A Force For Good

Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

—James 2:15–17

For more than thirty years, our church has been giving food to families in immediate need all over our city. More than eight hundred volunteers serve regularly at the Care Center, walking families through the aisles, helping them choose bread and meat and vegetables that have been grown in our church’s Giving Garden.

Maybe it’s because I’m a food person. Maybe it’s because I’m a mom. Maybe it’s because I’ve volunteered at the Care Center and have looked into the eyes of moms just like me, moms who live in my town, who have come for groceries because without them they can’t feed their families. Whatever the reason, hunger moves me. It upsets me and makes me angry. It gets me all wound up and I want to make it right.

I want to make sure the kids I see at the Care Center always have full bellies, that the church community is meeting their needs in daily, practical, immediate ways. The church is at its best, in my view, when it is more than a set of ideas and ideals, when it is a working, living, breathing, on-the-ground, in-the-mess force for good in our cities and towns.