Sunday, I invited our Regional Director for Promise 686 to speak to our church. If you’re not familiar with Promise 686 and live in Georgia or one of the other 36 states they serve, you should look into it. Through their Care Portal, they link local churches with needs identified by state agencies and other non-profits (DeFaCS, Juvenile & Family Courts, Child Advocacy Centers…) to serve children and families within our local communities. Lisa McCaslin did exactly what I expected her to do – she knocked it out of the park! When she finished, our members lined up to sign up! I’m hoping a partnership with Promise 686 will produce great opportunities to connect the compassionate and generous hearts within our church with the desperate needs in our surrounding community.
In her presentation, she discussed how financial poverty often leads to relational poverty, giving us examples of how losing one’s transportation, health, job, or home can isolate us, severing the very bonds that might offer hope, and forming a downward spiral for families living on the edge of sustainability.
Following that service, the idea of “relational poverty” kept ricocheting around and pinging between my ears, rolling into my chest, until finally, like an old-fashioned pinball, blasting through my defenses and settling into the depth of my being. As my internal bells and lights subsided, I knew I had a phrase that deserved more attention. While giving the speaker full credit and respect, the Holy Spirit within me was roaring to escape the boundaries of my own sense of courtesy and timeliness as we closed the service. I knew I had to share two truths about “relational poverty.”
First, relational poverty most often leads to the even more dangerous, spiritual poverty. That realization is at the very core of the purpose of church. While faith is individual, it is not meant to be found, grown, tested, or affirmed in isolation. When people isolate from one another, for whatever reason, we most often isolate from God. That’s why we need to offer so much more than financial assistance, programs, activities, and services. We must always focus on relationships with God, but also with one another. As I said last week, prodigals aren’t interested in our sermons, music, or even our fellowship activities. Church practices and events won’t fill the void created by relational poverty; and spirituality apart from relationships feels rather hollow, especially to those who long ago left the church.
…relational poverty most often leads to the even more dangerous, spiritual poverty.
Perhaps this is why the government has done so poorly in their attempts to positively transform lives through countless welfare initiatives. They are not equipped to target relational and spiritual poverty. They have targeted financial poverty, often after a family has sunk into relational and spiritual poverty; and while financial poverty may have led to the relational and spiritual poverty, the latter are so much deeper and more detrimental that they are not resolved by simply throwing money into the whirling, swirling vortex of impoverished lives. Once a person has slid into relational and spiritual poverty, providing financial assistance alone only addresses the shallowest of the three levels of poverty, and barely slows the descent of a family.
Once a person has slid into relational and spiritual poverty, providing financial assistance alone only addresses the shallowest of the three levels of poverty, and barely slows the descent of a family.
Which brings me to my second truth about relational poverty. One does not need to wade through financial poverty to find themselves drowning in the deep end of the pool.
Prosperity often leads to relational and spiritual poverty. Some of the wealthiest people I know have found themselves in relational and spiritual poverty. They don’t need our financial help, but while they may not admit it, they desperately need our friendship. Again, we need to be inviting people into deeper friendships with us and within our churches, rather than simply attending events. It’s through friendships with those in relational poverty, regardless of how they got there, that we find ourselves with the opportunities to reveal Jesus in our lives and let the Holy Spirit address the deeper and more dangerous issues of spiritual poverty. Isolation begets isolation as poverty begets poverty. This is seldom more evident than in the lives of those in the midst of relational poverty which means that the hardest work of ministry is less often providing material resources or sharing the Gospel, but rather befriending and loving those whose mistrust may make it hard to love them.
It’s through friendships with those in relational poverty, regardless of how they got there, that we find ourselves with the opportunities to reveal Jesus in our lives and let the Holy Spirit address the deeper and more dangerous issues of spiritual poverty.
So, whether we’re in the shallow end of the pool addressing the trials and tragedies of financial poverty or plumbing the depths of spiritual poverty, we should never forget that neither will be effective nor sustainable apart from addressing the relational poverty with love and friendship that we, the community of Christ, has been uniquely positioned, gifted, and blessed to offer.
Don’t forget to check out our new publication: GreatMarriage.com