This has been on my mind a lot. As a pastor, I see the inside of people’s lives in ways most never do.

I sit with parishioners navigating grief that has no timeline. I walk alongside people wrestling with addiction and shame. I meet children who don’t know when their next meal will come, and older siblings who are forced to grow up too soon—becoming caregivers before they’ve had a chance to be children themselves.

I’ve seen this across communities. As a campus pastor, I walked with young adults pursuing an education while carrying the weight of fractured homes, multigenerational households, and instability they didn’t choose. I see it now in Carson City. I’ve seen it in Philadelphia. In Decorah. In my hometown of Roseville.

Family dysfunction is not regional. It is not urban or rural. It is not confined to one zip code, one race, one income bracket, or one political party. It shows up in low-income households and high-income ones alike. The details change, but the wounds are familiar.

Yet too often, we insist on viewing all of this through a moral lens.

We label families as “broken.” We reduce complex realities to personal failure. We ask, What did they do wrong? Instead of What happened to them? or What systems failed them? or What support was missing when it mattered most?

Judgment is easy.

But the harder—and more faithful—question is this: what is our responsibility?

I am not suggesting that individuals should insert themselves into situations they are not equipped to handle. Boundaries matter. Professional care matters. Safety matters. But we cannot pretend that dysfunction is purely a private problem, absolving society of any role in shaping the conditions people live within.

Because what I see, again and again, is that families are not failing in isolation. They are being overwhelmed by poverty, trauma, addiction, housing instability, and untreated mental health needs. These are not simply personal struggles, they are the predictable outcomes of systems that responds too late, invests too little, and too often places blame where support is needed.

So what does it mean to build systems that don’t just respond after crisis, but prevent it? What does it mean to invest in schools, food access, healthcare, housing, and community support, not as charity, but as collective responsibility?

This is where faith meets public life.

The church was never meant to be a place where people with their lives “together” gather to feel morally superior. The church exists because people are hurting. Because families are strained. Because children are vulnerable. Because grace is not theoretical, it is desperately needed.

And grace, if it is real, cannot remain private.

This is why the church’s calling is not only pastoral, but public. Not only compassionate, but courageous. Not only responsive, but preventative. The church is called to create spaces of dignity, stability, and belonging and to speak into the systems that shape whether those spaces are even possible.

This is the work that organizations like Lutheran Engagement and Advocacy in Nevada (LEAN) exist to support—not as a substitute for congregational care, but as an extension of it. LEAN helps communities of faith move beyond charity alone and into sustained public witness, recognizing that feeding the hungry and advocating for food security belong together. That walking with families in crisis and pushing for housing stability belong together. That pastoral care and public policy are not competing callings, but deeply connected ones.

LEAN exists because loving our neighbor also means asking why so many neighbors are one emergency away from collapse—and organizing so fewer people have to carry that weight alone.

This is not about politics for politics’ sake. It is about discipleship. It is about taking seriously Jesus’ insistence that how we treat the most vulnerable among us is a measure of our faithfulness. It is about naming not only personal sin, but structural harm—and responding with collective repentance and action.

The church does not replace social services. It does not pretend to be the expert in trauma, addiction, or mental health. But it does have a responsibility to advocate, to organize, and to tell the truth about suffering without attaching shame. To partner with those doing the work. To remind the world that people are not problems to be solved, but neighbors to be loved.

When we shift from judgment to responsibility, from moralizing to organizing, from blame to compassion, something changes. We stop asking why they are struggling—and start asking how we can build a society where fewer people have to struggle alone.

That shift matters.
Lives depend on it.

With you on the Journey,

Rev. Paul M. Larson