Shortly after I was appointed to my last church in
Albuquerque, a member of the congregation came to me with a service project
that he wanted to do, which is the best place for service to begin. Albuquerque
did not have a food pantry anywhere west of the river and north of the
interstate, which is a pretty large section of town. There was one way up in
Rio Rancho, and one in the south, but none close to us, and so he wanted to
start one. I was totally supportive of that effort, and having some experience with
food banks, I told him that it would be great to have some other churches
involved because I didn’t think we would be able to support the pantry by
ourselves, especially to do what he was hoping it would do. So he went off and
met with the 3 churches that were within a ½ mile of us, two of whom were
immediately on board and another said they would think about it, so we were off
to a great start. He then went to meet with another church that was close by
which happened to be one of the largest in the city, and also the 10th largest
in their denomination in the country, which I am not going to name in order to
protect the guilty.
But, he sat down with them and explained what we were doing and asked if they would be willing to be a partner. The pastor he met with then asked how they could get new members of the church from the pantry? He wasn’t sure what they were asking, and so asked for clarification, and was told that unless they could be guaranteed that new people would start attending their church because of the pantry then they weren’t interested in participating. That is, the only reason to be of service to the world, the only reason to help others in need, the only reason to offer Christ’s love was if, to be a little blunt, it would put more butts in the seats.
