church and recession

NPR posted an interesting article about recession support groups in churches yesterday. I wanted to blog pithily about this, given the deep connections of church and money, but Halden at Inhabitatio Dei beat me to it! He writes:

Not sure what to think about this exactly. Apparently churches across the U.S. are starting up support groups for people who are out of work due to the economic situation. These groups are practical on the one hand–people swap resume and interviewing tips and the like. On the other hand they are also there for the members to support one another “spiritually” in their quest for a job.
Of course, I’m not enough of a contrarian to just slam this notion. Certainly this is a good thing and people have a felt and real need for it, the difficulty of job loss is hard, etc. But I do find it interesting how the church is intervening to put people back to work across America. I wonder also why we aren’t hearing of churches across America sharing their financial resources to care for those that are out of work, in addition to providing emotional support groups…

A great sentiment, and an encouraging one given Sunday's sermon. I hope that our attempt to be a church is an atempt to share with one another in all the blessings, social, physical, etc.