Walking on By: Survey Results
March 11, 2008
Dear Friends,
Thank you to all of the respondents in our Good Samaritan survey. We had 137 people answer the questions. In the coming weeks we will share with you the results.
Our first question was “How good of a job do you think we do in “shining our light before men” (good deeds for the sake of others outside of the body in glorifying God) in our community?” The results broke down as follows:
- People answering “Excellent” – 1.4%
- People answering “Above Average” – 9.4%
- People answering “Average” – 20.4%
- People answering “Below Average” – 43.0%
- People answering “Pitiful” – 20.4%
- People answering with “No Response” – 5.1%
Almost two out of three of our respondents rated us as below average or pitiful. We don’t have room here to print all of the comments, but feel free to make more comments below.
Some people felt that some ecclesias and individuals did well in this regard, but we did not excel as a whole. Here are their comments.
- A lot of private deeds are done, but as a community we are not known for good deeds.
- As a group: pitiful. As individuals: it is extremely variable.
- In my experience, individuals do volunteer work, contribute to charities etc. ecclesias rarely contribute as a visible group.
- Generally I don’t think Christos do a good job. Some individuals do though.
- It seems that we have a “strengthen those things which remain” mentality, not an outreach. There are exceptions.
- There must be many ‘good deeds’ performed by individuals of which we are unaware but as a community I feel we fall far short.
- It is obvious that some do MORE than others, and some ecclesias do more outreach initiatives than others.
There were a few people who went against the trend and suggested that we are doing well.
- For its size, our community does remarkably well in serving local communities–it can always do better. We need to stop beating ourselves up!
Some people felt there were regional differences. In some places we did well and in others we did not.
- Depends which continent you’re in. The Indian brethren are magnificent. So too in Africa. Less so in UK where we live.
- In Jamaica we are doing good but we can do more as there are not enough resources to go around.
Some people felt that the problem was perhaps even deeper and more fundamentally askew than the question indicated. Here are their comments.
- So many of us think people outside the body aren’t worth our effort that we don’t even do anything to help them – or even pray for them.
- My son once came home upset from CYC where he was involved in a discussion as to whether or not to give blood to the 9-11 “unbelieving” victims.
- In fact I have realized that it is a common view in our community that doing good deeds for outsiders is not necessary and may even be wrong!
- We (I’m speaking as a group of Christadelphians) take the “be separate” part beyond its practical applications to the point of rudeness at times.
- Individual ecclesias sometimes do a few things, but overall…Pitiful might be too high a rating.
Some offers suggestions as to why we don’t do a good job at shining our light.
- We don’t wish to be in competition with other churches, our penchant for separateness blinds us to the need of a cup of cold water in Christ’s name.
- There is a lack of training in this area. We don’t dwell on “how to preach the gospel” we dwell on “how to make yourself righteous & correct.”
- Our hearts want to be in the right place, but we are overrun with everyday living. We think, but do not act out well. We sit silently by in apathy.
- It’s hard, because we are commanded to do good to all men, especially of the household of faith. There are too many brothers and sisters to help.
- We try to justify our actions by saying we don’t HAVE to shine our lights to the WORLD. Only to our community; I can’t imagine Paul agreeing.
Others felt we did a good (or better) job of taking care of brethren, but fell short of taking care of people outside of the ecclesia.
- Unfortunately my observation has been that we only seek to assist those in the ecclesia.
- Individuals may do a lot – but, as Christadelphians, we only help those within the body. Growing up, we had criteria based on status of membership.
- As a community we respond generously to those inside, but look the other way to those on the outside.
Some other non-categorized comments are:
- We excel at teaching, but often fall flat when it comes to the works of the gospel – James 2. Other churches invest in welfare but offer little truth.
- I believe we need to thrive more in this work. I want to see a similar spirit such as when we assisted in the Kindertransport during the Holocaust. [Editors Note: The Kindertransport Association (KTA) is a not- for-profit organization of child Holocaust survivors who were sent, without their parents, out of Austria, Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia to Great Britain.]
- We can’t reach out to people if we make them feel unworthy. We need to have a total attitude change and remember who Christ ate with.
Have a great week,
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