People can get their tins of beans and get taught the alphabet in loads of places across the town; in very few of them will anyone tell them about the life-saving message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is what the church can uniquely offer. The gospel. We can help people see Jesus. We can teach them the Bible. We can encourage them to know and love Jesus. That is what the church fundamentally has to offer. If we’re not doing that, then what is the point of any of what we’re doing?

There are no end of people offering different services in our town. Food banks are plenteous, for obvious reasons, and yet still we don’t have enough of them. English classes exist locally, but demand far outstrips provision. Youth services exist but there are far too many needy children for our paltry services to handle.

The call, as you can so often imagine, is that the church ought to be doing all these things too. What about the youth, you have probably heard before. We also have questions about the poor, the hungry, the foreigner who can’t speak English, the jobless, the addict. What are we going to do about those people? Shouldn’t we, the church, be at the forefront of helping them?

Clearly, the Bible has lots to say about helping the poor and deprived. There is something to be said for helping the needy. And it doesn’t really matter where your church is, this applies to you too. If you aren’t doing anything to serve the poor an needy in your village, town or city you probably should ask yourself some hard questions about those bits of the Bible that are pretty clear about those things. It’s no good saying “but we’re in an affluent place” because I can guarantee you will be in the vicinity of poverty. It may be more hidden in your community, but I bet there are streets and areas people talk about in hushed tones or, worse, they use as a by-word for rough people we don’t mix with.

In communities like mine, the poverty is a bit more obvious. Everybody knows Oldham is deprived. It’s not like the South Oxfordshire village I mainly grew up in, that does have poverty in it, and people know there are people struggling, but the place is overwhelmingly middle class and so it’s easy to forget, ignore and overlook. But in places like Oldham it’s everywhere, not at all hidden. Much harder to ignore. And much easier to lose yourself in the forest of felt needs.

But there are others who can meet those needs too.

Read More