Does Middle Class Mean Lukewarm?
I have yet another strange title. As a Salvation Army officer in the US I am well-treated. I have what I need. I will not get rich. I do live comfortably. I drive a decent car. My kids have attended good schools. Both have turned a good early academic grounding into scholarships which has permitted them to go to very good private universities. I am eternally grateful to The Salvation Army for the way it has provided a middle class lifestyle for me.
Over the past few years, God has really pushed me in ways as never before to look at the plight of the poor. I am only one generation removed from extreme poverty. The conditions under which my mother was raised, in the coal mining country of West Virginia, were austere at best. Both my mom and dad were born during the Great Depression. In many ways, God working through The Salvation Army saved my mother, in her late teens, from a life which could have been filled with addiction and poverty. This is her family history. With the exception of one sister, her siblings struggled with these demons throughout their lives. I am a product of generational lift.
Yet, the Booths called The Salvation Army to aggresively minister with the poor, with a sense of urgency and compassion. I believe the Booths were correct in their assesment that the issue of poverty must be addressed and alleviated before a message of salvation could be heard. They were in the thick of it and their ministry grew. Where The Army is knee deep in human suffering our ministry is exploding. Africa and parts of the Southern Hemisphere are seeing great revivals coming out of the areas of greatest desparation.
Last year, I was privileged to be part of a ministry among a hard core homeless population. My good friend who was charged with this ministry, visited these men in their homes, which were little more than hovels in entrances to great buildings or grates over a sidewalk. I engaged these men weekly, but safely. I prayed with them. I got to know their names, their birthdays and sometimes even some of the issues they had. I was blessed to see some of the success stories of rescue from addiction and poverty.
Henri Nouwen has written, "Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human." Jeremiah 22:16 equates involvement with the poor as an expression of knowing God. Isaiah 1:17 calls us to do right by defending those who cannot defend themselves. With that being said, I have been wondering if my middle class existence may somehow be something less than what God expects. I know there is nothing wrong with possessions. I know it is the extreme desire to have them that is wrong. As a Christian, am I not called to share in the sufferings of people for the sake of the Gospel? Is my middle class existence a sign of lukewarm Christianity? Too often we are not immersed in the experience of the poor. Does that mean we are not clothed in the compassion of Christ?
So here are my questions today. Does middle class comfort cause us to somehow be less than we ought to be in ministry? Are we able to be middle class and still reach the poor on a level on which they need to be reached? Is the Army fulfilling its mission if we are not first about the poor? Does this mission apply to all the Church? Can we fulfill our mandate in scripture without "full immersion in the condition of being human?" Can we write a check and still do the most good?
What do you think?
Over the past few years, God has really pushed me in ways as never before to look at the plight of the poor. I am only one generation removed from extreme poverty. The conditions under which my mother was raised, in the coal mining country of West Virginia, were austere at best. Both my mom and dad were born during the Great Depression. In many ways, God working through The Salvation Army saved my mother, in her late teens, from a life which could have been filled with addiction and poverty. This is her family history. With the exception of one sister, her siblings struggled with these demons throughout their lives. I am a product of generational lift.
Yet, the Booths called The Salvation Army to aggresively minister with the poor, with a sense of urgency and compassion. I believe the Booths were correct in their assesment that the issue of poverty must be addressed and alleviated before a message of salvation could be heard. They were in the thick of it and their ministry grew. Where The Army is knee deep in human suffering our ministry is exploding. Africa and parts of the Southern Hemisphere are seeing great revivals coming out of the areas of greatest desparation.
Last year, I was privileged to be part of a ministry among a hard core homeless population. My good friend who was charged with this ministry, visited these men in their homes, which were little more than hovels in entrances to great buildings or grates over a sidewalk. I engaged these men weekly, but safely. I prayed with them. I got to know their names, their birthdays and sometimes even some of the issues they had. I was blessed to see some of the success stories of rescue from addiction and poverty.
Henri Nouwen has written, "Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human." Jeremiah 22:16 equates involvement with the poor as an expression of knowing God. Isaiah 1:17 calls us to do right by defending those who cannot defend themselves. With that being said, I have been wondering if my middle class existence may somehow be something less than what God expects. I know there is nothing wrong with possessions. I know it is the extreme desire to have them that is wrong. As a Christian, am I not called to share in the sufferings of people for the sake of the Gospel? Is my middle class existence a sign of lukewarm Christianity? Too often we are not immersed in the experience of the poor. Does that mean we are not clothed in the compassion of Christ?
So here are my questions today. Does middle class comfort cause us to somehow be less than we ought to be in ministry? Are we able to be middle class and still reach the poor on a level on which they need to be reached? Is the Army fulfilling its mission if we are not first about the poor? Does this mission apply to all the Church? Can we fulfill our mandate in scripture without "full immersion in the condition of being human?" Can we write a check and still do the most good?
What do you think?
posted by Larry at 4:10 PM
6 Comments:
First of all, my BROTHER Larry! Thank you for asking the right questions! And here are my thoughts.
“Does middle class comfort cause us to somehow be less than we ought to be in ministry?” Of course! Jesus’ whole relevancy is the fact that he came here and lived through it, just like us.
Are we able to be middle class and still reach the poor on a level on which they need to be reached? I believe we are, but not as effectively.
Is the Army fulfilling its mission if we are not first about the poor? I would argue that today’s outcast includes more than just the poor, but that, at the very least, we must be ministering to the marginalized to fulfill our original mission.
Does this mission apply to all the Church? That depends on whether you believe the Bible to be the Word of God or not.
Can we fulfill our mandate in scripture without "full immersion in the condition of being human?" Again yes, but not as effectively.
Can we write a check and still do the most good? I am having to embrace and believe the fact that God does call some people to make the money needed to fund these ministries but, like anything, this can easily become a cop out.
I have a friend over here who recently became a lieutenant. Upon his commissioning, he was told to choose which new vehicle he wanted to drive. He had already been leading a ministry in a tough neighborhood for about two years and was going to be continuing this ministry. He decided that, to be relevant, he needed to continue driving the piece of junk he had been driving for the past two years, so he turned down the car. I respect the heck out of him for doing this. I’ve seen more and more SA leaders move out of the very neighborhoods that they’ve been sent to minister to and it breaks my heart. I realize that safety is sometimes an issue, but other times it just seems that I am looking at people who have a different calling other than being a pastor in the SA.
Thank you for asking these questions Larry. Please don’t let this post be the last time you bring it up!
I blogged!
Tim,
Thanks for your comments. I love being in the Army. I believe we are to be in ministry to the disenfranchised, especially the young and defenseless.
Training people to be in ministry brings me much joy and helps me realize that I must always leave my comfortable life.
By the way, I am reading a great book..Under the Overpass..It is the story of two yuppie college boys who decide to spend a few months as homeless men. It is amazing to read their experience and the way they were able to minister, while enduring the persecution of some who called themselves Christians.
"Go for souls and go for the worst."
My answers are "Maybe, maybe, probably not, I think so, maybe, and it depends."
Seriously though - Tim speaks well here and I believe I agree. There seems to be an overriding question here which may be, "When does one get distracted from one's purpose?" or maybe, "What causes the distraction?"
This may be a bad illustration, but there's a line in the movie "Heat", when DeNiro & Pacino are in the coffee shop. DeNiro says something like, "There can't be anything in my life that I can't leave in 15 minutes if I feel the heat around the corner." The problem, maybe, is not the middle-class "comforts" but the unwillingness to leave them if/when we feel the heat. That's what the "rich young man's" problem was, and it still haunts us today.
Susan,
Glad to hear from you. I think that the historical roots of the Army are to the poor and marginalized. To deny that, is to deny our roots and mission. In my opinion, we can excuse the fact that we have been placed in a certain neighborhood and we should serve that neighborhood. To do so is to not be honest with our roots or to the public who support us.
Read history. We are a church of and for the poor. We bill ourselves as an organization doing the most good among the poor.
To be strictly middle class is to deny our roots.
I think the issue of what is church is where we ought to go. We concentrate so much on worship, we have little time for church.
I think that if we are planting middle class churches we are denying our roots and not being honest with the public.
As to people not knowing we are a church, interesting question. It depends on your definition of church. If you mean a community that looks outside of itself to serve those who are suffering and who will find themselves in meaningful teaching and ministry then I think we need to do that. Because people don't necessarily come to our worship services or know we have them, is something else. Having worship does not make a place a church. I am not even sure we should think of ourselves as the traditional church.
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