Churches Need To Do Better

Let me tell you about my friend.

Recently she found herself homeless. Not because she did anything wrong. Not because she made some reckless mess of her life. Just because life did what life sometimes does, it pulled the rug out. She'd landed herself a good job in a new part of the country and was trying to relocate, which should be a good news story. But relocating costs money, and while she looked for somewhere permanent she'd been forced to live in temporary holiday-let accommodation. Anyone who's priced that stuff up knows how brutal it is. Night after night, it quietly ate through everything she had until there was nothing left.

She wasn't looking for a handout. She would soon have wages coming in. All she needed was somewhere to put her head down for a few weeks, a month at the outside, so she could stop haemorrhaging cash, save a deposit, and stand on her own two feet again. That's it. A short bridge over a gap. A bit of breathing room. So I did something for her, with her permission. I contacted churches in the area she was hoping to move to.

And look, I'll be honest with you, a part of me already knew how this was going to go. I could feel it before I even hit send. But I wrote to them anyway, and I wrote nicely. Friendly. Polite. Warm, even. No guilt-tripping, no lecturing, no demands. Just a simple, human question: is there anything you can do? A spare room, an annex, a bit of space somewhere, anything at all, just for a little while, for someone who's fallen on hard luck through no fault of her own.

Here's what came back…

“Unfortunately we aren’t able to provide or advise on accommodation.” In other words, not something they could help with. Couldn't offer any advice. But, and here's the kicker, “I hope [my friend] is able to find somewhere suitable.” They hoped things would work out for my friend.

They hoped.

Let that sit for a second. An organisation that exists, literally exists, because of a man who spent his entire life stopping for the exact kind of person my friend had become, and the best they could manage was a shrug and a nice sentiment lobbed over the fence as the door swung shut. I'm going to say something that might ruffle a few feathers, and I'm alright with that. Hope without action is worthless. It's hollow. It's noise. “I hope [my friend] is able to find somewhere suitable” is the thing you say when you've already decided, deep down, that this person is not your problem and you'd quite like them to go away now, thanks. It's a polite way of doing nothing while still feeling like a good person. And churches, of all places, should be allergic to that.

Because here's the question I genuinely cannot get out of my head.

If Jesus was walking around today, not the stained-glass version, not the tidy Sunday-morning version, but the actual bloke, what would he have done when someone knocked and said "I've got nowhere to sleep"? Do you honestly, hand on heart, think he'd have fired back a polite email saying it wasn't something he could help with, but he'd keep her in his thoughts? Come off it. He'd have stopped. He'd have talked to her. He'd have asked her story and, this is the bit people forget, he'd have actually listened to it. To all of it. To everything that got her to here with empty pockets and nowhere to go. And then he'd have done something about it. That's the whole story. That's literally the entire point of the thing you've built your building around.

Now, let me head off the obvious excuse before anyone reaches for it. I'm not stupid, and I'm not asking for miracles (although apparently they do still happen). I know a church can't magic a house out of nowhere. I know budgets are tight and buildings are cold and everyone's stretched. I would never expect a congregation to solve homelessness single-handed over a weekend. That's not what this is about. But there's a leap, an absolute canyon, between "we can't personally house you this week" and "there's nothing we can do." And too many churches have decided those two things are the same. They're not. They're worlds apart.

Because if you can't offer a room, then for goodness' sake, signpost. Point people somewhere. Keep a list. Make one. It's not hard. And here's the thing that really gets me, you're sitting on a goldmine of help and you don't even look at it. Every single congregation is packed with people who can actually do stuff. You've got a plumber in row three. A decorator who's in every week. A counsellor, a solicitor, a lawyer, someone who fixes things, someone who knows the system, someone who's been through it themselves and came out the other side. You've got people living alone in houses with rooms sitting empty, gathering dust, who would genuinely be glad of the company and glad to help, if anyone ever thought to ask them. That's a community. That's what you're supposed to be. Pulling together that ordinary, everyday generosity and pointing it at the people who need it is not some impossible ask. It's the job. It's the whole job. It's the reason you're planted in a community in the first place.

But do you know what actually stung the most? It wasn't even that they couldn't give her a bed. I could've made peace with that. It was that nobody, not one of them, offered the simplest, cheapest, most human thing on earth. Nobody said "come and talk to us." Nobody said "come and meet us, come and sit with us, come and be among people for an evening and tell us what's going on." Nobody said "actually, let us come to you, wherever you are." That costs nothing. Nothing. Not a penny. Just a bit of time and a scrap of warmth and even that was apparently too much to spare. And that's where a lot of churches have quietly ended up, isn't it? Brilliant at talking. World-class at it, honestly. Sermons, mission statements, banners, hashtags, "all are welcome" on a nice sign by the door. All talk, talk, talk and then completely, utterly incapable of walking the walk. Great at the words. Nowhere to be found when it's time to move your feet.

Now, I want to be fair here, because it would be lazy and cheap not to be. This isn't every church, not by a long shot. Right across the country there are congregations doing incredible, quiet, unglamorous, back-breaking good. They run the food banks. They open the night shelters when it's freezing. They sit with the lonely. They show up on the days when showing up is a pain in the arse and nobody's clapping. They are getting it right, day in, day out, and they deserve to hear that loud and clear. Honestly, hats off to them. But they're the ones who make the silence of the others so much louder. When you can see it being done properly down the road, "there's nothing we can do" stops being an excuse and starts being a choice.

I know this article isn't strictly about Soul Survivor. But it ties in, and it ties in hard. Because "churches need to do better" isn't just about the stranger at the door asking for a bed. It's about the people the church has already harmed and then failed all over again. If you've read anything I've written over at soulsurvived.org, you'll know exactly what I mean. Survivors of harm - real harm, done inside these walls, sometimes by the very people trusted to support and lead them, have asked for the same basic things my friend asked for. Acknowledgement. Honesty. Someone to stop, sit down, and actually listen to their story instead of managing it, minimising it, or hoping it quietly goes away. And time and time again they've been met with the same hollow response. Thoughts. Prayers. Vague hopes that healing will come. A door easing shut. It's the same failure wearing a different coat. Whether it's a person with nowhere to sleep or a person carrying wounds the church itself inflicted, the test is identical: when someone in need is standing right in front of you, do you act, or do you retreat behind warm words and wait for them to give up? Too often, the answer has been to retreat and survivors deserve so much better than that, they deserve accountability, they deserve to be believed, and they deserve action, not just another round of "we hope..."

So when I say churches need to do better, I mean all of it. Better at the door for the stranget and better, far, far better for the people they've already let down.

My dad, before he sadly passed away, used to say something to me that's stuck like glue. Words are cheap and and yeah, I know "actions speak louder than words" is the most worn-out cliché in the book. But clichés get worn out because they keep turning out to be true. A faith built on love doesn't get proven in a hymn, or a sermon, or a hopeful little email sent from a safe distance. It gets proven at the door. In that exact moment when a stranger asks for help, or a survivor asks for the truth, and you have to decide, right there and then, what you're actually going to do about it.

So here's my ask. Plain as I can make it, straight to every local church reading this.

Stop telling people you'll pray for them and then quietly shutting the door. Build the list. Actually know what your own people can offer. Open your halls, open your address books, and where you possibly can, open your spare rooms. Own the harm you've done, where you've done it, and put it right and when someone reaches out, even and especially someone who's never once darkened your doorstep, even someone who'll never sit in your building, even someone you'd rather not hear from, say the words that cost you nothing and mean absolutely everything:

Come in. Sit down. Tell us what's happened. And let's figure out what we can do together.

Because faith without action isn't faith. It's decoration. It's a nice ornament on a shelf.

It's long past time we stopped talking and started walking. My friend needed a door to open. So do a lot of people you'll never hear from, because they've already learned to expect the shrug and the "we hope it works out."

Prove them wrong. Do better. Please for God’s sake DO BETTER!