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Churches must care for their community
The church is dying and care organisations are growing, says Lin Hatfield Dodds. As head of Uniting Care Australia, the national body for community services in the Uniting Church, and as a national director of the Uniting Church of Australia, her comments carry weight.
But there’s no need to be frightened, says Lin, because there is a huge opportunity for the Christian church to think differently about what it means to actively engage in mission with its communities. “I can tell you now it will not look like a congregation. I’m 42, I’ve grown up in the church and I love the church to bits. I think the church as it’s currently constructed was dead in the water when I was born; it’s just taking a while to die. I don’t think my children will be worshipping in a traditional congregation.
“In Australia our caring organisations are growing almost in direct proportion to how much our congregations are shrinking and people are frightened by that, but I say ‘don’t be, it’s still the mission of God in the world’.”
Look through the sweep of Christendom over the last 2000 years, she says, and you will see very few churches that have “just sat around doing services behind a stained glass window”. “When we are at our best as churches is when we are a fully integrated part of our communities - because that’s part of the essential call of God.
“If churches and people of faith are serious about the call to stand in solidarity with those who are the most marginalised, we need to be involved in being there with people when they are at crisis point; right through to primary services, through to advocating for just systems, good social policy and for adequate funding for caring services. To me they are all part of the same thing.”
In Australia, UnitingCare provides an important link between the caring role of community services and the political action and advocacy of the Uniting Church.
“I describe UnitingCare’s advocacy as being like a three-legged stool; one of the legs is the vision and values of the Uniting Church, another the expertise of our service providers and the third most critical leg is the lived experience of those who use our services. Together they form a very solid base on which to advocate.”
As the largest non-Government provider of community services in Australia (with 35,000 staff and 24,000 volunteers), UnitingCare has no difficulty being heard. “We have a very solid reputation at Parliament. Most of our advocacy work is conducted out of the public; we have quiet meetings in the Prime Minister’s office and influence that way rather than through the media. I don’t think you change Government policy through a conversation in the media; media can get you a space at the table but it’s normally an adversarial space that’s not that useful.”
Lin admits that the Uniting Church would not have its voice heard at Government levels without UnitingCare. “That’s the reality in a post Christendom world, I get frustrated with church people who say ‘but why doesn’t Government listen to us?’ What I always say is that a moral voice is not enough and no one cares anymore; you have to speak from more than that.”
With New Zealand in an election year, Lin says she is wary of parties that say they speak for Christians. “I’m wary of any organisation that says they represent the Christian church. There’s no such thing as a homogeneous church that speaks with one voice; I don’t think there ever has been and I suspect there never will be. The Christian church is so diverse, and at our best we honour and respect that diversity.”