7 Non-Negotiables for Church Engagement in Compassion

JIM MORGAN

President of Meet the Need
Guest Contributor

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The Greatest of All identified Himself with the “least of these.” Jesus’ economy flips ours on its head – rich is poor, and poor is rich. He modeled healing and feeding to open ears before disclosing who He is (i.e., the Gospel). His parables of the Good Samaritan, Sheep and Goats, and Rich Man and Lazarus could even be misread to infer our eternal fate hinges on our response to poverty. Of course, we’re saved by God’s grace alone, but the implication is clear – no authentic Christ-follower will ignore the materially poor. 

For roughly 1,900 years, churches took those warnings seriously. Local churches were the food bank and homeless shelter – the first place the destitute turned to for help. The Church was the spiritual, social, and charitable “center of town” across the globe – integral and integrated. Even the word “charity,” derived from Old English, means “Christian love of one’s fellows.” Few disputed our right to speak up on issues of importance to a community or culture – in their eyes, we had earned the right to do so. Yet over the past century, churches gradually abdicated the front lines of poverty alleviation in America. The failed Social Gospel Movement and New Deal era sparked that transition, but another movement emerging over the past few decades accelerated the separation of compassion from evangelism – an insatiable appetite for church growth.

Prevailing ideas about church growth are incompatible with Jesus’ model for Kingdom growth. They encourage the attraction and retention of churchgoers, not the development and deployment of disciples. They treat congregations as “customers” rather than Kingdom employees (and my decade of Customer Relationship Management consulting taught me the value of properly defining and serving the right customer). They direct attention and resource allocation inward, not out, toward the real “customer” that every Christian should be pursuing – those in dire need of help and hope. Consequently, performance expectations have shifted, with members church hopping and shopping to find the best “experience.” Church has become centralized around a place and pastors, simply asking attendees to encourage friends to come next Sunday to hear the Gospel from a “professional.” Investing energy in the church is now our focus, not sending workers out to reach the lost. Churches can no longer demand “consumers” take personal responsibility for discipleship, compassion, and evangelism. However, if churches still viewed congregants as Kingdom “workers,” we would imitate companies and train them to be effective in their “mission fields.” 

The only way the Church in America can stem its decline in growth, impact, influence, and public perception is to abandon current church growth principles. No organization that targets the wrong customer or ignores its intended customer can succeed. The “safety net” in America for hundreds of years was not government programs but generous churches and Christians. Yet today, cynicism mounts each time we run seasonal “outreach” events that double as church advertising – then retreat back into our four walls, seemingly forgetting that those we served are still hungry and hurting after the holidays. As Christians, we won’t regain our voice in the marketplace of ideas until we resume sharing and demonstrating Jesus’ deep love for the poor – year-round. 

Assuming a church is its members, members are its Kingdom “employees,” and the unchurched are its biblical “customer,” here are 7 non-negotiables for church engagement in compassion:

1: Pray for the Lord to reveal the ideal opportunities, not just what’s expedient.

Prayer precedes Care and Share in Jesus’ model because the options and outcomes of our compassion and evangelism are in the Father’s hands. Too often, churches default to what’s most convenient – a service day at a popular local ministry or meal-packing event on the church campus. An externally focused church would assess pressing issues in its community and develop plans to address them collaboratively with other leaders. It would surrender its priorities and goals to the Lord’s revealed will for reaching the city.  Surrender entails risking members gaining exposure to ministries where they may feel called to devote time and resources. Surrender means seeking to maximize impact, even though that involves getting our hands dirty – walking alongside individuals and families as they plot and implement their own paths to a brighter future.

2: Treat those we’re helping as equals, not as the “rich helping the poor.”

Every human being suffers some form of poverty, whether it’s spiritual, psychological, relational, or financial. Maintaining awareness of our own shortcomings keeps us dependent on the grace of God. However, emphasis on church growth papers over some of our Christian duties by imagining the central focus of the church is to meet our personal needs. Once those needs are met, we’re conditioned to feel anything we do to serve deserves “extra credit.” This amplifies a sense of moral superiority to those we serve. On the contrary, the Bible teaches that poverty alleviation is a mandate, not a favor. Failure to do so is an expression of our own depravity. Learning to imitate Jesus in His humility as a servant and in how He treated everyone with dignity will require a level of personalized, intensive discipleship rarely found in American churches today.

3: Train members to share the Gospel powerfully and proactively.

Evangelistic responsibilities of churchgoers have essentially been reduced to testimonies and invitations. For the same reason companies lack the leverage to push customers too hard for referrals, churches no longer feel at liberty to ask members to do something most find extremely uncomfortable. Invitations to church absolve us of our personal responsibility for the Great Commission. Testimonies emphasize what Jesus did for “me” and associate the first part of my story (“who I was”) with the unredeemed listener. Greater church engagement in compassion would put more Christians in a position to share our faith, but we will repeat the mistakes of the Social Gospel Movement if we continue catering to the whims of churchgoers rather than challenging them to become disciples.

4: Build ongoing relationships because that’s the answer to poverty in all its forms.

The Chalmers Center and True Charity teach that material poverty originates through broken relationships (with God, His creation, ourselves, and others), and poverty ends when they’re repaired. The strength of relationships determines the effectiveness of interventions.  However, the success of church growth models depends on members and visitors coming back next Sunday. So most churches conduct occasional “outreach” events that require little time and few volunteers. Unfortunately, transactional compassion does more harm than good, building dependence and humiliating those in need of “handouts” to make it through the day. That’s why Meet the Need’s new Link2Hope platform builds sustainable circles of support around families, providing comfort in the knowledge they’re not alone and in the hope that is found only in Jesus. 

5: Deal with the underlying issues, not surface-level symptoms.

Only churches can address and restore all four broken relationships at the root of material poverty. Arms-length, sporadic events fail to take advantage of the unique position churches are in to heal the whole person – body, mind, affections, and will. For example, a new job fully leveraging our strengths and capabilities positively impacts our physical, mental, and emotional state. A pastor may counter that his church deals with the whole person and all four key relationships after people join the congregation, but that reflects a failure to recognize those outside the church as the true “customers” in need of healing.  

6: Test intentions to make sure compassion isn’t advertising or “checking the box.”

If members are treated as “customers,” then local mission activities are likely for them, not for the (materially) poor. Growth-oriented churches hijacked the words “outreach” and “ministry” due to the tremendous manpower needed to sustain operations. “Outreach” now implies advertising, and “ministry” refers primarily to internal “church chores.” The design of initiatives reveals the heart behind them – their proximity, duration, budget, and metrics indicate the sincerity of a church’s commitment to poverty alleviation. Significant expenditures aimed at moving the needle over a long period in unity with partners without announcing it to the world likely means the church is more about Kingdom growth than organizational growth.

7: Mobilize members into personal ministry in their neighborhoods and workplaces.

Waiting for the next church-sponsored event to serve or inviting people to church to hear the Gospel won’t reach the many coworkers, neighbors, family, and friends within each member’s circles of influence unwilling to be part of a church body. That’s why no one is exempt from GC3 – the Great Commandment, Great Commission, and Great Calling. Our lack of focus on personal discipleship, compassion, and evangelism was exposed during COVID-19. Even long-time, faithful churchgoers were unprepared to be “pastors” of their neighborhoods, missing countless opportunities to be the personification of the Church when the building’s doors were closed.

All flourishing organizations evaluate employee performance based on customer satisfaction, but dominant narratives of church growth measure the performance of the wrong “employees” and the satisfaction of the wrong “customers.” We’ve asked too much of the church “professionals” and too little of the members. In the end, refocusing our efforts on discipling members to reach the hurting in our communities is a better strategy to expand the Kingdom of God. Compassion evangelism done well is how the Church took the ancient world by storm, and it’s the blueprint for revival today.

As a former Investment Banker on Wall Street and as a Management Consultant to Fortune 500 companies, Jim felt like he needed to be spending more time serving God and helping others. Jim realized that the same solutions he was helping companies implement could be used to help others find opportunities to reach out to those in need.  Meet The Need was founded (and incorporated, as a non-profit) in 2001 and is the realization of Jim’s vision, providing a unique and innovative way to leverage leading-edge business technology to enable churches, ministries and individuals to reach out to those in need in their local communities or anywhere in the world.

FROM THE TRUE CHARITY TEAM: We appreciate the perspective of our knowledgeable guest contributors. However, their opinions are their own, and do not necessarily represent positions of True Charity in all respects.