People call my church every day wanting help with food, rent, utilities, even car payments and they tend to get upset when we have to tell them that we have just enough money to help the poor in our own congregation. Other than that our small church does manage to donate $1,000 per year to the salvation army and we support missionaries.
People get mad and tell us that the church is supposed to help all the poor, not just church members.
***People call my church every day wanting help with food, rent, utilities, even car payments****
We have the same problem here. It got so bad many years ago that now a person requesting help must first go to the local police dept and get a voucher that they really need help.
You would be surprised how many never come back.
Our church gets calls like that as well. Most of it is scammers.
No connection to the church, never been there. Just calling around looking for money and getting MAD when they say no.
Then they should have called the MORMONs...
Ah, yes, when I ran the food program at our church, they swarmed like maggots. I turned many away —knew them, recognized the fake stories instantly. The parishioners, whose dear hearts were touched by the stories and who did not recognize a lame story when they heard it, thought I was so mean.