The Church by Chris Williamson
Sometimes we feel that there are not enough people in the community who wish to help. Of course, that’s not true. Nearly everyone wants to do good, and although the media focus on the less savoury aspects of some of the churches, in truth, your local place of worship is often a good place to start. You won’t find people there selling expensive online courses on how to find inner peace. But you may well find people who are willing to give free help from visiting people who are isolated to having a chat over a cup of tea and slice of cake. Also read about churches to help the homeless.
Go and visit your local church and you’ll likely find people that can:
- Listen to your problems (no charge)
- Enjoy a cup of tea and chat with
- Offer vetted child-minding services
- Volunteering in the community
- Lifts to the doctor or vet
- Social clubs
- Pastoral care & grief counselling
- Youth groups
- Choir service
- Bell-ringing
- Cheap meeting room hire
Green Sisters is a super read from a scholar who spends time meeting the world’s ‘eco-nuns’ who are replacing manicured lawns with community gardens to grow free food, installing solar panels on their roofs and driving around in electric cars. The best line is from the Mother Superior who says ‘If we truly saw the Divine in a potato, we could not turn it into Pringles!’
We strive to out what Jesus said was most important: loving God fully and loving our neighbours as ourselves. Climate change is already impacting our neighbours and God’s creation around the world. Therefore we commit to living faithfully as good stewards of creation, advocating alongside those who are poor and supporting political leaders when they stand up for climate action. Young Evangelicals for Climate Action
Churches Helping Animals
Catholics don’t have the greatest reputation for animal welfare, apart from avoiding meat and fish on certain days. It wasn’t his fault, but when Pope Francis released the doves from The Vatican (a picture on many books), they were immediately attacked by other bird, showing why it’s not good to ‘release doves’ from captive environments to dangerous ones – just leave them in nature, in the first place. Also read how religion can help animals.
- Catholic Concern for Animals does wonderful work and has its own magazine The Ark. If you have Catholics scoff at you about animal welfare, remind them of St Francis of Assisi, who was the patron saint of animal welfare (and ecology and simple living). He no doubt (as are many priests) would be appalled that the Vatican now take $30,000 a month in rent from McDonald’s, which kills 300,000 cattle a year for its burgers, often from ‘God’s rainforests’.
- Anglican Society for Animal Welfare focuses on people who belong to Church of England. Its animal-friendly church campaign lets participating churches display a poster, if they take steps to be more compassionate like only using free-range eggs and building habitats for wildlife. The annual winner receives a hamper of ethical goodies.
- Quakers have a long history of campaigning for social justice, environmental awareness and animal welfare. Quaker Concern for Animals offers lots of ways to help.
Concern for how animals are treated, is not a topic most churches spend a lot of time on. But if we sing ‘All creatures of our God and King’, we ought to spend time thinking about the fate of those creatures, and the responsibility as Christians to make their lives better. Ed Brown
