My little home town of Seminole, Oklahoma, has been scorched by the wildfires sweeping through parts of Oklahoma and Texas. My mother’s beloved horse riding trails in the rural area around Seminole are either smoldering or threatened. I talked to an old high school friend about our response to the disaster. He said, “Karen, we paid attention after those hurricanes. We’re not looking to the government for help. The churches and people all around here have been helping since the fires started. People who had little to begin with, including insurance, have lost everything, even their kids’ Christmas.”

Why does it take such tragedies – fires, floods, hurricanes – to generate a wake up call for people to reach out to needy neighbors? The cultural shift toward “government professionals” taking primary care of society’s problems began 75 years ago, but surely this past year has made at least a figurative believer of the most adamant agnostic: Faith-based organizations meet even catastrophic needs more efficiently and effectively than government agencies or their bureaucratic charity look-alikes.

Subsidiarity – local people meeting individual munity needs in a manner that is direct, personal, and accountable – is more than just a “high falutin’ word” (as my mother often reminds me). Common sense by any other name is mon sense.

How many of us wait for a natural disaster before we’ll actively respond to need? If civil society truly is rooted in the belief that each person is created in God’s image and therefore has worth and dignity, then why is such a natural outreach to neighbors (across the fence and across town) not part of our daily lives?

In Oklahoma, churches that don’t normally house food banks and clothing stores have been collecting these things to help people who have been burned out. But local assistance, as with the Gulf hurricanes, needs to be broader. One group of churchgoers in Texas sat in folding chairs next to their burned out church for Sunday services, a reminder that that people are the church, not the building. The broader munity is the most effective model of subsidiarity. And that’s a good high falutin’ word for a principle that is simple and true.