“Love your neighbor” is one of Jesus Christ’s most famous commands. One church in central Indiana decided to live this commandment by paying off the medical bills of thousands of Hoosier families.
The Northview Church congregation raised $20,000 for charitable donations earlier this summer, though it didn’t have a particular charity in mind at first, according to the local news station WTHR. When the church’s pastor, Steve Poe, proposed using that money to pay off medical debt in the community, the church agreed.
Other churches in the community liked the idea as well and volunteered to pitch in. And when Northview partnered with RIP Medical Debt, an organization that buys debt for pennies on the dollar, they were able to pay off more than $7.8 million worth of medical bills for nearly 6,000 families in 10 towns in Indiana.
Northview’s generosity is stunning, but it’s more common than you’d think. In fact, Northview is the third church to pay off its community’s medical debt in just the past few months. In June, a Kansas church paid off $2.2 million in medical debt for more than 1,600 Wichita families. And in August, an Arkansas church helped pay off more than $3 million of medical debt for 1,589 of its neighbors.
Americans are generous people. Religious Americans are even more generous, which is why it shouldn’t come as a surprise that this kind of giving emanates from the country’s churches. Indeed, religious organizations are the most charitable civil institutions, according to David Campbell and Robert Putnam, authors of American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us.
Religious Americans give more, and they give more often, Campbell and Putnam found. They give to religious and secular charities alike, and they’re also the country’s single most significant source of volunteers, according to a study by the Brookings Institute.
The church takes on its community’s burdens out of love, and in doing so, it fulfills its purpose. And as a result, there are thousands of families across the United States with less debt, stronger communities, and perhaps a bit more faith.
