Opinion | The City Provo Is Becoming, and the Church It Will Need

When I was a student at Precious Treasures International School, we used to sing a song from our Caribbean School Hymn Book called “They’ll Know We Are Christians by Our Love.”

At the time, I did not grasp the weight of what we were singing. We sang it because it was part of school life, part of devotion, part of the Christian rhythm many of us grew up around in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Donnie Gardiner

But the older I get, the more that simple line confronts me.

It does not say they will know we are Christians by our buildings. It does not say they will know we are Christians by how many services we hold, how loudly we sing, how often we speak religious language or how visible our churches are on Sunday mornings. The song points to something far more difficult to fake: love.

Not sentimental love. Not love as a slogan. Not love that exists only in songs and public prayers. Christian love is meant to be seen in action. It is meant to become visible in the way we care for the hungry, protect the vulnerable, visit the sick, support the abused, guide the young and stand with those who are suffering.

That childhood song has stayed with me as I think about the Providenciales now emerging around us.

For many of us, Provo is still home in the most familiar sense of the word. It is the island where we grew up, went to school, attended church, saw familiar faces and experienced the closeness of island life. Yet the Providenciales of today is no longer simply the quiet community many of us remember. It is increasingly taking on the realities of a city.

That growth brings both opportunity and responsibility. A city cannot only be measured by the buildings it puts up, the visitors it welcomes or the wealth it generates. It must also be measured by whether the people who live there are seen, protected and cared for.

With each passing year, Provo carries more of the pressures, needs and vulnerabilities of a city.

Behind the image of a thriving tourism destination are families trying to make groceries last until payday. There are elderly persons and sick residents who may spend too many days without companionship or practical support. There are women and children living with the effects of abuse. There are people facing unstable housing, job loss, and grief. There are young people looking for identity and belonging before drugs, violence or destructive influences offer them the wrong kind of community.

As Providenciales continues to grow, the church must be willing to ask a serious question: if they are to know we are Christians by our love, what must that love look like in the city Provo is becoming?

The Gospel That Does Not Change

To speak about the church meeting social needs is not to call for the church to abandon its central mission.

Providenciales does not need churches that water down biblical truth in order to appear modern or relevant. It does not need churches that become so focused on social programmes that they become silent about sin, repentance, salvation and the lordship of Jesus Christ.

The church must continue to preach the gospel clearly and unapologetically. Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, remains the only hope of salvation for sinners. No community initiative can replace that message. No act of charity can reconcile a person to God.

But the church must also remember that the gospel it preaches produces a people who love.

Scripture does not allow believers to separate faithfulness to truth from practical care for those in need. James warns against offering kind religious words to a brother or sister who is without food or clothing while doing nothing to meet the need. In Matthew 25, Jesus speaks directly of feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger and visiting the sick. In Acts 6, when widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food, the early church did not dismiss their physical need as a distraction from spiritual ministry. It organised itself to respond.

Biblical truth and active compassion are not competing visions for the church. A church that truly believes the gospel should be driven by that gospel into the lives of people who are hurting.

Having had the privilege of travelling internationally, I have seen churches whose presence is felt far beyond Sunday morning. They are known in their communities because they feed families, assist those without stable shelter, visit the sick, care for survivors of abuse, mentor children and respond consistently when people face crisis.

Their service does not replace the gospel. Often, it places them close enough to hurting people for the gospel to be heard with trust.

Provo does not need a different gospel. It needs churches willing to make the gospel visible.

A Church Present Where People Hurt

The church Providenciales will need must be organised to care for people consistently, not only occasionally.

There are already Christians and churches in the Turks and Caicos Islands serving others in meaningful ways. That work should be recognised and encouraged. But the growing needs of Providenciales require this spirit of service to become broader, more coordinated and more dependable across church life.

One practical place to begin is hunger.

Imagine if churches across Providenciales coordinated a weekly community lunch initiative. In the various settlements of Provo, churches could work together to provide community food distributions. Participating churches could rotate responsibility for preparing and serving free hot meals. Some congregations may be able to host meals. Others may contribute volunteers, transportation, funding or food supplies. Hotels, supermarkets, restaurants and private citizens could be invited to sponsor meals or provide suitable donations.

The programme could reach the elderly, struggling families, unemployed persons, sick residents and shut-ins. Volunteers could deliver meals to those who are unable to travel.

This does not need to begin as a massive institution. A small group of willing churches could establish something dependable and compassionate almost immediately.

A family struggling to buy groceries should not have to wait until Christmas to experience the generosity of the church. An elderly resident living alone should not only be remembered after a hurricane or during a holiday drive. Hunger, sickness and loneliness are not seasonal problems.

There must also be greater urgency in how the church responds to domestic violence and abuse.

There can be no ambiguity here: domestic violence is evil. Abuse is not simply a difficult marriage, a private family disagreement or an uncomfortable issue best kept out of public view. When a woman, man or child is being abused, the vulnerable must be protected.

A church that is unwilling to confront abuse clearly has failed at the very point where compassion and courage are most needed.

Churches should never pressure victims to remain in dangerous situations. They should never quietly protect reputations at the expense of safety. They should never attempt to manage serious abuse cases internally when trained professionals and appropriate authorities are needed.

But neither should churches conclude that, because this work requires expertise, they have no role to play.

In partnership with the Ministry of Religious Affairs & Gender Affairs, churches could help form an Abuse Survivor Support Network. This could provide emergency transportation, temporary accommodation assistance, food, childcare support, counselling referrals and practical help for survivors of violence and abuse rebuilding their lives. Pastors and ministry leaders could receive proper safeguarding training so that when abuse is disclosed, the church responds wisely, lawfully and compassionately.

The Christian Council could also mobilise funding and support for a professionally operated domestic violence centre or emergency shelter programme. Churches may not be qualified to run every aspect of such a service, but they can help ensure that those fleeing danger are not left without options.

A person escaping abuse should never wonder whether the church will protect appearances more quickly than it protects people made in the image of God. The church Provo will need must be a refuge to those in danger.

Not every church can do everything. But every church can ask what burden it is prepared to help carry.

A Voice for Families Under Pressure

For many families in Providenciales, the cost of living is not an abstract political debate. It is a weekly calculation.

It is standing in a grocery aisle deciding which items have to go back on the shelf. It is paying rent and wondering how much will remain for food. It is watching an electricity bill rise while income stays the same. It is working hard in an island economy that appears successful, yet still feeling as though basic stability remains just out of reach.

When families begin to struggle, churches are often among the first places they turn. A pastor may hear about the mother who needs groceries. A benevolence committee may learn of a household behind on bills. A church member may quietly help an elderly neighbour with food, transportation or a utility payment.

That is good and necessary. The church should be a place where compassion is not only preached, but practised. But if churches are repeatedly helping families who cannot meet basic needs, then the church should also be willing to speak lovingly and wisely about the pressures those families are carrying.

Proverbs 31:8–9 says, “Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute. Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.”

That is not a call to accusation. It is not permission for the church to become partisan, reactionary or reckless with its words. It is a call to righteous advocacy. It reminds us that there are people whose burdens are often carried quietly, whose struggles may never reach public platforms and whose needs can be overlooked in the wider story of economic success.

This is where the Christian Council could use its voice.

One important area for that advocacy is affordability. When the prices of essential goods and services become unbearable for families, churches should be willing to listen, document what they are seeing and call for meaningful action. Where unfair pricing or price gouging is proven, they should support appropriate enforcement. Where limited competition gives families few alternatives for necessities, they should call for transparency, accountability and consumer protection.

This kind of advocacy should begin close to the ground. The Christian Council could host community listening sessions with families affected by high grocery, rent, electricity and transportation costs. It could invite churches to share, without exposing private details, the kinds of needs they are seeing through food assistance, benevolence funds and pastoral care. It could produce a nonpartisan statement on family hardship and affordability. It could meet with government leaders, regulators and major service providers. It could encourage citizens to properly report credible instances of unfair practices through consumer protection channels.

None of this requires the church to point fingers recklessly. It simply requires the church to refuse silence when silence would leave struggling families unheard.

This is not the church becoming distracted from its mission. Proverbs tells God’s people to open their mouths for those whose needs might otherwise be ignored. The prophets of Scripture were not silent when the vulnerable were burdened, overlooked or exploited. The church should not be silent either.

Charity helps people survive hardship. Christian advocacy should confront the conditions that make hardship unbearable.

Reaching Young People Before Crisis Does

The church Providenciales will need cannot only respond to the crises already before us. It must also invest intentionally in young people before crisis begins shaping their future.

Too often, communities become most concerned about a young person after something has already gone wrong: after drugs have taken hold, after violence has occurred, after a child has disconnected from school or after a teenager has begun making choices that may follow them for years.

The church should be present much earlier. Music and culture could become especially powerful tools in this mission.

Imagine a National Youth Drum Corps Challenge, with young people representing Providenciales, Grand Turk, North Caicos, Middle Caicos and South Caicos. Churches could provide rehearsal space, mentors and volunteers. Businesses could sponsor drums, uniforms, transportation and instructors. Experienced musicians and worship leaders could teach students not only how to perform. Beyond that, students can learn how to grow in discipline, teamwork, confidence and pride in their island.

The Turks and Caicos Islands has already seen renewed interest in youth marching bands through school and police-supported programmes connected to the DARE programme. Similar community drum corps in the United States have also used marching music to give young people structure, teamwork, performance opportunities and a positive place to belong. Churches in Provo could help build on that kind of model by offering rehearsal space, mentors, volunteers and moral formation.

The church has a role to play in creating spaces for youth before the streets, drugs or harmful influences create alternatives.

The Church This Growing City Will Need

None of these programmes is the gospel itself.

A meal cannot forgive sin. A shelter cannot reconcile a person to God. A public statement on affordability cannot offer eternal life. A youth drum corps cannot replace the message of salvation through Jesus Christ.

But Christians who have received the mercy of Christ cannot remain indifferent to the suffering around them.

A meal prepared in love can open a relationship. A survivor protected in a moment of crisis can encounter the compassion of Christ through His people. A family helped through financial hardship can be reminded that they have not been forgotten. A child mentored consistently over time may one day ask why the church cared enough to remain present.

When those moments come, the church must be ready to speak of the Saviour whose love compelled it to serve.

The city Provo is becoming will need churches organised enough to feed families consistently, courageous enough to protect abuse survivors, bold enough to advocate for struggling households and wise enough to reach young people before crisis does.

When I was a child singing that they would know we are Christians by our love, I could not have understood all that love would require. But as Providenciales grows, that line feels less like a childhood memory and more like a question placed before the church.

Will our neighbours know us by our love?

The world already knows Providenciales for Grace Bay, luxury resorts and clear turquoise water. As this island continues to grow, may the people who call it home also come to know it as a place where the church did not stand at a distance from their pain.

May they be able to say that when Provo became more crowded, more costly and more complicated, the church became more present.