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Waiting for Water

 

The Bible’s Repeated Calls to Care for the Poor

I have made a commitment to read through the texts of scripture in my devotional life, taking careful note of the Bible’s repeated calls to care for the poor.  I will also want to read several books each year by authors who help inform me on the needs of the poor and prepare me to be more responsive to them. 

The Gospel’s Call

After being a part of a tele-conference study on global poverty with men from around the country, I have come to better appreciate the fact that poverty is an issue that many thoughtful Christians truly do care about.  But we need to take time in our schedules to deliberately think about the conditions of poverty, if we are to be mindful of the Gospel’s call.  The developed western world has been buffered from views of abject poverty, and we seldom confront the realities of poor children being raised in communities caught in endless cycles of desperate poverty.  Our day to day life is often sanitized and separated from the despair of poverty.  Taking time to consciously commit to concentrated reflections on the needs of the poor and the commands of God—and doing this together with other Christians—is a vital way to stir my soul from the doldrums of unintended apathy, and make me more aware of the Spirit’s stirring.

Happy New Year

I would greatly appreciate your prayers as I prepare to head out to Africa on January 7^th.  Joy to you and yours in the New Year!

Church and Work

It’s been a rather peculiar feeling not preaching weekly on Sunday mornings, but it’s been great to sit back and listen to someone else share from the Bible.  We look forward to getting more involved in church community life in the year ahead.  For now, all my time and energy has been focused on helping raise the resources to support education for God’s beloved poor in Africa and Latin America.  I will be heading to Africa in January to work with several of our 100 schools in the nation of Ghana. 

Empowering the Poor through Loans

Iqbal Quadir provides a good description of the difference between giving aid that empowers authorities and more empowering development through loans.

http://www.ted.com/talks/iqbal_quadir_says_mobiles_fight_poverty.html

End of the Year Giving

I hope you had a joy-filled Christmas.  As a pastor, I always had people calling me on the last few days of the year, wanting to discuss an end of the year donation.  You can always feel free to call and discuss our latest work at Edify.  Also, if you have family and friends who are thinking about an end of the year donation that will have a world impact, please encourage them to consider joining us at Edify.

Joy to the World

 

It’s Christmas

What can we Hope for here?
 
More light than we can learn,
More strength than we can treasure,
More love than we can earn,
More peace than we can measure.
Because one child is born.
(poet, Christopher Fry)

A Quality Christ-Centered Education
Is the Gift We Give
Throughout the Year

Merry Christmas

Thank you for your donations.

Working and Eating

^“Lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth.” (Proverbs 10:4 NIV)

The Bible says that people have the responsibility to work if they are to eat.  There are a good number of proverbs that suggest if you play and seek constant pleasure with no regard for work, then you cannot expect to have the resources necessary to take care of yourself.  These are wonderful verses to teach our children.  These verses are a great basic guide to show us the natural cause and effect of labor and resources.  Yet in a broken and sinful world, the natural cause and effect process of working, and then eating, is often broken down.  Work can’t be found.  When work is found, a living wage is not paid. 

There are plenty of people living high on the hog in the developed world who don’t work very much at all.  On the other hand, there are some in impoverished communities who work very hard and still starve.  There are some who read verses in the Bible like Proverbs 10:4, and they say that poverty is the fault of the poor.  “If the poor were only willing to work, they would have the resources to live,” they say.  “The reason for poverty is laziness.”

I think it behooves us who have the resources, to at least invest in the poor enough so that they have the resources available to work.  If people are willing to work, but do not have the education or the capital to advance beyond grinding generational poverty, then we who love Jesus and who want to participate in the Kingdom of God should help the poor have the resources to WORK.

A Disturbing Statistic

A statistic that disturbs me is the massive consumption in the developed world.  We consume 76.5% of the world’s resources, even though we are only 20% of the population.  This disturbs me because I don’t think there is anything inherent in me that should allow me such an unbalanced benefit.  It’s not because I work any harder.  I am just a part of the system that has dominated economically.