This thought kind of just happened by accident through two events.
I was working on a marketing strategy for a retreat and conference center on the East Coast in a very rural city and I happened to put the address into google maps and did a search on how many churches there are nearby. The results shocked me!
Then last Thursday Pastor Matthew stated he had heard that if every church took in just 2 homeless people the problem will be solved. Hmm…I started thinking about that I went back to google maps.
Let’s play a little game. Go to google maps and enter your church address. When the box appears click on “Search nearby”. Type in the word “church” and hit enter. Then on the left menu column you’ll see the option to “refine by:” Click on “distance” and look at the number. Now click on “15 miles”. Take that number and multiply by 2. If the churches in your area just helped 2 people each that would be the total amount of people helped and the end of homelessness or poverty is doable. Very doable!
Now I am not talking helping people by leading them into the “sinner’s prayer” and leaving them with toothpaste and a bottle of water. I mean really extending yourself and actually helping just 2 people out of poverty! Every church can help 2 people, can’t they?
As an example I didn’t want to use Los Angeles just because it is a large metropolitan area. The number is so huge it freaks me out! So this example will be more real I used my last physical address in Missouri. Within 15 miles of my old address there are 2,580 churches. Within 45 miles there are 9,243 churches. If each church helped just 2 people (a month? a year?) that would be 18,486 people helped out of poverty in St Louis. I might be wrong here but I believe the number of homeless in the St Louis area is less than 500 on any given night.
So I realized two things here. Solving homelessness is doable and the Body of Christ can actually make a serious impact if we just put our words into action. Also, as is right now, the church is selfish and blind. We believe we are helping people but if we just step back and see the real truth we would be aware of how little effect most churches have on the world.
I sure hope this is a wakeup call for someone!
