Even the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) might endorse some of the following church-state partnerships.

In Boston, police and pastors together make home visits to potential gang members. Police have noted a decline in gang activity as a result of what they are calling Operation Homefront. In Huntsville, Ala., Southwood Presbyterian Church adopted a nearby public school. Its members are providing tutors for half the students, raised money for a new science lab, and renovated the old gym. In Oklahoma, the Muskogee Ministerial Alliance helped 700 Katrina refugees find homes and jobs.

The Indianapolis-based Sagamore Institute highlighted these church-state partnerships with its annual Partners in Transformation awards earlier this year.

These groups have not been looking for government money. They don’t worry about the First Amendment debate over whether the ten commandments can be posted on government buildings. They are too busy helping ex-convicts find jobs and offering relief for victims of Katrina.

Sagamore offers the annual awards through a Pew Charitable Trust grant and includes $10,000 first-place awards. That is a helpful chunk of change for low-budget, small-staff operations. The $10,000 winners were:

• Muskogee Ministerial Alliance in Oklahoma, for helping 700 refugees from Katrina resettle in the small town of Muskogee with permanent housing and jobs. Church volunteers were matched with the refugees, who came from a nearby National Guard facility after being driven from their homes last fall.

• The Boaz and Ruth ministry of Richmond, Va., for providing job training and employment for ex-convicts. The organization has helped start 8 small businesses to provide jobs in a Richmond neighborhood with high unemployment. The businesses have also played a key part in revitalization of a city block in a low-income area of the state capital.

• Fresh Ministries of Jacksonville, Fla., for helping settle other Katrina refugees. Vice President Suzanne Yack and her group have done so well in Jacksonville that they are being promoted to do something similar on a statewide basis.

Sagamore Institute Senior Fellow Amy Sherman gave out the awards, selected through a panel of judges. A top researcher in faith-based, anti-poverty efforts, Sherman contends that the political controversy over faith-based social services can obscure the practical contributions that these organizations make.

“Faith-based organizations working in creative partnerships are making a huge contribution to community reconciliation and restoration,” she noted.

At the political level, the faith-based controversy should go on. A federal judge has ruled against Prison Fellowship’s faith-based rehabilitation program in an Iowa state prison, on grounds that the organization is receiving state money for its efforts. Congress has debated President Bush’s attempts to make federal grants for social services available to faith-based organizations, on grounds that some of them are effective in helping drug addicts break free of their habits and providing other remedies to social problems that government has trouble fixing on its own.

But Sagamore has taken the more important step of finding low-key organizations that are quietly mobilizing volunteers to tackle tough social problems. Often run by Christians who live in the area of need, these groups get by without big government grants. Yet they are working in cooperation with government agencies that know their limitations and can only deal primarily with the physical needs of people. Government agencies also are not as well-equipped as the church to provide the kind of compassion needed in response to poverty, drug abuse, and other similar problems. These problems require both a physical and spiritual response. The government is often involved because of crimes related to addictions.

In that sense, Sagamore is working on a key principle of the doctrine of Christ’s kingdom—how He is Lord of church and state and can work through both to accomplish His kingdom purposes.