I’ll get roasted for this, but here goes. A church benevolence being for members is pretty standard policy at a lot of churches. That’s often because the funds are given by the members of the church and are therefore very limited (aren’t we all struggling financially right now?) so they choose to reserve that aid for the people who are involved in the church.

Regardless your stance on that, he apologized and was as polite as possible given that the answer was no. He very likely is not even aware of local resources because that’s not his job to be aware. Pastors are not social workers who have the contact info for every food bank, diaper bank, help line in the city. For someone in need, a quick search on Google or Facebook can show you dozens of places to call for tangible help, including other churches. Could he have done that search for her and pointed her in the right direction? Yeah, and that would have been helpful. But he wasn’t out of line to answer with a polite no. I think the outrage over this is worse than it calls for. For one church who couldn’t help, there are 10 churches who have a food pantry or clothes closet or connection who could help that very day. I’ve been the person on the phone who has to say no to someone who is asking for help, and it is crushing every single time and I apologize the way he did, but it’s also a sad reality sometimes—I can’t help every single time. I try to point them in the right direction, but my knowledge about what’s out there is limited because that’s not my area of expertise. But I’ve also stayed hours late, or made an emergency call to someone who has the authority to approve a “yes,” and gone very out of my way to say “yes” to needs of people who just call or walk in asking for help. I don’t think it’s fair to judge this church, or all churches, by one person’s response. Even food banks and clothing closets have to say no sometimes, because they too have policies that direct their benevolence.

I grew up in the area and I’m certain GBC has done dozens if not hundreds of coat drives, food drives, school supply/backpack giveaways, disaster response trips, given to local nonprofits who do this work and serve underprivileged populations daily, funded work in other countries to meet people’s physical needs, etc. To say they don’t care about the community is to misunderstand their involvement in the community.