So I was calling a bunch of churches to tell them about this TennCare Town Hall Meeting, and I had two interesting responses.
First, nearly 90% of the churches I called nobody answered and I had to leave a message on a machine. I realize that many churches don’t have enough staff to have a full-time phone person, but still. I mean isn’t a churches main point to meet the needs of the people (It’s not a business, it’s supposed to be a community of people, more on this later)? What if I was someone with a real immediate need and the only place I felt I could find help was the church? I guess I just find that sort of sad and disturbing.
Second, I called this one church and started asking if the lady on the other line knew anyone in their church who was on TennCare. She said “no” so I just started to inform her about this meeting we were having regarding the TennCare cuts. She just kept inturpting and saying, “we’re not interested,” “goodbye” and she hung up on me! I decided to call back and when I did she passed the phone off to the pastor. I went into my most compelling arguement that as Christians we are called to care for those in need in our community and that this Town Hall Meeting was an opportunity for Christians to hear about the needs of those in their community who had been cut from TennCare. He was decently cordial and he said he would make an announcement. Maybe it’s cause it sounded political and a lot of churches are afraid of being involved with anything like that, but I was quite troubled that a person from a church would hang up on me while I was talking about people in need in the community.
I’m glad to say not all Christians are like that, and those who aren’t I’d encourage you to come out Next Tuesday (August 9th) 6-7:30pm at the Madison Branch Public Library 610 Gallatin Pike S.
See you there.
Many churches have their own internal organizations for dealing with people cut off from TennCare and don’t want to get involved in the larger political debate.
I respect them for that.
I think it is disturbing too!! I mean, what do these churches get involved in if not the needs that they see around them. I am tired of people who call themselves Christians but don’t feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the imprisoned, care for the sick, or ANYthing of that nature. I am tired of hearing complaints about Christianity because there are people who are willing to tend to thier own needs (ie: build a new fountain in their entry-way of thier building) instead of looking to serve.
Mindy