It’s a core of like maybe 20 people non addicts, probably 60-75% white, 25 black, and then me. Then another 20-30 addicts, some regulars, some come only once a month or so etc. That group is pretty evenly mixed 50/50 white and black. It’s in a mostly black neighborhood.
As far as my problems with the church, I had an atheist friend tell me a stat about the church that 85% of churches money on aberage goes into its infrastructure. And I never had a good response to that. Granted, I know that’s their place of worship, that’s where they’ll carry out a lot of their ministry and service to the community...but the best you can do is pour 85% of tithes you’re receiving into a building? The church buildings have become the new golden calf in the American church. The Israelites after they were delivered out of Egypt pooled all their gold together to make the calf in order to have a material thing to worship the god that just delivered them out of Egypt. Obviously this really pissed off Moses and obviously God, since Moses was coming down from a mountain he just climbed with heavy ass stone tablets that told them not to do that. That’s what the church buildings are. This hit me when I was going to another church years ago, and they had a huge fundraising campaign to re-model a perfectly fine sanctuary, that needed updating because “the red carpet in there was a little outdated”, and they spent 200,000 dollars doing this remodel. I knew as single mom who lived 2 blocks away who was having trouble paying for her oil to heat her house. Like get the fuck out of here. Imagine how much good and how far that 200,000 would go to people of need in the community around them. I guess because America is a such wealthy country the American church has gotten into the habit of mainly sending the money they’re not spending on infrastructure to missionaries over seas, which is a good thing, a lot of great work and aid being done in those countries. But they’ve drifted away from putting an emphasis on serving the community around them. That’s not to say they never do serve the community around them, the vast majority do, but not like they could be doing. Don’t get me wrong, like Jesus says “man doesn’t live on bread alone,” meaning there’s more to the church and service than materialism and money, absolutely 100%. But it’s also just like Jesus’ parable of the foolish steward, whose master went away and he buried his master money in a jar and just waited for his return, instead of investing it and making more. Like the church is getting this money from their parishioners and the best they can do is pump it into a building that gets used maybe 2-3 days a week for a total of maybe 12 hours. Get the fuck out of here, the church needs to actively try to serve the community around it much more, and be out there trying to help the people who are hurting, and those people are EVERYWHERE. Doesn’t mean they’re bad people, they’re not, not even close. They’ve just been stuck in this “well this is how to run a church” way since the church was way more prevalent than it is now back in the day. That’s my church rant.