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Home » Everyday Leadership, Featured

How Is The Church Handling The Recession?

Submitted by James Higginbotham on August 19, 2009 – 4:17 amNo Comment

Yvon Prehn from the Effective Church Communications blog wrote a great post recently on how the church can communicate through the recession. Here are some ideas she provided on what we can do:

  • Be encouraging. Remind people that God may be directing them to new avenues of service and trust. People are starting new businesses and careers, but they often need lots of love and encouragement to do that.
  • Pray for people—that God will meet practical needs in extraordinary ways and that their faith would be strengthened and their hearts encouraged during this time.
  • Spend time with people—in every loss from a death, to job loss as mentioned previously, the loss of relationships is primary. People are lonely in times of loss and if you can’t help in tangible ways, help with time. Taking an unemployed person to lunch or a couple out to dinner just for fun can be a tremendous encouragement.
  • Actively help. Network; help the unemployed find work. Hire them if you can; refer them if possible. Retrain them if you have the ability. Pay for retraining. Keep them accountable and encouraged. Make a house payment; give a grocery gift card. Take their kids to the dentist. Pay for medical care. Buy clothes.
  • Don’t forget homeless shelters, food banks, any group that serves those in need. Their challenges expand at times like this. Think outside the obvious. Homeless folks need clean underware; consider a “Tidy-Whitey Drive.” Don’t forget the ladies also.
  • Whenever you spend money on yourself or your family, think about if you could do this if you were unemployed. If not, do it for another family.
  • All of the previous suggestions presuppose that you know your brothers and sisters in Jesus well enough to be aware of their needs. If you don’t, start there.

She also discusses what the church shouldn’t do, including how the church should be a better steward of its finances. This leads to her final suggestion:

If you have excess of anything, share. Many families today have more cars than they do people in the family. If a car breaks beyond repair for a person out of work, it is a tragic loss. Consider giving away a vehicle. To see someone in need and to say, “Oh, we just love this van, it’s been in the family such a long time,” as an excuse to keep one of five vehicles for two people, doesn’t not exactly shout the love of God.

I would suggest reading the full post to prevent missing some important points.

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