How will faith groups cope as recession digs into them?

As the bill comes due for the boom-time spending that we financed on credit, more is at stake than just family finances.

The great story of the post-war American economy was the vast expansion of the middle class. But one card at a time, that house is collapsing. Real incomes for the middle class began declining more than a decade ago. Much of the credit mania of recent years wasn't profligacy, but a desire to maintain a middle-class lifestyle in the face of growing odds.

As unemployment surges past 8 percent, certain markers of middle-class status are vanishing, including ready access to health care, mortgages and private education. Cadres who rose into the middle class by serving the wealthy suddenly find their shops and services no longer needed. The two pillars of long-term security -- retirement benefits and real estate investments -- look shaky for many.

All classes are hurting, but it is the middle class's radical downsizing of personal horizons that could prove most traumatic.

Can you think of an economic sector that didn't ride the rising expectations of the middle class?
Faith communities were no exception.

The rest is here-

http://www.indystar.com/article/20090314/LIVING09/903140381/1111/LIVING09