Let's Be Honest: Affluent Churches Seldom Make a Difference Among the Poor

The Suburban Captivity could easily be ranked first (From the contest of my last bolg). Certainly churches today are much more influenced by Suburban Captivity than they are the Liberal/Fundamentalist Controversies. But the earlier controversies had already thoroughly isolated churches and prevented them from seriously engaging the culture.

The Suburban Captivity is important because throughout Church History, the churches that have had the most significant ministries among the poor have always been poor themselves. I was working the phone banks for World Concern years ago and was shocked at the reality that all the people calling in to pledge were mostly poor themselves, but they wanted to share. Where were the wealthy that night? I guess at their small group.

It was during the church’s first three hundred years that it had its biggest impact among the poor. The earliest Christians had very few resources. They didn’t have schools, buildings, or professionally trained leadership. But most of them knew what it felt like to be poor. Consequently they had an enormous amount of passion for the poor of this world, and a strong belief in a better life for all in the next world.

Affluence has crippled us. In early America the Episcopalians and the Congregationalists dominated the landscape. They were the faiths of the Protestant elite in England and were not too concerned with engaging the poor. Then came the new kids on the block, the Methodists, they came from the ranks of the poor and ministered extensively to the poor. It is not an accident that one of America’s most respected charities, the Salvation Army, came out of 18th century Wesleyanism. But as more and more Methodists practiced God’s principles concerning sobriety, honesty, hard work, etc., they became upwardly mobile, affluent and detached from the poor.

The next group who came from the ranks of the poor and ministered back to poor was the Baptists. But as Baptists practiced God’s principles they too became upwardly mobile and affluent. And, like the Methodists, they too largely disengaged from the poor.

(There is a great line in the movie A River Ran Through It; when a Presbyterian pastor is asked, “What is a Methodist?” and he replies, “A Methodist is a Baptist who can read”).

Next came the Pentecostals, they came from the poor and ministered to the poor. Today if there is a ministry in the streets it is likely to have a Pentecostal/Charismatic flavor. But they have practiced God’s principles long enough for most of them to become more affluent, and they are disengaging themselves from their roots as well.

What group of Christians will be the next group to re-engage the poor?

This is the question that ought to be the hot issue in the seminaries of the land. Maybe the 21st century will see a “Community Church” resurgence, that is not just attractional, but to also engages the poor.

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