Questionable Charity and Immediate Needs

Almost 10 years in church ministry has allowed me to see most of what happens on a daily basis. One of the normal occurrences of church life is that people come by or call with requests for immediate help. These are never fun. What makes these so problematic is the immediacy of the request, which is the norm. They need gas, right now. They have a bill that must be paid, right now. They don’t have any food, right now.

I want to address the issue of immediacy, but first let me just tell you what we do. Because we want to build relationships with people, we don’t just send them out the door. First, we have a questionnaire that we have them fill out, because we want to understand their situation. For instance, we want to know if they have a church home. Have they received any help from that church or any other churches? Are they working or will they work? Are they receiving any other assistance? What is the exact need? Who will it benefit? Will they receive spiritual and financial counsel from us? That last one is important. It allows us to know if we can speak the gospel to them, if they will come to our church for a while, and if we can go over budget issues with them. Once the sheet is filled out, we send it to a deacon who will follow up with them.

However, notice one thing. To go through the above process rarely allows us to meet immediate needs. I don’t have a problem with that because I do have a problem with immediate needs. I see immediate needs as either an unknowable and largely suspicious situation, or a symptom of problems that are larger than the need itself. Let me explain the 4 issues I see as the bigger problem that is normally beneath the immediate need. I will start with the worst one.

1) People deceptively create a false need and give no time for someone to check it out.

Obviously this is worst because this person wants to intentionally take advantage of the kindness of God’s people. When someone presents an immediate need with no other options, we have no way of knowing if this is happening or not. This puts the church in a bad position. We can’t know if the money is meeting a true need, the best need, or even if it may go to support foolish or sinful living. We love people, but in this scenario we have no idea if we are loving them or if we are falling into their manipulations and hurting them even more. These people often leave as soon as they find out that some checking is going to happen. The chance for getting to know them never happens.

2) People selfishly expect people to serve them

This person might have a legitimate need, but they also have a selfish, me-centered kind of mindset that expects action on their behalf. They also are taking advantage of the kindness of God’s people. The difference is they actually have true need but don’t see their selfishness. Enabling that mindset to continue does not help them. They have a greater need. That greater need is to understand that God created them to be givers. People only become givers when two things happen. First, they have a job. Second, the gospel frees their heart to serve and give just as Christ has served and given to them. Therefore, these people need to know that if you don’t work, you don’t eat (2 Thess. 3:10). We don’t want to further enable their selfishness. They need it exposed so the gospel can come and rescue them from their slavery to self.

3) They lazily don’t plan ahead

Often times, immediate needs are actually foreseen needs that were not taken care of. Procrastination won the day. They didn’t do the necessary work to prepare, and now they are in a jam. There is a bigger problem beyond the immediate need. They need Spirit-empowered self-control that allows them to say no to foolish desires that drag them away from real priorities.

4) They foolishly depend upon undependable people.

Most requests come from people who have no connection to a church. Therefore, these people often depend on people outside the church. There is a difference between those who are God’s children and those who are not. The church is made up of people being transformed, who are growing in faithfulness, trustworthiness, truth-speaking, and generosity. Those who are outside the church are those who are enslaved to lusts and selfishness in a variety of forms. Yes, there are unbelievers who will keep their word, but because their commitments are not formed out of the fear of God, the chances that some lust will win the day over helping another person goes way up. When a person lives in this kind of world, outside of God’s people, they have to expect that this will happen. This is a sad reality. There will be pain that comes from it.

Therefore, the problem is this; all these scenarios are bad, but because the need is immediate, we can’t know which one is happening. The potential of being scammed is very real. It is also likely other problems have given rise to the immediate need, but we’re not in a position to know and address them.

Two caveats

First, there is a place for being taken advantage of. I am a sinner. I am guilty of taking the gracious gifts of God and using them for sinful purposes. I have taken advantage of God. To refuse to ever entertain that possibility is to refuse to be like God. If I get angry because someone did that to me, I love my own stuff more than I love that person. Because I can relate to them as a fellow abuser of God’s grace, then I should be the first to love them and show mercy to them. However, doing this on a personal level and doing it as a church are two different things. As a church, the gifts that have been given to the church have been given for the distinct purpose of ministry support and gospel advancement. If we cannot be sure that is happening, then we need to refuse the requested immediate help. But on a personal level, most people normally have disposable income that is used for things other than distinct gospel advancement. Just as the church should not be burdened by widows who have family members (1 Tim. 5) and therefore it is a personal matter, so the church should not be burdened by questionable needs with no credibility. A person might want to take that chance and show mercy, but the church does not need to.

Second, true jams that were not caused by the above points do happen. But those are rare circumstances. Those immediate needs should be met by those with whom a trusting relationship has been built so that the benefactor knows that one of the above four points aren’t regularly happening. We want to love people. Meeting an immediate need is loving. But love is also making sure that the four points are not happening. That can only be known where there is a relationship.

To sum it up, people who routinely ask for immediate assistance need to learn an important and painful lesson. Deceptive, selfish, lazy, or foolish choices come with a price, and that price is that you don’t get what you ask for. They need to know that the church is willing to help them, but it will be because there is a real need that can be understood. What they really need is deeper than the need itself, and if the church can begin to address that as well as the surface need, now we are on the right track.