Whenever I attend a church potluck, I bring the same dish. It’s delicious and terrible for you; full of all the things all the people who know about food would disdain. It’s comfort and it’s cheap and it’s easy. And I always leave with my Pyrex dish scooped clean. Cooking is not really my thing, and while this recipe barely qualifies as cooking, this one is a winner.
I brought this mashup of potato-y and cheesy goodness to our annual church picnic over the weekend. I love that I attend a small church that still gathers around a buffet of crock pots and salads and casseroles to give and receive and abide. There wasn’t a bounce house or inflatable anything, but my kids swam and ran wild, my husband played Frisbee with a bunch of youth, and I tried to strike that precarious balance of enjoying people without being overwhelmed by small talk. After dinner and roasting marshmallows for s’mores, we gathered on the lawn to sing and testify to God’s faithfulness over the past year.
It’s almost too much, right? It really is that idyllic. Of course, there are things we don’t do well, places we need to improve, and things that unintentionally work because we’ve stumbled our way through for decades. Bless our hearts, we just mounted two flat screens in the sanctuary and had our first sermon with power point slides. It took everything in us not too “ooh” and “ahh.” We were all so excited we barely noticed when Bob’s watch alarm went off for a solid minute, as it does at the same time every Sunday.
All this to say, I love my church family. I have been here for a dozen years and Mike longer than that. He was installed to serve as an elder on Sunday, ushering in a new season for our family within our Family. Because church is not a place we go, it’s a people we belong to. I could not imagine doing life any other way.
However, I was recently confronted with a startling concept: there are people in the world who don’t have access to the love and care of a local church body. Not because they choose not to attend, not because the government doesn’t allow it, but because they’re poor. I had no idea before talking with Patrick and Barbara Hubbard of Living Bread Ministries that going to church was a middle and upper class privilege. While the poorest of people in the nations Living Bread serves, currently Brazil and Thailand, may benefit from receiving aid from Christian humanitarian organizations, they do not have a local church family to join. Yes, there are working class or middle class churches that they are free to attend—if they can find a way to get to them. But, it was explained to me, that just as it is unlikely that a homeless person would find true community among our church on a Sunday, the poor living in these unspoken caste system countries are even more so outsiders.
There was a homeless man that sat behind us at church on Sunday. I shook his hand. An elder invited to grab him breakfast from the kitchen, which he declined. He was welcomed, but I doubt he will return next week. What a large gap exists between being welcome and being family.
Living Bread Ministries was founded to plant churches specifically among the poorest of poor, not only to provide aid, but to teach and sow hope and community. They equip local, national pastors who work, worship, and live among the people. The stories I’ve been told of how God is moving are incredible. He really does love to work through the local church, the extension of His body to the people.
Church planting among the poor is slow, difficult work. This isn’t exactly the target demographic for churches that will quickly become sustainable, but it provides a wonderful opportunity for supporting people who are committed to live the gospel among people. This vision leads me to make an exciting announcement: I have the privilege to join in this work by telling the stories of these people. As part of the Living Bread team I will be collecting the stories of God’s faithfulness among these people and publishing them on the Living Bread blog and in their newsletter. I am also playing a role in the Share Christmas initiative: for a one time gift of $15 you can purchase basic hygiene and school supplies for a local church to pass out among their community. I’ll talk more specifically about this initiative in an upcoming post.
For now, it’s my hope that you’ll take a minute to follow Living Bread on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Check out the newly redesigned website and blog and learn about their approach to church planting. If joining this movement speaks to you, consider signing up to be an advocate and hosting a fundraiser here.
I’m grateful to get to play a small role in what God is doing in His BIG Church. I’m looking forward to sharing more stories of His extraordinary work among people who are His image bearers in their poverty as much as we are in our privilege. I’m praying my words can help bridge that gap. Because church is not a place we go, it’s a people we belong to.
Beautiful.
So excited for you, my friend, and for all the ways TWITTER has helped to facilitate relationships in your life. LOVE THAT!!!
Thanks, Cara! Twitter is my Promised Land. Kidding! Sort of…
So excited to hear more, learn more, and be able to better pray and connect with brothers and sisters across the globe through this, Aleah. And so thrilled that God is using your love of people and LOVE OF STORIES (who would have thought it??) to propel this ministry. I am 100% in your corner <3
Thanks, WBFF. You know I’d be lost without you!
I find it quite silly, also hypocritical that the last thing you leave us with in this blog is this little slogan; “church is not a place we go, it’s a people we belong to”. The last thing a homeless poor person need is to be obligated to support a “local church body” or “church plant”. Financial support from area Christians and charity groups is what needs to take place. Scratch the church planting for homeless thing.
Sorry if I was unclear, but what I’m advocating for (and what Living Bread does) is to support these churches so that the burden is not placed on the poor. By giving to the ministry you’re supporting these churches that would not be able to financially sustain themselves, thus offering the opportunity to belong to a church family where that may not have existed otherwise. Then the local church is equipped to provide resources and aid to their own community.
I appreciate your point of view Chris. I don’t seek to disagree with you but I would like to provide a bit of clarity. I hope you don’t mind. I can’t speak for every circumstance but what I find in some of the poorest places in the world is the complete breakdown of community which leads to all kinds of social concerns. What Living Bread does is join people in these places to build genuine community. This is done in part by walking with the residents as they identify needs in their own communities and then by providing them actual resources to implement their own programs to address them. The end result is a local body, a church, that genuinely cares for one another and the community around them.
When Aleah talks about church planting she is referring to local bodies that are feeding their neighbors. Caring for orphans in their community. Taking care of the elderly. Providing medicine. Teaching job skills. Helping overcome addiction. Protecting the vulnerable and more. All done by local people who are being discipled to obey all that Jesus commanded.
In the case of the homeless, more than giving them a passing meal they become connected to a group of people who genuinely get to know them and care about them. As a result the people are willing to help their homeless friends in ways outsiders will not and because Living Bread provides them some resources they are able to.