“Insurance” is undermining the Church.

I try not to think of it. But so much of our family’s income goes towards “insurance”. Health. Car. Homeowners. Life. Disability. I have avoided actually calculating exactly what percentage of our money goes to this sort of thing…because the results would probably make me cry.

It’s just another way our society tries to make life “safe”. We have become so risk-averse. (I say “become” not because I have actually seen this trend—America has always been pretty risk-averse in my life time…but I know things weren’t this way for my grandparents or their parents.)

One of my favorite books is Crazy Love by Francis Chan. He discusses this idea in his book, and also in this video:



We like to try to live as if God isn’t good. As if he’s not going to pull through for us when times get rough. So we count on things like insurance to cover some of the more difficult things that might befall us, when instead, maybe we could rely on each other (and God).

I don’t remember what community does this (Amish, maybe?), but they build each other’s houses. So if a fire destroyed your neighbor’s house, you would stop what you were doing and devote your time and resources to building your neighbor a new home. Everyone in the community pulls together. Everyone is mutually obligated to help bring this family out of the tragedy.

Why don’t we do this in our churches? I think part of the answer is insurance. If a person we know has a car wreck, we don’t usually feel obligated to give them money for it. We assume they have insurance to cover it. If they don’t, we may help them out, but we will probably still judge them as irresponsible for not having this safety net. Why do we do it this way?

Recently I was able to witness the generosity of my church. Some friends of mine were struggling financially. Anonymous people in the church delivered money to their doorstep to cover a large portion of the family’s expenses. It was a beautiful thing to behold. I can’t think of anything more community-building (and God-glorifying) than to watch people take care of one another.

But insurance undermines these things. If my friends had some sort of insurance that covered their problem (economic recession insurance, anyone?) they wouldn’t have needed this help. And they would have been robbed of the opportunity to see God take care of them through the generosity of their church family. And the generous people in the church would have been robbed of the opportunity to truly make a difference in my friend’s lives (and see God’s goodness themselves).

See what I’m getting at?

I’m not saying we all need to dump our insurance policies and go to a total dependence on our neighbors, friends, and church family (aka the mercy of God). Okay, well, maybe that is what I’m saying. But I know that’s probably asking too much. Couldn’t we move in this direction though? Instead, I see society (and the church) moving more and more towards fear and independence.

I think if I stopped forking over what seems like half my income for “insurance” I would have plenty of money to help cover any tragedy that befalls a family in my church. Something to think about at least.