I think one of the great travesties of our faith communities is that we far too often turn our focus inward to ourselves rather than outward to the great many people who need our assistance out there in the secular world. ... Out beyond the double doors that grace the fronts of our beautiful churches.
But instead, we make our focus the activities that take place for a couple of hours on Sunday morning and Wednesday evening, putting us in danger of essentially creating a weekly social club that gathers to hear about how God loves them. In other words, our focus becomes our own salvation rather than what Jesus taught us our focus should be: Our neighbors who we need to clothe, house and feed!
This problem is exacerbated in our places of worship that reside in communities where we know little want. After all, if you look out your windows, and you don't see those who are unhoused, or those who are going hungry, or those who are naked ... then how is one to understand the vast need that exists in the broader world?
So, if the environment around us makes us blind to the need, then we must be intentional about breaking ourselves out of our comfortable worshiping rituals with a commitment to mission. Mission in all of its forms, whether its fundraising to help send missionaries overseas, helping to clothe those in our neighborhoods who are naked, caring for those around us who are homebound ... or even working to feed those who might live halfway around the world and having nothing to eat.
Our church's youth group participated in a Feed My Starving Children MobilePack this week, and I was pleased to see a group of 17 people, including students, parents and some volunteers from the parish, turn out to be God's hands and feet.
If you're unfamiliar with Feed My Starting Children, here's a quick primer: According to its website, Feed My Starving Children is a Christian nonprofit dedicated to "seeing every child whole in body and spirit." Founded 30 years ago in Minnesota, FMSC works with food distribution partners around the world that stay active in communities for the long term, "empowering them to move from relief to development."
FMSC has several permanent packing sites that operate year round at which volunteers come to fill bags with rice, dried vegetable and protein powder, a scientifically balanced nutritional meal. The organization also hosts mobile packs such as the one that was happening in our community. In these events, local volunteers work for months to secure a host facility, raise donations and garner volunteers to turn up and work to fill the food kits.
This was our community's 10th anniversary of hosting the FMSC event, and so organizers wanted to celebrate by making a huge impact. The local team set the goal of packing 10 million food kits over its week and half run. Feed My Starving Children Creative and Content Manager Julie Smith said Fargo's celebratory anniversary pack is the largest event the organization has ever run.
Before the event got started, FMSC workers and local volunteers shared a host of information with the approximately 3,000 volunteers who turned up for a Wednesday night packing shift. Not surprisingly given that it was Wednesday, a good chunk of those volunteering belonged to church groups.
The site organizer shared with us that a ton of facts about how enormous the problem of food scarcity is around the world, but these are the ones that stuck out to me:
1 in 9 children around the world today will go hungry, meaning that they will not have food to eat.
Every year, millions of children die from preventable causes such pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria and undernutrition.
And hunger is still causing nearly half of deaths in children under 5 years old, meaning that at least 6,200 children die each day from causes related to undernutrition.
Just think about that! That is the equivalent of 85 school buses full of children who die every single day from a cause that entirely preventable. All we have to do is feed them, and this number will drop precipitously.
There's enough data out there to remind us that there is more than enough food grown and/or made in the world to feed everyone. But greed, politics and a lack of will power prevent millions of people around the globe from receiving the food they need to live.
Anyone who professes to be faithful should be troubled by this knowledge. And this is why we must turn our focuses from what's happening inside the walls of our churches, to what's happening in the greater world. And, if that in fact means we do less in our church so that we can do more outside of our church, then I'd say that Jesus would say, "Right on!"
I'm not sure how the other 16 people volunteering under our church's banner felt after we finished our two hour shift at the food packing event. After all, the Feed My Starving Children staff run an entertaining event, during which rock music blares over the loud speakers and friendly competitions between packing stations keep people energized and enthusiastic. So given that the event is made to be enjoyable, a feel good get together, I worry that the larger point of our service that night was lost on the vast majority of people who participated.
After all, it's easy to give up a couple of hours on a Wednesday night -- especially if you're getting out of confirmation class! -- to pack a few thousand meals for people you'll never see. It allows us to feel good about being Christian, while not costing us a big personal investment.
Please don't misunderstand me: Mission work like the Feed My Starving Children events is vital to those who are the recipients. I don't think any hungry kid receiving a meal will care that those who packed it were attending a party.
However, I also fear that it also allows a "Get Out of Jail Free" card as well. If I go to this entertaining volunteer event and give my two hours, it'll make me feel good about the other 364 days of the year during which I don't volunteer to help others at all.
That's not what our faith is supposed to be about, and that's not the model that Jesus demonstrated for us.
Rather, given the faith that we profess, we are obligated to live a life of service every day of the week, looking to assist our neighbors whenever we come across a situation calling for our help.
Our church group had a great time Wednesday night when we volunteered; and we did God's work preparing vital meals that will contribute to keeping at least a few hundred people fed in the coming year.
But the pastor's heart in me also hopes that there were a few people out of the 3,000 volunteers who showed up at the packing event who were moved enough to carry through with assisting their neighbors each and every day going forward. ... Amen.
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