Pastors say they're giving out benevolent funds in record numbers, increasing ministries to the unemployed, even reaching into their own pockets more to help.

A survey by LifeWay Research, finds that 40% of pastors say they have church members out of work, and 37% say their church has increased spending to help the needy. (The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.)
 
The Rev. Bill Ankerberg has seen it all at his Whittier Area Community Church, east of Los Angeles. The church gave more financial aid to folks in one month, $26,000 from the benevolent fund, than it was asked to give in all of 1996, the year he came to Whittier, he says.

Like 27% of pastors in the survey, Ankerberg has given personally, too.

Last weekend, 1,100 of the Whittier Area church's 1,800 adult members were signed up to help with more than 112 service projects in area schools, hospitals, homeless shelters and other public sites.

First Family Church in Overland Park, Kan., called all 5,000 members to tell them about a special February Sunday worship service where people who had lost their jobs could come to be anointed with oil by senior pastor Jerry Johnston and his son, Jeremy, the executive pastor.

"We had 2,000 people, the largest worship service turnout of the year," says the Rev. Jeremy Johnston. "The worship team led the prayers while my dad and I stood in the aisles, and one after another people came forward to be anointed and for prayer. It brought me to tears."

First Family also has added ministries to support those suffering from unemployment, and next month will hold a baby shower for new mothers in Kansas City.

"We're going through money a lot faster in terms of helping people with utility bills and shut-offs, and we're seeing people we have never seen before seek help," says the Rev. Larry Klinker of historic Zion Lutheran Church in New Middletown, Ohio, where nearly 140 worship on Sundays.

Zion is a site of distribution for the Salvation Army, which gave Zion $5,000 to distribute each year. But, now has cut back to only giving $3,500 annually.

"I spend more time on counseling now. The difference I see between now and other hard times," says Klinker, "is that it's more pervasive, and there's a sense of no end in sight."

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