I was ordained in 2019 in what is called the CCCC (Conservative Congregational Christian Conference) after spending time as pastor of an American Baptist church in Kansas. Because of the political upheaval in the part of the country we were living in, my family and I were forced from our church and found ourselves in Washington state helping a friend in an Anglican church with his church plant.
I am working as the facilities manager for the church we eventually merged with and I still do hospital visits and pastoral care for our growing parish as well as teach Sunday school (all with our parish priest’s permission). Our time in Washington has been marked by a rocky personal and financial recovery from the pain we experienced in our last church.
Jonathan David Faulkner
During this time, we have found the great community of our church and the extensive resources of Washington state helpful in keeping us housed as I work three jobs and we struggle to pay the bills. I have an amazing wife and two incredible kids and WIC and SNAP have been important tools to keep us afloat. We are currently on our second round of SNAP; we were on it for the first time in 2021-2022 and then had to go back on it in fall 2024 after I was laid off.
Politically, I consider myself a centrist, although I am not a fan of political labels as a Christian and just believe in following and applying the teachings of Jesus to each situation. Alongside my work at the church, I work as sales adviser for Best Buy, an adjunct for Sterling College Online in Central Kansas and write for Project Arctos/Kingdom Resources Magazine as well as my own website, godsheartforthose.com. I hold a bachelor’s degree in Christian education and master of divinity degree and a master’s degree in church history. I also am legally blind.
I tell you all that, in a long-winded introduction, to show I do not exactly fit the bill for what the media tells us a person on welfare looks like. I am a tax-paying citizen who has a wife and two kids and, hopefully temporarily, we need extra help to make it through the month. I am a husband, father, theologian, historian, pastor. I look like a lot of the people who are claiming it is not people like me who are using SNAP.
“I look like a lot of the people who are claiming it is not people like me who are using SNAP.”
SNAP is not easy to get on, especially in Washington. There are checks and balances, like ID verification, interviews where you talk to a real case worker, a nine-section application where every piece of income is accounted for and there are serious penalties for lying or trying to sell your SNAP benefits.
Once on SNAP, you have a finite income determined, a number of resources to supplement your food budget. For the last 12 months, we have used 100% of our benefits every month, even as we have seen a small decline in benefits due to my income going up and had to spend more out of pocket because of rising food prices.
My wife and I meticulously plan meals and do everything in our power to keep food costs down. We research who has the best prices at the time and what deals we can find. We use about 95% of good, healthy and nutritious food and snacks and the other 5% is spent on “fun” items we deem necessary as a family to help us maintain our identity and dignity. Like our Friday night pizza, movie and ice-cream sandwich night. In short, we try to be good stewards of the resources God has given us through SNAP while also maintaining our dignity as human beings made in the image of God — which poverty can slowly chip away at.
This is not a perfect system, but it does allow us to pay all our bills, including sky-high rent and energy costs. It also is a system that is currently on hold because of the ongoing government shutdown. We long have tried not to go to food pantries so those worse off than us can use those resources, but my wife is planning a food pantry run for next week to get some of the things we are not using SNAP to buy.
SNAP is a system we and so many others rely on and want to continue to see our taxes support because it has kept my kids from wondering where their next meal is going to come from as it has for millions of families all over the country.
Jonathan David Faulkner is an adjunct professor and bivocational minister in Washington State.
The hypocrisy of Christian nationalists not feeding the hungry | Opinion by Mark Wingfield
Focus on the Family opposes free meals in schools
Another lawsuit seeks to continue food stamp benefits
The children are starving; God is screaming | Opinion by Mallory Challis