Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Aren't most Christians hypocrites?

Not usually. Rock concert fund raisers, Oprah, movie star's passionate projects... we hear plenty from media about the good things the rich and famous do to serve mankind. Why don't we hear about things like this coming from Christian organizations... or Christian's in any setting?

1. There are Christians at work constantly serving the poor and downtrodden, but their stories are not glamorous or newsworthy. Most Christians prefer to remain behind the scenes if possible. Few will announce themselves. Most work is done on a small scale: one to one, family to family.
2. Middle class Christians would love to be more generous with their finances, however, much of what could be used for charity is eaten up in state and federal taxes. Before the advent of government social care programs,welfare, and the taxation to support it...churches, families and communities took care of their own poor and downtrodden. Now, more Christians struggle financially to simply care for their own children and families with even two full-time working adults incomes, and so have less ($$, man-power, time) left to use toward generosity and charity... and are frustrated by it.
3. There is information out there about the amazing (mostly volunteer) work being done... you just need to look in the right places. We won't see these on the news...
Some examples:
http://www.samaritanspurse.org/WhoWeAre_Index.asp
http://www.persecution.com/about/index.cfm?action=vom
http://www.southmetrovineyard.org/outreach/outreach.html (one church example)
http://www.salvationarmy.org/ihq/www_sa.nsf

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