I think the disorderly conduct kind of puts the screws to her.

Yep. Cops are willing to look the other way a lot of the time if you aren't causing a problem. Don't attract attention unless you know you are kosher.

FIFY.

To be fair, sometimes cops add on other things to justify wonky citations.

Duh.

fuuuck. just.. wtf.

people, I tell ya.

I've been involved with enough churches that are stretched so thin and trying to do so much that I can totally see how this happened. Many churches are dying in this country, but still feel like they are supposed to do all the stuff that they always did. You have the same small number of active members who are willing to help out on something, but when the reality of making 200 sandwiches sinks in and passing the plate yet again to pay for them, and then the people who show up don't even say thank you and expect that you serve them and give them more. The volunteers are human and are like "fuck this shit."

You need a better spokesperson though to talk to the press and explain that it's a resource issue. The church doesn't have the resources to continue doing this, but is going to continue to collect food to pass along to the food bank. The pastor was probably on sabbatical, and Alrene, who normally leads these things was getting her foot amputated because the diabetes was progressing. She would have known what to say.

[And re-reading the article, I was clearly wrong about the pastor being away, since she is quoted at the start of the article. but the quote at the end of the article is somebody who wasn't even there. It was just some weigh in quote the reporter used to get the story to go in the direction they wanted.]

A lot of the people who go to church today are not there to worship God, it's become a social occasion, a place to see and be seen.

But it was always that way, the church(s) was the center of social life, and attending Sunday was the dues.

That wouldn't have been better wording, it would have been a completely different reason than the one the pastor gave. I'm all for giving the benefit of the doubt, but in this case you would have to do so by including facts not present in the article.


The pastor herself said:
It was to prevent poor people from hanging out near the church
The congregation didn't like that
Their church is not oriented towards social service

Another "benefit of the doubt" can be applied to the "made the decision ... after receiving an email"; Just because it was "after" doesn't mean "because", and we don't know the context in which the existence of the email was revealed to the reporter.

But the email is a pretty bog-standard "poor people are lazy moochers". Whether it says anything about the Winnipeg church or not, it doesn't reflect well on the one in Victoria.

St Louis news headline...
"St. Louis Zoo voted 'Nation's Best Zoo"

But when you get into the story it was voted in a reader's poll, "The best free attraction"
Yes there's a difference.

Not the churches I attended.

The journalist's headline and opening sentence are not at all what the church representatives said. They made a distinction between people they could help, and people who needed more than food. They used the phrase "street people," which was not the greatest euphemism, but to me that says the mentally ill, the drug addicts, the people who start yelling when you don't give them a second sandwich because then someone else won't get one. Poverty comes with social ills, and this little church was naive about that when they started the program. Let's ask UT if he'd like to start a free food stand outside the pawn shop, eh?

You're contemporary, I'm talking about from 1566 to WW II, before Radio, before TV, Before motion pictures reached the sticks. There were two forms of entertainment, bars and churches. Married men could sometimes do both, but usually had to do the bar on the sly. What do you think your folks and grandfolks did in their courting days? Out in the sparsely settled areas the church is still a social center.

They attended square dances. That's how mine met.:jig: