Back off government, we got this one.

Recently, The Michael Wilson wrote about a very true statement that a pastor made. The pastor said that the welfare system in America should be obsolete because the church should be attacking the need in the community so fiercely that it rendered government assistance unnecessary. How amazing would that be? What has happened to the Church when it comes to taking care of the poor? This is one of the things the early Church was known for. Roman Emperor Julian, like other Emperors, tried to put and end to Christianity. He built really nice temples in order to lure people away from the Church, however his plan failed. In a letter he wrote that the reason Christianity was thriving was because, "the impious Galileans (Christians) support both their own poor and ours as well." Wow. The Christians were not only taking care of the people within the Church but even the unbelievers. Welfare was not needed because the Christians had it covered. Imagine what people would say about Christians if that were true today. Imagine how many people would come to faith in Christ because of the love that His people were showing the world. My question is, what happened? Why aren't we like the early Church? In Acts 2:45, we see that the early Christians "began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need."
Also, J.D. Greear recently tackled the topic of "I'm not a Christian because the church is responsible for so much injustice." In his sermon, he noted that in James 2, if we see the suffering of others and are not moved to act then our faith is dead. The Church is doing some great things to help those in need. My Church in Durham, Greystone, has a ministry called 2nd Mile that provides food, clothes, financial assistance, and spiritual counseling to those in need. The Summit Church, in Durham is also doing a lot to help those in need with their Hope for Durham campaign during the summer and their efforts with a local elementary school. All over the country and the world the Church is doing a lot of great things. But I believe we can do better. I believe that if we came together as one like the early Church in Acts, we could take care of ALL of the poor in Jesus' name and we could tell the government, "Take a rest we got this one."