10/26/2020 – by: Shawn Fisher.
What? You just got rid of my medical debt?
Yep.
How much?
All of it.
Are you SERIOUS?
Yep.
But…I’m not even a part of your church.
That’s not the point.
This will change my life.
That’s what we hoped.
Oh, my God.
Exactly.
Exactly. Over a number of months, churches in the United Church of Christ (the denomination to which most “Congregational” churches belong including the one where I have the blessing to be the pastor (Bloomfield Congregational Church, UCC in CT) worked together to retire over – get this – over $26 MILLION in medical debt for people across New England. Twenty Six MILLION. (Read more here.)
Our church chipped in with $50,000 of that.
This is what happens, often quietly, while many other churches grab the headlines with so many negative things. Look, I get it, many churches have hurt, and continue to cause hurt. Many churches do more bad than good. I wish that wasn’t the case, but it is.
But many, Many, MANY other churches are doing hard work every day to do good to make the world a better place. To show, not so much that we are “Christian” but that we are following Jesus – someone who teaches us to resist oppression, to help those in need, to make bold moves to resist evil in the world, and to build a piece of heaven here, now, in our present place, in this actual time – to make things better, in real ways for real people.
That’s what we strive to do.
And, guess what? This $26 million is just the tip of the iceberg of what we do and will continue to do. Sometimes we’ll let you know. Other times we will be silent about it. But it’s getting done. We are building pieces of heaven here on earth. And we have faith that those pieces will grow and that this makes a difference.
That’s why we do what we do.
Changing the world for the better. Saving lives in so many ways.
That’s what we do… And, we’re just getting started…
Photo by Travis Essinger on Unsplash
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