Take the Micah Challenge

The Baptist Center for Ethics has released a pastoral letter supporting the Micah Challenge to reduce global poverty, which you can read here. I am excited to have joined the several dozen Baptist leaders who have already signed it. Here is part of what it states:

We, the undersigned, pledge therefore to:

*Pray publicly that the hungry might have bread and that those of us who have bread might have a hunger for justice.

*Preach and teach this fall about the biblical mandate to feed the hungry, to provide water the thirsty, to clothe to the ill-clad, to offer a hand up to self-reliance and to seek justice.

*Provide educational opportunities in our churches to raise the level of awareness about the Micah Challenge.

*Communicate with our U.S. Representatives and Senators in this election cycle, encouraging them to support the non-partisan Millennium Development Goals.

*Challenge our ministerial colleagues to embrace the Micah Challenge and urge their state conventions and fellowships to speak up for the Micah Challenge.

*Call on Baptist clergy in the United States to add their names to this pastoral letter.

It is time to act! I strongly urge all Baptist ministers make this commitment as well. A great resource to use in churches is the new DVD/study guide put out by the Baptist Center for Ethics called “Always … Therefore: Church’s Challenge of Global Poverty” (see my previous post about it here). You can learn more about it and order here.