As the director of a community center in one of the smallest neighborhoods in New Orleans, I often heard residents call Hollygrove-Dixon “the forgotten neighborhood.” Just a mile from Celebration Church’s main campus, it was largely unnoticed — until our church began to prayerfully look beyond its own walls.
When God opened our eyes to this nearby community, everything changed. What once was overlooked became a ministry hub — a living example of how prayer and vision can turn forgotten places into spaces of hope. Without that shift, many families’ needs might have gone unseen, and countless opportunities for ministry would have been missed.
Alan Delery
It was from this deeply local perspective that I found myself facing an unexpected challenge: An invitation to travel to Washington, D.C., to advocate for global health aid, particularly in Africa.
This opportunity came through The ONE Campaign, a global movement uniting people of faith and conscience to fight extreme poverty and preventable disease. ONE invited me to join their 50 State Faith Fly-In, where faith leaders from across the country met with members of Congress to advocate for continued U.S. support for life-saving programs.
As someone who leads the “We Care” campaign for community renewal in New Orleans, I’ve always emphasized loving our neighbors right next door. So when the opportunity came to speak up for neighbors half a world away, I wondered: Was I drifting from my mission?
After prayer and a conversation with my pastor, I sensed God’s nudge to go. So I left my neighborhood to walk the halls of power in our nation’s capital — right in the middle of a government shutdown — to speak up for continued funding of global health programs.
It sounded crazy. But the more I thought about it, the more it sounded like something God would do.
God always has had sights on the whole world, not just one slice of it. God’s mission never has been an either/or — it’s a both/and.
On the first day of the Fly-In, the first words I heard came from the same Scripture that drives the Justice and Unity Team I co-lead back home. Psalm 89:14 says: “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne. Unfailing love and truth walk before you as attendants.” Bono continued by saying, “God is with the vulnerable and poor.”
Hearing the same value of the Justice and Unity Team of Celebration Church repeated at this Faith Summit meeting, I was reminded we are all deeply interconnected — bound by the same Creator, placed on the same planet, called to the same mission to love our neighbor.
Exactly one year before that day, I had been standing at the entrance of a church in Kenya, learning about their ministry to orphans and widows. At Echoes of Mercy, I listened as they described the ongoing impact of HIV/AIDS and other health crises. My wife and I met two orphaned children there and decided to sponsor them, helping to provide housing and education.
So when I later stood on Capitol Hill advocating for programs like PEPFAR (the U.S. program that funds HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention), Gavi (the vaccine alliance), and the Global Fund (a partnership fighting AIDS, TB and malaria) — which have helped save more than 70 million lives — I carried those children’s faces in my heart.
“I carried those children’s faces in my heart.”
That’s when it became clear: Caring for our neighbors isn’t a choice between local and global. It’s both. God’s command to love our neighbor doesn’t come with borders.
At Celebration Church, our mission giving reflects that conviction. We support local ministries and global missionaries alike. The Great Commission calls us to proclaim the gospel and to demonstrate God’s love in tangible ways — spiritually and physically.
I also believe this call to care extends beyond the church. When nations invest in compassion and justice — when they help preserve the dignity and health of others — they align, whether knowingly or not, with the heartbeat of God. The church and the state can, at their best, work together to touch the lives of the hurting and suffering.
At times, my promotion of justice and unity has been questioned — especially in today’s polarized climate. Yet what I witnessed during the Faith Fly-In was genuine unity: a nonpartisan gathering of believers who shared one mission: to love their neighbor.
This unity wasn’t political. It was spiritual. It was a reminder that when we care for others — whether across the street or across the ocean — we are participating in God’s redemptive work in the world.
So, how far does our care go?
It goes as far as God leads it. It stretches from New Orleans to Nairobi, from Capitol Hill to your own street corner.
When we are close to the heartbeat of God, our care knows no borders.
May we, as a nation and as the people of God, continue to stay close to that heartbeat.
Alan Delery serves as director of the Life Transformation Community Center in the Hollygrove-Dixon neighborhood of New Orleans and as a local missions leader at Celebration Church. He participated in The ONE Campaign’s 2025 Faith 50-State Faith Fly-In, advocating for global health and poverty relief.