This summer our efforts to bring holistic healing to people in the area will intensify when we open a center for benevolent work on the FAC campus. The FAC Benevolent Center will be located near the Red Barn on the Route 541 side of the church property.
The roots of the idea for this ministry go back about four years ago, when my wife, Jess, and I started helping out with the Care & Comfort Ministry. At the time, I was also working with Crew 318, FAC’s handyman ministry. We got a phone call to help a family in Browns Mills.
Upon arriving, I found a pretty unbearable scene. The house was a wreck: Ceiling fan hanging down, fire damage, dirt everywhere, gutters full of leaves, lawn overgrown, water pouring out from under the sink.
It would be easy to think this was due to someone’s incompetence or addiction. But in this case a grandmother with a master’s degree was trying to take care of her daughter and her three children, one of whom was autistic. In the midst of this, the grandmother suffered an injury that knocked her out of work so their income dropped drastically.
Maybe you’ve heard of, or even know, folks in similar straits: The families living in the woods in Browns Mills, or in the motels in Pennsauken. I just heard about an 18-year-old girl in Tabernacle with a drug-addicted mother, a dad that’s gone, and is now on her own with seven weeks to graduation.
In all of these cases my heart aches: How do we help these people claw their way out? How do we stop this cycle before it spreads to another generation? Surely Jesus is not OK with this, but He didn’t leave a step-by-step recovery plan, either.
Jesus has been growing in me the idea that He came to restore what God had originally intended with creation: A people living in relationship with Him, as children of God, tending to creation, and loving one another.
How does that apply to helping people out of poverty? Out of desperate situations? Out of financial ruin? Out of addiction? How do we help people through their pain?
There is no simple, easy fix. Each of is different and unique in our lives, personalities, talents, etc. And because we are all so different we need a multi-faceted plan to help people through their pain. We need a place that is about building relationships to find out who these people are, why they are in the situation they’re in, and how the Kingdom of God in their hearts will restore them.
The Benevolent Center will be that place; it will house a food pantry, financial counseling, One Another ministries like Crew 318 (handyman) or Care & Comfort (serving), and life counseling services.
The main goal of the Benevolent Center is to give people Jesus and to help them manage their skills and talents, bank account, relationships, their view of themselves. I want to show people that they are made in the image of God, that they have the ability (on their own or with help from others) to manage life. because that is what God intended in the beginning.
You can read more about the coming Benevolent Center in my next post and in the June issue of the Fellowship Connection. But I’d love to talk to you more about this new ministry. I’d love to have your input, your wisdom, and your hearts speaking into these lives that will come for help. You have the Kingdom of God in your hearts, and your lives have been blessed because of it. I invite you now to go on mission and serve with me.
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