Churches Receiving More Calls For Help IN THE

Pleas for help spiritual and financial are flooding U S churches from tiny congregations to megachurches as recession woes seep into the pews a new survey finds

Pastors say they re giving out benevolent funds in record numbers increasing ministries to the unemployed and the financially fearful even reaching into their own pockets more to help

Nearly two in three pastors 62 report more people from outside their church asking for help and nearly a third 31 see more such requests from church members according to a survey of 1 000 Protestant pastors

The survey by Life Way Research a Christian polling firm based in Nashville finds that 40 of pastors say they have church members out of work and 37 say their church has increased spending to help the needy The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points

This is a great opportunity for the church to shine What can be done to help those struggling in this economy

1 If the church has the resources buy groceries for people or help with electric bill a mortgage payment rent water bill or gas bill

3 Provide help with resume writing and interviewing skills See Rick Meig s Blind Beggar s piece here A lot of times your local unemployment office will have people who can help with things like this

What other ways can you think of to help I m trying to figure out how we can help people in the Lake Como community looking for more ideas

I thought this post was so interesting and it is all in the title Churches Receiving More Calls For Help I N T H E W A Y I have nothing to add just now but I will keep an eye on it

X H T M L You can use these tags a href title abbr title acronym title b blockquote cite cite code del datetime em i q cite strike strong p br