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"We stayed away from members' whole financial world," Pastor Lee says. "We didn't see this financial stuff as ministry, and dropped it."

In northern California, Pastor Eva Rodriguez, a friend of the Murillos', put it this way: "We should have been more aware. But our church has been put in a box by theology and Hispanic culture, where you are not allowed to talk about finances."

Some churches that had financial seminars turned them over to their own financial people in the congregation. But these churches often did not vet volunteers to separate those honestly eager to help from those eager to expand their client base through the church. It's worth remembering that the rain falls on the just and unjust alike. "Our method of setting up classes raises a question. Some of our own bankers bought into that stuff themselves," Pastor Lee warns.

As one banker with Countrywide Financial told me, "I just didn't see the problems on the horizon. I bought my home and two rental condos and have lost them all."

Hispanic pastors are hoping to pool the lessons they have learned. Through the Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference they are drafting a three-point plan to address the crisis:

• Work proactively with affected families, banks, and mortgage companies to expose fraud.
• Create a formula to help prospective home buyers detect and avoid problem loans.
• Start a charitable fund to help families and churches that have lost everything.

The churches might take notes from a predominantly black church in Queens, New York. Bethel Gospel Tabernacle of South Jamaica sits at ground zero of the Northeast's mortgage meltdown. There are more foreclosures and homes close to foreclosure there than anywhere else in NYC. Yet out of 2,000 Tabernacle church families (a number of whom have members who work on Wall Street), fewer than five succumbed. Why?

Tabernacle's Bishop Roderick Caesar is far from conventional. "The church needs to grow people with faith and habits in their bones, not two-hour-per-week Christians," he says. Caesar preached a mini-sermon against subprime mortgages during every sermon on every Sunday for ten years.

The congregation can recite by memory Caesar's four-point credo for the use of money:

• Tithe and pay your bills on time.
• Save systematically and invest.
• Spend wisely and responsibly within your means.
• Don't buy what you don't need.

Bishop Caesar is preparing church members to help individuals financially adrift in the flotsam of lost dreams. "We in the church must gather the down-to-your-bones Christians and launch out in rescues."

A similar rescue outreach is gaining momentum in Southern California. It combines elements of evangelism and financial service. Here's Life Inner City of Los Angeles is developing a partnership with 120 churches called FAITH: "Foreclosure Assistance in the Hood." The ministry provides lists of foreclosures around a church and trains church members to visit each family in the foreclosed or soon-to-be foreclosed home with offers of prayer and financial counseling seminars at the church.

FAITH director Ken Frech says most people in the Los Angeles area don't see the church as a place to turn when foreclosure looms. They only come to the church after they are on the street.

"People say, 'How is the church relevant to our situation?' But we can bring a radical Christianity that goes to the spiritual roots of the people's catastrophe," says Frech.

In Santa Ana, the de Leóns are planning seminars for Hispanics in danger of foreclosure. Such events will involve the major banks, mortgage companies, Christian financial counselors, and attorneys. The church is working with a team of reliable real estate people to keep out mortgage sharks. Pastor Lee says their credibility will be based on a new reality: "We have gone through it and have turned our lives around with Christ."

Tony Carnes is a Christianity Today senior writer living in New York City.

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Christianity Today has a special section on the economic crisis.

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January 2009, Vol. 53, No. 1