Minnesota Family Council: Solve our state $5 billion budget deficit by raising taxes? That’s $1,000 per man, woman and child..

The blog author makes a good point, as to scaling back our expectations of government.  I think he is onto something… but whether the govt provides a service or not, the demand for the service is still going to exist. Granted, there is a lot of waste in govt, whether it be NCLB, huge corrections and judicial overhead for minor crimes, or layer upon layer of oversight and duplication, waste exists all across the board, it obviously does not need to stay around.

For things that are real needs, what if the church were to step back into the role of the early church. Or what if at a minimum, the churches thought was not to direct people to government right away, but to consider that there may be other solutions. Far too many times, I’ve heard churches throw up their hands, and send even their members to the govt for help. Whether it be financial/mortgage issues, childcare,  chronic illness or disability,  elder-care, or even utility emergencies, the churches response is all too often… go see the govt, they should be able to help, we cant, or we can’t anymore. And I’ve heard that from even the most pro big business, pro Republican, pro small govt, anti tax, uber conservative churches I’ve ever come across… It makes no sense, but it is what it is.  (One of the bad parts of being on the inside of ministry, you get exposed to a ton of garbage…)

Granted, the church is not a end all solution… as there will be people that find the churches teachings anathema, or due to very bad experiences with churches/minsters/etc, will not come anywhere near a church. And for those folks, and for when the church fails, govt still needs to have a safety net, but such net could be a much much smaller one and a much lower cost one that what we have today. Imagine the savings, if the church did step up to the plate, Even if the church succeeded only 25% of the time, the savings alone could erase much of the states deficit in the human services domain.

A fellow I used to minister with used to call me too idealistic, and yes he is right… such a plan is filled with the potential for failures left and right.  Churches will not want to step up and take on an alzheimers patient, who is too far gone to really stay alone, but still of right enough mind to be 90% independent. Nor will they want to cover the utilities for a young single mom who lost 4 jobs in a row due to the economy crashing, or the paraplegic kid who fell off a cliff, and whose mom needs help getting him back in bed at 3AM. These are all things the church could do, but likely is not willing to do.

The thing is, rather than throwing these problems over the wall to the govt, there may be partial solutions. It may be a group of folks who will take the 3AM call on a rotating basis, it may be 10 or so members who each step in to help out someone with a utility bill or weatherization, or even a group of folks to check in on the alzheimers patient periodically.  None would necessarily be an official church function, but if church members individually knew of a need, would they step up to the plate.

I think many more would than those who would decline, and I also think many would do so over the long term. Remember the paraplegic kid will grow old… but if he falls, someone needs to help him at 3AM even when he is 60. Govt may yank his chain and fail him by cutting funding for an overnight aide during a budget cut, leaving him to lie on the floor until the morning. However, if the church has stepped up for 40-50 years, one could be pretty sure, there is no way a a group of church volunteers would ever let that happen.

These, for the most part are things which are not expensive when covered by volunteers, but are spendy when provided by the govt. For the financial side of things as well, there is almost always a way, but it may take a creative approach to make it happen, something which again, govt is ill equiped to handle, ie rules and regs make creative solutions impossible, but well within the realm of the church who can operate unhindered for the most part.