The Church is Too Small

I was taught that God is in charge of everything. There’s not a corner of the earth where God is not. God’s love permeates—even “holds together”—all things.

That’s the message of Scripture as I read it. God creates it all. God rules over it all. We may argue over how God's rule is exercised, but to say that God doesn’t rule everything is to say that God is not God.

God is big. But the church? It’s kinda small.

My experience of the church universal (ecumenical, spanning denominations) is that our vision for human life doesn’t match the size of God. The church’s vision ends up being smaller—sometimes much smaller—than the God whom we would serve.

What do I mean? There is a vision for universal human flourishing that grows from the heart of Christian theology. But that vision seems hard for churches to hold and to aspire toward. Our vision--and our priorities--remain constrained and too-often insular or self-serving.

I’ve been thinking about this lately as I’ve been digging into questions of housing and homelessness in my county in Georgia. I maintain that it’s God’s will that no one be homeless—it’s an indignity that no one should endure. Still, there are 13,000 folks statewide homeless on any given night, and 700 here in Dekalb County. Women, children, the elderly, the mentally ill, the addicted. They need our help. Many more folks live on the edge of homelessness—in extended stay hotels or couch-surfing, or going without utilities or food or medicine to pay the rent or mortgage. This number is much larger. Recent estimates say that Dekalb County is 50,000 units short of the need for affordable housing. 50,000 individuals or families living on the edge of what they can afford, struggling like hell to keep a roof over their heads.

Is this not a place to which the church is called to devote our love and attention? Does our God not give us a vision for the end of homelessness?

But here in Dekalb County, the churches are silent. We give some money. We volunteer time and offer other in-kind gifts. But we’re not working on solving the problem together. If all of the churches in Dekalb County cooperated to create “housing first” solutions, partnering with county government, nonprofits, and businesses, don’t you think we could create 700 additional beds? It's a completely achievable number. Don’t you think we could radically change the landscape for affordable housing if we focus energy and resources and passion toward this common goal?

God is big, but the church is small. We settle for small-scale remedies, when the problems are larger. We lazily avoid solutions when the solutions require partnerships, meetings, multi-year coordinated strategies. We have the capacity to end homelessness in communities like mine. But the church’s vision is much too small.

I would like to see every clergy person in Dekalb County create a meaningful partnership with Decatur Cooperative Ministry, or another strong, stable nonprofit housing provider. Invite other churches to join you. Make your aim the end of homelessness and don’t settle for anything less.

God’s love is big. May our vision for human flourishing be just as grand.