Man’s universal approach for gaining assistance is to first fill out a form to see if you qualify. Coming into the office, you are seen as a client, not as a person. There is a WE THEY attitude with the one seeking assistance being seen as in servitude.
While this is most persistent in government offices, it is sad that many of the church utilize the same methods.
The good news is that Jesus referred to us as friends for he said: “The servant knows not what the master does.”
Proverbs also tells us that a friend in need is a friend indeed, yet more often than not, not only if we are in need are we not considered a friend, but neither referred to as a friend. Again, we are a client in the best of terms.
Home visits mean the interviewer caseworker is to sit on the edge of the sofa so as not to get dirty. The caseworker is careful to describe the situation as either a person who is broke from chronic poverty. Naturally, this makes some sense as being broke is only a temporal situation and is usually resolved as opposed to being poor.
However, the worse of the worse is that not only are you poor, but also one of those people: those who are beneath the dignity of those who are not poor.
Now then, we have blame time:
We must blame people who are poor for clearly anyone can work if they simply wish to.
Another supposition is that we are to ‘empower’ the poor person to ‘rise’ out of their calamity. Good people are always empowering others, or at least they say they do or will.
The end result is still another form. At the end of whatever assistance (which usually involves being referred to still another caseworker) there is yet another form. Remember, number matter to the institution.
After a while, we begin to realize that the institution is actually more important than the people. In matters of the church we come to terms with the idea that the pretty white church that looks so pristine is not to be dirtied or look used or old. No, not at all. The clean church is to remain clean: no the pews cannot be used to house the homeless or the poor. These are chores to be performed ‘outside’ of the church. And here we learn that the church is NOT the people, but the crummy building that says it’s the church. In the end, still another form.
Thank God, when approaching Jesus we have no need for a form. I would hope that in approaching my fellow Christians that I would not need one either, but would be seen not as a client, but as a person: one who also loves the Lord.
In the end, I would also hope that I would receive the Godly approach, not man’s and in the ned have no use of a form.
Hard Times Ministries 