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Covenant Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas, is directing $200,000 to four community organizations working to remove financial barriers that can keep residents living in Texas’ capital city from achieving stability.
According to a news release, rather than creating new programs, the church is investing in organizations with established expertise in four areas where a single financial or bureaucratic obstacle can have lasting consequences: housing instability, predatory lending, medical debt and lack of access to identification.
The church has made these allocations:
- $75,000 to Foundation Communities for rental assistance and wraparound support, expected to help as many as 100 families to remain stably housed.
- $25,000 to support St. Vincent de Paul’s Mini-Loan Program, which helps people escape predatory payday loans by replacing high-interest debt with affordable financing and ongoing financial support.
- $25,000 to Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid to help people recover identification documents that can be essential for securing employment, housing, healthcare and other services.
- $75,000 to Undue Medical Debt to purchase and eliminate qualifying medical debt for residents in one of Austin’s lowest-income ZIP codes. This investment could erase more than $14 million in medical debt.
The Rev. Dr. Jill Williams, interim head of staff at Covenant Presbyterian Church, said the investment reflects the church’s understanding that its resources carry a responsibility beyond its own congregation.
“Participating in God’s story includes being awake to the needs of the world and loving neighbors well,” Williams said.
The investment continues an established practice at Covenant of directing a portion of year-end operating funds toward needs in the broader community. In recent years, the church, which has more than 1,900 members and a budget of about $4.6 million, has used those resources to eliminate school lunch debt and provide medical debt relief.
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson, who’s featured in a video announcing the Unburdened initiative that aired during worship Aug. 30, said Covenant’s commitment reflects the role churches and other institutions can play.
“They’re not just seeing things through their own eyes, but they’re seeing the rest of the community, and they see it as part of their mission to be outside the four walls of that church,” Watson said.
Whitney Bell, Covenant Presbyterian Church’s Director of Mission, led worship on Aug. 30, using the Parable of the Good Samaritan as her preaching text. After answering the who, where and how questions in the parable, Bell asked those in worship, “My friends, where is God at work? That question is so important as we consider how we may become neighbors.”
The Samaritan wasn’t a better person than the priest or the Levite, she said. Instead, the Samaritan is attentive — attentive to the Spirit of God.
“As we become better neighbors, it’s important for us to consider what it would like for us to be attentive,” she said. “Every road we drive down, every coffee shop we visit, every classroom we’re in, every office we go to — where is God already at work and how can we participate in that?”
As part of Covenant’s commitment to being a neighbor in the community, the session set aside a large portion of the church’s 2025 surplus for mission, “tasking the Mission Committee to think creatively, thoughtfully and prayerfully about how to bless our city,” Bell said in introducing the video.
“With the Unburdened initiative, we know we aren’t going to solve everything,” Mission Committee member John Walker says on the video. “But if we can remove some concrete and painful issues for those in need and just give them a little space to breathe, then we think we can address some challenging things in our community.”
“It’s a rare opportunity,” Walker says, “and it’s exactly, in my view, what we as children of God are called to do.”
“We need to be clear that we are not patting ourselves on the back,” Bell told those in worship once the video had concluded. “Covenant is not the hero here. It is God who is doing the restorative work in the hearts of the people in the city of Austin. We celebrate because we get to participate in it.”
Later, Bell told Presbyterian News Service that those in worship “were really excited and pleased that they could see there is such intentionality around how the church uses funds God has given to us.”
The newest partner for Covenant is St. Vincent de Paul, which uses its mini-loan program to help residents get out from the pressures of predatory loans. “They work with people for a year to get them back on their feet,” Bell noted.
Here’s the benediction Bell offered following worship on Aug. 30: “May you go knowing we have the privilege of becoming neighbors. May you go being attentive to the Spirit of God, and may you go heeding the words of Jesus: to go and do likewise. Amen.”
About Covenant Presbyterian Church
Founded in 1960, Covenant Presbyterian Church is a vibrant community in Austin, Texas, committed to encouraging one another to follow Jesus where we live, work and play. Throughout its history, the church has sought to put faith into action through worship, community and service, partnering with organizations across Austin and around the world to care for neighbors, strengthen communities and share the love of Christ.
By Mike Ferguson, Presbyterian News Service
