Benevolence

I recently received a letter from our church regarding the benevolent fund.

Apparently, church leadership has determined that they can no longer continue to meet the crisis need that exists in the very neighborhood where the church itself resides. "Need is up.", says the letter. "Our staff can't handle the numbers requesting aid." And finally, the coup de grace, "We don't see enough people coming to Christ to merit our continued financial investment."

The church's solution is for staff to refer requests for aid to existing social service agencies. Concomitantly, the church will increase the amount of money it contributes to those social service partners....partners like the Salvation Army, for instance.

Needless to say, I was very disappointed by the letter I received. So, I wrote a response for church leadership. I sat on that e-mail for 48 hours and then I mailed said response to our Governing Board, Head Pastor and the two church staffers responsible for writing the "Benevolent Fund" letter. I also sent the e-mail to two other key individuals. One is a neighbor, church member, and strong advocate for living Christ's love out loud; and the other, is a close friend, upon whom I often rely to help me clarify my own thoughts and positions.

I doubt that I will hear back from leadership....at least not directly. Somehow, the e-mail is making the rounds though. I had proof of that in a brief exchange at our neighborhood Safeway, where I ran into a fellow church-goer who made a snarky comment about my e-mail. It would seem based upon that brief encounter, that my status among the church going faithful has been elevated from "malcontent" to "malevolence incarnate".

...and now, I feel dirty, like I did something wrong; which is absolutely ridiculous because in truth, my only misstep, if any, might have been sharing the letter with the neighborhood advocate.

I guess that old saying about dishing out the shit is really true, because I put a little of my poo out there and a whole boat load is heading back my direction.

And you know what I'm going to do?

DUCK!