HOW COMMUNITY CAUSES BENEFIT THE CHURCH

Jerry, the pastor of another congregation in town, had asked me to lunch to discuss a problem that was growing like kudzu in our city: pornography.

“The convenience stores are the worst,” he said. “Children go into these places, and there these magazines are!”

Jerry continued, “Did you know that one in four girls and one in seven boys will be sexually abused before they reach adulthood? It’s that porno rot.” Jerry stared out the window. “We’ve got to do something.”

This last comment was just thrown into the air, addressed more to himself than to me.

Now, I’m no banner-waving social reformer. Maybe I should be. But I feel pastors are called to communicate the eternal good news first and not get sidetracked by seemingly lesser issues. Still, I was troubled by the problem.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s get some pastors, church members, and community people involved, too.” Dipping nachos in salsa, we started to brainstorm.

Eventually, we formed a group called Citizens Against Pornography (CAP). We advertised monthly meetings. We talked to pastors, civic leaders, and law-enforcement agencies. We even sponsored a city-wide awareness campaign and invited an expert on the effects of pornography. About 500 people attended.

But we fumbled a lot in those early stages. For example, we began our organizational meetings in a church. Attendance was sparse until we moved to a community center. And while our public awareness campaign gave us some visibility, it was more froth than pith.

The spark that eventually resulted in 80 percent of the stores in our city removing their pornographic magazines was one individual. Jean Faucett took on the project, and like a Joan of Arc, she charged into the mayor’s office, police precincts, and convenience stores. She was gentle but firm in her insistence that pornography must be removed.

At the same time, hundreds of individuals and dozens of groups became involved. For example, my church members wrote letters to store owners and video shops. They spoke personally with some of the operators. Many of the store managers said they did not know what was in these magazines. We showed them, as well as the police chief, the sheriff, the district attorney, and the mayor, and we contacted our state legislators.

Now CAP is a statewide movement with headquarters in Gadsden. Governor Guy Hunt signed into observance an Anti-Pornography Week, and district attorneys throughout the state have renewed their efforts to eliminate porn peddling.

Community vs. church?

The last few decades have produced a new social conscience among us. Who can ignore the problems of abused children, housing for the poor, nursing home standards, and latch-key children?

Although I am still sensitive to the dangers of “social gospel,” my recent experiences have taught me that I can make a difference in my little corner of the world without compromising the integrity of the gospel.

Some people feel that getting involved in community causes inevitably detracts from the church’s ministry. But I’ve discovered just the opposite-in several ways our community involvement furthers the church’s ministry.

Preventing ecclesiastical constipation

I can sometimes get lost in the details of church work. For all my powerful sermons about being the salt of the earth and the light of the world, I may lose touch with the tension my church members face out there. Becoming involved in the community helps me stay in touch, and it reminds me of the difference my people can make in the community.

I’ve participated in a group called EPACT (Etowah [County] Parents and Children Together). This organization was formed by social workers, educators, and parents who were concerned about latch-key children-children left alone at home.

I spent a year presenting a state-designed latch-key program to elementary school teachers, parents, and children. At the end of each session, I also distributed a reading list on how to handle personal and domestic problems. The list included Christian books.

Frequently, I moaned as I left for another meeting. I could see no visible benefits for my church’s life.

But at one of those events, a mother of a latch-key child said to me, “You know, for the first time my daughter and I sat down and really talked. I didn’t know how lonely she felt.”

I realized then that this involvement was giving me a healthy dose of reality-seeing the world and the impact Christians can have.

Bringing Christian skills to secular groups

Recently, I helped develop a Children’s Advocacy Center (CAC) for sexually abused children. It coordinates all the departments and people working with these children-the Department of Human Resources, the district attorney’s office, law-enforcement departments, and therapeutic professionals.

The work put me in touch with people and procedures I never knew about. But as green as I was, I discovered that I, an “outsider,” could facilitate a level of cooperation among these agencies that an insider could not. I was not part of the civil system, and since I was a pastor, there seemed to be a greater willingness on everyone’s part to try harder, avoid arguments, and believe God was on our side.

Because of our CAC, instead of sexually abused children having to rehearse their trauma fourteen or fifteen times to various agencies, as they did before, they now have to be interviewed only three or four times. We developed a multi-disciplinary approach to handling cases so that all the agencies involved cooperate with each other.

I admit to taking delight in seeing firsthand that churches are not the only places where poor communication, personality conflicts, and turf-protecting interfere with the health of the organization.

To put it positively, I was able to put my pastoral experience to use in the community, especially my experience at working with volunteers, involving everyone in a job, setting goals, and beginning an operation before adequate funding is available.

Making a difference

The apostle Paul said, “Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place” (2 Cor. 2:14, NKJV). Diffusing the fragrance of Christ: that is my goal.

At our last meeting of the Children’s Advocacy Center, we were sitting in our new facility, with our new director, and among our new furnishings.

Gathered in the room were mental health professionals, social workers from the Department of Human Resources, a psychology teacher, a student, business people, a director for the children’s museum at the Cultural Arts Center, a journalist, homemakers, and others.

Toward the end of the meeting I reviewed how God had blessed our efforts over the past year: how our first $50 donation arrived; how we prayed for just the right director, and how God’s providence put Carolyn Gilbert, a social service worker with the Department of Human Resources, and me together at the county courthouse at the same time, working with the same family!

We recalled together how all of our plans seemed to gel within a few months-like finding a house for the center, receiving $10,000 from the district attorney, and receiving the commitment from the local Altrusa Club to furnish our entire facility.

The psalmist said it well, “This was the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes” (Ps. 118:23).

I led in prayer. We hugged each other. Some wept.

The fragrance of Christ.

-E. Langston Haygood

First Presbyterian Church

Gadsden, Alabama