FAITH-BASED WELFARE REFORM
How to Determine What Does and Doesn't Work

The history of welfare reform makes it clear that some methods of helping the needy are effective and some methods are ineffective and even counter-productive. How does the average church know what to do to effectively help those in need?

Virgil Gulker, founder of Love, Inc., the faith-based clearinghouse network to help those in need, identifies the common methods that churches use to help the needy that are not effective.

• Turn over the responsibility to religious and secular helping agencies.
• Let the pastor do it.
• Assign a committee to help.
• Let one person who can't say "no" do it.
• Hire an outreach worker.
• Set up a food bank.
• Provide holiday food baskets.
• Train people in how to help without having any personal involvement with those needing help.1

Well, what's wrong with food banks and holiday food baskets? According to Gulker, a food bank can give a church a false sense of security that it is truly helping the needy while the more serious underlying needs may remain unresolved. And holiday food baskets do more for the giver than the receiver. They assuage feelings of guilt of doing nothing for eleven months of the year and then discharging it by giving food baskets.2

But what does work in helping the needy? It really shouldn't come as much of a surprise that relationships are the key to effective helping ministries. Amy Sherman lists eight questions that a church should ask to evaluate whether it is serving people effectively. They are condensed as follows:

1. Is the ministry relational, seeking to transform people's lives by providing them with personal contacts?
2. Is the ministry's approach holistic, seeking to address both material and spiritual needs?
3. Is the ministry promoting self-sufficiency or is it giving people handouts?
4. Does the ministry respect recipients and exhort them to take personal responsibility for improving their condition?
5. Is the ministry targeted and focused, or is it scattershot and impersonal?
6. Are there safeguards built in against abusers of charity?
7. How many of the lay people in the church are involved in service to others?
8. Is the ministry drawing on the strengths and giftings of its members?3

Once a church is committed to truly helping the needy, the key is to set up an effective, relational ministry.

Evergreen Freedom Foundation P.O. Box 552, Olympia, WA 98507 Phone: (360) 956-3482, Fax: (360) 352-1874 Email: effwa@effwa.org