2000 > The New Reality

This week I had yet another meeting with a guy who is out of work because of the economy. Most of the guys I talk to are hard working guys who don’t want a hand out — they just want a job. They’re putting resumes in everywhere, walking into any establishment they can think of, canvassing the Internet, but finding nothing. These are crazy times we’re living in. One of the phrases we are using a lot around the office these days is “new reality”. I think, like the proverbial frog in the cooker, things got bad so gradually that many of us still think it’s just a new version of an old situation. But I’m becoming more and more convinced that we’ve not seen anything like this before and we need to adjust to the “new reality” that we’ve crossed the line from “hard times” to “desperate times”. 

 

 My fear is that we look back five years from now in shock and disbelief that we took no action in helping our friends, our neighbors, our community because we didn’t want to believe things were that desperate. Here is an excerpt from a letter I received this week from one of our familes:

 

“…really, what we need is work and money. No amount of kindness, sympathy or anything else will help us keep our home. When your basic needs are not being met (or you are in very real danger of losing everything very soon) nothing else matters. You begin to get very desperate. Look, we have given up ever having a “normal” life again. We will never be able to retire or even go on a vacation. But, we need to keep our home in order to survive. It is all we have. We need some place to lie our heads. [my husband] is 56 (even though, yes, I know, he looks and acts much younger) we don’t have time to save up even if he gets a job today. We just want to be able to pay our bills and keep our home. If we lose this we still won’t have enough to pay rent anywhere else. It will be all over…”

 

This letter describes the way many of the families at The Crossing are feeling. So what can we do? (And by “we” I mean all the folks who haven’t yet arrived at the place the family in the letter has.) The financial faithfulness of many of the folks at The Crossing enables us, as a church community, to help out with things like groceries and utility bills. But that’s usually just a band-aid. When there’s no money coming in, helping with a power bill just postpones the inevitable. What families need is money coming in – they need jobs. (yeah, I know that’s a “duh” statement, but I’m going somewhere with this.)

 

When I ask myself, “What resource does The Crossing have to help people,” the answer I get is “people” – we’ve got people. With 2000 people showing up on Sunday, that’s a pretty good network to find jobs and help resource people in need!

 

How do we harness that network to get done what we need to get done? Honestly, I’m not sure. The task seems huge – gigantic. But we’ve got to start somewhere – baby steps, right Bob?

 

So we’ve added a tab to The Pulse titled “Economic Relief”. On that page, we reference some areas of assistance we can offer as a church and a community, but its potential strength lies in its power to harness the resources of the people of The Crossing. There’s a page where you can list jobs that you know are available, where you can list good furniture or appliances that you’d like to give to families in need, or maybe you’re looking to open up a reasonably priced room for rent to someone losing their home. Most importantly, it’s a place where we can begin to help each other.

 

Yeah, I know this is a small step towards a solution, but it is a step. And, more importantly, hopefully, it will begin a dialogue – what are you experiencing that tells you whether this a new reality or just a different version of the same old reality? –what can people do to help in these times? –what other resources have you found to help you deal with the current economic situation? Click on the comment box below and weigh in.

 

If you find yourself currently out of work or in need of resources, check out the Economic Relief tab at The Pulse. And for some encouragement and ideas on dealing with unemployment, check out the article, “Job Loss Survival Guide“.