Can you help the NCC Poverty Initiative finish 2012 strong?

I’d like to express my gratitude for all you’ve done in 2012 to support the NCC Poverty Initiative’s ministry. As you know, the Poverty Initiative is driven by the strong common desire among an incredibly diverse group of Christians to unite and respond to God’s call for “the least of these.” 

In 2012, the NCC Poverty Initiative:

• Equipped Christians for poverty education with three new faith study guides/tool kits, four hunger webinars, and opportunities to join interfaith partners in Fighting Poverty with Faith mobilization events.
• Raised Christians’ voices of faithful concern for people living in poverty with more than 2,000 messages to legislators and more than 35 meetings between faith leaders and the U.S. Congress and Administration. We also joined with Ecumenical Advocacy Days to bring 700 Christian advocates to Capitol Hill to call for a Faithful Budget that protects the most vulnerable.
• Kept poverty issues in front of election 2012 candidates by joining forces with the Circle of Protection coalition to collect and release videos made by President Obama and Governor Romney explaining what they will do to address poverty. We also reached 70,000 people on Twitter with our faith voice at the 2012 election hashtag #TalkPoverty.
• Partnered with the Emergency Food and Shelter Program to ensure relief funds are shared efficiently and equitably across the United States.

We’re looking forward to 2013, when we’ll continue our strong public witness on Captiol Hill and partnership with the Emergency Food and Shelter Program. We’ll also strengthen our connections to state interfaith and ecumenical councils and launch a Pastors Ending Poverty network to help clergy set and reach goals to improve their anti-poverty ministries. Our Council counts on people like you to keep this ministry vital. I hope you will prayerfully consider contributing an end of the year donation to our work.

You can do so by following this link to contribute online, or simply mailing a check to:

National Council of Churches, Poverty Initiative

110 Maryland Ave NE #108

Washington, DC 20002

National Council of Churches Poverty Initiative wishes you and yours every blessing as your heart prepares room for the God who came to us a homeless infant who turned our worldly notions of power upside down. 

With peace, joy, hope, and love,

Shantha

Response in Time of Tragedy

While the Poverty Initiative blog usually hosts information all about poverty all the time, I thought it was important to use every means of communication available to the National Council of Churches to get the word out about how we’re responding to the tragedy in Newtown. Please see a message from the transitional General Secretary of the National Council of Churches below. ~Shantha
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Dear Friends in Faith,

I have been inspired by the great outpouring of support and compassion I have seen in the faith community’s response to the devastating shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School. From prayer vigils to pastoral care resources, and from moving sermons to the many, many prayers for the families and community in Newtown – the outpouring of God’s love to this community through God’s people has been hope fulfilled.

If you would like to access a sampling of the response, click here to see prayers and click here to see actions.

I hope that you will join me not only in continued prayer but also in raising a faithful witness against this and other forms of violence. No nation or community should witness the suffering of such innocents. The National Council of Churches will be participating in several activities over the next few weeks and I invite you to join us.

* Ring Church Bells on Friday morning to Honor Newtown – NCC associated congregations across the United States plan to ring church bells on Friday morning to mark one week’s passing since the shooting tragedy transpired.
* Interfaith Press Conference on Gun Violence: On Friday, December 21, representatives from Jewish and Christian organizations will come together in Washington, DC to call on President Obama to address gun violence. Click here for the news release.
* Gun Violence Prevention Sabbath: On January 6, congregations around the country are being asked to offer sermons, prayers, or education forums against gun violence. Click here to register your congregation and receive a free, downloadable toolkit.
* Call-in Day Against Gun Violence: The interfaith community will join together in early January to host a call-in day to legislators, urging them to address gun violence. Click here to sign up to receive information about this important advocacy action.

We will be convening staff from our member communions shortly after the holidays to discern additional ways that we, as the body of the National Council of Churches, can work together to prevent gun violence and other long term systemic issues of justice and peace.

Prayerfully,

Peg Birk

Transitional General Secretary, National Council of Churches

Share Advent Hope with Your Community and Congress.

There are just a few weeks left to reach a deal that averts the “fiscal cliff.” While Congress is busy deal-making, many faith communities are taking up collections, putting up giving trees, or preparing food and gift baskets for those who might otherwise go without during the holiday season.

Any fiscal deal that doesn’t protect people in poverty goes against the spirit of generosity in our churches. If you haven’t yet, I hope you will click here to email your members of Congress and tell them about how your faith community is sharing Advent hope with neighbors in need.

Unfortunately, members of Congress are openly considering cuts to programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), a powerful tool for fighting hunger among the 20 percent of children who live in food insecure households. If government reflects who we are – our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers – we should not be considering cuts to programs that lift up struggling families.

Please email your members of Congress about sharing Advent hope with neighbors in need. Then, click here to use this easy tool to share the message with a letter to the editor of a local newspaper. Let us keep Advent hope and prepare room in our hearts for the One who taught us how loving our neighbors leads us all to a more abundant life.

NCC Leadership on the Fiscal Cliff

“Poverty is the real-life fiscal cliff facing 46 million Americans every day. As people of faith, let us raise our voices to demand that our leaders return to the table not for the sake of elusive bi-partisanship, but for the common good.”

~Kathryn Mary Lohre

“In a time of difficult budget negotiations, we believe the first commitment is to those who live in poverty. Compromises should not be at the expense of the programs that support those who live with the reality of hunger and poverty. As churches, we will continue to serve those who live in poverty, but we need the leadership of elected officials.”

Bishop Mark Hanson, Presiding Bishop, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

~ Bishop Mark S. Hansen, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Building Opportunity Through Affordable Housing for All: Fighting Poverty with Faith National Event 2012

Every year, the National Council of Churches joins with the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Catholic Charities, the Islamic Society of North America, and dozens of other faith-based organizations to sponsor the Fighting Poverty with Faith mobilization. For 2012, the mobilization theme was “Building Opportunity through Affordable Housing for All.”

Leaders from national faith-based organizations held an interfaith house blessing and press conference at a mixed income housing development called The SeVerna, in Washington, DC. At the SeVerna, no one pays more than one third of their income on housing. The driving force behind the establishment of The SeVerna were leaders from the Bible Way church. At the press conference, national faith leaders called on the U.S. Congress to create more affordable housing like The SeVerna. Congress can make it happen by making good on their 2008 promise to help local agencies create affordable housing by giving $1 billion in federal dollars to the National Housing Trust Fund. Click here to add your voice by sending a message to Congress.

Check out the photo and video footage from the event.

Bible Way church Elder Henry Marshall offers a prayer before the beginning of the Fighting Poverty with Faith 2012 National Event and Press Conference.

Ms. Yvonne Williams shares some of the history of The SeVerna and neighboring affordable housing developments, all of which Bible Way church was instrumental in establishing.
“”We are a church & we have built more than 350 units of housing. It’s not too ‘pie in the sky’ a dream to create opportunities. You can make a difference.”

“The Biblical vision of wholeness (shalom) includes a world in which there is enough for everyone. As people of faith who are committed to this vision of wholeness, we are deeply concerned about so many of God’s people who struggle to find a dignified and affordable place to call home. We need courageous compassion in our churches’ ministries and in the public policies that affect everyone’s ability to live in a community that embodies shalom. We need our Congress to help make this happen by making good on their unfulfilled promise to fund the National Housing Trust Fund.”   ~Rev. Dr. Sharon Watkins of the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ and Vice President at Large of the National Council of Churches

(left to right) Rev. Dr. Sharon Watkins of the Christian Church -Disciples of Christ and Vice President at Large of the NCC, Dr. Sayyid M. Syeed of the Islamic Society of North America, and Rabbi Steve Gutow emerge from an interfaith visit and house blessing at the home of The SeVerna resident and Fighting Poverty with Faith press conference speaker Ms. Deborah Washington.

Money and Politics – What we saw in Election 2012

The following post is an excerpt from The Little Scroll, a blog by ecumenical writer Philip Jenks.

The topic of money – who has it, who doesn’t, and what people do to acquire it – is central to Jesus’ thinking in the passage highlighted in this week’s Revised Common Lectionary.

As the story unfolds in Mark 12:38-44, Jesus is sitting outside the treasury of the temple, watching as people passed by to satisfy their financial obligations to their house of worship. Jesus watched silently as several persons dropped large sums into the till. But when a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins that have become known in Sunday school lore as widow’s mites, he called his followers together.

“Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury,” he told them. “For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

Jesus made a theological comment based on elementary math. I’m tempted to construct a flawed proof text demonstrating that God thinks millionaire Mitt Romney’s tax rate of 14 percent is unfair to me and working stiffs whose percentage is much higher. But I will resist the temptation, in part because I think Jesus had something else in mind besides percentages.

And to be fair about it, both Governor Romney and President Obama are on record as wanting to support poor widows and others who slip below the poverty line.

Last September, candidates Obama and Romney accepted an invitation by the Circle of Protection to go on the record about their intentions for dealing with poverty. Their video statements be viewed at http://bit.ly/TyQyif.

The Circle of Protection is composed of more than 65 heads of denominations, relief and development agencies, and other Christian organizations representing a wide array of churches in the U.S. The National Council of Churches is a founding member of the Circle.

The Circle, a unique amalgam of evangelical, ecumenical, Roman Catholic and Christian Orthodox churches and groups, came together in 2011 to protect essential poverty programs from being cut from the federal budget.

The church leaders told the candidates, “We believe that this presidential campaign should include a clear focus on what each candidate proposes to do to provide help and opportunity for hungry and poor people in the United States and around the world.”

They stressed that God holds nations accountable for the treatment of those Jesus called “the least of these” (Matthew 24:45).

The Circle of Protection leaders said they were disturbed by poverty figures which show that more than one in seven Americans – 46.2 million people – live in poverty, more than 16 million children.

These sad figures pale in comparison to poverty levels around the world, where millions live in daily squalor so crushing it threatens their ability to stay alive each day.
I’m sure both major candidates in the recent and blessedly extinct election campaign are good men of faith who can quote Matthew 24:45 as easily as a bunch of preachers.

But in their feverish campaign for middle class votes, neither candidate gave evidence they were equally concerned about Americans so poor they and their kids live in their cars and fall asleep hungry every night. And neither seemed in the least bit apologetic that the $2.5 billion they raised for manipulative and often dissembling campaign ads rather never brought food to the tables of starving children.

Granted, it’s difficult for U.S. politicians – and preachers, for that matter – to criticize those who are good at raising money and making profits. That kind of preaching shrinks congregations as quickly as poll numbers.

Poverty and the 2012 Election – October 18, 2012 Online Training Summary, Action Steps, Tools

Rev. Michael Livingston, Public Policy Director of Interfaith Worker Justice and past President of the National Council of Churches USA, offered a moving opening reflection and prayer, which you can read in full here.

Erik Stegman of the Half in Ten campaign then shared that more than 46 million Americans lived in poverty in 2011, including one in five children. Yet, the media is barely paying attention to this crisis. Only 17 of the 10,489 studied (.2%) campaign stories addressed poverty in a substantive way.[1] It’s time to #TalkPoverty. He shared tips on how to get the word out about poverty in the election season.

Shantha Ready Alonso of the National Council of Churches Poverty Initiative and Circle of Protection shared a success story about what happens when the candidates do #TalkPoverty. At the request of the Circle of Protection, the presidential candidates shared videos about what they will do to address poverty: http://circleofprotection.usCheck out the next page to take a quiz on who said what.

Amelia Kegan of Bread for the World explained the legislative landscape of the election as well as what we can expect in the lame duck. With the Bush tax cuts set to expire and a mandate to cut $1.2 trillion from the budget in “sequestration,” now is the time to shape the legislative debate around how our nation manages our budget and tax policies. By November 13, the President and “Gang of 8” in the Senate must unveil a plan on how to solve the fiscal problems of our nation. You can put the pressure on right now to make sure the most poor and vulnerable among us are protected from further cuts. See more details about who’s in the Gang of 8 in the

Lastly, Leslie Woods of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) shared about action steps you can take to make a difference in the conversation around poverty in the final weeks of the election and into the weeks after the election (the “lame duck” session). The most important one, obviously is: VOTE!

Here are more action steps to fit any schedule.

30 seconds: Send a tweet to the final presidential debate moderator: @BobSchieffer of CBS news by 10/22 at 9:00pm EDT asking him to #TalkPoverty with the presidential candidates. You can find tweeting tips at http://www.halfinten.org/talkpoverty.

 

Two minutes: First, it is most important you write to your Senators and Representative right now and let them know you want a budget deal that does not further jeopardize people living in poverty. Ask your Senators to weigh in with the “Gang of 8” about protecting poor people in any budget deal. Any deal to replace the fiscal cliff must have EXPLICIT protections for the programs that serve the most vulnerable and it must be balanced with responsible spending cuts alongside additional tax revenue.

Three minutes:Then, spread the impact to your local elected officials and send a message asking them to clearly state what they will do to address poverty if reelected.

Ten minutes: Watch the two presidential candidates’ videos about poverty and faith below, and see what church leaders are saying about poverty and the 2012 election. Quote the videos. Use the “Who Said it?” quiz and share the videos with friends.

Fifteen Minutes: Talk to you friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors. Use your circle of influence to fill the gaping hole the media’s left us. If they don’t talk poverty, we must.

Thirty-Sixty minutes: Use the power of the pen or keyboard.Write a letter to the editor or an Op-ed. Use the talking points in the PowerPoint from this online training. Be sure to mention your elected official by name so his or her staff will flag it for their boss. You can also blog, which will turn up in Google searches. Be sure to tag your blog posts with your elected official’s name.

Attend a candidate forum or town hall meeting: Ask good questions about poverty and reference the facts you learned in this training. You can find more resources about town hall meeting tips and good questions to ask here: http://www.bread.org/ol/2012/elections2012/pdf/town-hall-meeting-tips-2012.pdf

For further election 2012 resources, including important information about making voting accessible to all, check out Operation EMR (Educate, Mobilize, Register) from the African Methodist Episcopal church and Our Faith, Our Vote from the United Church of Christ and Elections Matters handbook from Bread for the World at http://www.bread.org/ol/2012/elections2012/pdf/elections-matter-2012.pdf.

Quiz: Who said it?

When you know what your candidates are saying about poverty, you can hold them to their promises. Take this quiz with quotes from the Circle of Protection and the two Presidential Candidates’ videos to see if you know what the candidates are saying. Watch the videos these quotes were pulled from at http://www.circleofprotection.us

1. “Our government rightfully provides a safety net for the hungry and the homeless, the sick and the elderly, and we have a responsibility to keep it intact for future generations. I’ve laid out a sensible plan to save and strengthen our nations’ entitlement programs, which now account for more than half of federal spending. Here again, I’m committed to protecting those in or near poverty.”

a) Governor Romney                  b) President Obama                        c) The Circle of Protection

2. “Look at every budget proposal from the bottom up—how it treats those Jesus called “the least of these” (Matthew 25:45). They do not have powerful lobbies, but they have the most compelling claim on our consciences and common resources.”

a) Governor Romney                  b) President Obama                        c) The Circle of Protection

3.  “Government can’t solve every problem and it shouldn’t try… Not every tax dollar is spent wisely. Not everyone can be helped who refuses to help themselves. But that’s not an excuse to tell our fellow Americans that they’re on their own.”

a)    Governor Romney                b) President Obama                        c) The Circle of Protection

4.  “Nearly one in every six people in America is in poverty. When our economy is weak, lives are shattered, hearts ache, parents wonder how they’ll make ends meet, and how they’ll provide better lives for their children.”

a)    Governor Romney                b) President Obama                        c) The Circle of Protection

5.  “We can pay down our debt in a balanced and responsible way, but we cannot balance the budget on the backs of the most vulnerable. And certainly can’t ask the poor, the sick, or those with disabilities to sacrifice even more, or ask the middle-class to pay more, just so we can offer massive new tax cuts to those who’ve been blessed with the most.  It’s not just bad economics, it’s morally wrong. It’s not in line with our values, and it’s not who we are as a people.”

a) Governor Romney                  b) President Obama                        c) The Circle of Protection

      6. “Give moral priority to programs that protect the life and dignity of poor and vulnerable people in these   difficult times, our broken economy, and our wounded world.”

a)    Governor Romney                    b) President Obama                        c) The Circle of Protection

 

 

(“Who Said It?” Answer key:         1 – a          2 – c           3 – b          4 – a          5- b            6 – c)

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[1] Source: New study by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting looked at 6 months of campaign coverage between 1/1/12-6/23/12 by 8 prominent outlets

Poverty and the 2012 Election: Reflection and Prayer by Rev. Michael Livingston

Since the recession began in 2007 only two congressional districts in the entire nation that have had a statistically significant decrease in poverty.  One hundred forty-five have stayed the same and 388 have seen a significant increase in people living in poverty.  Forty-nine million Americans are living in poverty.  That’s the context in which our election is taking place.

What we have is one candidate who talks about poverty, mentions it, but whose policies, experts tell us, will do harm to people living in poverty.  The safety net will be further torn, rather than strengthened for the greater demand it must bear in these difficult times of slow growth.  And we have another candidate who will not talk about poor people, will not say the word “poverty” though we may have confidence that his policies will provide relief and opportunity for the most vulnerable among us.  Real talk about poverty, frank exposure of the dimensions of the array of challenges that confront us is absent from our national dialogue in an election that could fundamentally alter the universe of social and economic policy as we know it.  We are on the brink now.  We could be over it soon. 

Talk of policy should never obscure the people whose lives and loves policies shape and steer as they deprive or make available access to resources and opportunities that put knowledge and skill in the heads, hands and hearts of the least fortunate among us.  The woman who sits nightly on the bus stop bench with several small and large bags placed beside her, just so, a glare at once defiant and desperate on her face, a rigidity about her frail body that suggests vigilance as another long night approaches.

 The woman who sits on the steps outside the train station: umbrella, head rag, a mask of make-up in pastel shades that match her flowing dress;  “Got anything for me today?” She asks. 

The men who sit on crates or lean on walls with empty paper cups asking for change wanting bills for cigarettes, more coffee, a sandwich; their lives circumscribed by loss.  This seems their work absent real jobs that pay living wages.  The children we mostly do not see, twelve million of them, behind when they begin school, never to catch up, equipped only for a Medicaid future of low-paying-low-skilled work without pension, affordable health care, paid sick days or vacations, workmen’s compensation, and unemployment insurance. 

We can do better, we must. 

Let us pray:  God of all people in every place, we trust in your love and justice when our will fails.  Inspire us to love and good works, to develop systems that right wrongs and set in place programs that provide opportunities for especially those who have been left out and forgotten while a few at the top enjoy luxuries that are bought at the expense of the very people who make any profit possible.  Thankful for this very day and hour, open our ears to new insights and initiatives, and move us to act for the good of all, especially our brothers and sisters living in poverty.  Amen.

This reflection and prayer was offered by Rev. Michael Livingston on October 18, 2012 at the “Poverty and the 2012 Election” webinar hosted by the Interreligious Working Group on Domestic Human Needs. Rev. Livingston is a past president of the National Council of Churches and former director of its Poverty Initiative. He now serves as the Public Policy Director of Interfaith Worker Justice.

Harvest Season is Anti-Hunger Season – Fall 2012 Newsletter

Friends in Faith,

The Fall edition of the NCC Poverty newsletter is here.

Harvest season is upon us. From CROP hunger walks to a national Fair Food Day of Prayer to Christian education webinars on food justice, Christian communities all over the U.S. are making it a priority in October to walk, learn, advocate, and pray for a day when all are fed.

If only we could say the same about the election 2012 candidates. Last night, poverty was barely mentioned in the presidential debate. Christian voters must continue to keep the concerns of Matthew 25 central to election conversations. This edition of our newsletter contains some ideas on how.

Read about all this and more here.

Grace and Peace,

Shantha

Inside this Edition:

News

• Churches Pray for Fair Food on Friday, October 5th
• Church World Service CROP Walks Underway Across the U.S.

Take Action

• Pray the Vote. Make poverty a central issue in the 2012 election.
• Join or organize an event about Affordable Housing with the Fighting Poverty with Faith mobilization November 8-18

Events

• Food Justice Opportunities Abound! Celebrate World Food Day on October 16 and join food justice NCC webinars October 17 & 23.
• Celebrate the National Observance of Children’s Sabbaths this October
  

Resources

• HOME: An Interfaith Study Guide on housing and hospitality
• Book: Money and Faith: The Search for Enough

Click here to read our newsletter with all these stories and more.

Money and Faith: The Search for Enough

Money and Faith: The Search for Enough (includes a community-building study guide, ideal for small group use)

Recommended by Shantha Ready Alonso, NCC Interim Poverty Coordinator

In the introduction to Money and Faith Schut shares his hope that his book will be “personal, prophetic, pastoral, and purposeful.”  

In our personal lives, and in the ways we relate to and feel about money, he points to our need for the “nurturing companionship of a wise, compassionate pastor or spiritual guide.” In some of our society’s more powerful assumptions – such as “more (money, economic growth) is better” and “time is money” – Schut writes “we need to experience the power, strength, anger, and call to repent reminiscent of an Old Testament prophet.”  Facing great inequities and ecological degradation, he suggests “we need purposeful guidance that will lead to actions, decisions, and policies that will lead to a world with enough for all.”

Good pastors and priests are all these things. They are personal – they get to know us and honor our journey. They are prophetic – not afraid to clearly speak the truth. Even when that truth pierces our assumptions or challenges our lives, they invite us to see in a new way. And they are purposeful, helping us answer, in light of our own lives and the world’s realities, “How shall we then live?”

Money and Faith succeeds in guiding the reader on a journey that is all these things: personal, pastoral, prophetic, and purposeful.  The book is undergirded by the faith that, in God’s economy, it is possible to create a world with enough for all, for all people as well as the rest of God’s good creation. The book is comprised of essays from a wide diversity of authors, and is ideal for use in small groups, as it comes with a community building study guide complete with prayers, meditations, discussion questions, and suggested action steps.

If you’ve read this book or you want to, comment on our blog to start a discussion, or tweet us @NCCEndPoverty