Kansas East Conference Bishop's Initiative

"WHATSOEVER YOU DO TO THE LEAST OF MY BRETHREN,
THAT YOU DO UNTO ME."

An Open Letter to Our Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

At a time when the United States is experiencing the highest rate of poverty in 30 years and over 15 million children live in poverty, we, as United Methodists, are being called into faithful response.

We are inviting you, as pastors, congregations or individuals to join with us in becoming actively involved in advocacy efforts for children and the poor in our midst. All of us have either groups or individuals within our churches who do advocacy work now. We are asking your help in identifying and lifting up these persons, as well as getting them connected to other churches or individuals in other churches that are trying to do the same type of advocacy work. It is hoped that wherever possible, lay/clergy partnerships can be formed around advocacy roles in the communities in which we live.

The Kansas East Conference Bishop's Initiative on Children and the Poor encompasses: the Council of Bishops' Initiative on Children and Poverty, Just Solutions Welfare Reform in Kansas, and the Call for Renewal of Civil Comunity. We are not proposing yet "another program" for our churches. We are simply saying that we, as Christians, in our own communities must become aware of what is going on around us. We are not implying that we need to go into our communities and bring in the unchurched and make them look and act like us. But rather, we are first called to "be with" the people of our communities where they are.

We are asking our local churches to become advocates for children and the poor, wherever they are and in whatever manner they can. In order to become an effective advocate we must first attempt to understand who and where people are and why they are where they are. We have to honestly learn to care for the children and poor in our midst. Until we learn to care and until we begin some honest one-on-one personal relationships with the children and poor of our communities, very little is going to change.

People only begin to respond after they sense that we are genuinely sincere about what we say and what we do. People don't care what we know until they know that we care.

Thank you for your prayerful consideration of this opportunity. It is one of the ways we can truly live out a gospel of hope and justice for all of God's people. Christ didn't tell the world to go to church; Christ told the church to go to the world.

Albert Frederick Mutti, Bishop
ksbishumc@ksnews.com