First off, I am so thankful that you have taken the time to read these stories brought forth out of the Community Ministry. I realize that many of them, especially when they involve specific instances and individuals, may seem so outrageously heart melting that you wonder if in some way they have been embellished. Well let me asure you, aside from people's names, all of these stories are told in truth.
Stories are interesting things, aren't they? True stories remind us of the reality in which we live with real, factual, historical occurrences. While fictitious stories, although perhaps not recounting actual events, do abide by and give light to the same overarching principles, themes, and feelings that are real, factual, and historical.
At our Community Ministry Committee last night someone mentioned how much physical need there is in our city. Then someone compared it to experiences they had in Africa with believers who were swimming in poverty. You don't have to go to Africa to find "deserving" poor. I don't believe that pity disguised as compassion is the appropriate response in the first place, but why do we fly thousands of miles away from home to help someone in need when all of us have a neighbor somewhere on the path of our week who is in just as much need?
The great commission does not tell us to go somewhere particular, it tells us to be someone particular as we go, live, work, etc.
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