the ways things are- are not the way things have to be

Deuteronomy 15:11 There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.

This verse tends to be the Church's default poverty verse...the one that drives our prevalent attitudes and actions to:

1.  Accept poverty as the norm, even possibly think of it as a part of God's created design.  "The way things are are just the way things have to be."
2.  Consider poverty as only "financial deficit," which causes many good-hearted folks to believe that the best answer is to openhandedly give finances as charity to organizations that serve the poor (especially at Christmastime).

This mindset, however, tends to neglect two important things...

1.  Financial giving alone will actually feed and guarantee that there will "always be poor people in the land," for openhanded financial giving is not the primary remedy for the problem.  The way America has defined poverty as "lack of the material"  and the way we've traditionally "served the poor" has actually created greater separation and brokenness all around.
2.  We forget the verses that come just before Deuteronomy 15:11 in verses 7,8:

 Deuteronomy 15:  4 However, there need be no poor people among you, for in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you, 5 if only you fully obey the Lord your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today.

The very foundation of God's throne is justice and righteousness (Psalm 89:14).  His design is for no poor people to be among us.  God's will is made manifest when God's people surrender and steward the gift of their lives and resources in such a way that will break down poverty in every person and every sense (spiritual, relational, financial) to form a Christ-centered, reconciling community of the most peculiar kind according to the world's view.  This new community then pursues righteousness and justice together in such a way that will overcome individual and systemic poverty toward a new Kingdom reality of "no poor among us."

Christmas in Walnut....the ultimate goal is that there will no longer be a felt need for Christmas assistance in the community and therefore no longer a need for the Christmas Store.  We should not just accept the Christmas Store as a part of a community's neat annual Christmas tradition.  However, because there is currently a felt need for financial assistance at Christmastime, the Christian community will do well to continue to provide an experience that works to form a reconciling Christian community focused on God's vision of Deuteronomy 15:7,8 and not settled with Deuteronomy 15:11.