All week long, state employees in Little Rock, Ark., call the church for help. In fact, at the First Church of God, secretary Linda McConnell talks six or seven times a day with Felicia Lovelace-Alexander, supervisor for the Department of Human Services in Pulaski County, southwest office.

"Even though people thought that a faith-based organization and a bureaucracy could not work [together], it has worked," says Felicia. The two women are part of a larger partnership between the government and the church. Through welfare reform, American government has opened wide a window to the church, encouraging--even pleading for--ministry to the poor.

President Clinton signed the landmark reform bill in August of 1996, declaring an end to welfare as it had been known. The bipartisan bill left specific details to state governments, but announced that welfare assistance would now come with a time limit, at which point recipients would be cut off from assistance forever. The bill specifically aims to return people to work, and enlists the help of faith-based organizations to accomplish this task. "If it doesn't work now," said the President when he signed the bill, "it's everybody's fault--mine, yours and everybody else's. There is no longer a system in the way."

The President is not passing the buck; he's reinstating the roles. "Government was never intended to provide for everyone's basic needs," explains Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. "It was intended to protect people so they could provide for themselves. Government would never have gotten into the welfare business if churches had been churches."

Essentially, Hope Center takes the place of a job for the women over the next six weeks. They report to First Church of God at 9 a.m., stay until 2 p.m., and participate in a class ranging from five to 15 people. DHS pays for child care, since most participants are single mothers, and Hope Center teaches them things like grocery-shopping secrets ("Cut coupons and stick to your list"), how to build a wardrobe on a budget and how to interview for a job. The first week, women learn makeup tips for the workplace and are treated to a makeover.

But every week, the Hope Center schedules a time of worship and a presentation of Jesus' eternal forgiveness of sin. That's the amazing part: DHS doesn't mind. So long as clients can participate without being forced to convert, the government will continue to refer people to the program.

At graduation, the women receive a certificate of accomplishment from the mayor or mayor's representative, and the Hope Center adds a promise to stand alongside the graduate for one additional year through a mentorship program. Since Hope Center started in July 1997, nearly 100 women have graduated.

Women like Yolanda Ewing. The 26-year-old single mother of three was on welfare for four years. She graduated from the Hope Center, and today she works at a day-care center, teaching 17 toddlers about shapes, colors, and the days of the week. But before she started teaching the basics to children, the Hope Center taught her some basic life skills.

"The Hope Center, from what I've seen and heard, is a success," says Helen Webb, DHS supervisor in Pulaski County, south office. Helen herself is not a churchgoer, but she's worked in government for 17 years. And she's impressed: "This is better than anything we've ever had. Going out and seeing what those people [at Hope Center and the southwest DHS office] were doing, I just wanted one for us."

Paul Shackleford helped Helen get her wish. Paul is the Little Rock director for Here's Life Inner City, Campus Crusade's inner-city ministry. Struck by welfare-to-work's obvious opportunity for evangelism and discipleship among the unchurched, Paul, who also serves on the advisory board of the Hope Center, began networking with area pastors and helping other churches develop programs like the Hope Center.

After meeting with Helen several times in the south office of DHS, Paul connected her with pastor Mark Evans at The Church at Rock Creek. That was the beginning of another church and state partnership: Helen's office referred 17 women to Pastor Evans' first class last October, and 13 graduated.

Paul also motivated pastor D.L. Richardson of First Baptist Church to start a welfare-to-work program over the river in North Little Rock. Church and state make a surprising pair, yes, but in North Little Rock, welfare-to-work has also unified races: Pastor Richardson's church works together with pastor Hardy Powers at First Church of the Nazarene. The two churches, one largely African-American, the other mostly Caucasian, pool their people, skills and resources to create an evangelistic welfare-to-work program that crosses racial lines.

All of these programs are self-funded, even though welfare reform law allows for government funding. "Let's be the guys who do it for free," says Paul. "And the fact of the matter is, we've been mandated by the Word of God to do it anyway."

Ted Gandy, national director of Here's Life Inner City, hopes that people will see the opportunity and start a program through their own church: "I feel the key is not that a few organizations develop huge programs, but that churches work with small numbers of people. We need to get tens of thousands of churches involved."

Involvement requires commitment. Not all the participants will appreciate the program, particularly at first. During the second class in North Little Rock, one woman complained that the class was just a waste of time since she will probably get laid off of her job after graduating. That would put her back on welfare again, back where she started. "Most of them feel they don't need this and that it is just a part of the system. It's understandable," says Bruce Patterson, who directs the North Little Rock program. "We have to focus on doing the will of God."

Organizers of these programs often have to return to God's initial call because the visible rewards appear slim. "We would love to tell you that it is all wonderful after six weeks, but it is not," explains Joan Adcock, who helped start the Hope Center and co-directs it with Linda McConnell. "These are lives. Some of these women are 30 and 35 years old, and they didn't get here overnight."

Neither will the solution arrive overnight, which is why long-term mentorship plays such an important role. Getting hired comes easy after the six weeks of classes, but staying hired requires life changes, which a mentor can help develop. "Some of our women," says Joan, "have never lived in a home where anyone gets up in the morning and goes to work."

Even a year after graduating, Hope Center graduate Marlene Sanchez still sounds surprised by the faithfulness of her mentor, Linda. "It ain't just after you go through this class that they forget about you. It ain't like that," says the single mother of two, dramatically shaking her shortly-coiffed head. "They constantly on you. It was something they didn't have to do; they wanted to. And regardless of race!"

Most everyone balances the success of the program on the availability of mentors. "Mentors help lead them in making decisions by asking a question that needs to be asked and make them think," explains Helen Webb. "I believe there's enough people out there that care about America that can do this. Maybe we'll have to go outside the church."

That's exactly what worries Ted Gandy the most: "My fear is that the church will miss this opportunity. In doing so, other groups--the Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Farrakhan--will swoop in and take advantage of something God has prepared for the church.

"God has gone to such incredible lengths to provide a situation so the church can just grab this thing and respond," Ted explains. "For us not to take that up [would] be a tragedy of the century."