Two people came to my church today seeking financial assistance. One was an old man who has been here before, this time seeking kerosene for his heater. The other was a woman living on disability who was short on a car payment and about to lose her vehicle. She needed $75.
We are a small church, and with the pastor gone for the weekend and the designated second-in-command not yet on campus, the task fell to me to aid these people. After acquiring the authorization of four particular people, we were able to get a check in her hands. I wasn't thrilled about the situation. She had a nice car (far newer than mine) and Orlando has a good public transportation network. She was not, shall I say, the ideal 'needy' person. I don't hesitate to get someone food. But a car payment? The Good Samaritan Fund is far from bottomless.
Anyway, the church prevented the repossession of her car. Perhaps it was not the best decision, but it was the one made.
What guidelines or principles does your church have for assisting needy people who approach it?
Sunday, January 08, 2006
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10 comments:
John,
The policy that has worked best for churches I have served as pastor and lay leader is a strict, "no cash" policy. This left more resources for young mothers who needed diapers and was glad to actually receive diapers! Those who typically ask for cash never seem to return once it is clear that no cash will be made available.
In the case of this woman, perhaps a check made out to the creditor would have been the best approach to discourage her return if her motives were less than pure.
That's very sensible.
We made the check out to her creditor.
John,
I have had this happen recently as well, with the same man coming back twice. I purchased gas for him both times.
I have asked the secretary to start making a list of people who stop in for help, keep track of how much we help them, and put a cap of $50 for any one individual in year's time. I am going to begin asking for a photocopy of their drivers license/photo ID to keep on file as well.
Not perfect, but we need boundaries. I think it wise to have a written policy in place that you point to so as to make you look like less of a bad guy when you turn someone down - at least I personally feel less guilty about it. I hope to see some more responses, because I would love to more ideas to help formulate my own policy!
Generally one does not lose their car if they are behind a few days on their payment. Unless their creditors are complete hardliners or something, she should have been able to pay them when she collected her next cheque. I can't believe they'd really go to that extreme unless she had a long history of missing payments.
But I think you did the right thing. The vehicle of a disabled person is probably their source of freedom. I hope she learns to manage her money better in the future.
I'm not sure what our church guidelines are but I had an experience at Christmas 2004 that caused me to look at some of these requests with a jaundiced eye.
My wife volunteered for years at a ministry called Second Mile. It's sponsored by a local Baptist church and for the most part supplies clothing and food to indigents but sometimes helps with cash.
A couple of weeks before Christmas people in need can come to Second Mile and, just by stating (with absolutely no verification involved),the number of kids they have, select a significant number of toys for each child, get a food basket, and also gifts for the parents.
During a period of about a week, this ministry serves hundreds of people and they always need help. So at Christmas 2004 I went with my wife to help out with the gift wrapping, toting things to the car, etc.
I had been there an hour or so when I noticed a nicely dressed lady being helped by one of the other volunteers. As I passed by in the course of my work, I discovered that she told the minister that she had 7 kids and needed toys and food for all of them. During the next hour and a half I watched as she cherry picked her way through the entire stock of toys. None of us said a thing but a lot of the volunteers had worked there for years and pretty much knew when someone was pulling a scam.
She finally wound up with a huge stash of stuff that had been gift wrapped and readied for hauling out to her car. At that point, I was pulled off to do something else and lost track of what was going on.
A half hour later I went into the break room to get a coffee and ran into the volunteer who helped her take the stuff to her car. He reported to me that she drove away in a very happy mood. In her brand, spanking new black Lexus.
Our church has the following policy:
We have two people in charge of the designated "Special Ministries" line item--the pastor, and the Missions chair. On occasions when the church is approached, we do not give cash handouts. If someone comes requesting assistance with food or bills, we request receipts and copies. Our SP then calls the Missions chair (who has a tendency to be very readily available anyway), and they make the final call. Because we have had local church members request help before, the church felt it best to have as few people as possible involved in the process.
We don't do cash either. If they need a handout, we use food stamp or similar programs to meet their physical needs.
I don't know about paying creditors. My church's finances are handled mostly by non-pastoral staff. At one point our individual ministries had separate giving funds that each pastor administrated, but we recently switched to a single central fund for greater flexibility. I'm sure my church's administrator has a hand in that.
I think the no cash is a good thing as well.
I always have wondered...Do you want to delve more into these messy situations? I do. I wonder how far people will go.
For example, if someone is really having problems paying utilities, do we not just help pay for it but have a way of coming along side them and helping them with their fianances? I'm not saying every person has that problem but we really don't know do we?
It's so hard to jump into it because you know you will get hurt sometimes, but at the same time there are people who are so desperate, who really need help, that are crying our for anybody to help. How do we develop an effective way of doing this? Does this make sense?
I'm not 100% sure of my church's policy, but I think that for most requests, the person is referred downtown to United Methodist Urban Ministries. We had a situation a few years ago where a person was running a scam, going from church to church collecting a little bit of money at each. As a result, many churches here are now reluctant to give out money themselves.
We don't give cash to people coming to us. We will write checks to people we know are struggling. At Christmas we helped the son of one of our members who has a long medical problem, the son of another of our members who had just moved into a house only to have the basement flooded for three weeks (and counting), and a man who works for another member who has a child with multiple medical problems.
As to those coming to us, we don't get many, but we will pay a bill or a presciption. One man traveling through town asked for some dinner for the night and we gave him a restaurant certificate to cover dinner and breakfast the next morning. We haven't had any problems with repeaters, but putting a top limit on the aid would be my first option.
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