Former Army Ranger Challenges Churches to Become Bastion for Communities During Disaster
International reporter, adventurer, and businessman Chuck Holton visits the world’s most intense warzones in a typical year. His excursions to places such as Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Venezuela, Lebanon, Somalia, Nigeria, and Chicago have given him some unique insights, especially in connection to America and its culture, according to AAE Speakers. His background as a former US Army Ranger has taught him to recognize the potential for danger in any situation and survival skills when threats manifest.
The Church can Take Steps to Prepare Itself
There are many who fear that a collapse of the American culture is imminent, but Holton would say that there is still time to turn things around. Holton suggests that while we are seeing a certain amount of breakdown in the family, a fragile political situation, and a spiritual passivity, this is also the hour that the church can prepare itself to step up and be the organization that their community needs.
The church needs to look outside of itself and reach out to “the elderly man that’s living two doors down from your church whose wife died three years ago, and he hasn't had a visitor since,” he told CBN.
He also pointed out the “single mom” of school-age kids who’s trying to figure out how to pay for upkeep on their beater car, school supplies for the kids, and food on the table as another nearby demographic that often could use the church’s support.
Taking an Assessment of Abilities and Resources
“What are we doing in our own communities to map out the needs and the abilities and the resources that are in our own communities? And in so doing, we uncover these elderly and sick and single moms and people who just need God in their lives.”
He suggests that strengthening the men’s ministries in the church is one way that the church can be better prepared to make a difference in the community. Men need to be encouraged to reclaim their role as protectors and leaders in times of crisis. They also need to be shown that they have gifts the church needs, even as the church is taught to value those gifts. Holton’s book, Red Teams: Building Brotherhood, Preparing Communities, and Becoming the Church America Desperately Needs, details how men’s ministries can be bolstered.
Holton added that, “It'd be so healthy for America if churches stopped abdicating their responsibility to care for the widows and orphans and aged and infirmed, and took that back upon ourselves because it's our job according to the Bible to do that, not the government's job.”
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Originally published May 20, 2026.
