Every week, people come together at our church in Armley, Leeds, to access the foodbank and welcome space. Some come for the food, others for warmth or company, and often it’s a mixture of all three.
A man I’ll call Mick joined us and, over time, became part of the life of the church. He built friendships, joined in and was eventually confirmed (a public affirmation of faith).
Mick helped me to reflect on how easily, even with the best intentions, I can see people primarily in terms of the help they need. When Mick is asked to help out, whether putting out chairs or doing the washing up, his face lights up. (He’s a far more cheerful washer-up than I am.) People don’t just need support; we all have gifts to share and contributions to make.
And Mick, with daily experience of living in poverty, also has a lot more knowledge to share when it comes to talking about the root causes.
Over the past year I’ve thought about moments like this a lot, because I’ve been leading work on Crossroads, a study by Together for the Common Good asking a much bigger question: what is the future direction for Christian social action? Where I’ve landed is this: we must keep meeting the need in front of us, while learning to look around the room differently.
When helping isn’t enough
Across the country, Christians run food banks, debt centres, night shelters, warm spaces and much more. Yet need keeps growing: in 2025, food banks in the Trussell network alone gave out more than 2.6 million emergency food parcels (Trussell, 2026).
In six and a half years at Christians Against Poverty, leading its church engagement work, I saw the changing nature of poverty first-hand. It was once usually possible to sit down with someone, work through the figures and find a budget that worked. Increasingly, the numbers simply didn’t add up.
You can help someone manage their money, but what happens when there simply isn’t enough money to manage? At that point, a question about charity also becomes a question about justice.
That was one of three tensions at the heart of Crossroads. Earlier this year, I spoke to 73 people from across the Christian traditions, including frontline practitioners, theologians, funders and senior church and charity leaders.
We asked them to challenge our thinking, not just agree with it. Out of those conversations emerged three questions worth asking wherever Christians serve their communities.
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Are we addressing causes as well as needs?
If someone is hungry, they need food. If a family can’t put the electricity on, they need help now. That immediate response matters. As one person who took part in Crossroads told us, “Don’t dismiss charity: it is love in action.”
At the same time, those I interviewed who work on the frontline were among those most likely to ask why the need was there in the first place. Why are people repeatedly unable to afford food? Why does someone work and still not have enough to live on? Why do the same families keep finding themselves in crisis?
We need to hold two things together: responding with compassion to the person in front of us, while also asking what is causing their hardship. We need charity, and we need justice.
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Are we recognising what people have to give?
The second tension was between dependency and empowerment, and here participants challenged us most helpfully. The goal, they reminded us, isn’t independence. None of us is truly self-sufficient. A better word is interdependence, because we need one another.
That takes me back to Mick. If I only encounter someone through what they need, I can easily miss what they bring. Without intending to, we can divide a community into helpers and helped, givers and receivers. Yet that isn’t a Christian understanding of community. Every person is made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27, NIV), everyone has gifts, and everyone has something to contribute. We all have needs. We all have gifts. And we belong to one another.
So perhaps, alongside asking “What can we do for this person?”, we should also ask, “What might this person bring?” It is a small change, but it can transform the relationship that follows.
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Is our faith shaping how we work?
Our third tension concerns social action and faith. Christian social action has become increasingly professionalised over recent decades, making organisations more skilled, effective and accountable. But that raises a question about what makes Christian social action distinctively Christian.
That isn’t simply about whether we pray before opening the doors, put a Bible verse on the wall or describe ourselves as a Christian organisation. Does our faith shape how we see the person who walks through the door? Does it affect how we share power, how we build community and what we believe the people we serve are capable of?
One participant in Crossroads put this in a question that I haven’t been able to shake: What actually is the good news for the poor? Perhaps that is the question underneath all three.
Starting where we are
Crossroads was never meant to produce neat answers. But the framework held up, and across traditions and across the sector there was a strong appetite to explore these questions further.
We don’t have to start from scratch. Churches and Christian organisations are already finding ways to:
- involve people more deeply
- build reciprocal relationships
- connect immediate help with questions of justice
- stay rooted in their Christian vocation.
Our task now is to learn from those places, and from one another.
Later in the week, the foodbank in Armley will open again. People will still need food, warmth and somebody to talk to. We need to keep responding to those needs, but perhaps we can also learn to look around the room with fresh eyes.
Who here has gifts we haven’t noticed? What is making life so difficult for the people we’re meeting? And what does our Christian faith ask of us in response?
Those are much bigger questions than any single project can answer. But perhaps places like ours are exactly where we should start asking them.
Prayer
Lord God, we thank you for every person who comes through our doors, each made in our image and with gifts to share. We thank you too for the thousands of people across churches and charities who serve and support each week. Give us compassion for each situation but also the courage to challenge the structures around us and the humility to receive as well as to give. Help us to see one another as you see us and help us to share your good news and the hope you bring to all in our communities. In Jesus’ name. Amen
References
Together for the Common Good (2026) Crossroads study. (Accessed: 9 October 2026).
Trussell (2026) End of year food bank stats. (Accessed: 9 October 2026).
Together for the Common Good is a UK charity dedicated to spiritual and civic renewal. Working across the Christian traditions, it equips leaders, churches, schools and charities to read the signs of the times and work for the common good. Drawing on Catholic Social Teaching, it offers online resources, Staying Human public talks, the Leaving Egypt podcast, the Common Good Schools programme, and Crossroads. togetherforthecommongood.co.uk