Churches get reputations.
Some churches are known for their sense of community. Congregations that focus on friendship are fun — lots of parties, traditions and food.
People in these churches tend to weigh more. We gain weight at potluck dinners. People who think they are funny love these churches. Friendly people will laugh at their attempts at humor, even when they fall short of actually being funny.
We need conversation. We need a chance to talk and listen. We need friendships we would not have without the church, friends who are older and younger, and friends who grew up far from where we are from.
Brett Younger
We need people to invite to the movies, the ballgame, the restaurant. Our country has an epidemic of loneliness. These congregations are important because we need friends.
We need churches that are good at community.
Some churches are known for their educational programs. Congregations that focus on learning are stimulating — book groups, classes, lectures, discussions and liga elinika sto kerygma pou kai pou, a little Greek in the sermon now and then.
People in these churches enjoy being in the know. Clever people love congregations that encourage cleverness, even when a comment is not quite as clever as the speaker thinks: “That’s an interesting way of looking at it.”
We need to ask questions. We need to debate. We need a chance to share what we are thinking and hear what others are thinking. We need to learn from people we would not know without the church — those with other educational backgrounds, opinions and ideas far from our own. Our country has a shaky relationship with science and knowledge.
We need churches that take education seriously because people need to learn.
Some churches are known for their worship. Congregations that focus on worship take faith, God and being serious seriously. We love music and silence. We love the Gloria and the Doxology. We love Advent and Easter.
When we sing, we feel God with us. When we pray, we feel hope. When we confess, we open our hearts. When we give, we share who we are. When we listen, we hear the Spirit.
“A few churches are known for the way they care for hungry children.”
We need worship because life is hard, because our culture pushes us to selfishness and because our souls can feel empty. We need to share our lives with God. We need to love God and one another. We need to think beyond ourselves.
Worship leads to real purpose, a broader perspective and a presence bigger than we are. Worship invades our every day and helps us recognize intimations of the divine.
We need churches that prioritize worship.
A few churches are known for the way they care for hungry children. These churches seem radical. They serve God by caring for God’s most vulnerable children. They get upset and angry, not about trivialities, but about the deaths of infants. These congregations love their neighbors as themselves — even when those neighbors are far away.
Churches that care for the hungry worry about the poor more than the rich, needy children more than wealthy adults and underprivileged strangers more than privileged members. Churches that care for the hungry do not get stuck in a predictable routine of policies, programs, buildings and budgets. We seek God’s agenda and not our own. We shape our lives according to Jesus’ teachings. We follow Christ by feeding God’s children. We feel the world’s brokenness, but we also feel God’s love.
We need churches that care for those who are hungry.
“They did not have a hunger committee. They had a hunger church.”
We need churches that feed starving children, like Christ’s church. The first church stood against the empire and lived with Jesus’ radical ideas. They assumed God’s church would share God’s priorities. They did not have a hunger committee. They had a hunger church. They looked for people who needed the church.
The first church would be shocked to learn that many churches have stopped caring for the hungry.
The British Red Cross estimates 2 million people in Gaza face extreme hunger, with 470,000 on the brink of mass starvation and preventable deaths. UNICEF reports that more than 320,000 children under 5 are at risk of acute malnutrition. More than one in three people (39%) are going days at a time without eating. Adults there regularly skip meals to feed children.
Aid agencies are treating tens of thousands of emaciated children in Gaza. Starvation is accelerating at a catastrophic pace. The United Nations World Food Program, to which our church gave our World Hunger Day offering, has tried desperately to draw attention to the urgent need for a full-scale humanitarian response given the escalating hunger-related deaths, rapidly worsening levels of malnutrition and plummeting levels of food consumption.
“We might disagree on the reasons for this tragedy, but one thing is certain: The children who are suffering are not to blame.”
Hunger is claiming lives every day.
Gaza is filled with children with wasted bodies, babies dying from hunger and parents arriving at clinics hoping for something to feed their children. We might disagree on the reasons for this tragedy, but one thing is certain: The children who are suffering are not to blame.
There is no time to lose. Without increased food aid, famine will spread and more will die. More food will save more lives.
Most of us did not join the church because we want to give our money away, but we have to admit that in the Bible the church is far more concerned for the hungry than for the other issues to which Christians tend to give their attention.
Anne Frank writes: “Hunger is not a problem. It is an obscenity. How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
We can be Christ’s church in this moment. We can be the people who care for the hungry. We can be radicals.
Brett Younger serves as senior minister at Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, N.Y.