DISCIPLESHIP AND ASSISTANCE
Helping people in need can run the gamut from giving a quarter to someone begging on the street corner to canceling a debt that can run into the thousands of dollars. It can be help that addresses some immediate need like ordering a fast-food sandwich to alleviate someone’s hunger pangs or it can be a program with counseling and mentorship to help someone out of drug or alcohol addiction. There are those who want to help someone or who have a world-encompassing vision to make this world a better, safer, more hospitable place where people can thrive and experience a sense of well-being. They can devote themselves to these causes with a clear conscience and gain a great sense of satisfaction. A person that is bent on evangelism and discipleship can fall into the trap of evaluating a diaconal program by how many “professions of faith” or baptisms result from this work. For example, a mega church sponsoring a how-to-grow-a-church conference might say, “We established a car repair and maintenance ministry to help single mothers, and as a result so many mothers came to our church and then were baptized.” Or, a church might maintain a food pantry and sponsor a food truck where once a month the needy may pick up staples to supplement their food needs, promoting it as a means of evangelism. Programs such as these are not designed for evangelism and discipleship and they should not be promoted as such.
Diaconal programs work best when they come with no pressure for those who are being served to demonstrate gratitude or respond with a faith commitment. Often, some volunteers have made the disparaging remark, “These people don’t even say thank you. How ungrateful!” But what would we expect from people of the world? They judge us as they would judge service at Walmart or McDonalds, and if it isn’t up to retail store standard (even though it’s free), they readily complain. They may be ungrateful, but at least they are free. They are not being coerced or manipulated to make a hypocritical decision as the homeless did when, in former times, rescue missions required the men to attend a worship service before they could eat and then go to their beds.
With this in mind, some churches do not provide evangelistic outreach as a prerequisite for providing diaconal assistance. Evangelism is there, as an option for believers to seize the opportunity, which rarely happens since they are not trained for it. Some churches offer a regular worship service while the doors are open for their food and clothing distribution. Worship ministry, however, is going on in a separate space. Those who want to can attend, but without feeling pressured. While people were waiting in line to receive food from a mobile pantry , I have handed out a piece of paper with a scripture passage and an invitation to church. While doing so, I’ve asked, “How are you doing?”; commented on how beautiful their children were; and asked if they might have a prayer need. It was walking with the people, assuming their position in line, and trying to encourage the volunteers at the truck be as generous as possible. The verbal, personal gospel witness was present, but it did not factor into the eligibility of a person being benefited. It came without judgment as to a person’s worthiness. I presume that this is how the successful car ministry of the mega-church was conducted and how it eventually produced evangelistic results.
A paternalistic body-soul, social-spiritual, service-evangelism ministry can lead to bitter frustration. “We are here for you and we will provide everything you need,” but unspoken is the expectation that out of gratitude the person will attend church worship and be saved.
This is a rare occurrence but it did happen. A thriving conservative suburban church promoted the work of a pregnancy resource center in its pro-life message. A couple of women met Helen, a Bosnian woman who was about to enter an abortion clinic. They assured her, “We’ll take care of all your needs. Please reconsider and do not get an abortion.” She decided to go full-term with the pregnancy and gave birth to a lovely girl. Other volunteers came alongside to give her emotional support. Still others found her a reliable used car and paid several months for apartment rental. Then the helping women asked the deacons of the church to visit her to provide a church witness and offer help. With fear and trepidation, they drove into the apartment complex where “their lives could be in danger” from addicts and inner-city types. At the end of the visit, the deacons presented some gift cards from a super store. The helping women were not happy. They had wanted, and even demanded that the deacons continue paying the rent and providing other help at the level that they started. The “unfeeling” deacons were looking at the line-item allotted to assistance in the total church budget. The helping women said, “Our rich church can do this.” As a result, the women decided to pool their resources and pay the rent and Helen’s other needs. They were going to prove that they would keep Helen from falling into the secular government welfare system. “This is what the body of Christ should be doing in this world.”
The helping women helped Helen get a job to help her become financially independent. The first job was running a fork-lift on a factory floor that she physically could not handle. She got sick, she had recurring headaches, the baby got sick and needed treatment, so she quit. Eventually, Helen found a job cleaning apartments at an assisted-living and retirement complex. There she found a caring environment among the clients whose living quarters she cleaned. Often, they gave her gifts to show their appreciation for the excellent job she did. Even so, this job did not adequately provide for the rent and other living expenses. Nearing the end of the two years, the caring women warned Helen, “When this year’s rental contract ends, you will be on your own. We cannot continue to pay it any longer.” Helen, meanwhile was talking to her neighbors and learned how they got government rental assistance and other types of social programs. She did indeed get out on her own; no longer dependent upon the church community.
During this time, Helen was urged to attend church. We listened to her testimony where she declared her love for Jesus. She was a Christian, not a Muslim. And, yes, she wanted her baby baptized. For this, I explained that she needed to take seriously the command of the Lord to train up her child to love and respect the Lord. For this to happen she needed to regularly attend church along with her baby and her 10-year old son. The caring women realized that she would not fit in very well into the culture of the suburban church that was quite far away. They introduced her to a more down-to-earth, welcoming church that was closer by. Even so, it was difficult for her to understand the English worship, so I felt the need to find a Bosnian New Testament. To my astonishment, I could find no Bible in the Bosnian language. What I did find was an online Bible in the Serbian language “Sveto Pismo” that is also spoken by Bosnians and which Helen understood. I printed out the New Testament in installments and asked her to read them. It became evident that she was not reading on her own. In fact, she misplaced these scriptures and could not find them on one of our visits. She also showed disinterest in her relationship with God by the fact that she only attended worship when she knew that one of the caring women would be present at the church they recommended. Reasons for not attending worship usually included, “I had a migraine,” or “The baby had a fever.”
To enable Helen to hold a better paying job, one of the caring women asked my wife to give her some English lessons. My wife is a volunteer for English Language Learners at a church that hosts the program of a Christian agency that ministers to refugees. During these visits, my wife asked if I could play with her boy to help keep him from interrupting the lessons. The boy was unmanageable—Helen was not giving consistent, loving discipline, and thus failed to provide the structured life that he needed. In the course of time, we met Helen’s older daughter who was gainfully employed and living with her dad and who was obliged to care for the baby while Helen was working. In this and other small ways, Helen was still partially dependent upon her ex-husband. Quite frequently, the boy would also stay with his father. Once when I was trying to keep him occupied, I asked if his dad would not be willing to take his mother back. After all, I reasoned to myself, he had not remarried, and had room where he lived for Helen, his son, and Helen’s illegitimate daughter. The boy’s matter-of-fact reply was that his mother was to blame for the separation.
I believe that this is what probably happened. Helen, along with her husband, daughter and son immigrated to the United States in the aftermath of the violence of the war in the Balkans. Helen picked up on the freedom that American women enjoy and which her husband throttled, even to the point of using physical force. She started a relationship with another man, got pregnant and looked for a way out by seeking an abortion. This is when the caring women stepped in.
All that was done was done to express the love of Christ. Discipleship was not possible because Helen never experienced the new birth of regeneration. Could someone, probably a pastor, have visited the husband to help him to understand the American culture that infected his wife and to forgive her error and be reconciled to her? Did he claim to be a Christian like Helen, or was he a cultural Muslim? All indications lead me to believe that he was not faithful at prayers in the mosque. Would he rise up in righteous indignation and kick someone like me out of the door? At various times I met family members and friends, like at a birthday party. Knowing who I was, all those close to Helen’s ex-husband were very aloof to me. It seemed to me that while the benefits of the caring women were welcome, I was not. I represented an outside force, the rule of what we understand to be the kingdom of heaven.
Over the course of two years, God’s dear people were trying to disciple Helen, save her from sin’s consequences and enfold her into the body of believers. During all this time, Helen needed to repent of the sin of her heart that led her to resist her husband, rebel and be unfaithful to him. He certainly should have been more understanding and loving, but she, even though she considered herself Christian and right with God, still needed to understand how she was bound to the kingdom of the flesh and needed to make a break with it, by repentance from sin and faith in Jesus Christ. The caring women who were most directly involved were highly concerned to meet her social needs and even put pressure on her to live up to expectations, that is, learn English and get a good job, etc. What they also uncritically accepted was her experience with her husband, his intolerance and violence. I was the only one who heard what the boy said. Even though she may have thought the same, Helen’s adult daughter would not share her feelings with any of us.
In retrospect, it probably would have been better for the church leaders to help the caring women understand that a proper response to the promise, “Don’t get an abortion; we’ll take care of your needs,” would have been to get Helen and her children onto public assistance as quickly as possible—case worker and all—and to keep in contact through visits, an occasional gift card, birthday celebrations, and more. They would also provide her with the scriptures in her own language, and if possible, call her to repentance by showing her how she was captive to sin and this-world’s system. They would also urge her to confess her sin, ask for forgiveness from her ex-husband and other family members and seek reconciliation.