What About The Church’s Ignored Widows?

The Hellenistic Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. Acts 6:1

It was a point of tremendous pride, something that had never been done before in the history of the world.

Egypt hadn’t accomplished it. Assyria didn’t do it. Persia never bothered to try. Greece couldn’t come close. And Rome, for all its bragging about “bread and circuses,” failed miserably. Even Israel hadn’t experienced it yet, even though God had promised it: “There will be no poor among you,” (Deuteronomy 15:4)

When it Came to Meeting the Needs of the Poor, Even President Lyndon Johnson Failed

All the way down to modern times, no nation has been able to eradicate poverty, even though many have tried mightily. Communist Russia couldn’t. China hasn’t. Cuba hasn’t. Even LBJ, with his war on poverty in the richest nation the world has ever seen, face planted.

But there is one exception. For one brief moment in history, a writer named Luke the Physician could say about the early church, “There were no needy persons among them” (Acts 4:34).

Meeting the Needs of Its Widows was One of the Early Church’s Key Distinctives

“The poor you will always have with you,” Jesus had said upon his rejection by Israel. So it was all the more remarkable that for the church, there were no needy persons among them. Thus, the lack of ongoing and unmet pressing needs within this microcosm of humanity, these followers of Jesus, became one of their key distinctives, a point of pride that marked them out as the people of God. For when a church is in a state of righteousness, no pressing needs go unnoticed and unmet.

Of course, it wasn’t long before Satan attacked. How dare these Christians actually love each other so much that they would liquidate their possessions in order to keep other believers from starving. No! Not in his world.

Satan’s #1 Strategy Against Widows: Selfishness

Enter Ananias and Saphira, who sold their land and pretended to donate all of the proceeds to help the poor in their church, but instead kept part of it back for themselves. Selfishness had raised its ugly head in the church, if only for a brief moment. Almost immediately, Peter confronted the two and both Ananias and, three hours later, Sapphira, dropped dead! God executed them. That is how seriously God took this, the first attack, on one of the church’s first major kingdom accomplishments.

Satan’s #2 Strategy Against Widows: Inattention

But there was a second attack, a more insidious one. One that came from within the church itself. It wasn’t a sin of commission, a willful act of rebellion like Ananias and Sapphira. It was a sin of omission, failing to do a good that God commands us to do: some of the widows in the church were being ignored during the daily distribution of food.

Throughout history the church has been prone to ignoring the needs of its widows

Ah, ignoring the pressing needs of widows. The church is prone to this. It has been since near its beginning. In the story in Acts 6 about the widows who were “overlooked” in the early church, we read that they were ignored under the watchful eyes of its leaders: none other than the apostles, apostles like James the Lord’s brother, Peter, John — who was caring for Jesus’ mother! It got so bad that the apostles had to delegate the responsibility to others by creating an entirely new and fully ordained ministry: deacons.

In our present day, the American church is so good at ignoring its widows that it has subcontracted it’s responsibility to meet their pressing needs to the federal government. Now we can at least ignore our widows without worrying about whether or not they are starving to death.

How Not to Ignore Your Widows

But Pastors, it doesn’t have to be this way. I’m not suggesting here that you overburden yourself by, say, trying to visit every widow in your church at least every quarter, or holding a widows appreciation dinner, or having your deacons call your widows once a month, etc. Widows have very deep needs that last for years and even decades. What you need is deep and intense ministry to them that is consistent and effective for years and decades as well.

Here are three suggestions for consistently “un-ignoring” your widows and meeting their real needs over the long haul.

Suggestion #1 – Retrain Your Deacons to Focus Solely on Widows

Ministry to widows — meaning ministry that meets their real needs in a significant way — is not easy and was the sole function of Deacons in the early church. I do not see anything in the Bible that warrants changing that function. Perhaps you can appoint trustees to take care of other, non-pastoral responsibilities that have often been unloaded onto deacons, responsibilities which serve as distractions from deacons’ original purpose. Then make it the sole goal of your deacons for your church to be able to say, “there is no needy person among us”, by focusing on your widows, and others in your church with long term, unmet pressing needs. (See Titus 3:14)

Suggestion #2 – Consider Starting a Stephen Ministry for Widows

Want to make sure your widows’ emotional needs are met and that they never feel ignored again? A Stephen Ministry will train individuals in your congregation how use regular, one on one meetings to emotionally support those in your church who are going through trauma. What better way to fulfill Christ’s command that we love each other?

Suggestion #3 – Get Your Men’s Ministry Involved in Serving Widows

Do you know any non-Christian men who are great husbands and fathers? I know all kinds of non-Christian men who are. The problem is men’s ministries tend to focus only on helping men become better husbands and fathers. But while these are very important topics for men, when we only focus on encouraging Christian men to be great husbands and fathers, we are not really setting ourselves apart from the world in any significant way.

On the other hand, I have never met a non-Christian man who has taken on the responsibility of caring for a widow he is not related to and not being paid to do it as a part of their profession. Non-Christian men who care for unrelated widows for free may be out there, perhaps. But if they are, they are extremely rare.

But I do know of thousands of Christian men who have taken up the call to care for widows they are not related to. These men are caring for widows the way Job did (Job 29:13), the way Boaz did (Ruth 2), the way Jesus did (Luke 7:13-16), the way John did (John 19:25-27), the way the first deacons did (Acts 6:1-6), the way Paul told Timothy to (1 Timothy 5), and the way James told us to (James 1:27). Christian men caring for widows is a practice that is distinctive to them as Christians. In fact, it is so distinctive, the world cannot ignore it.

Ironic, isn’t it? When Christian men stop ignoring their widows, the world cannot stop ignoring them.

Learn how to Mobilize Your Men to Meet Pressing Needs. And check out this article on developing A Comprehensive Church-Based Widows Ministry.

This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.

*A single mom and her fatherless child with their team of men*

Since 2003 New Commandment Men’s Ministries has helped hundreds of churches throughout North America and around the world recruit teams of men who permanently adopt widows, single moms and fatherless children in their congregations for the purpose of donating two hours of service to them one Saturday morning each month. We accomplish this with a free training site called New Commandment Men’s Ministry Learn how to mobilize your men’s ministry to meet every pressing need in your church at newcommandment.org.

_______________________________________________________________

Learn how to form teams of men for every widow, single mom

and fatherless child in your church at NewCommandment.org.