“The news this morning from the Bureau of labor Statistics was not good,” notes Don Meyer, executive minister of Covenant Communications and editor. Some 467,000 non-farm jobs were lost in June alone with the unemployment rate hovering at 9.5 percent (14.7 million individuals).
Many local churches have emergency funds, often distributed at the discretion of the pastor and designed to help homeless individuals or respond to other unexpected emergency needs. Often these special funds have limited dollars and are by their design more reactive than proactive, Meyer notes.
“We are interested in knowing if there are churches who have initiated new responses to the current economic crisis,” Meyer says. There may be families within a given congregation where one or more of the wage earners have lost their jobs, or perhaps have been forced into unpaid furloughs or have had their pay cut. Some may be struggling to pay bills – mortgage, food, health care, whatever.
“And, of course, this crisis affects those outside the church walls – those in the neighborhoods and communities who may not be part of the church family,” Meyer observes. “We would like to know what creative ways have been developed to reach out to those families as well.”
Churches are invited to email information on what their congregations are doing to Covenant Newsdesk. Staff will follow up with churches to develop more detailed information as needed and will share stories of how churches are responding in The Covenant Companion as well as the daily online news report.
Click here to read more of the details from today’s Bureau of Labor report. Another interesting news report from the Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram is available by clicking here.
