The Complicated Issue that is Homelessness.

If you remember back to 2009, the nation was in a housing market crash. The church I was pastoring lost substantial support from attendees, and we had to take a huge pay cut to keep the church open. In reality, the Sr. Pastor and I had made the same amount of money needed to pay rent in the strip mall that housed the church. 

Before going full-time at the church, I had worked at a hospital, and the church. At that time, I worked two jobs to pay the bill. I left the hospital to go full-time at the church, so after the lost of pay, I went back to the hospital, making only one income, where there had been two.  

I was proactive and called the mortgage company. I was told "call us when you are a couple of months behind" so I did. I was told then that we could make a payment on the mortgage that didn't fit our actual budget. I am not kidding when I say the bank person said: "you are responsible to pay your house payment first, then you can pay utilities and eat!" Crazy right!!

God came through, and I was called to a church in PA who provided a parsonage (pastor's home). When we left the Reno, Nevada area, our home was in a deed-in-lieu-of-foreclosure status, which means we turned over the keys to the house to the bank. I should add that when we left at the end of 2009, there were over 650,000 homes in Nevada in foreclosure status. 

The reality of this story is that our family of five were on the verge of being homeless. While we were lucky, so many others were not.

I have had the blessing to work in ministry that served the poor for a number of decades. In fact, the church I went to start in Nevada was to help the working poor. I worked at City Union Mission here in KC, which provided me a wealth of hands-on experience working with people who are "Unsheltered." I have seen first hand the complicated issue that is homelessness.  

For years, I have heard people say, "we should fix up the abandoned homes in KC and give them to the homeless..." Or people say "the answer to being unsheltered is to provide housing," which social services call "housing first." However, if you watched the city of KC spend millions of tax dollars to provide housing in hotels post covid and then watch the plan fail, only to have them back on the streets, you might come to understand this is more complex than housing. 

Homelessness is a multifaceted issue that extends far beyond the lack of housing. While many assume that simply providing shelter resolves the problem, the reality is far more complex, involving economic, social, and systemic factors. In this series of blogs, we will explore the underlying causes and challenges of homelessness, with particular focus on Kansas City, MO, to offer a deeper understanding of this pressing social concern.

YES, for many people, like my family, housing was the need. There are many people who become homeless because of tragic circumstances and situation beyond their control. But, in reality, these people are hard workers, resilient, and find housing fairly quickly. They do not stay homeless for long. 

In this series, I will take you on a journey to explore the various complexities of homelessness, especially as it relates to KC. I hope you will learn and come to understand not just the issues, but some ways to work as a community to resolve many of these issues. 

One final word as we start down this road, apart from putting people in prison to house them, homelessness cannot be 100% resolved. Shocked? Good, then read on... 

The Importance of Citizenship

        Today, in Kansas City, citizens will go to the polls. Across the city, people will vote for those who sit on their local school boards and directly impact the future generation. There is also a vote regarding KC Sports (Royals and Chiefs), with many opponents foaming at the mouth. The question is really more about the good of the city over the individual desires of a few.

        Long ago, when I studied Christian Education, I learned about the various educational theories. Education started at a very young age throughout all of the Greek city-states. The Greeks were well known for teaching children art, music, reading, and all aspects of a good education.

        Athenians (people who lived in Athens) were recognized as the Greeks most enthusiastic about education. Athenian love of learning manifested itself in many significant accomplishments not only in the liberal arts – where the contributions to tragedy, comedy, philosophy, history, and poetry, but in the areas of medicine and engineering.

        One of the things that stuck out for me was that the people of Sparta, who were also Greek, rejected this fashion of learning. The Spartan child, too, began at the young age of 7, joining other children for communal meals, physical education, and the study of law.

       However, the focus on Spartan education was much different than that in, say, Athens. Where the Athenians were concerned with classical education, the Spartans focused on training their children to be fearsome, disciplined citizen-soldiers who were the foundation of a powerful city-state.

        Spartan culture and education were essentially synonymous, as all aspects of Spartan life were in harmony with its educational ideals and practices. The single goal of their education was to incorporate citizenship into the life of every boy and girl to the degree that the needs of the city were the greatest need of all. Individualism was considered selfish and demonstrated a lack of self-control.

        The Athenian obsession with learning undermines their resolve and makes them “easy victims of newfangled arguments, unwilling to follow received conclusions; slaves to every new paradox, despises of the commonplace.[1] This meant they questioned everything and followed every new idea without any loyalty to the past, the culture, or the community. 

        Decades later, Paul would address this mindset in Christians in his letter to Ephesus. In Ephesians 4:12-14 he writes "to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming."

        In her article “Sparta, Athens, and the Surprising Roots of Common Schooling,” Avi Mintz makes the following observation. “Thus, for the Spartans, schooling on the Athenian model leads to questioning law and authority, the precise things that good soldiers must avoid devoting their lives to a common cause, their polis (City), and their fellow citizens.”[2]

        She notes that “many are working to return to schools a concern about civic, intellectual, and moral virtues.” Can you imagine the political upheaval to change the goal of education to be moral, smart, and civic minded?

        In closing, I truly believe that we have lost the concept of being a good citizen as individualism and personal agendas become the focus of local politics and residents. Maybe anytime we vote, we should ask ourselves, “What is best for the community and my fellow citizens.” This question should be examined through the lens of a Christian worldview of what the Bible supports.  If we use the Bible as our guide and think about the best of all citizens, then perhaps we can restore hope for America in our time.

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[1] Thucydides, 3.38.5. During the period of democratic and oligarchic revolutions during the Peloponnesian war, Thucydides describes how boldness was prized above prudent investigation and planning. Thucydides writes: “ability to see all sides of a question, incapacity to act on any.”

[2] Mintz, Avi, Sparta, Athens, and the Surprising Roots of Common Schooling, (Philosophy of Education Society, Urbana, Il. 2019) 111-112.

Anything but It!

Today, we pack up and head home from the Lake of the Ozarks. This morning, Tammy is in a workshop on Ethics. If you read my last blog post, you can only imagine what that will look like.

On Monday she went to a workshop that had a panel of four family members. Each member took the mic, said their name, and preferred pronoun. The first woman said I prefer “She/Her.” The second woman took the mic and said, you can call me “anything but :It".” Sitting next to her, her husband likewise took the mic and said, "Call me anything but "It"!”

IT? They are okay with being called he or she, regardless of their biological gender. Yet, they do not want you to refer to them as an inanimate object. Do they even think there is a sentence that could be used in which they might be called it? OMG.

But the “It” is, in reality, what has shaped and formed their mindset. It is the culture. It is the institution of American healthcare. It is the left that promotes the gender-fluid ideology. The “It” culture has developed a concept where a man is okay with being called whatever.

The other pronoun that the couple is apparently okay with is “They/Them.” That is also something we can say about them, “They” are part of “Them.” They genuinely do not have a personal identity because once you give into “Them,” you are a tool (an inanimate object) seeking popular approval for your openness to gender ideology. The truth is you are just one of them!

The truth is found in Genesis 1:27 where we see:

        So God created man in his own image, 

            in the image of God he created him;

            male and female he created them.

You have an identity given by God. How much more self-rewarding is it to be someone who stands out, stands up, and declares I was created by God as a Man or Woman? Don’t be a “them” and part of “It” (the culture); be you, made in the image of your creator.

Be prepared by the way for them to point at you and accuse you of being one of "Those" people. Yep, another pronoun! But I am happy to be identified as one of those “Christians” over being one of “Them” who follows the shifting wind of culture.

TTFN,

Pastor Tigger

If Adam and Eve Had Only Known...

        Genesis 4 opens with the birth of two sons and the first family. Verse 2 tells us, " Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil." We know that Cain's offering to the Lord was not well received, and God told him, "And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.” Sin is already in his heart, looking to devour him, and his goal, according to God, is mastery of sin, not the other way around. 

    Yet, later in Verse 8, " Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.” While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him."

         I want you to ask a few questions about the above story. After the incident, do we see a call for "Rock Control?" Is the issue that the object used by Cain is the real problem here? Could there be a parenting issue? Is this the fault of Adam and Eve? Perhaps if they had done a better job of instructing their sons and hidden all the weapons, Able would still be alive!

I say this in just, but I see people again up in arms after the "mass shooting" at Union Station after the Chiefs rally. Guns are the issue! If Adam and Even could tell us one thing about Genesis 4, it would not be that guns led to Abel's death; it was a heart condition called sin.

        Please know that I am not talking about gun control in today's blog; that would be silly. I want to talk about the bigger picture and perhaps give my two cents about alternatives to gun control. As I mentioned above, the real issue is sin and the heart, which our culture has attempted to cancel. Allow me to make three observations related to the recent event in KC and the nation at large.

1) We need empathy before we can talk about the fix. Too often, people will blame everything: the kids, the guns, etc., making the situation political and dehumanizing the people involved. Let me remind you that the shooters were two teenagers; what was going on, why did they have guns, and what was going on in their lives?

        I am not sure too many people care about the two young men more than the pastor's like me in KC. They are criminals in most people's minds and need to pay for their crimes... I am glad to hear that Youth for Christ was invited to visit with the two teens at the detention center. Just like Cain, their sinful actions affected everyone, including their futures. 

2) Too often, the wrong questions are being asked. The correct question is, why did they resort to violence? Are these two and other teens who have been an ongoing issue in KC the product of the school-to-prison pipeline? Is this a parenting issue? We need to look below the water at the iceberg and resource a solution for that, and not focus on the behavior we see above the waterline. 

3) Politics and Agendas have produced prophetic results. Although this was not the intended result, it is the result of decades of political design. Here are a few examples:

• Take religion, morals, prayer, and the Bible out of schools and the public sector - replace it with evolution that devalues human life, and philosophy that says if it makes you happy, it is okay,
• Sex and gender distortion that demeans what male and female roles are.
• Tough on Crime policies that are Punitive instead of Restorative.
• Taking away the rights of parents in the name of progressive politics, where the state and schools have more rights than the parents. Worse, parents are afraid to correct behavior and are not given real resources to help.

We live in a time when the message to parents, especially by the state, is "Don't Spank a child; talk to them." Missouri Trust Fund is running a campaign called "Something we Agree On," which, as you can see from the website, tells parents, "94% of Missouri adults agree there are better ways to disciple a child than to use physical punishment."

I don't know about you, but no one asked me, but I know how statistics can be skewed for your purpose, which in this case is to guilt parents into a certain model of parenting. To reinforce this ideology, they place the abuse hotline info at the top, to say passive-aggressively, if you are one of the 6% who spanks, you are a child abuser and a bad parent!

Please do not get me wrong; I totally support positive reinforcement. I have written a handbook for parents on the subject, but there still have to be physical consequences for wrong behavior. Think about it: those same people who are promoting the aforementioned model are all for punishment now for two teens. You don't hear them saying we need to sit down and have "Teachable Moments" at times like this.

How do we actually move forward in this mess? Let me give a few suggestions, and maybe a few elected officials will take this to heart.

1. As nicely as I can say this, "pull your head out of your political ass." This is not about your re-election, it is about teens, parents, and our society.

2. We need more right-minded people running for office to replace the bobbleheads.

3. We need to focus on helping parents be better parents.

4. Realize that many parents are not parenting. They need to be held accountable for their actions. Remember when going to school was required, or the parent was fined?

5. Implement Restorative Justice over Punitive justice.

6. Invest in real role models, not drag queens!

7. Think about old community models over new stuff that is not working (i.e., Block Captains).

I have more and would love to discuss them with local, state, or national leaders if they care to listen. I am just a pastor who has studied criminal justice, human nature, and history, but it never hurts to think outside of the box.

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TTFN

Pastor Tigger