James and favouritism

A few weeks ago we had a visit from a representative of Anglicare. We were talking about different ways we could use our new building to serve our community, especially the poorer and marginalized members of our community. And as we did, he gave us a warning.
He said, make sure the church is on-board, and knows what they are getting into.
He told us about other churches who loved the idea of helping people out, until there were people on their church site who dressed differently, who spoke differently, who had different manners, who smelt a bit different, who were around when the playgroup was on, and then the complaints started rolling in. Then the terrible shock, when those people started coming to church and didn't fit our small group or training structure, who needed different sermons, who couldn't read.
He told us about churches who loved the idea of helping the poor, until those people started coming into the services, and changes had to be made.
Would we be like those churches?
It was sobering
James gives us four reasons to avoid favouritism in James 2. We'll look at those over the next couple of days