Calling on Gospel to Call Off Debt

"I don't know what I would have done if it hadn't been for the church," said Andrade, the mother of one teenager. "I had gone to social services, but they said they wouldn't help because I was working."

Alan Wolfe, director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College, said the problem for some church members is that "Christianity has always had a complicated relationship with money."

On the one hand, Wolfe said, believers are told that the love of money is the root of all evil. Then there are those who preach a prosperity gospel, which promotes that God wants believers to have an abundant life with extraordinary financial blessings.

Bishop T.D. Jakes, one of the most renowned preachers of the prosperity gospel, has not tailored his messages to address the changes in the economy or how people should manage their money. But his Dallas-based church, the Potter's House, offers a program that provides tips on financial literacy, budgeting and credit restoration.

Spokesman Curtis Coats said about 250 people are enrolled, with 108 more on a waiting list. Over the past year, 1,000 people have finished the course.

"There has been a huge increase over the past year," Coats said, citing the economy as a driving force.

In the Washington region, churches have recently partnered with the state and federal governments to host foreclosure prevention forums. Some have distributed brochures that suggest that people contact their bank to create a "workout" plan, find creative ways to save, and seek legal advice if they believe they have been a victim of predatory lending.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson has encouraged ministers to discuss the foreclosure crisis, saying that religious leaders built their churches "on the middle-class bubble of success." If churches do not address the foreclosure crisis, he said in a December visit to Prince George's, parishioners will not only suffer, but "your churches will suffer" as well.

So far, some area churches say they remain fiscally strong despite the struggling economy. It's their members that leaders such as the Rev. Timothy R. Wood, pastor of the Calvary Gospel Church in Waldorf, worry about.

"We can't pay people's mortgages, but we can do more with the food bank," said Wood, explaining how churches such as his are finding ways to help people other than by giving them cash.

Church leaders at St. Martin's, which regularly provides credit counseling to its parishioners, said they have been inundated with calls from people seeking help with their mortgages, rent and utilities. About 50 people attended last month's foreclosure prevention workshop.

"We saw the crisis and decided that we had to do something," said Adriana Ferpozzi, social concerns minister at St. Martin's. "Many times people wait too late and they lose their homes."