Americans love the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays because of all the excitement and cheer they bring, the gathering of family and friends, the gifts we get to give and receive, the traditions we keep, the special memories we make, and of course, the FOOD we eat.
While most of us this year will sit comfortably in warm homes surrounded by family, dear friends, and a feast of food, many people will go hungry around the world, in the United States, and yes, even in our beloved state of Texas (which is the #1 state in terms of food-insecurity for children). While Texans love being #1 in many things, this is not one of them.
That is why the Christian Life Commission is working so diligently through its World Hunger Offering, The Texas Hunger Initiative, Bike Out Hunger, Good News Goods (affiliate of World Hunger Offering), and many other ministries in order to make sure people are being fed—physically, emotional, and spiritually.
So this year during the holiday season, as we sit down with our family and friends, may we remember the blessing of food that fills us, nourishes us, and reminds us to not only pray for those who are hungry, thirsty, broken, and poor, but also to love the “least of these” (Matt 25:31-46) in “deed and truth” (1 Jn 3:17-18).
One easy way to do this is through the new Good News Goods program called Hungry for Change, which is designed to give you a simple way to redirect your normal spending dollars to fairly traded food products on a monthly basis. This way, you receive delicious, high quality food items while also engaging in the redemptive practice of buying and eating food grown by people who are treated with dignity and paid a fair wage, so that they too may have food on their table, provide for their family, send their children to school, invest into their community’s development, and experience the love of God in a holistic manner.
To learn more about Hungry For Change and/or order your monthly subscription, go to http://goodnewsgoods.com/get-involved/hungry-for-change/
Change the world with every bite!
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This past Sunday, FBC Abilene hosted their first Good News Goods Fair Trade Market, and what a success it was! So much so, that within the first 30 minutes of the market, all the order forms had disappeared and more needed to be printed off.
It was a unanimous decision by the pastoral leadership and the church volunteers to open the market back up to their congregation and community members next Sunday as well!
Another positive surprise was the article written about the market by the Abilene reporter. You can read more about it at http://www.reporternews.com/news/2010/sep/26/the-real-world-market/
“Did you ever stop to think that you can’t leave for your job in the morning without being dependent on most of the world? You get up in the morning and go to the bathroom and reach over for the sponge, and that’s handed to you by a Pacific islander. You reach for a bar of soap, and that’s given to you at the hands of a Frenchman. And then you go into the kitchen to drink your coffee for the morning, and that’s poured into your cup by a South American. And maybe you want tea: that’s poured into your cup by a Chinese. Or maybe you’re desirous of having cocoa for breakfast, and that’s poured into your cup by a West African. And then you reach over for your toast, and that’s given to you at the hands of an English-speaking farmer, not to mention the baker. And before you finish eating breakfast in the morning, you’ve depended on more than half the world. This is the way our universe is structured; this is its interrelated quality. We aren’t going to have peace on Earth until we recognize this basic fact of the interrelated structure of all reality.”
-Martin Luther King, A Christmas Sermon on Peace, 1967
“This year during Advent, our church focused on what it means that through Christ’s birth, chains are broken, peace is ushered in, and oppression ceases. We asked ourselves how we can participate in this liberation, especially during a season that focuses not on freedom, but on consumerism. Good News Goods was the perfect complement to our Advent theme.”
-Rev. Todd Ferguson, Willow Meadows Baptist Church, Houston, Tx
Can you believe it? Summer is almost over, school is starting, and fall is fast approaching, although our Texas weather doesn’t seem to reflect that yet. Football is already on the brain, and before we know it the holiday season will be upon us, filling our time with parties, family functions, shopping, and church events, perhaps, a Good News Goods Fair Trade market. Our calendar is booking fast for Fall 2010, so contact us and schedule your church’s Fair Trade market today!
What is a Fair Trade Market? This is a shopping event, hosted at, and by your church, where church and community members can choose from a large display of Fair Trade products, place their orders at the market, & have products shipped directly to their homes. This event allows your church and community members a convenient and fun way to positively impact the world with their spending, while also receiving a high-quality product with a story of hope.
Did you know that Americans spend an average of $40 billion each year around Christmas time? Have you ever wondered how our spending impacts people all around the globe—people who we will probably never meet? That amount of money could eradicate poverty worldwide two times over.
So this holiday season, buy a gift that pays a fair price and provides dignity; a gift that lifts families out of poverty and women and girls out of bondage; a gift that “brings good news to the poor and freedom to the oppressed.”
Good News Goods will also be present at various conferences throughout the fall such as The No Need Among You Conference in Waco, Tx, and the Global Voices Summit in Austin, Tx. Come by and visit our booth!
“He (God) plucks the world out of our heart, loosening the chains of attachment. And then He hurls the world into our heart, where we and He together carry it in infinitely tender love.”
-Thomas Kelly, Testament of Devotion
This is one of the many paradoxes of the Christian faith, and my personal struggle. We are to be in the world and yet not of the world. We are to live and love differently as disciples of Christ, and yet not be detached and isolated from the world in which we live. And yet, we all struggle with the balancing act of understanding and engaging in the Kingdom of heaven and the Kingdom of earth simultaneously.
We are lured in the direction of consumerism and the American dream, but Jesus spoke of living simply, selling our goods and giving them to the poor, turning our tools of destruction into tools of harvesting, and fighting oppression and injustice through peace, love, and creativity.
We are called to be extremists of Christ’s love, not extremist protectors of our ideologies and comfortable way of life.
Warning: This will not be easy.
Side effects may include the following: headache, doubt, frustration, questioning our current way of living, interaction with those whom we are not comfortable, sacrifice, utter discontent with living anything less than as a radical Christian following in Jesus’ footsteps.
Associated with socially conscious consumption, the fair trade label is gracing a number of products, from bananas to soccer balls, entering mainstream retail outlets.
You may know fair trade’s basic premise–paying producers in developing nations a fair price for their goods–but what else does fair trade entail? What else should you know about what’s behind the label?
