More than 1,500 members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) were among the 110,332 U.S. citizens and 23.5 million people worldwide who stood up during worship Oct. 15 to fight global poverty. The "STAND UP" event set a national and global record in the Guinness World Records for the largest number of people to stand up for a cause.
I'd like to meet the genius that came up this idea. Of course, not a single person was lifted out of poverty from this stunt. We Protestants have this habit of creating clever stunts that help us pretend that we are really doing something. If only we invested this much energy into doing something that mattered...
I sort of like these ideas for fighting poverty myself.
1. Supporting microlending in conjunction with Christian missions as part of post evangelization discipleship or pre evangelism.
2. Let's really fight usury by creating a Christian non profit credit union that helps people escape the pay day loan trap.
Not quite as easy as just standing up in a worship service, but hey, I'm not a denominational mastermind either.
Posted by: Chuck | October 24, 2006 at 12:03 PM