And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ (Matthew 25:40).
As did the world in biblical times, the city communities today have many people with many needs. All those with needs around us are our neighbors, whom Jesus commanded we love as we love ourselves. It may well be that many churches, community partners, and volunteers in your city want to show the love and compassion of Jesus by helping to meet the needs of the people around them.
Where Can Those in Need Go for Help?
Our experience shows, however, that people with particular needs often don’t know where to go for help. We also know that many caring individuals would like to volunteer their assistance in some way but aren’t aware of local organizations to which they might give their time and talents. Further, sometimes local groups might miss opportunities to work together because they are not aware of each others’ activities.
We believe it is important to raise awareness of the types of care available by various organizations in your city. This helps those in need to get help more easily. It also helps those providing care to attract volunteers and to more efficiently use their resources as they discover opportunities to work together with similar care providers.
How Can You Help?
In your city, each church pastor certainly must meet the needs of their own congregation. Concurrently, however, the Light of the World Foundation also is challenging churches in each American city to show more outward evidence that churches and social services are working together in unity in reaching out to love their neighbors.
For starters, we encourage churches in your city identify a leader who will facilitate coordination meetings among churches, non-profit organizations, and city officials, to identify key programs and services being provided to those in need in the area. This can lead to the development of a single document describing all the services being provided for those in need.
Here’s an example of a single document provided by one city, Bowie, Maryland (We Care Bowie Brochure). These coordination meetings and key program/services leaders will not only help create the important single reference document of services but also provide a framework for creating, maintaining, and unifying relationships among city churches, as well as with government and social services.
We hope taking a similar initiative can help your city’s churches show evidence that they can work together, along with non-profits and government services, to answer Jesus’ call to care for the ‘least of these’ and provide a powerful Christian witness.
Demonstrating practical CARE for people is an important step to being “the Light of the World”.