Richard Stearns' award-winning book The Hole in Our Gospel revealed that our nation’s churches, though the wealthiest on the planet, devote on average less than one-tenth of 1% of their annual budgets to helping the millions of people around the world who are trapped in extreme poverty. Lazarus is indeed lying at our gate, and like the rich man, we the Church are passing him by. Yet throughout God’s Word, central to our churches and worship, we are repeatedly told of God’s desire for His people to be agents of justice and mercy and care in a hurting world! David Platt, in his book Radical Together, poses a simple but profound question for our churches: “Amid all the good things we are doing and planning, are there better ways to align with God’s Word, mobilize God’s people, and marshal God’s resources for God’s glory in a world where millions of people are starving and more than a billion have never even heard of Jesus?”
The biblical mandate to help the poor and oppressed applies to Christ's followers, both individually and collectively. The call to intentional sacrifice, to pick up our cross and follow Him, must certainly apply as much to our churches as it does to each of us as individuals. Should not we Christians, and our churches, be at the very forefront of doing justice, mercy, and care among the world’s least and last?
This apparent indifference (<1/10 of 1%!!!) deforms our discipleship, compromises the integrity, relevance, and reputation of our churches, and is a profoundly negative witness to a watching world. As Mark Labberton writes in The Dangerous Act of Worship, “Meanwhile our suffering world waits for signs of God on earth... God’s plan is that we, the church, are to be the primary evidence of God’s presence.” When America's Christians and their churches, by far the wealthiest on the planet, turn their backs on the least and last, a watching world tragically equates the Church’s indifference with God’s...
Surely, we can do better than this!