90% of workers can't afford typical home
This is the headline in our paper today. It is a very challenging problem. I wonder how we as a faith community could tackle this problem for real people. The COS community in DC (another very expensive place to live) has had millions of dollars go through their hands in order to help “real” people in their surrounding areas. They have purchased and gutted large apartment buildings and other crazy things for such a small group of people. Could we write grants and start some type of housing initiative? Maybe pool our resources and buy older homes in a depressed area and offer them at affordable prices? This is the reality in our area. How can we as the people of God respond? Anyone up for asking God what we can do? It will be risky because I am pretty sure His answer wont be to ignore it and say it is someone else’s problem.
posted by Amber at 8:16 AM
7 Comments:
This is one of those double edged sword topics for me... I always (and I mean always) feel both convicted and challenged whenever I read through Acts - particularly chapter 2, 42-47, where we read about how the early church SHARED ALL THAT THEY HAD with each other; they looked for the needs and then filled those needs.
I don't do that. Not as much as I feel I want to deep down.
So, the question becomes - HOW? How do we do this? How do we HELP others in a tangible way so that our wonderful thoughts and desires to DO this don't simply lay there as dead eggs? (or however they might lay).
I hear ya Dan! I hear ya!
A lot of people approach Acts 2:42-47 with the cart already before the horse. Too often we ask "What does God's way of doing community look like?" when really that is the wrong question. Because if we get an answer to this question then our human tendancy will be then to go try and emulate the appearance of the answer, which is doomed very quickly to failure. And it misses the point. The folks in the early church recorded for us in Acts experienced what they did not just because they were willing (we are willing!) but they had a whole context and inward and outward unity that compelled them onward. No one had to get up and preach a message about sharing their stuff. It seems to have been spontaneous acts of trust, faith, hope and love ablaze among them. The more useful approach *might* be to admit that we don't see this as feasible right now (we don't want to be pretentious in our efforts toward it), but that we want to experience this with others and then seek God for the kind of inward change together that would make those hallmarks of shared needs a natural outgrowth of who we are TOGETHER. The path toward this is actually very strait but the subtle problem we run into, but rarely acknowledge, is that this also comes at a great cost to our self interest. And self interest and self protection dies hard in our society. There is a price to pay to experience full doses of heavenly unity. Sacrifice is not something our spoiled selves are not very comfortable with. Christ, our hero, was very well acquianted with it. To risk sounding Bonhoeffer-esque; He bids us to come follow Him and die. That is the great wall that makes the gate so narrow. It starts in the granular details of the precious things I hold ever so slightly more dear than the unity with His people that evades me.
This question seems to illuminate a problem we have with love and loyalty in our culture. Many of us freely and gladly give to help an immediate family member buy a house, but when it comes to helping a friend, even great a friend, we pull back.
Not only do we love our family, but we trust them too. We trust that they will help us in our time of need, so we give.
We struggle to trust our friends. "If i give to them, they may not give back when I am in need," so we hold back. Also, our love is lacking because wouldn't true love give to those who could never help back.
Chriseric - I hear what you are saying, but I still vote for THAT way of living and "doing" church... mainly because I don't happen to see our CURRENT ways and means accomplishing much more than division... perhaps you have seen something else??
Dan, I'm not sure if what I meant came though as clear as it could have. I have a problem with being a bit nebulous. And blog comments are a weird place to try to communicate. But we probably hunger for the same something or other. It might be better to get together over a cup o' joe and chat. I see you are in Aurora. I'm not too far away in Boulder. Maybe in the coming weeks we can talk, eh?
--Chris
Hi Chris -
Well, one thing we WILL both agree on - - this "blog/email/IM/textmessage" means of communication is NUTS!
Though, I must warn you - I mumble when I drink coffee..........
email me: dan@danmcgowan.com and let's see about hooking up sometime and arriving at all the answers "the church" needs... together, we can make a difference!
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