9 ways to Serve God in a Bad Economy

This is an article originally posted on Catalystspace. I think it is a great starting point for Christians who want to learn how to serve in a bad economy. I also think this book will help Christians gain a good sense on how biblical principles can help liberate the nations from bad governance and prosper.

The economy sucks right now. Un-employment is up to 10%. Starbucks is doing something about it - they have a really slick campaign encouraging is to all go out and serve our communities.

What about The Church? In these tough economic times, the Church needs to be right there, serving people, helping - this tough economy is really an opportunity from God for us to be a light! Let's not squander this!

Here are some ideas of how we can serve our communities, lessen the burden of the economic crisis, and build trust with outsiders:

1. Setup a clothes trading program or event. People can come together and trade clothes, or just have free clothes for people who need help.

2. Stone Soup - help everyone save money, and build some community by having a potluck gathering where people bring different contents for soup, and you all make and eat the soup together.

3. Setup a website or bulletin board to help setup car pools for people in your community.

4. Setup a volunteer to coordinate a program where people in your church or community get help renting out their empty rooms. Helping them with advertising, cleaning it up, screening, etc.

5. Have a garage sale at the church, members and locals can bring their stuff to the church, take a little square, and sell their stuff. A large aggregated sale like this benefits b/c more people will be interested in a monster garage sale.

6. Have volunteers teach financial classes at your church, advertise them as free to the community.

7. Setup a ministry of mechanics who take one Saturday a month to consult on car problems for locals and members.

8. Setup a job board, connecting the employers in your church with the people without jobs in your church.

9. Create a gathering for entrepreneurs - men and women who want to start businesses (helping the economy, creating jobs) and who want to do business in a godly way. Make a one day seminar that takes people through the steps of starting a business, removing some of the mystery and encouraging them to do it.



We NEED to take this opportunity to pour ourselves out to serve and love our neighbors in these difficult times. If we do, the resulting community and trust that we will engender from outsiders will truly advance the Kingdom.

In a future blog, I will post several more things that can be done to serve God in a bad economy.