Important message given at Sept 16 meeting
A Great message.
Thank you to our speaker Pastor George Johnson who gave an insightful bible study on Luke 19:1-9 as an introduction to his Sept 16 talk. The story is familiar to most, so you’ll know that Zacchaeus sought out and personally encountered Jesus. Pastor Johnson urged participants to consider what Jesus might have said to Zacchaeus during their meeting that elicited Zacchaeus’ wildly generous response. We might not all respond as Zacchaeus did by donating half of everything we own to the poor and repaying four fold everything we have ever cheated out of people, but George did give us some suggestions of how we can grow as disciples of Christ, and respond to the world’s poor.
What you can do I
In response to extreme poverty, George urged a Zacchaeus 3-5-1 reaction:-
3 - Choose 3 countries of the world now suffering from extreme poverty, one in Africa, one in Asia and one in Latin America. Study them, raise awareness in your congregation or among your friends and share information about the root causes of poverty, poverty statistics and poverty-related assistance programs in the area. Pray specifically and purposefully for the needs in those areas.
5 - Encourage at least 5% of your congregation or group to join Bread for the World, a Christian citizen’s movement focusing on advocacy for the hungry and increased awareness of root causes of hunger. You can find Bread for the World at www.bread.org.
1 - Give an additional 1% of your income to poverty related aid through any organization of your choice. This is intended to be in addition to your regular tithing.
Move along the continuum.
Pastor Johnson clearly expressed the goal of Christians Ending Poverty by describing what we need to do with a visual image. The image of teaching a man to fish instead of just handing a man a fish is well-known. Pastor Johnson urged us to go further; we must move over in the pond to give the man opportunity to fish. This is what Christians Ending Poverty is about: encouraging and empowering Christians to “move over in the pond”.
Christians Ending Poverty will be focussing on how to “move over in the pond” at the next meeting when we hear from the experiences of David Costillo of World Relief. That meeting will be held Oct. 28th.
