Deeper than a Warm Handshake, Bigger than a Monthly Check

On the church and our ministry to the poor, Tim Chester and Steve Timmis write:

“The best thing we can do for the poor is offer them a place of welcome and community. Our first priority in social involvement is to be the church, a community of welcome to, and inclusion of, the marginalized. This needs to go deeper than a warm handshake at the door.” (Total Church, p. 81)

I like that. Now, if we include the orphans in our city and around the world in our understanding of the “poor” this word is also just as applicable. The best thing we can do for them is to be the church – a community that embraces them as God embraces us as spiritual orphans. And, this needs to go deeper than a monthly check overseas or a yearly visit to the orphanage in Mexico (though these are good and necessary). This must also involve moving overseas to give our lives for the older orphans, empowering the indiginous church, mentoring foster kids aging out of the system, adoption, and a hundred other creative and necessary ways of embracing them with the love of Christ.