Peter Bender, Sussex, WI, was interviewed on Issues, Etc., 30 Dec 2011 and offered the following advice for unemployed individuals and the church at-large in response:
There is more to employment than simply earning a paycheck. … God has given us a work to do, which is to say: God has given us love to give. So the Christian who finds him- or herself out of work because of a downturn in the economy or so forth still has been given a faith and salvation in Christ, and therefore the call to live in love exists there. And so I would encourage the worker, on the one hand, to pray that God would give them suitable employment by which they can continue to care for their family, and in the meantime to engage in work that's of benefit to someone. … This is also then where, I think, unfortunately, Western society and culture has taken charity away from the church, and the church has willingly let that happen and abdicated it, so that the care for the poor or the care for the unemployed or the care for downtrodden, which used to be so much a part of the church's organized efforts for her own within the congregation and then those they were very closely connected with in their community, has been taken over by government agencies and so forth. That's unfortunate. I'd like to see … the recapturing of the church's work of mercy for those who are downtrodden, the out-of-work, and so forth.
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