building fund. (The church I grew up in looks exactly the same as it did when I was a teenager except now they added two TV monitors. Maybe I should have put my coins in the building fund.)
But as an adult, I learned that the benevolence fund was to help those less fortunate, though I wasn’t quite sure what less fortunate meant, since almost everybody in the church was struggling in some way or another. Most of us had more month than money. Most of us were living paycheck to paycheck, and very few, if any of us, were not in some kind of debt. When I started working as the church secretary and gained access to things that ordinary pew members don’t get to see, I learned a few things. Then, when I joined the finance committee, I learned a few more things.
I learned that in that particular church, in order to request benevolent funds, you had to complete an application. I think I may have even had to help create a new application at some point. Once the application was completed, it was submitted to the finance committee for a vote. Preference was given to members who paid tithes. If approved, the application was forwarded to the people who were authorized to write checks, and then sent to the people who could actually sign those checks. Two signatures were required on every check. At our church,the committee, which consisted of 5-7 people, generally only met once or twice a month. The people who signed the checks were not on the committee, and sometimes the people who wrote the checks were not on the committee either.
There are multiple problems with this structure. First, if you had an emergent need, there is a very high likelihood that you would not receive a response in time. This lady claimed to have needed money to feed her hungry child. It might have been four weeks before we even responded to her request. Second, at this point, a whole lot of people know your business. In a church with maybe 300 on the church roll, and about 150 in average attendance, ten or so have had to touch your request. They knew you didn’t have money for your light bill, or as in this case, couldn’t afford to feed your baby. This is not ideal. America already shames people for being poor. We’re on the verge of criminalizing it.
I am completely on the side of churches crossing every T and dotting every I. I think churches ought to set the standard for good business practices. We should be models of good governance. I believe our churches should be able to account for every dollar spent, and that a lot of that money should be spent on actual ministry. I just don’t know how to do that well.
There are churches that are doing it successfully. Wheeler Avenue in Houston just paid off 55 million dollars in five years. That’s incredibly impressive. I’m sure there are others with fantastic stewardship models. But churches like the ones I grew up in, and the one I was last a member of, are struggling to pay their own monthly bills. I remember a pastor asking for a raise one time, and I had to look that man in his eyes as I voted not to pay him more. We couldn’t afford to pay him the salary he was already receiving. I don’t know how some of these churches are managing to serve their local communities, and pay their bills, especially since attendance and giving are down across the nation.
But I do know how the people that are members of those churches are serving. A Kentucky pastor bypassed the whole process. He asked what the name of the formula was and where he could buy it. He said he was a grandfather and that he’d buy the formula himself so that the child wouldn’t go hungry. He reminds me that we, the people, are the church. We have been called to be the hands and feet of Jesus. And we are the ones who will have to minister to our neighbors in these tough times.
When the current president was elected, I posted that I hoped that our churches were prepared in this moment to minister to people that they have never had to serve before. I think I want to revise that statement. The church is now going to have to prepare its people to minister to those it had never served before. You may have government workers who used to bring in six figures standing in food lines. You may encounter folks seeking refuge in your sanctuary who don’t even speak the same language you do. You may encounter “Tik-Tok” stars and Instagram models who are using your ministry for a social experiment. And you, I mean, we have to be ready for any and all of it.
Our people are the churches’ greatest asset. The people can nimbly go into spaces where our clunky organizational structures just won’t fit. When administration butts heads with actual ministry, may our hearts lean into ministry every single time. That’s the winning formula.
The Gospel According to Gabrielle 