How to Live the True Gospel

In the example given by Jesus of the Good Samaritan, one person stopped to help another person in need. Here are some small and large examples of how we can help others today.

One fellow lived next door to some international college students from Nepal and he gave them rides to the grocery store. Since they knew nothing about cars, he shopped around for a used car which the students bought. He taught them how to change the oil and transmission fluid, and even gave them driving lessons so they could get their driver’s licenses.

Some churches set aside time once a year to reach out to the local community with good works projects, like feeding the homeless at Thanksgiving, or repairing homes during one week each summer. As good as these are, these types of good works should be done all year long, not just once a year!

Very few churches can compare with Abyssinian Baptist Church (ABC) in Harlem, New York. This church runs a homeless shelter, has transitional housing for 25 families where they can live until they can afford their own housing, and housing for seniors in Abyssinian Towers. ABC has even purchased and renovated buildings and apartments in the neighborhood, which “created over 1,000 units of affordable housing in 82 buildings” (www.adcorp.org/programs.html#2_1). ABC has a Head Start Program and runs Thurgood Marshall Academy; its “curriculum emphasizes social change and community involvement” (Ibid).

ADC [Abyssinian Development Corporation] has worked to strengthen and rebuild the fabric of the community through economic development initiatives that support entrepreneurial activity, develop and promote local businesses, and create jobs for residents. (Ibid)

ABC has numerous other ministries that serve its church family and community. WOW! Abyssinian is certainly an example of how much can be done when people set their minds to helping others.

Paul referenced Deuteronomy when he spoke about one church giving to another so that one church will not have too little and another church will not have too much, so that they will all have enough. This is what the early church did; rich Christians shared their wealth with those who did not have their basic needs met. There are many different ways this can be accomplished.

There are many good charities that are helping poor Christians such as Voice of the Martyrs that helps Christians who have their homes and churches burned down, and helps them when they are personally attacked and need medical treatment. There are many other well-known charities, and some lesser-known charities such as Hand of Help that helps the poor and orphans in Romania (www.handofhelp.com). And in India there are orphans who are waiting for sponsors through Gospel for Asia, and several other organizations.

In 1999 some radical Hindus in India attempted to murder a Christian evangelist, Dr. P.P. Job. Having failed, they ran down his 21-year-old son, Michael, with car. In memory of his son, Dr. Job started an orphanage for girls in 2001. But the orphanage is not for all girls, but only the daughters of Christians who are being persecuted or have already been martyred. For $25.00 a month you can sponsor a girl (www.michaeljobcenter.com). Girls are not valued in Indian culture and are often not given an education. Dr. Job’s wife, Mary, is a medical doctor who ministers to the poorest of the poor in New Delhi.

In many nations the poor have difficulty getting clean drinking water. According to the U.N., 1.1 billion people do not have access to clean drinking water (Ministry Today Magazine, Jul/Aug 2006). Responding to this need there are several international ministries that drill water wells in villages as a means of Christian witness. Gospel for Asia drills what it calls Jesus Wells in India. The wells are drilled in front of a pastor’s home or church so he can witness to the villagers who come to get the free water. Unicef says 1.5 million children die every year for lack of clean drinking water. Another report said 2.1 million.

Healing Waters International (HWI) installs water-purification systems at local churches which then sells the water for pennies a gallon to people who would otherwise not have clean drinking water. The income from the water sales creates two jobs for locals and allows the church to supply food and clothing to those in need. HWI has installed 57 purification stations in the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Mexico and Kenya. These are some of the ways Christians can help each other.

Shortly after becoming a Christian, Nigerian, Sunday Adelaja, went to Russia to study journalism. After graduation God led him to Ukraine where he eventually started a church in 1994 which now has more than 25,000 members, Embassy of God. He has planted more than 300 churches in Ukraine and over 30 countries, including U.S.A. He has had a major impact on Ukraine by feeding the hungry, providing homes for homeless children, a drug and alcohol treatment program, helping members start businesses, and reaching out in many ways into the schools, factories and the government. That is in fact why his church grew so large. The general population were not responding and had no interest in Christianity, so he reached out to the prostitutes, drug addicts and alcoholics. With them delivered and cleaned up, their relatives started coming to church as well.

“It dawned on them that there must be something about what we were trying to do. The church became socially relevant to the community with government realising that we are doing what they couldn’t do. As it were, resolving the social ills of the society gave us the edge.

“With more people, being touched and coming into the church, I spoke to the businessmen among us, telling them that they didn’t need to give money to the church but to fund projects of benefits to the poor. I told them that I will find it difficult to cope, seeing poor people live around me.

“One of the businessmen, a banker, he owns a bank in the country, bought the idea that we set up a student centre, undertook to fund it with $10,000 monthly to commit his business to the Lord. We set up the centre, he was giving us the $10,000 monthly to fund the place and we began to provide people with three square meals daily at the centre.

“Before we realised it, we were feeding 2,000 people daily at the centre, the government became overwhelmed. There was nothing they could do to us anymore. Since we feed them, the people became our friends, they were ready to listen to us anytime, the government had no option but to befriend us because they realised that the people would resist any government that would fight us.” (Godwin Ifijeh, In Ukraine, a Nigerian Cleric Makes Waves (www.thisdayonline.com, Sept 2002)

Pastor Sunday is concerned about the condition of American Christianity and has released a book titled, Churchshift. Along with the book he holds seminars to help the church transform society. He hopes to bring a massive shift in focus and practice in Christianity.

His church is now the largest church in Europe. Notice that he was helping the poor, the orphans, the drug addicts and alcoholics, and generally helping people in every way possible. He has been doing to others what he would want done to himself. He is living out the true Gospel as explained throughout this book even though he does fully realize it. His church is an example of what other churches should be doing.

Most people were not interested in the Gospel until he began doing good works, which the Holy Spirit told him to do. He was not aware that good works helped the Gospel take hold in China over 100 years ago, and  Christians are now at least 10% of the total population. An article on Christian history in China states:

One hundred years ago, scholar-officials lost hope for reviving the Qing dynasty. Since China had to compete with the West on its own terms to survive as a nation, families began to send their children to Western-style, often Christian, schools in China and the U.S. The modern education offered English, science, and new professions such as medicine, law and journalism. A Christian moral curriculum was often an intrinsic part of the package.

The YMCA brought in Western lecturers on science and social issues, attracting the general public as well as students. Christian voluntary associations led movements against social evils like foot binding and the opium trade and offered social services to poor farmers and migrant workers. T. M. Fan, a Chinese reformer, was the editor of popular Christian magazines that promoted character building and public morality. (Christianity Fever, by Stacey Bieler and Carol Lee Hamrin, Christian History, Spring 2008)

Sunday’s methods are not radically new, just new to him. He did not know that he had begun practicing the true Gospel. Even though his church is helping the poor and practicing the true Gospel to a greater extent than most churches, his church members still are not sharing their wealth and goods in the way the apostles and the first Christians did. Even though helping people with evangelistic motives is good, we are also commanded to share with those who are already practicing Christians.

Wealthy churches in America can donate money to buy goats, chickens, and cows for poor Christians in India, Nepal, Vietnam, China, Africa, to help them have enough food. These animals even provide income when the eggs and milk are sold. Oh, sorry, there is no way to do this! I know of no ministry that currently does this, because they are aimed at evangelism, rather than sharing with poor Christians.

On the local level, there can be a clearing house setup so that if someone needs a refrigerator they can apply for one and if someone else has a new or used refrigerator they want to donate, the two can be matched up. Or donated funds can be used to purchase the needed items. If someone needs cooking pots and a stove then they apply and the items are purchased new or used and delivered to the person’s home. If they need an eye exam they can be given a voucher to pay for the exam. Used cars can be fixed up and made available to those who cannot afford one.

Another way is for all goods, including the homes, to be owned by a collective and people pay rent based on their income, like government subsidized housing. The collective could even own and operate businesses for the purpose of providing jobs for people in the collective, or to provide jobs for poor members of the congregation.

They can even own and run businesses for the purpose of making money from the general public, and at the same time provide services to the poor. For example, they could own an auto repair garage that will make money doing regular auto repairs, but Christians will get a discount based on their income, all the way to totally free.

A group could run a medical clinic where they provide medical care to Christians who cannot afford health insurance. There are in fact, three or four Christian based medical cooperatives in the U.S. whose members share their medical expenses, but these coops will not cover pre-existing conditions, just like nonChristian insurance. A large church or group could run their own coop medical plan so all members, regardless of medical condition, can get health coverage.

Waterfront Community Church in Schaumburg, Illinois do not have a million-dollar building, they do not have any kind of building because they attend services in a high school auditorium so they can give 100% of their offering money to the needy. Their music band practices in a home, and Pastor Jim Semradek uses his laptop at the local Starbucks which serves as his office. The rent for the auditorium and staff salaries comes from eight donors, half of which do not even attend the church.

Often, in order to survive or just to live out biblical principles, many people throughout the world often live and work together, sharing their labor and resources for the good all the members of the community. In Israel they are called kibbutz, in North America they are called Egalitarian Communities. Many native villages around the world also function in this manner because all the people of a village live and work together.

Few people are aware that Christians have been living communally in America from the time of the Pilgrims. Some Americans believe communities here began with the hippy movement of the 1960s, but they actually started over 300 years ago. The very first European settlements in the New World shared their labor and resources and lived together, so they actually began as communes. Communal life continued with many other intentional communes, mostly religious in nature, such as a small group of Germans who came to the New World in 1694. They did not officially have a name, and though they were all males they often spoke of being like The Woman in the Wilderness (Revelation 12).

There were several religious communities in the 1700s through the 1800s with mostly strange doctrines, but the point is that they worked, and helped many people live good lives who may have otherwise struggled to survive. Like the Woman in the Wilderness, most of them originated in Europe but came to the U.S. to escape persecution. One was Amana:

The Amana Colonies’ origins date back to 1714 and The Community of True Inspiration in Germany. By 1842 the Inspirationalists, under persecution, left Germany for a new start on the United States. Inspirationalists numbering 800 established “Ebenezer,” a 5,000 acre commune in New York. Just 12 years later, Ebenezer had outgrown its area. The surrounding land was selling for a premium so a committee was formed to travel west and look for a new, larger area for the community. The committee discovered a lush river valley in Iowa and purchased a large tract of land. Amana was established in 1855 and within seven years the villages of Homestead, Middle Amana, High Amana, West Amana, South Amana, and East Amana were established. Each village had its own bakery, church, dairy, general store, post office, and school. Families were assigned living quarters and jobs.

The colonists made their own books, bricks, clocks, fabrics, furniture, and wines. The population peaked in the early 1880s with more than 1,800 residents in all seven villages. The Inspirationalists offered a pure and simple way of life with all property held in common and religion being the foundation of the community. In 1932 members of the community voted to abandon the communal system and became a profit-sharing corporation. Today the Amana Society, with nearly 900 members, manages more than 26,000 acres of land.

In 1965 the Amana Colonies were designated as a National Historic Landmark with more than 475 historic buildings and sites. Each year one and a half million tourists visit the colonies making them the most visited tourist attraction in Iowa. (www.quincynet.com/daytrips/amana/index.htm)

The Shakers originated in the early 1700s England and were known as the Wardleys. Ann Lee joined them in 1758 and eventually became their leader. She brought a small group to New York State in 1774 where they lived communally and practiced celibacy and pacifism. Men and women lived and worked separately. They sent out missionaries and gradually grew to about 6,000 followers with established communities in most Northeastern states. They lost members in the late 1800s because modern factories could produce products faster and cheaper than handmade items and because industries offered employment which allowed people to support themselves without having to join a commune.

The Shakers had several communities and occupied the community at Harrodsburg, Kentucky for more than a century before abandoning it in 1927. In 2006 four persons still held to the Shaker life expecting a revival of Shaker communal living, according to a prophecy. They were famous for their well made furniture and their spiritual experiences which resulted in their shaking under the power of the Spirit.

The Oneida Community officially began in 1848 in Oneida, New York. Several smaller branches formed in Connecticut, New Jersey, and Vermont. The other branches were consolidated into the locations at Oneida and Connecticut by 1854. The community practiced complex marriage (every male member was married to every female member). They suffered from lack of leadership and slowly disintegrated because the founder fled to Canada to avoid prosecution for adultery and statutory rape. In 1879 the community abandoned the practice of complex marriage and the members were joined in traditional marriage.

The Oneida Community officially ended January, 1881, but the former members continued to run their profitable industries. They canned fruits and vegetables, made traps, chains, travel bags, straw hats, mop sticks, sewing silk, and silverware. Oneida Limited continues today as an international silverware manufacturing giant.

In 16^th century Europe, the Hutterites, a branch of Anabaptists, started living communally based on the book of Acts. But they had to flee their homeland several times because of persecution, until they finally migrated to the U.S. from 1874 to 1879. They continue to thrive in northern and western states and Canada, and have expanded into Australia, Nigeria, and Japan. Most communities are farmers and ranchers but they also engage in manufacturing. When a community grows too large, they buy land and build the housing and half the families move to form the new community.

In New York, the Church Communities Foundation was formed in 1956 to provide materials and volunteers to charity projects around the world, such as,

. . . tsunami relief in Thailand, earthquake relief work in Pakistan, assistance to rural communes in Latin America and AIDS and hunger relief work in Southern Africa. Within Ulster County, NY, and Fayette County, PA, service primarily involves supporting food after school programs, food banks, underwriting county energy assistance programs, constructing playgrounds and picnic areas, and doing housing repairs for low-income families and elderly shut-ins. (www.churchcommunitiesfoundation.org/Projects/ Service.htm)

The organization’s roots go back to a commune which began in Germany before World War II by Eberhard Arnold. The members had to flee because of persecution, first to other European countries and finally to the U.S. Today they also have branches in England, Germany, and Australia, with about 2,500 members. There have been several other Christian communes throughout U.S. history, but I will not detail all of them here.

Because life was hard for Jewish immigrants to Palestine who had no money to start and run their own farms or businesses, the first kibbutz in Israel was founded in 1909. The kibbutzim were founded on the afore mentioned passage in Deuteronomy about sharing manna:

The kibbutz (Hebrew word for “communal settlement”) is a unique rural community; a society dedicated to mutual aid and social justice; a socioeconomic system based on the principle of joint ownership of property, equality and cooperation of production, consumption and education; the fulfillment of the idea “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”; a home for those who have chosen it. . . .

Overcoming many hardships, they succeeded in developing thriving communities which have played a dominant role in the establishment and building of the state.

Today some 270 kibbutzim, with memberships ranging from 40 to more than 1,000, are scattered throughout the country. Most of them have between 300 and 400 adult members, and a population of 500-600. The number of people living in kibbutzim totals approximately 130,000, about 2.5 percent of the country’s population. Most kibbutzim belong to one of three national kibbutz movements, each identified with a particular ideology. (www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/ jsource/Society_&_Culture/kibbutz.html)

The Zionism and Israel Information Center says the kibbutzim were a practical answer to develop Jewish agriculture, but was also an ideology.

After the foundation of the state, Kibbutzim continued to thrive economically, though with much less growth in population than previously. During the 60s, kibbutzim continued to shoulder the burden of guarding border areas and building up the periphery. . . . Kibbutzim are experimenting with new forms of cooperative living that implement ideals of social justice and democratic government in small groups, especially Urban Kibbutz.

. . . kibbutzim continue to play a disproportionately large role in Israeli society and the Israeli economy. Today [2005] kibbutzim account for slightly over 2% of the population of Israel, with about 100,000 permanent members and 15,000 other residents as of 2003. They account for over 24% of the rural population, over 9% of the industrial output and over 40% of the land under cultivation. (www.zionism-israel.com/dic/Kibbutz.htm)

There are approximately 270 kibbutzim, mostly in rural areas. They each have their own rules and ways of doing things, but in general, they provide the same benefits for all members, whether they are doing the laundry or managing one of the many different businesses that they operate. Child care is provided, meals are prepared for all members in the communal kitchen, but they live in private homes or apartments with their children.

These kibbutzim may run a farm, a school, an orchard, or just about any type of business, like computer repair and technical writing. Some of the members even work off the kibbutz at various jobs such as teachers or bookkeepers to contribute money to the community. One kibbutz is called Ketura:

Ketura is guided by the traditional kibbutz principle that money is collectively earned (”from each according to his abilities”) and spent (”to each according to his needs”). There is no association between work done and money received.

Many kibbutzim today have abandoned this principle; how money is earned, and how it is divided up varies greatly between kibbutzim. For instance, some kibbutzim have differential salaries, where workers in the different branches receive different salaries. Some kibbutzim have “bonus points” that earn members extra money or services for specific work done.

On Ketura, every member earns the same amount, regardless of the type of work done or number of hours worked, and no special bonuses exist.

Still, Ketura takes a small-town view of shared parental and community responsibility: “It takes a whole kibbutz to raise a child.” For preschool children, this means providing full day care. For school-age children, it means not only after-school activities, but also a commitment to being a part of the regional school. Outside of regular hours, there are evening activities for school-age children, as well as summer camps and outings.

Ketura is financially conservative. We’re meticulous about monitoring our finances and the pension funds that we maintain in every member’s name, so that we won’t be a burden on our children in the event that Ketura “goes under”. In addition, we set aside funds “for a rainy day” so that we’ll be able to cope with unexpected expenses. We also have a higher education fund for our children, under the aegis of Merkaz Hashachar (our non-profit association). (http://www.ketura.org.il/)

Kibbutzim often have a swimming pool and community center. People usually get from place to place in the community by walking, riding a bike or even electric carts for the elderly and disabled. They typically function as direct democracies with elected committees managing the day-to-day operations of the various businesses and of the kibbutzim itself.

The contribution of the kibbutzim to the country’s production, both in agriculture (33 percent of farm produce) and in industry (6.3 percent of manufactured goods) is far greater than their share of the population (2.5 percent). (www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

You can see that Christian and Jewish communes have been very successful. There are far fewer of them in the U.S. today because of increased individual prosperity, but when times get difficult again they may return. However, the problem with many communes is they often have strange doctrines and focus on self rather than reaching out to help others. These problems should be avoided in the future in order to effectively live out the true and complete Gospel.