Care for Others (Other Parts of Our Program)

Our program for this year includes not only the daily Bible reading and Sunday morning classes, but it also has other components, one of which is to serve others. Our group does this in several ways, the most direct being our regular ministry to bake cookies for and serve at our local soup kitchen every few weeks. That serves people in our immediate community, but then we also take part in two activities to serve the broader global community - the CROP walk in the fall and our 30 Hour Famine in the spring.

Why is this important? Well, God has been urging us to do this since the early parts of the Bible. In Deuteronomy 10, we are told to fear the Lord and walk in his ways and it goes on to describe that caring for the "aliens among us" is one way to do that. (No, not little green men, but here Aliens refers to the poor, those less fortunate than us, perhaps immigrants.) Throughout the Gospels, Jesus tells us to care for the poor as well.

But there's another reason (not that we need one). Providing care for each other is a basic human need... yes we NEED to care for others. Empathy (feeling with people in their pain, rather than sympathy, feeling for them) is a key emotion and a big part of the human experience. It's natural for us to feel empathy if a family member or close friend is in pain. God is simply asking us to expand that to those outside our close circle. So we inclue opportunities to serve all of humanity in response to our need and to God's call.