Do Churches Offer Essential Services?

The term “essential services” is often used during this COVID pandemic. The term is used in reference to agencies like law enforcement, healthcare, utilities and other community-based services. Another agency that is rarely mentioned is Human Services.

According to the National [American] Organization for Human Services, “the field of Human Services is broadly defined as an agency that meets human needs, through an interdisciplinary knowledge base, focusing on prevention as well as remediation of problems, and maintaining a commitment to improving the overall quality of life of service populations.”

The Human Services profession is one which promotes improved service delivery systems by addressing not only the quality of direct services, but also by seeking to improve accessibility, accountability, and coordination among professionals and agencies in service delivery. The primary purpose of a Human Services professional is to assist individuals and communities to function as effectively as possible in the major domains of living.

Human Services professionals work in community, residential care, or institutional settings providing direct services such as leading a group, organizing an activity, or offering individual counselling. Human Services aim to have clients overcome adversity through strength-based approaches. Approaches that empower clients to make positive life choices, allowing them to reach their full potential.

In responding to COVID-19, many communities have instituted measures that deprive persons of reaching their full potential. For instance, social distancing has resulted in depression and loneliness. Depression is usually characterized by feelings of despair, overwhelm, apathy, accompanied by changes in weight loss or weight gain, disrupted sleep, and increased irritability, anger, or confusion.

When added to the alarming increase of persons losing their jobs and domestic violence, one is not surprised by the increasing use of abusive substances and threats of suicide. One fears that the impact of this pandemic may even be more dangerous than the pandemic itself.

Long before the COVID-19 pandemic, churches have been involved in services now defined as Human Services. Throughout her history, churches have provided coping skills to assist people to deal with death, trauma, family conflicts, existential fear, stress and anxiety.

Rodney Stark, in his volume, The Victory of Reason, contends that “Christianity and its related institutions are directly responsible for the most significant intellectual, political, scientific, and economic break-throughs of the past millennium.” Inherent in the Christian mission is the desire to allow persons to reach their full potential.

For this reason, it was not unusual to find the compassionate response of agencies like Samaritan’s Purse to the crisis in New York City. Like so many other Christian groups, there was no need for governments to appeal for help, churches naturally respond to crises. Agreed, the professional terms used in Human Services are different. However, the services offered are identical.

Whereas many in the Human Services are referred to as paid professionals, Christians who offer similar services are simply referred to as volunteers. Like in the Catholic tradition, some leaders with earned doctorates in their areas of service, are referred to professionally as merely brothers and sisters – terms that describe one’s attitude. This is so because, for Christians, one’s attitude to service is as important as one’s skill set in offering that service.

Even while complying with the appeals for social distancing, Christians are finding creative ways to deliver care packages and serve the most vulnerable. Churches continue to encourage and challenge congregants through virtual channels. Having lost the opportunity to meet physically and loose the sense of community, other aspects of community emerge through the internet.

Weekly I find myself participating in gatherings that bring together people from different countries. Among those gathered are elderly folks who are considered shut-ins at face-to-face gatherings. Such occasions have allowed me to address topics like anxiety, loneliness and learning how to cope in difficult times. Try to imagine the positive impact that kind of weekly interaction would have on persons experiencing despair.

Despite the significant contribution of the faith community, our faith and views of life are often relegated to superstition. Constantly, we are pressured to believe that only a scientific approach would get us out of this pandemic. In a spirit of arrogance some commentators tout our achievements and demand of others that they wait on science, before total victory can be discovered.

When would our media analysts realize that the finitude of mundane existence cannot completely satisfy the human heart? As I asked in a recent sermon, to whom do we turn when we feel overwhelmed? Do we wait only for scientific answers? Thankfully, there is another realm from which we hear these words:

Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Saviour.

The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to tread on the heights (Habakkuk 3:17).

Now you determine if the compassionate contribution from churches, that empower people and allow them to reach their full potential, qualify to be an essential service during this pandemic.