A couple of weeks ago, Atlanta was hit by serious flooding. As in, houses were submerged…completely devastated. In an area called Austell, thousands of families are displaced because of the damage.
People. Have. Lost. Their. Lives.
Last week, I met Pastor Shaun King for the first time, face to face. He shared with me a movement his church has started to help flood victims called Hope ATL.
Hope ATL is pulling together resources, financial and practical and human, to help these victims. Victims who have lost, literally, everything.
The thing that amazed me during my conversation with Shaun was that their church doesn’t have a lot of money. Or people. A couple hundred, at most. Instead of having meetings about how to help, or who to point people to in case they needed help, they simply stopped what they were doing…and helped.
Now, the thing that disturbed me during my conversation with Shaun was that he had made many calls to many churches in the area, and so many churches said…
No.
They couldn’t help.
I was shocked. Where is the Church when a city needs it the most?
That didn’t stop Shaun. He kept rallying the people he could and went into the most dangerous and most flooded places and they went to work. They even decided to NOT meet in their building on Sunday or in their offices during the week and instead they met at the largest Red Cross Shelter for flood victims in Marietta (near Austell), where the flooding was worst, so they could provide care and hope and a place for people to see Jesus. They didn’t take up an offering that Sunday either, as most of the people who came had nothing. 50% of Austell is now homeless. So they gave back to them instead.
And they’re still working.
In order to get the help they need, Shaun had to reach outside of Atlanta. Out of the state, actually, to find the Church. Healing Place Church out of Baton Rouge and NewSpring Church from Anderson, South Carolina, offered to send teams to help.
There is the Church. Thank God. Literally.
Shaun didn’t complain. He didn’t stop to say that he was disappointed or tired or confused or frustrated that there are probably over 1000 churches in Atlanta and so few are stepping up to aid their own city. He humbly asked on our live video that if anyone who was listening could help, to please help.
I asked Shaun if I could extend his request to you…the ever generous and ever faithful readers here at FlowerDust.net. Because you’ve joined together so many times before to help others. When push comes to shove you are the ones who stand in the gap for the church that hides behind religiosity.
If you can send teams, send them.
If your family can go help for a day or two, go.
If you can donate money, or food, or clothes, donate.
We are always asking for opportunities to be the church instead of just do churchy things.
Well…here you go.
The HopeATL website has all the information you need.
(On Wednesday, I’ll be posting part two of “Where is the Church?…Hope you’ll join me.)
Comments
26 responses to “Where is the Church? – Part One”
thank you! where can i send donations?
.-= Pamela´s last blog ..Good Fences Make Good Neighbors (and other words of wisdom I wish someone would have shared with me when I first married my husband) =-.
Pamela,
If you go to HopeATL.com it will show you a few ways you can donate. Thank you so much!
Good thoughts. I retweeted this post.
Thanks for RTing it Brian!
I am looking forward to the response now from the church…
I think if anyone is going to write these type of post you are the person. You write them in a very honest way and yet does not seem to be like you think you are any better than us.
Great post, looking forward to the rest of the week.
.-= Kyle Reed´s last blog ..Tricking God =-.
Kyle. Now I know the kid under that sweatband in the pic. You’re a good kid. I’d love to pour into you sometime man.
holla at me. email me for my cell.
Los
I will do that.
Anne,
I attend Courageous Church (Shaun’s church) and have been working tirelessly with hopeATL for the last three weeks to provide hope and relief to the families who lost everything. It has been the most rewarding and at the same time, most heart-breaking experience of my life. Thank you for making your readers aware of hopeATL and to your readers, thank you in advance for stepping up to BE the church!
In love and humility,
Angela
thank you for your service
.-= Kyle Reed´s last blog ..Tricking God =-.
Yes…THANK YOU!
.-= anne jackson´s last blog ..Where is the Church? ? Part One =-.
What’s Northpoint doing (Andy Stanley)? Or Passion Church (Giglio/Tomlin)? Anybody know?
.-= Shaun Groves´s last blog ..Your Weekend Was Boring =-.
I just read today that they either donated a bunch of mattresses or they are helping unload them.
That was through a tweet i read
BTW Shaun, your last blog post on Andy was money
.-= Kyle Reed´s last blog ..Resource of the Day #51 =-.
Anne,
Thanks for raising more awareness to the needs of Atlanta! Hope Catalyst picks this up and some of us 13,000 Christian leaders that were in ATL last week will be moved to go back… with teams… to be the Church!
Guy
.-= Guy Chmieleski´s last blog ..Catalyst – Day 2 – A Morning w/Andy & Malcolm =-.
That’s kind of what’s happening in Manila right now. Two typhoons hit the Philippines in two weeks time and some parts of the city are still submerged in water until today. Two Sundays ago, we didn’t go to church because we had to turn our buildings into relief operation centers.
.-= Jojo Agot´s last blog ..IN BROAD DAYLIGHT =-.
I have a friend who lives outside Manila and she has been posting photos of what is happening…my prayers are with you!
.-= anne jackson´s last blog ..Where is the Church? ? Part One =-.
I think it is funny (well not really funny, but weird) that we have not heard anything about this. It seems to have never happened.
.-= Kyle Reed´s last blog ..Resource of the Day #51 =-.
I think it’s because we live continents apart. The same thing happened in Vietnam and Indonesia last week. Reports say it would take at least a year for the Philippines to recover.
.-= Jojo Agot´s last blog ..IN BROAD DAYLIGHT =-.
Thanks Anne for this. Dan and I will be checking out the site to see how we can help.
.-= Tiffany´s last blog ..Let’s Go Angels =-.
Anne, this is a good assessment of what happened here. I live in the Austell/Mableton area but was not affected by the floods. My daughter took half days from work last week and worked with HopeATL and I worked with them for three days. But like you, I was disturbed that more church groups did not come out and get their hands dirty. Many gave money and supplies (mine did), but the manpower was not forthcoming.
Thanks for this article.
.-= Valerie´s last blog ..Get Your Hands Dirty =-.
Thanks for coming out, Valerie! We are doing a big push for this weekend, as the state has mandated that we have to be finished with all cleanup activity by the 18th of October. Feel free to come out again! We’d love to have you. :)
.-= Angela´s last blog ..AngelaDowns: @kdenise Praying for a quick recovery for you, girl! =-.
I think we need to be careful as individuals to be so critical of local churches (which is in essence criticizing the leaders of those churches). We don’t know the reasons why they have not participated. From the Twitter activity last week that I saw, the other Atlanta area churches were probably busy attending Catalyst. :-) Better to simply celebrate what God is doing through Pastor Shaun’s church, then turn it into a critique of someone else. We’re not in competition. We are all members of Christ’s Body.
Sonja,
It was not my intent to criticize but I do think it is responsible and fair to ask where other churches are. Are there not enough believers in Atlanta to take care of the need? I love that people are willing to come hundreds of miles to help, but with all the churches in Atlanta, they should be overflowing with manpower and assistance. We are not in competition, but we are called to carry each others’ burdens.
.-= anne jackson´s last blog ..Where is the Church? ? Part One =-.
This is great. And I’m sad that the churches Shaun called didn’t step up to help.
But it’s not completely accurate to say that there’s nobody else out there. There are plenty of churches (and synagogues and mosques) in Atlanta that are involved. I was in Austell with lots of people from our church as soon as it opened up to help a church member whose house was flooded. And our young adult group helped most of the 6-8 families in our church who lost their homes to the flood with cleaning out.
The friends in Austell had already had a visit that day from Ewing Road Baptist, which sits just outside of that hard-hit subdivision (Every single house flooded. It’s unbelievable.). The church also provided free meals and bottled water to every family in that subdivision in the most critical time: right after the floods. They canceled Wednesday services to open their space to the school district so school officials could explain to the parents where their kids would be moved. And there are lots of people out there working.
I think it’s great what HopeATL is doing. And no church has an excuse for not being there. But there’s much more to the story.
Sorry, I didn’t mean for it to seem like NOBODY was out there. I know there are other churches out there (Shaun even linked to some on his blog). It was simply wondering why when he called church after church after church, he was repeatedly told no, repeatedly told there is a system already in place that couldn’t be interrupted.
THAT…the machine…is what is discouraging. I praise God for the churches who are serving, and the people who aren’t in churches who are filling in the gaps where they need to.
My bad. Sorry about that. I totally agree – there’s no reason a church should have said no about this.
.-= Texas in Africa´s last blog ..was it worth it? =-.
Anne, first of all, great call to action. I’m in Kennesaw (GA) and heard “the machine” talking through my church. Which has led me to wonder how church structure and leadership personalities play into the response Shaun received.
In business, you have entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs and career staffers. The entrepreneurial types love risk and early phase adoption. The career staffers love plans and consensus. Career staffers far outnumber the entrepreneurs.
It appears that churches have the same psychographic makeup in their leadership. Most (from my very limited perspective) appear to be led by career pastors who don’t want to “rock the boat” within their respective congregations and reporting hierarchy. So they follow rules. And sit back and wait until it appears safe to jump in.
Which means it takes entrepreneurial pastors like Shaun to “break the rules” in order to propel action.
Your much closer to church pastor/staff dynamics. Why do you find that churches react as they have here in Atlanta?
.-= Keith Jennings´s last blog ..The Problem with Balance =-.