Be a helping hand
I went to a meeting today where I heard a guy speak about the churches role in reaching out to those in need. He spoke about a movement within our family of churches called Jubilee Plus this is a movement that has a strap line ‘Where Justice meets Mercy’.
I was inspired on several levels really:
- It caused me to think what am I doing as an individual to help the people around me that need support and physical assistance within Hereford
- It challenged me to start thinking about what are we doing and need to do as a church to support our community
The guy talked about the various projects that are happening around the country and from his Church in Shrewsbury. He challenged us to use our resource to help the community regardless of whether people come along to church and get saved.
This excited me, many people looking from the outside in think that we have an ulterior motive when it comes to helping the poor or running projects that reach the community. This can happen for many reasons, lack of communication, misunderstanding and in some cases because some Christians hide who they are and their motives. We as Christians should help our communities regardless of whether they come to Christ or not.
Of course the central theme of our belief is that we believe in the good news of Jesus Christ and this is something that we want to share with others if and when they want to hear it and we have a basic human right to invite people to hear about Jesus as much as they have a right to refuse.
But regardless of all of this Jesus calls us to love our neighbour and this is something that I want to explore more and more.
How can I be a blessing to my neighbor? What are the needs in my community that can get met by me and my fellow believers?
