Stephen Rowland: Not a good model when Christian churches turn single mothers away
The young single mother of a daughter approached me and a group of men talking with the pastor after a Wednesday night church service. She had recently lost her job through no fault of her own.
If memory serves me correctly, her employer shut down the business so all the employees were out of luck. She was frantically searching for another job which was difficult at that time; very few employers were hiring. Neither was it her fault she was a single mother. When your husband beats you up or spends the grocery money on alcohol or illegal drugs, you really don’t have much of a choice. Her landlord had recently given her an eviction notice.
She asked the pastor “Would you or anyone else here be able to give me $20 for gasoline so I can continue searching for a job and take my daughter to school?” The pastor’s face turned red. He didn’t have $20 to give her and neither was there any money in a church “benevolence fund” to help her. He gestured towards the other men — “Could any of you help this young lady out?” One by one those men shook their heads.
Either they didn’t have it in their wallets, or they didn’t feel it was their responsibility. I just happened to be cash dry that night with just a few dollar bills in my wallet. She turned around and walked away.
The congregation of that church had recently built a brand new sanctuary. It was beautiful — high vaulted ceilings with beautiful stained wooden beams overhead. Modern comfortable pews were everywhere along with a state-of-the-art sound system. As a result there was a hefty church mortgage payment, along with insurance, utilities, maintenance on the building and grounds, and of course the salary for a full time pastor. They were really struggling to meet those obligations; there simply was no money left over to help someone in dire need. I had this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that there was really something basically wrong with the way we were “doing church.”
My family contacted that young lady, and we made sure she had some gasoline in her tank. We also had an upstairs bedroom that was available in our home. We asked her to temporarily move into that bedroom with her daughter and eat meals with us if she wanted to. We were confident that she would eventually find another job since she had a good work record. She agreed to that offer.
It wasn’t long; in just a few weeks she had found another job and found a small apartment she could rent. They were out on their own successfully once again. In the words of Jesus Christ, we had “taken the stranger in.” That really bad feeling that we were somehow “doing church wrong” never left me.
A few years later, I was studying how that 1st century Christian church operated in the Book of Acts and in the Epistle’s references to it. To my surprise, I discovered there were no church mortgages to pay. That’s because there were no church buildings. There was the magnificent Temple in Jerusalem and synagogues in surrounding regions, but the Jewish leaders had rejected Jesus as being the promised Messiah. Those early Christians were not welcome there. Not only that, the Roman rulers over the Jewish nation regarded followers of “The Way” (Christians) as a dangerous new cultish sect; they had agreed to the Jewish leader’s demand to crucify Jesus Christ. They made Christianity illegal. You could be arrested by Roman authorities and sent off to prison, even executed, for being a Christian. That was Saul’s job (later to be the Apostle Paul) — leading off Christians to be imprisoned or executed.
In that environment of persecution, the dumbest thing you could possibly do is build a church building and advertise to everyone that’s where Christians congregated — “Here we are, come and arrest us please.” They wisely met secretly in each other’s homes to have church services — thus no church buildings.
Sometimes there was no pastor’s salary either. That’s because the Apostle Paul exercised authority over those early Christian churches and was regarded as a role model — Paul had told them to “imitate me as I imitate Christ.” Paul made a voluntary decision to deny any church money given to him for a personal salary. He supported himself through his tent making business. The money that Christians gave to him he used mainly for meeting the dire needs of needy Christians. He made a habit of taking up offerings from people in the house churches he visited and then distributing that money to the poor Christians back in Jerusalem where persecution was most severe. Because he was a role model to emulate, I’m sure a few pastors made that same voluntary decision to abstain from personal salary and make that money stretch to help the poor.
No mortgages, no insurance, no utilities, and sometimes no pastoral salaries. Not that there is anything wrong with those things; it simply was a wise decision in tough times when money was tight and a lot of Christians were really destitute. The church “benevolence fund” wasn’t 6th or 7th down the list of priorities after the more important items were addressed; it was top priority. People even sold their own personal possessions in Acts to meet the needs of poor needy Christians. They even had a “widow’s list” — widows were the poorest segment of their society (no social security, no pensions). They distributed food daily to these widows.
Some of the poorest people in our modern society are single mothers.
Churches are recognizing that fact now and several have designed charity programs for single mothers. An example is the “MUMS” ministry in Columbia where single mothers without reliable transportation are driven to and from their jobs by church volunteers until they can afford a good used car. Sometimes people simply donate a used car; about 40 cars have been donated so far. You should see the tears flow when that happens. 431 Ministries in Columbia also helps single mothers to obtain living necessities and provides emotional and spiritual support.
The church is really the people, not the building. If you have a large church with plenty of money for mortgages and pastor’s salaries along with money to really impact needy people’s lives — nothing wrong with that. The problem is when we have small congregations that think the mortgage and salaries are all that count and needy people in distress can be ignored. Our priorities can be backwards.
I presently attend a small older country church where the pastor refuses a salary — he is retired and considers his needs met. The church mortgage was paid off a long time ago. When repairs are needed, people do them voluntarily themselves. We have helped out a lot of people who found themselves with emergency needs.
We are trying to be the “hands and feet of Jesus” who constantly ministered to the poor and outcast of His society.
I personally think it’s a good model to follow.
Stephen Rowland, who has served as an assistant pastor, resides in Southern Middle Tennessee and holds a Master’s degree in Biblical literature, was a commencement speaker for Global University in 2012 and has authored three Christian books.
This article originally appeared on The Daily Herald: Rowland: Not a good model when churches turn single mothers away
