MATHEW 25:31-45
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
How Churches are helping people and to illustrate that here are selections from various articles on the site as to what they are doing:
Our community is hurting and we’ve got to do things to help our community.” To that end one of their major community pushes is a food bank that they do there called “Food Help”. Four years ago they started it on Saturdays but it has grown to where they are feeding about 70 families a week with each family limited to coming once a month. They figure they touch the lives of over a thousand people every month. They have just received a container that they can put freezers in to store perishable food. A lot of the food consists of fresh fruits and vegetables. They have a connection with a larger food bank in Bell and so are able to obtain those fruits and vegetables that are hard for people to get. Since the food banks are stocked from donations they can’t really anticipate what they will have on hand but the local churches around also help out with can food drives but of course their big push is to obtain fresh and healthy food to give out. This is brought in every Friday for distribution on Sunday. It is a blessing for the community and one of the ways they are becoming more and more known.
Christie brings more of an active and proactive sense to the church. Emily again, “One of the things that this church has always been good about is helping others. We raised money for Katrina and Earthquake relief in Haiti and whatever else is going on.” Recently they had their third annual 5K walk/run benefit to raise money for community and world-wide needs. Christie is also very concerned with the environment and using our resources wisely and they are starting a community clothing drive under her direction.
The Moravian Church of Downey concerned about people, families and the world - Long Beach christian history | Examiner.com
We have actually been very deliberate in this congregation about not giving out direct aid. We use other agencies for that. Philosophically this congregation has been very active in starting ministries in this town. One has been the food bank and the other is called the GreenassistanceCenter and at one time was called the Green Interface. It is now housed where the homeless center is housed but we also helped start the homeless center. So we started the food bank and the homeless shelter and we also were instrumental in starting the habitat for humanity. So, we fund those agencies to do the work that we think is important and we wish that all churches would get involved that way instead of each church trying to give out a little bit themselves.
The real problem is that if each church is doing something there are people who learn to work that system and so they never move on in their lives. They are always dependent on help from the churches. We think that it is important to push people to change that from dependency to independency. That is the goal of the homeless shelter. The homeless shelter really works with people. It’s not called homeless shelter but goes under the title of Greenville Community Shelters. There is transitional housing and they teach people how to be self sufficient. At one time there was the belief that homeless people were homeless because they chose to be homeless. It turns out that‘s not true. When I was working in Charleston, South Carolina with the homeless shelter there that was the philosophy that “homeless people were homeless by choice so we’ll let them stay for 30 days and then they move on.” That was 12 or 14 years ago. I think we’ve learned a lot since then. There are some chronically homeless people who will never be anything other and part of that is because of the depopulation of the state mental facilities. People have been put out on the street who have no business being on the street or are not capable of controlling their own medications.
That has been the mood and so you’ve got different groups of people. You’ve got the working poor who go to the homeless shelter. You’ve got the chronically unemployable who just can’t seem to learn how to keep a job. Then you’ve got people who really ought to be under some supervision. I think that one of the things we are looking out in Greenville is doing the housing of people who need to be checked on daily to insure they are taking their medication. When I was at Clover, South Carolina we had a unit like that built. It housed twenty people that were in little efficiency apartments and a nurse came by every day to make sure they took their medication. It was a way of making sure that it happened. As far as I know there isn’t anything like that in Greenville. That kind of opportunity really makes a lot of difference. There are people who could function well in society if they could control their medication. It is important that they maintain their meds. That is one of the things that churches have not been good at.
Caring for people who need their medications are somewhat ignored. We do well with homeless people and we do well with building habitat houses and we do well collecting food but dealing with people with mental illness is not something churches do well. I don’t think this is deliberate but really think it is something we need to look at in Greenville. The question seems to be what part falls on the state and what part falls on the churches.
St. Timothy's Episcopal Church in Greenville, North Carolina interview with Pastor Mimi Lacy - Long Beach christian history | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/christian-history-in-long-beach/st-timothy-s-episcopal-church-greenville-north-carolina-interview-with-pastor-mimi-lacy-1#ixzz1n9lxmdVG
What do I like about this church? I like that it is an easy going crowd and pretty low key. They’ve been open to change. I made quite a few changes when I came in and they’ve just rolled with it. They are very open to new ideas and when I read an article in the Raleigh paper about community gardens in churches and spoke to the wardens, who are the two lay leaders, and the vestry which is the lay board within the church they were enthusiastic and the vestry said, “Let’s go!”. We got a committee together and from our community garden we’ve given away hundreds of pounds of fresh produce this summer which is our first year.
But they were open to that. We’ve given produce to soup kitchens in town and they got a lot of vegetable soups with all of that. There is a First 4 Ministry group that comes in every other Saturday and picks up produce. They have done searching out venues where they can give it away. Sometimes we just bring it in and for a couple of bucks you can pick some up and then the money goes into the outreach project. By outreach I mean the things you do for the people beyond your church. The church really exists for the people who don’t belong. Outreach then is what we give out for the benefit of others. We get to give out a lot of the stuff we grow and if someone who wasn’t part of the Garden Committee wanted to throw a couple of bucks in to take produce home that money, as little as it is, adds up and goes back into the outreach fund.
From the very beginning we have done what we call the “Lobster Fair” and were the first in the area to do it. They ship in live Maine lobsters and sell them. They had crabs and a bake sale and you know how things grow over the years. They used it to fund their operating budget because they were building all of these buildings and it helped. We still do a lobster fair in October and while we don’t sell as many lobsters as we used to because the idea has caught on with other organizations but we still sell about 1200. We also have crafts and music and this year all of these events have raised between $14,000 and $15,000 dollars and it all goes to outreach. Locally we support the Joy Soup Kitchen, The Greenville Community Shelter and there are a lot of local things. We give to the emergency assistance funds and it also finances the rector’s discretionary fund.
The Rector’s Discretionary Fund is the money I have so that if someone comes in and this morning a woman came in who needed $140 for her utility bill or she wasn’t going to be able to have any electricity. It’s called Rector’s Discretionary because it is at my discretion as to where it goes. It all goes to rents and utilities and car insurance for people who can’t pay. We never give cash to a person. We may give them a gift card for Target or Wal-Mart or may actually pay the utility company or landlord or car insurance place to try and help people out.
We planted a couple of trees and gradually developed an avenue where we could build some houses. In 1985 Reagan was president and he came up with tax credits so we applied for tax credits and were one of the first to use tax credits to build affordable housing. That’s how we got it. We have 112 units and to my knowledge this is the only place in the whole city of Riverside that has its own senior housing. We rent to anyone over 55 years old. My dad had a vision and as you know when black folks get old they can’t rent property because they can shut us down so we needed a place where they can live comfortably. That was our original goal but now we have 1/3rd white, 1/3rd brown and 1/3rd black. Now we have Victoria Manor on Victoria Avenue.
What do I think is my most important aspect in being a pastor? The people! Not only just ministering to people but as you know the economy has its effect upon people and upon families. Families are really being stretched right now and they need that spiritual guidance. They need someone there and they need that rock there to help them navigate these times. As a result my calling and my passion is people. I love people. In our ministry we have minister to those who are in need. We have a very powerful ministry and each Sunday morning we have services here but we also have services in a park. That is for those who are the homeless and so we are there. Twice a month we go into the neighborhood and we have a street ministry on university Tuesday and Thursday night ministering there. How does that work? Well, we have one of the ministers, Fred Black, who has a strong military background and who worked for the sheriff’s department who just loves people. He spends those two evenings giving out food and clothing and whatever else they need. We just minister to them. We have been doing that for almost my whole 19 years. The church supports that and during Thanksgiving time we do a feeding and at Christmas time we do a feeding and New Year’s. Periodically we will just give out clothing and just give out what is needed. The way I feel is that the ministry is here to help and we definitely need it here in Riverside.
Jane and I go overseas to Indonesia and Dubai and all of these Moslem countries. We go to Cambodia and have done a lot of work there among Buddhists and Muslims there. A lot of Christians are afraid to do that because their faith might be shaken. We aren’t through traveling and learning and I love other cultures. I’m Indonesian and Holland American and Jesus said he is going to take care of us and provide for us. Consider the lilies of the field…
Following the words of Jesus they are caring for the people who are hungry and the people who need clothes and those who need shelter. One morning Pastor Jack walked into the church and I asked to see his hands. Aside from a plain wedding ring there were no other rings. I told him, “Jack if you weren’t so busy taking care of people you could have some really nice rings there.” Instead of fancy rings they team that was sent to Haiti last week will be back Sunday but they will leave behind fresh water for those who had none. That is the true ministry of Christianity and they share that with the others on this page and with many others across the country.
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