Advocacy as Christian Stewardship?

We hear about people in extreme poverty and we are compelled to respond—largely our immediate response is to give money. Why do we give? Ultimately our money belongs to God so what better way to use it than to feed, clothe, and protect His most vulnerable children? Going a step further I’ve heard a number of sermons on how we will be held accountable for how we used the resources given to us (translation of resource=$). OK, so you’re with me, but don’t really see what this has to do with you contacting our Presidential candidates? I see our VOICES as a similar resource that God has given us—how will we steward this resource?

Our government makes decisions that have a major impact on the poor! As easy as it is to be cynical—the truth is our voice matters in these decisions. If unified the Church has a powerful enough voice to elect a president! Will we steward this voice to proclaim justice? Will we use this voice to make sure that efforts that are helping people out of extreme poverty are protected? At a time when government spending Washington needs to get under control the questions we must ask are:

• Are we willing to stop providing life saving medications to 6.9 million people around the world in order to cut spending by 0.5%? Through the Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, started by President Bush in 2003, nearly 7 million people are receiving life saving anti retroviral treatments!
• Are we willing to stop the distribution of millions of insecticide treated bed nets to save a negligible amount of money?
• Are we willing to make up for the $400 million a year given in grants to trusted Christian organizations to do transformative work around the world? That is right, much of “foreign aid” is actually implemented by the pros! Some of the very same organizations many of us donate to.

Sadly, even if we stopped all poverty focused development aid for the purpose of reigning in spending we would still be facing massive problems because PFDA only makes up 0.5% of our federal budget! At Micah Challenge we believe it is critical that people of faith steward their God given voices and speak up for those in extreme poverty and make sure that our next President shares our commitment to protect life saving programs—That is why we’ve launched “Micah’s Challenge to Our Next President”.

Micah’s Challenge to Our Next President is not a place for partisan politics, but rather a prayerful, powerful, and prophetic way for Christians to engage with the presidential election. It is a time to proclaim that our God is a God of justice who has deep concern for the poor–and that as followers of Christ we share that conviction. Neither candidate or party has it right–we want to make sure both President Obama and Governor Romney know where we as Christians stand, and how we want them to respond to extreme poverty

Join us and let our presidential candidates know that we want them to stand up for those in extreme poverty by protecting poverty focused development aid.

-Cross Catholic Outreach