Six Things To Expect From The Church In 2024
Occupy the Non-Profit Industrial Complex: Churches will challenge, shame, cajole, and otherwise encourage the wealthy to give their wealth to the poor, and especially stop funneling it into foundations. Foundations hoard larger and larger amounts of wealth that could immediately benefit the “least of these,”, then design application processes forcing non-profits to compete for limited funds. But really we know…the cause of poverty is poverty. The best fix for poverty is the influx of cold, hard cash. Distributing wealth to the poor works. So churches (and church member who serve as program staff for non-profit foundations, and billionaire church-goers setting the priorities for foundations they’ve founded) will encourage those with wealth to give it away, profligately. Stop designing applications, RFPs, LOIs. Just give the money away. Like Jesus.
Join Workers: 2023 was a very good year for labor. Union workers across America flexed their collective muscle this year, using strikes, strategic walkouts and picket lines large and small to elicit concessions from their employers. The church in 2024 will more prominently and publicly walk alongside them, joining prayer to picketing. Like Jesus.
Open Their Doors For Shelter (Because Businesses and Municipalities Won’t): There are so many church buildings. They are literally all over the place. Most sit empty mid-week. Most have kitchens and bathrooms and a few dozen under-utilized rooms. Churches in 2024, witnessing the homelessness crisis in our nation, will open their doors and house their neighbors. They’ll discover all you need to do to turn your church into a home is add a washer and dryer, maybe some showers, and then just be a good neighbor and know people. Like Jesus.
For The Sake Of The Planet And Democracy, Reject Trump: Fascism, authoritarianism, nationalism, these are incompatible with the Christian faith. Churches recognizing this will organize voter turn-outs in 2024 to reject Trump, and more broadly, lift ballot initiatives and candidates that prioritize the care of the planet and the maintenance of robust democracies. Like Jesus.
Know One Another: The pandemic pushed us apart, but it’s really the unique pressures of Neo-liberal capitalism that alienate us from one another (not to mention the self-alienation at work). Loneliness is an epidemic. A sense of disconnection is rampant. Churches will commit to being non-capitalist third spaces overcoming the loneliness, alienation, and disconnection of modern life. Like Jesus.
Get Back In The Health And Wealth Business: Hospitals have Christian origins, and the early church centered healing as a significant part of its ministry. Churches will claw health care back from the maw of rapaciousness (remember health care couldn’t even be for-profit until 1973). It will do so by championing universal, single-payer health care. Like Jesus. This will be the faith healing of our era. This will relieve poverty as well, given how many people remain in problematic work situations for the health care, and how many others make their second largest payment of the month after rent to their health insurer.