Brother where art thou?

As I write this, government has spent over $29 billion dollars fighting the war on drugs. Those same dollars in the hands of Christ-centered programs would literally reshape society, as we know it. A newspaper reporter once asked me, “Do you have any clinical professionals on staff at your recovery center?” My question for her was “Why would I want any?” Conventional wisdom would say that you need clinical professionals to treat substance abuse. Yet the hospitals and clinics that employ these high paid professionals have a 90% failure rate among patients. Now before we get to sidetracked here and start blaming the government, we should consider one thing. It has only been the past few decades since the church has stepped up and began reaching out to the addicted. Even still it is mostly Para-church organizations doing the work. So this is only one area that the tables have been turned. Government still has the church beat in most other forms of outreach. The difference is they call it “Human Resources”.

Pastor Herbert is a friend of mine who pastors a church in the slums of Uganda, Africa. He regularly experiences power outings during his church services and its not uncommon for his chairs to be stolen since his building has no walls. When his brother died of AIDS he left behind eight children. Pastor Herbert didn’t even think twice about taking them in along with his own four children. He paid their way through school since there is no free public education. There was no child protective services or caseworker to consult. Just real Christians who needed to act like real Christians. The fact that we have such great government resources has crippled the modern church of America. When someone is hungry and has no food, we tell them to go get food stamps. When someone needs a ride, we point him or her to the nearest bus stop. When they are sick and have no insurance we take them to a county hospital. When they are behaving badly we lock them in jails and prisons. We live in a society whose regular practice of putting away misfits has influenced the church. Perhaps it’s out of sight, out of mind. The day is coming when the church of Jesus Christ will no longer be able to lean on government to do it’s work. We need Christians who will accept responsibility to be Jesus to a hurting and dying world. Thank God for organizations and churches like Victory Family who feed the poor and help the addicted. Please consider becoming a partner with us. Let’s be Jesus to a hurting and dying world.

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

James 1:27