Posted on 12/22/2020 6:45:09 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Congress may not have realized it, but they hit a stroke of genius when they included faith-based organizations in the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) this spring. Congress’ critics should reserve their criticism for other aspects of the nation’s Covid-19 response.
The Paycheck Protection Program was designed to help companies and nonprofits retain their employees in the early days of the pandemic shutdown. And, brilliantly, Congress decided late in their deliberations to include faith-based organizations.
Our executive search firm works with thousands of the nation’s faith-based organizations, so when PPP passed, we immediately set out to help our clients receive the help they needed.
We counseled thousands of churches, schools, and nonprofits through the process and directly helped over 275,000 people receive aid. While the program was not perfect, I can say that it was a tremendous success and everyone at Vanderbloemen is deeply thankful for Congress’ foresight.
Unfortunately, now, pundits and critics seem to be acting as if it was especially untoward for the government to provide this assistance to churches. They’re wrong. In order to understand why please consider what might have happened if communities of faith had been excluded from the PPP program.
What would have happened first?
Unemployment. Lots of it.
Places of worship, and other faith-based non-profits, are also huge employers in virtually every community in America, large or small.
The amount of aid given by the PPP program was solely based on an organization’s headcount. A large organization had more employees whose jobs were threatened by this once-in-a-century health and economic crisis.
Large churches are easy targets for criticism by people who simply don’t have all of the information. Take for instance, the criticism of Lakewood church in my hometown of Houston. I don’t attend Lakewood. In fact, I come from a different theological stream all together, but I would bet that many criticizing the mega-church for receiving PPP funds do not realize that neither Joel nor Victoria Osteen have taken a salary from the church in over 15 years.
Secondly, communities would’ve been hurt more deeply than people likely realize if our churches and nonprofits had been excluded because of the assistance they provide to people every day. It’s too bad that acts of kindness don’t make the headlines as often as controversies because churches have been pouring kindness into our country this past year at an unprecedented rate.
My friend Jud Wilhite, pastor of Central Christian Church in Las Vegas, is a good example. When the casinos closed this spring, unemployment skyrocketed north of 30% in Vegas, and nobody was there to help the helpless. So Jud’s large church began distributing food. They have since distributed over 9 million pounds of food to over 800,000 people in his city. Imagine what would’ve happened if the staff at Central Christian Church were unable to continue their work helping support their community?
I think of my good friend Eric Geiger at Mariners Church located in hard-hit California. When they couldn’t use their building to meet, he and his staff mobilized and opened a free childcare center for front line healthcare workers.
Of course, in any circumstance where money was misappropriated or misallocated the authorities should take appropriate action, but it is inappropriate to try to shame churches and religious organizations for taking assistance provided by the government to help people keep their jobs and to help those organizations continue to serve their communities in a pandemic.
For every bad example, there are ten thousand good examples of how churches -- of local and national influence -- stepped up.
Congress isn’t always genius, and PPP wasn’t perfect. Neither are churches, and neither am I.
But in a year of unprecedented turmoil, I have a suggestion: let’s spend more of our energy giving high fives than indulging in cynicism.
It has been a trying time -- literally -- for everyone. One of the blessings that many of us can celebrate is that our communities of faith have helped us along the way. In this case, Congress mainly deserves praise and churches mainly should be celebrated for what they’ve done to help people get through it.
If so, would the church take the money and simply ignore their moral principles?
Yep.
Be critical of government for offering help it has no delegated power to offer in the first place!
Good for churches! Plus, the church insurance policy can take a hit as well!
Television preachers who fleece their flock Are not credible churches and should not get a penny of taxpayer money.
QUESTION: With Government aid, are there any STRINGS ATTACHED? Will the government require you to accept certain things that go against your faith? ( e.g. accept employees in an open gay marriage relationship )?
If so, would the church take the money and simply ignore their moral principles?
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Of course there are strings attached. It makes these organizations dependent on government largesse. And you can bet that government will eventually refuse to give any money to a group that doesn’t adhere to it’s values. Do you think that benefits the political Left or Right in the long-run?
Amen to that!!!
When I hear how much O’Steen received, makes me sick.
they all want money! not just the mega megas.
Plenty of churches have unpaid staff, how about the members of the church serve the community.
Of course there are.
But no one thinks about that today.
Pastors and priests are on board with science and government, not so much God. I wasn’t sure if I should have capitalized “science and government” or “God” in this reply? Since it surely isn’t the Bible that organizes society, defines our values, or behaviors.
Whoever controls the money, control you. Look at how they cowered and did as they were told when they were threatened in losing their tax exempt status years past... Sadly, MOST Christian denominations/groups are just vapid, non-profit businesses that chase whatever the flavor of the day is (environmentalism, feminism, homo agenda, temperance movement years past). They are not Christian since they are doctrinally separated by believing the Bible is fallible and neglecting or modify the word of God (almost all Protestant flavors today), or through modern epiphanies by folks that thought God somehow spoke to them and added more to it (Mormons and other groups). There is no fight left in them. They are just a place to go where someone who doesn’t even know the doctrine himself makes you “feel good” with ideas that are not practiced 6.75 days of the week.
The modern Western Christian church is impotent.
When government gives the orders to close the doors, the doors close, by the pastors and priests themselves. What more does one need to know? Not even the atheist communists dared do that at the height of the former East Block!!!
My wife is a volunteer business manager at our small church. With the help of a member that is a CPA, they researched the possible strings and found none. So the church applied for the first PPP, it was granted and has since been forgiven. It helped us stay afloat this year.
Glad you’re happy Joel got another jet.
F-U. (the author, not the poster)
When I hear how much O’Steen received, makes me sick.
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$4.3 M in “forgivable loans.”
they all want money! not just the mega megas.
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The Illinois Baptist Children’s Home does not accept any government (tax payer) funds in any form, never have and never will.
As a result, they don’t adopt to queers.
well God Bless them then, because queers adopting is so wrong.
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