The Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger
By Joe Haag
Christian Life Commission

The root cause of hunger is poverty. One out of five people on earth exists on less than one dollar per day, and half the world’s population exists on less than two dollars per day. Ninety-five percent of these “poorest of the poor” live in the developing world.

Nearly thirty-four million Americans, including almost thirteen million children, make up the 10 percent of U.S. households that regularly experience hunger or the risk of hunger. People in these households miss meals, eat too little, have low quality diets, or regularly seek emergency food assistance because they do not have the money to purchase the food they need. The child poverty rate in the United States is more than double that of any other industrialized nation.

Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger (TBOWH) funding directly supports hunger relief and development ministries across the globe. Relief ministries focus on food distribution to alleviate immediate crises, and development ministries focus on long-term solutions to hunger and remedies to the chronic poverty which causes hunger. In 2005, $750,000 is budgeted for ministry projects in Texas, Arizona, California, District of Columbia, Florida, Iowa, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Vermont, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Mexico, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Ecuador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Estonia, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Angola, Benin, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Morocco, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Zambia, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, China, India, Indonesia, and Thailand.

Why are these “facts of hunger” and the work of TBOWH important? Because the Bible says so. Throughout both Testaments, we are repeatedly called to minister to the “least of these.”

In the face of overwhelming need, how can an individual or a church make a difference? There are many significant ways individuals and churches can help the hungry. Some are simple, others are more complex, but all make a difference!

Churches can help by—

1. Conducting church-wide emphases promoting the Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger using TBOWH resources:

• Display the worldwide ministry poster in several strategic locations.

• Distribute the worldwide ministry flyer as widely as possible.

• Use the bulletin inserts during Sunday morning worship.

• Use the rice bowls or hunger collection jar labels to encourage family giving.

• Place the special offering envelopes throughout the church.

 

2. Promote the possibility of volunteer teams from your church traveling to ministry sites. Many TBOWH supported ministries request volunteers, and the Christian Life Commission can put your church intouch with ministers and missionaries on the field for important details regarding travel, preferred travel times, ministry needs which can be served by volunteers, and other critical information. Contact Joyce Gilbreath (214) 828-5172 or Joe Haag (214) 828-5197 for further information.

Just acting on your own, you can help the hungry in important ways:

First, pray for the hungry. To spend time each day praying for people in need is to become a part of God’s movement in their behalf. It is important to consistently include a focus on the poor and hungry in public and private worship.

Second, become more knowledgeable about hunger and poverty. Discover where hunger and poverty exist locally and globally and what people are doing to make short- and long-term differences. Consult publications, media, and other resources which probe the extent, causes, and solutions to hunger and poverty.

Third, share your financial resources with the poor and hungry. Give regularly and faithfully to the Offering. Even small gifts make an enormous difference when they are multiplied throughout the Body of Christ. Consider adopting a monthly giving pattern, starting with a modest and realistic amount. What amount can you share on a monthly basis with hungry people that you would hardly miss? If just one out of twenty Texas Baptists gave ten dollars each month, the Offering would increase fifteenfold. In Texas alone, the Offering currently touches the lives of 720,000 people. Think of the worldwide possibilities of regular and consistent hunger giving! Give your gifts through your church and designate them to TBOWH.

Fourth, consider the impact of lifestyle decisions on the lives of others. How do we balance personal needs and wants against the needs of the poor and hungry? With regard to spending on ourselves, how much is enough? How much can we share with people in need? How can we be faithful to God in living out the “simplicity maxim”—live simply so that others may simply live?

Fifth, become personally involved in helping people in need. Start with your own congregation. Make the effort to know people who have lost jobs or have suffered financial crises. Help to organize and sustain effective ministry initiatives and to do regular self-examination regarding church programming. In what concrete ways can we embody the early practice of sharing resources to help the needy? When people in our own congregation are faced with financial crises, how are we prepared to help?

Sixth, help others in the Christian community to learn what you have learned and experienced. Share helpful resources and encourage others in your congregation to reach out to people in need. Start a hunger advocacy group and work with others to plan and carry out church-based emphases and ministries. Distribute and highlight TBOWH resources to church members.

Supporting the Texas Baptist Offering for World Hunger is one way we can be faithful to Jesus in ministering to the world’s hungry. Pray, learn, give, volunteer, and get involved. Doing so will not only help others, but transform our lives.

April 2005