Care for People Sermon Series -- Part 4

Care for People Sermon Series – Part 4

Adam Trambley

St.John’s Episcopal Church, Sharon, October 15, 2017

Over the past few weeks, we have been looking at the second part of our purpose statement, “Care for People.  Today, I want to talk about some best practices for organizations and ministries to make a difference in people’s lives, and then share recommendations from the vestry about part of what we have been discussing.

We are addressing these issues now because we facing challenges that stem from our ministries’ success.  I am proud of the work we are doing here at St. John’s. I also don’t have the answers – I’m not even sure there is a single right answer.  We can find the best way forward, however, by gathering information and making intentional, prayerful decisions together.

Six best practices in caring for people come from the book, Forces for Good: Six Practices of High-Impact Non-Profits,by Leslie Crutchfield and Heather McLeod Grant.  Many of their findings are directly relevant to our individual ministries, as well as for our church as a whole.

Their first practice is to engage individuals.  Make participating and volunteering a great experience, and allow people to develop their passion.  Engaging individuals well means that people are excited to be there and that they tell their friends.  They become evangelists, to coin a phrase, for the ministry or organization.  In many ways, St. John’s does this effectively.  We see people from outside the congregation volunteer for our ministries and participate in our events, and sometimes bring their friends.

Their second practice is to collaborate with other non-profits.  Instead of competing, find complementary agencies to work with.  Our ministries do this by having multiple churches cooking at our Saturday lunch, or getting young people from Keystone to serve, or having another church help with bags at the food pantry.  As a congregation, we collaborate by joining with First Methodist for Vacation Bible School and working with West Hill Ministries. 

A third best practice is to work with businesses so that markets and people’s altruism can fund necessary work.  ECS picks up bread from local grocery stores, but we aren’t working with very many businesses in creative ways.

A fourth best practice is to advocate to government.  Sometimes policy changes need to be made or government funding can be available.  At St. John’s, we do get food from the Food Warehouse via government programs, and the Food Warehouse goes to Harrisburg to advocate for the needy in our area.  Otherwise we don’t do much of this.

A fifth best practice is to adapt to changing circumstances.  This practice may seem obvious, but churches aren’t always good at it.  We should always ask what in our environment might be changing that will require us to change to remain effective.

The sixth best practice is to share leadership.  Successful organizations and ministries develop as many leaders in as many areas as possible.  I think St. John’s generally does a pretty good job of this, but again, this principle is worth keeping in mind. 

These best practices go well with an overall asset-based approach to caring for people.  We might think about this approach spiritual-gifts based, since it recognizes that everyone is made in the image of God and has gifts, strengths and passions.  Instead of just “doing for” people who we think need our help, we want to “do with” them.  Some examples of this approach are the clients from ECS who also volunteer and the guests at the lunches that have found ways to contribute to that work.

At the same time, “doing with” is always a struggle for church ministries.  To begin with, this process really takes time.  We have to develop relationships that are deep enough to find out what people can contribute instead of only what we can provide for them.  I know I am guilty of asking “What do you need?” or “How can I help?” a lot more often than “What is your passion?” or “How can you help us help others?”  Once we know what people can do, we have to actually create space for them to do it.   Usually we have to restructure our plans if we are going to include other people’s gifts.  Such change is not always easy for us.

Of course, sometimes when we make time and space for others, they don’t show up or it doesn’t go well, or they don’t seem to care.  It always seems easier to do things ourselves, but doing everything ourselves is never the right answer.  Asking why others may not step forward to work with us can be helpful, even if we won’t like the answers.  Maybe nobody wants what we offer enough to contribute.  Maybe we aren’t offering what is needed in a helpful way, or maybe something in how we operate makes people feel like we think we are better than they are.  Maybe we need to change something to foster “doing with” instead of just “doing for.”  Yet we can also recognize that some people may need certain things “done for” them, and in certain instances that can be OK.   

As folks do engage us, we have to give them real ownership.  We have to all be in this together, not being one group from inside the church helping and another group from outside the church being helped.  We want to be one group offering everyone’s gifts to meet everyone’s need, recognizing that those gifts and needs are likely to be very different.  Such community is both the best practice for community development and the Christian vision of the kingdom of God.

We need a similar approach of “doing with” in our one-on-one relationships with people who may ask us for help.  If relationships aren’t two way, they aren’t real relationships.  Relationships built on need often require more need for the relationship to continue.  Relationships where one person is the “giver” and another person “the receiver” tend to end with either the “receiver” disappearing or the “giver” building up a significant resentment.  Healthy relationships recognize the dignity in each person as a child of God and require both people to be givers and receivers, even if what is given and what is received may be very different.

After thinking about a variety of these issues earlier this year the vestry made some recommendations.  Most of them deal with helping individuals who come to the church seeking direct aid.  The vestry didn’t look at any specific ministries outside of the parish Alms Fund.  However, I hope that our discussion over the past few weeks is helpful to those working in our outreach ministries and facing the challenges of caring for people in our community.  Here are the recommendations:

1.     We encourage individuals in need to utilize our food pantry and come to our weekly lunches.  We recognize that our parish’s primary assistance at this time is food, and we do what we can to ensure that hungry people can obtain the food they need, even in emergencies.

The vestry has assumed that our primary vocation as a parish at this time to people in need is to provide direct aid to people through food assistance.  We might feel in the future that we need to change this focus, but this is where our ministries currently focus.

2.     We encourage individual parishioners to make contributions to the parish alms fund, and to direct anyone asking them personally for assistance to talk with the rector or other clergy.  In many cases, our clergy have ongoing relationships with people seeking assistance.

We want to help people in the most effective ways possible, and that generally means allowing our clergy to develop a relationship with them and meet their needs as seems best.  Having one person coordinate what we do for someone seems better than having a half dozen people trying to do pieces here or there.  Right now, that one person is usually me, but that could be changed depending on the gifts and interests of others in the parish.

3.     We encourage the rector to partner with other agencies to provide needed assistance for rent, utilities and other emergency services, including making contributions to those agencies and referring people to them instead of trying to manage everything in-house.

We know that best practices involve collaboration and we want to work with other agencies that are better equipped to do case management and comprehensive assistance than we are.  We want some funding available for those in the parish that have needs or for those we have longer standing relationships with, but we don’t want to “compete” with the Salvation Army or Prince of Peace.

4.     We discourage the rector or anyone else from giving direct cash assistance, since in many cases this has proven to be ineffective or even harmful.  Gift cards, direct payment of bills, or other types of assistance are to be preferred, even while we recognize that any type of assistance can be problematic at times. 

Given the addiction issues that we are increasingly seeing, the vestry is discouraging gifts of cash, especially without the case management work done by Prince of Peace or the Salvation Army who are often better able to assess true needs and situations.

5.     We do not want any parishioner, visitor, guest, or ministry volunteer to be put in the awkward position of feeling like they need to provide money to someone out of their own pocket.  If this situation occurs, we encourage people to send those requesting assistance to the rector or clergy.

We want to create relationships of mutuality and community, where everyone sees others as having dignity and being made in the image of God.  We don’t want to simply create a place where those in need come to look for donors or, for that matter, where potential donors look for people in need.  Solicitation of individuals makes direct relationships very difficult, so we want to discourage any asking or giving directly by individuals.  At the same time, the parish alms fund is able to meet many legitimate needs, and those who wish to help can contribute to that. 

6.     We hope that these recommendations support the rector and clergy in working with those in need on behalf of our parish.  We affirm the importance of the rector and clergy using their discretion to meet people’s needs as they believe to be best.  

Finally, the vestry just wants to note how complicated these situations are.  I said at the beginning that I don’t have all the answers, and the vestry is saying that they don’t either.

In conclusion, I would just reiterate the importance of caring for people, especially in this neighborhood at a time when our community is facing so many challenges.  As we heard a couple of weeks ago, scripture is full of mandates to help those in need and we are called to respect the dignity of every child of God.  We also want to care for people as effectively as possible, which is not always easy.  This sermon series is on my sermon blog, adamssermons.blogspot.com, if you want to think more about these issues, and there are links there to the books I’ve mentioned, as well. 

This parish does very good work, even as we find that we have more to do and may need to come up with new ways of doing it.  We are committed to living out fully our God-given purpose – to worship God, to grow as Christians, and to care for people.