Complexity of service

There are some things in life that shouldn't be too difficult; for example in a culture so fascinated with "relationships" where everyone just wants to find someone, there shouldn't be any trouble finding another person to love and nurture in a healthy, monogamous relationship, right? Apparently some things are more complex than they appear.

Service is certainly a good example of this truth. Whether we're doing community service hours for school, a summer work team through church, participating in a Y-church, completing a voluntary service term, or pursuing a career in a service field, doing something good for someone else, something that will help people out and improve their life seems like a good idea. Like many of Jesus' teachings, the idea is deceptively simple. The reality is tremendously more complex.

I spent most of last year in Denver, Colorado with a Mennonite Mission Network program called Discipleship, Encounter, Outreach (DEO). I worked in a clinic that provided healthcare to the residents of a homeless shelter. Through that experience I had the chance to observe a lot of different approaches to service: church people handing out sandwiches to homeless folks on the street, a large faith-based homeless shelter, a secular social service agency, and various government agencies. I saw a lot of wonderful examples of how to do service, but I was also impressed with how easily service can demean, disempower, and hurt people.

Many of the systems established to help people in poverty eventually seem to actually become part of the burden of poverty. Endless reams of forms, waiting in lines to deal with harried (or hostile) workers, and not being able to have a water bottle by your bed are all part of being a homeless person in Denver. I continue to wonder what the cumulative impact of the series of relatively small insults and indignities that people often experience while accessing social services becomes over time.

There is also the possibility that service activities may actually perpetuate the systems that create the need for them in the first place. David Hilfiker, in an article called "The Limits of Charity" in the July/August 2000 issue of "The Other Side" suggests that charitable services like those provided by homeless shelters and soup kitchens may actually serve to maintain the status quo. Hilfiker believes that people come to see social service organizations as solutions, not the stop-gap measures they were originally intended to be, this perspective means that seeking justice, which is seldom popular in the first place, appears unnecessary.

The complexities of doing service well can be overwhelming, almost to the point of paralysis. However, if we are really serious about truly serving people and not just making ourselves feel good we need to engage in critical thinking and reflection about service. Doing service well means asking questions like what our real relationship is with those we serve, what assumptions or systems are reinforced by the ways we do service, what kind of power dynamics are created by our service, and what underlying systems or situations create the circumstances we're serving in. I believe that the best answers to these questions will come when we are able to ask them in dialogue with those we're serving, the people whose answers really matter.