BUT A POOR REFLECTION: A living church is a caring church

Friday, June 01, 2007

A living church is a caring church

“According to UN statistics, the number of destitute people (who survive on less than 1 US dollar a day) is about 1,000 million, while the average number who die every day of hunger and hunger-related causes, is said to be about 24,000. How can we live with these statistics? Many of the poor are our brothers and sisters. The Holy Spirit gives his people a tender social conscience. So those of us who live in affluent circumstances must simplify our economic lifestyle – not because we imagine this will solve the world’s macro-economic problems, but out of solidarity with the poor.
So then a living church is a caring church. Generosity has always been a characteristic of the people of God. Our God is a generous God; his church must be generous too.”
John Stott in his 50th book: The Living Church – Convictions of a lifelong pastor

3 comments:

Art said...: This is a huge problem. I've read statistics that are even worse - that as many as 36000 die a day and 75% of them are under the age of 12.; 6/01/2007 6:14 pm
Carol Douglas said...: My daughters were certainly shocked by their trip to the Dominican Republic this spring. Although we’ve seen photos, they weren’t prepared to see children foraging in garbage dumps, families living in tin shacks, or people dying in moldy, unequipped hospitals.

They left here as typical American teenagers and came home with a far different idea of what is necessary for a happy life. Since that time, they’ve kept the goal of helping the Haitian refugees front and center in their mind.

This weekend we did a tag sale as a fundraiser to buy transfusion blood for the Dominican Republic. Our goal was $1200 (from reselling the detritus that collects in people’s attics, basements, etc.) I told my mother that the scale of need made me despair—we could work all weekend and then one person could bleed out that entire $1200 of blood. My mother (a retired nurse) exclaimed “But to save a life for $1200! That’s such a bargain!”

My Jewish neighbor elaborated with a quote from the Talmud: “To save one life is as if you have saved the world.”

We raised $1650 in three days. I can scarely believe it--keep thinking I've counted wrong. Praise God for His generosity and goodness!; 6/04/2007 1:11 pm
Paul said...: Great to hear this, Carol! Praise God!; 6/04/2007 2:54 pm

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God loves us

Have you ever wondered why God gives so much? We could exist on far less. He could have left the world flat and grey; we wouldn’t have known the difference. But he didn’t. He splashed orange in the sunrise and cast the sky in blue. And if you love to see geese as they gather, chances are you’ll see that too. Did he have to make the squirrel’s tail furry? Was he obliged to make the birds sing? And the funny way that chickens scurry or the majesty of thunder when it rings? Why give a flower fragrance? Why give food its taste? Could it be he loves to see that look upon your face?

Max Lucado - He Chose the Nails

Sadhu Sundar Singh

I do not condemn theologians wholesale, but it is unfortunately the fashion in Western thinking to doubt and deny everything. I protest this tendency. I never advise anyone to consult theologians, because all too often they have completely lost all sense of spiritual reality. They can explain Greek words and all that, but they spend too much time among their books and not enough time with the Master in prayer. It is not that I oppose all education, but education without life is certainly dangerous. You must stop examining spiritual truths like dry bones! You must break open the bones and take in the life-giving marrow.

Oswald Chambers

In the Bible clouds are always associated with God. Clouds are the sorrows, sufferings, or providential circumstances, within or without our personal lives, which actually seem to contradict the sovereignty of God. Yet it is through these very clouds that the Spirit of God is teaching us how to walk by faith. If there were never any clouds in our lives, we would have no faith. "The clouds are the dust of His feet" (Nahum 1:3). They are a sign that God is there. What a revelation it is to know that sorrow, bereavement, and suffering are actually the clouds that come along with God! God cannot come near us without clouds— He does not come in clear-shining brightness. (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, July 29th)