What I Should Have Known About The Church in Northwest Wichita

Yesterday I mourned over what I should have already known about the Church in Northwest Wichita. Our missional community (a few friends journeying together to try and live our everyday lives in the Way of Jesus) along with neighbors and friends are starting a community garden, the first one in northwest Wichita. It is a way to create and restore beauty in our neighborhood and share with our community in the work and the harvest, a demonstration of the Gospel. This is just a small project, and we realize that we are just a small part of the Big C “Church” in our neighborhood.  We could do so much more if we partnered together.

So, in hopes of connecting and partnering with churches in our area, our first contact was with the closest church, Covenant Presbyterian Church, just up the road. This church was thrilled about partnering with us in this garden project. They have a few gardeners in their congregation who will garden with us, and when we discovered that they have a food pantry that serves families in our area, we recognized what a great thing it would be to contribute some of our vegetables to their food pantry for distribution to those in need. Our garden will be open for anyone in need to take veggies from it, but also building bridges to partner with others already feeding the hungry seemed like a Kingdom idea!

So, with that realization, we thought offering to donate vegetables to nearby churches’ food pantries would be a great connection point for partnering together in Kingdom work. So yesterday morning I began to make calls to the MANY churches within a couple of miles of our neighborhood. What I experienced over that hour of making calls, I will never forget.

My first call was to the largest church in our neighborhood, one that boasts, “6,000 call it their church home and have 3000+ attendance at their weekend services.” I dialed their number and a woman answered the phone. I said, “Hello, do you have a food pantry?” (thinking they must, but if not, there’s no point in offering to contribute veggies to it!) The woman said, “No, we don’t.” A little taken aback, I said, “Okay…well do you know what churches in the area might have a food pantry?” She said, “Umm, no, I don’t…what we do and what I can do is give you the numbers to the Red Cross and the United Way.” A LOT taken aback, I said, “No, thank you,” and we said goodbye.

Could this be true? One of the largest, most resourced churches in our city outsources feeding the hungry to…secular organizations??  Not even to a centralized city-wide food bank ministry (like the UMC has) but to the Red Cross and The United Way?  Really??? Maybe they send money to these organizations, I don’t know. It seems sad but likely that they’d rather do that than get their hands and carpets dirty actually distributing the food from their glorious facility. (Sorry for the sarcasm, but how frustrating!!) By the way, thank the Lord for the Red Cross and the United Way!!

I continued to call more neighborhood churches asking, “Do you have a food pantry” one after another with various but mostly troubling responses.  After pressing each of 1 – 9 trying to talk to a person, I never did speak to anyone at the dot TV church in our neighborhood. Go figure. Here were some of the other responses I got…

“No, we don’t. We’re a pretty small congregation” (several said something like this)

“Well, yes, we do, but it’s very small and it’s only for our members. We don’t have enough to spill over to others.”

“Umm, I don’t know, but there’s no one here who could talk to you about that right now”

“Yes we do, but it’s only for one-time assistance, we’ll only give you a couple of things, and you will need to bring your drivers license and fill out a couple of forms first” (In a horribly condescending tone of voice)

“No, we’re in affluent northwest Wichita. There’s no need here.”

Maybe there’s no physical need in their congregation, but there is definitely need in my neighborhood…right up the street. It may not be as obvious, but I know families right on our street who are going through tough times and food is a need at times. Our family has needed help, ourselves, from time to time. How oblivious this church is to the needs of the people who are not members of their congregation! I prefer ignorance, though (which can be remedied) to knowing there is need and outsourcing it!

What are we to do? My heart is broken and saddened and frustrated and angry that the churches in my area are so out of touch with the people that Jesus came for: the broken, the hurting, the hungry, the sick, the oppressed, the prisoners, the addicts, the prostitutes, ect. Very few of “these people” (if any) I imagine are members of these congregations. And its NOT because they don’t live in the area!!  And if these churches’ (minus Covenant Pres) focus is on the “needs” of their members, then how can we partner with them???