Tour De Revs

This last weekend I happened to be in Flagstaff visiting with my parents when three Lutheran Pastors came through town on a triplet bamboo road bike! They are on a 100-day bike tour titled, "Tour de Revs," and they had a stop at my parents church up here so of course I had to go check it out. As it turns out the "Three Revs" had felt lead to organize this tour for the last 7 years by the weight of scripture that talks about poverty, injustice and hunger. Throughout the Bible we are called to eradicate poverty and hunger (e.g. Old Testament Law in Deut 15 and in New Testament Church in Acts 2:37-47). The Rev's talked about how today our society produces enough food for the entire population, but due to unbalanced distribution of that food and wealth, over 80% of it goes to the ~20% of the population in developed countries. Obviously us here in the U.S. are part of the 20% that has much more than we need. I know that even through we all hear about world hunger all the time, sometimes I disconnect from how I can be a part of the solution.

The amazing thing is, through Christian churches, some of the most efficient poverty fighting charities exist. In chatting with Pastor David, one of the Tour De Revs, we were talking about the Lutheran ELCA World Hunger charity they are raising money for, and the point was raised that on charity rating sights, Christian-based charities of all denominations are always rated very well with generally >90% of donated funds going directly to those in need. We should all be encouraged and inspired by this as it is our role as the church to eliminate poverty, and what churches already do is some of the best charity work out there. However, their is still much more need to be met, much more seed to be sown, and ultimately many more to be added to the kingdom through the demonstration of God's love and character through our inspired generosity in each of our individual church communities and in IC3.

Check out the Tour De Revs if you get a chance: http://www.tourderevs.org