The COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown measures we’re currently implementing have many implications for us and for the people in our community. One of the negative consequences which people in our church family are facing (and will continue to face) is the issue of unemployment. This can be due to: closure of businesses, lack of availability of contract work, redundancies and lack of opportunity to find new, meaningful employment to name a few.
In Romans chapter 12, verse 13, Paul commands the church at Rome to:
Share with the saints in their needs; pursue hospitality.
John writes to the church in 1 John chapter 3 verse 16 to 18:
This is how we have come to know love. He laid down his life for us. We should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has this world’s goods and sees a fellow believer in need but withholds compassion from him—how does God’s love reside in him? Little children, let us not love in word or speech but in action and in truth.
The author of Hebrews exhorts believers in Hebrews chapter 13 verse 16:
Don’t neglect to do what is good and to share, for God is pleased with such sacrifices.
Therefore, one of our responsibilities to each other as a church family is to love those who have/will lose their jobs during this period. Here are eight suggestions of what you can do if someone in our church community tells you they’ve lost their job:
1. Pray For Them
Prayer should be our first response to everything because we know the God who holds everything in the universe in his hand, and he is our loving Father, who gives good gifts to his children. So prayer is a very practical way you can help someone who’s lost their job. Better yet, why not write a prayer you’re praying for this person and send it to them so that they know you’re praying for them!
2. Ask Them How They’re Feeling
Because humanity was created with the purpose of working, there is a deep pain that humans experience when we cannot contribute to God’s world through work (paid or unpaid). Many of us experience this grief and confusion when we go through medium to long-term unemployment, retirement or redundancy.
So if someone tells you they’re unemployed, make a time to call them and ask them how they’re feeling. Allow them to process any grief and frustration. Mourn with them.
If someone tells you they’re unemployed, ask them how they’re feeling. Allow them to process any grief and frustration. Mourn with them.
3. Encourage Them To Make The Most Of Government Help
We’re blessed to live in a country where our government works hard to look after our needs, so it is not wrong to seek help or rely on these resources during a time of need. Encourage your brother or sister to apply for Centrelink or gain early tax-free access to their superannuation to help with their financial needs. Encourage them to register at https://www.vic.gov.au/workingforvictoria—the Government’s initiative to help people who’ve lost jobs due to the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Encourage them to contact their landlord/property manager/bank manager to talk about any difficult financial circumstances and a short-term adjustment to rental payments.
4. Ask Them If You/Others In Your Connect Group Can Help In Practical Ways
For example, if weekly grocery shopping is now expensive because they’ve lost their job, you could organise for someone to cook a few serves of dinner for them once a week to drop off at their doorstep. If rent is too expensive for them, you could offer them that empty room in your house that is currently storing those things you’ve been meaning to throw out. If they’re struggling to meet mortgage repayments or pay for doctors visits or medication, you could ask your connect group if anyone is willing to and able to lend/give some money to help with costs. I’m always amazed by the generosity of the people in the early church in Acts who sold their property to help their brothers and sisters in need (Acts 4:34-35, 2 Corinthians 8:13-15). The Lord loves cheerful givers (2 Corinthians 9:7)!
Note: if you know someone who needs financial assistance and your connect group is unable to help, please chat to Tim Grant or Edwin Chow. They can help you find someone who can help.
5. Offer Them Good Work To Do
Not many of us run our own businesses or have the potential to get people at church new jobs but what we can do is help our church friends have ‘good work’ to do even while unemployed. Remember that in God’s perspective, work does not only include ‘paid work’ but all our efforts and labour in bringing order to God’s world and loving other people made in his image. Think creatively about work that your brother/sister can do—maybe it is offering to serve as producer for our services, maybe it is writing some devotions/blog posts to encourage other Christians, maybe it is mowing the lawn for someone in our church family who is physically unable to do so or maybe it is scheduling Zoom chats with someone at church each day to help encourage them and pray for them. There is lots of good work to do, while we wait for God to provide paid work.
6. Where Appropriate, Keep Them Accountable In Their Godliness
As the saying goes ‘idle hands are the devil’s workshop’. When we have no ‘good work’ to do and we have too much time on our hands, we often find that this makes our struggles with persistent sin harder. Temptation can become harder to resist and we can become more selfish. This may be the experience of some of us who find ourselves unemployed during this time.
You don’t have to be the one keeping your newly unemployed friend accountable in this area (and certainly, if you are of opposite genders it is probably best not to) but you can encourage your brother/sister to keep accountable to someone at church about this—maybe even encourage them to join a Grow Triplet!
7. Remind Your Brother/Sister Of What They Already Know
As Christians, our identity is not in our jobs, in being employed or even in the good works we do. Our identity is in Christ, as beloved children of God, as co-heirs with Christ and as men and women sealed with the Spirit of God for the life to come. We often know this in theory, but hard circumstances, like unemployment, test how much we really believe this to be true. Help your brother/sister to remember these truths through a text or a bible verse and keep praying that they will be certain of this truth as they wait with hope.
Our identity is in Christ, but hard circumstances test how much we really believe this to be true. Help your brother/sister to remember these truths
8. Be A Long-Suffering Friend
None of us knows how long this lockdown will persist and how long it will take before everyone around us is meaningfully employed again. It’s easy to forget the needs of others in our community when our own lives are full and our own worries are many. So one way you can help is by remembering your unemployed brother or sister regularly. Perhaps you can set a reminder in your phone to call them once every month to see how they’re going. Perhaps you can ask them again about ways you can practically help in three months’ time.
Can you think of other suggestions and ways you can be helpful to the unemployed in our community over this period?
First published at gracechristiancommunity.org.au
