Moment of Mission

Today, I’m walking with Sardis Baptist Church, Charlotte in the Charlotte CROP Hunger Walk. Here’s one last appeal, the same appeal I’ll share with our congregation this morning.

There’s a word we like to use: Hangry. It’s what happens when your hunger makes you irritable.

The girls and I had a quick get-away trip on Friday night. We were much belated leaving and arriving, and let me tell you, when our room service meal was more than an hour late, we got a first-hand lesson in toddler hangriness.

Maybe you are a very focused worker, and sometimes, you are so focused you work all the way through lunch, and by late afternoon you don’t feel so great, and you realize it’s because you haven’t eaten.

The vast majority of us in this room are fortunate enough to be able to solve our temporary hunger with ease.  But did you know that nearly a quarter of our local school children are food insecure. That means they don’t know where their next meal will come from. And hunger isn’t an inconvenience. It’s a constant reality.  And this says nothing of the hundreds of millions, yes, hundreds of millions, of other neighbors around the world who lack access to proper nutrition and clean water.

Today, we’re going to walk in CROP Walk to raise money to end hunger near and far. We’ll walk four miles, the approximate distance that people in underserved nations walk for clean water.

I’m asking for your help. Please consider walking with us or donating to our team.   https://www.crophungerwalk.org/charlottenc/SardisBaptist

This is a community that wants God’s justice to be apparent in the world. Here’s your chance to do something tangible.

This doesn’t require a vote. This doesn’t require partisanship. This isn’t beholden to the slow machinations of policy change.  This is a way to put money into the hands of organizations that will affect positive change right now.

If you are unable to walk with us today, or you are unable to give to this cause, I want to ask for one more consideration. Most of us live at least four miles from church or work or school or some regular location in our lives. Each time you make that four-mile trip, I want you to think about a young child carrying a bucket a water.  And I want you to imagine the utter loss in that person’s life: a loss of productivity; a loss of joy; a loss in education; a loss in dignity; a loss in time.  And I want you ask yourself what small but intentional changes in behavior (prayers, giving, shopping, consuming, advocating) you can make to shorten, and eventually eliminate such an unnecessary walk.

Thank you for your consideration