Hunger Huddle 2011

by Jonathan Trapp

Chair, Synod Hunger, Poverty and Justice Task Force

While we are surely familiar with our responsibility as followers of Christ to feed the poor and to be a voice of justice for those who are oppressed, sometimes it just seems overwhelming. I find it difficult to know where to start or how to do somethingthat is effective, so I often do not really emphasize that part of the gospel. Do you ever do that? And then you realize that if you keep glossing over the whole feed the hungry, clothe the poor parts of the Bible, you are omitting one of the largest focuses in the Bible. So maybe that means that’s where our emphasis as a church ought to be. Maybe we ought to look at how we can take our faith and fully apply it in the world. Maybe we ought to be inspired by God’s love and work to end the oppression that so many people live under, whether it is oppression from poverty or oppression from hunger or any other form of oppression.

In an effort to help assist a deep interest in this topic within the Synod, a Task Force on Hunger, Poverty and Justice was created late last year. The Task Force has been working with ELCA World Hunger and a grassroots ELCA organization, Potlucks to End World Hunger, to host a conference looking at the systemic causes of hunger in the world today. After many months of planning, the conference is going to happen and we would like to invite all of you to attend! It will be held at Redeemer Lutheran inAtlanta on the 21st of October. For more information please visit http://hungerhuddle2011.eventbrite.com/and register.

Your initial thought might be, ‘Hunger issues? Isn’t that just a problem overseas?’ Well, it ends up that it’s a problem everywhere and right in our own backyard. Recent government studies have shown about 1 in 10 people in the US experience hunger or are at a risk of hunger. About a third of those are children. This means that if you want to know where the hungry people are in the US, just look around you… they are your neighbors, your friends, that cute couple who sit two pews in front of you every Sunday. While homelessness is still a massive problem in our society and there is a raging famine in Africa, we can no longer lie to ourselves and think hunger is problem for ‘them’ because ‘they’ have become ‘us’

So this conference is designed as an opportunity for us to learn more about the causes of hunger, but what is really exciting to me is that it is an opportunity for us to learn how several different organizations are fighting hunger and its causes. The hope is that it will help you identify where your abilities can best be used to fight this problem and to give you some ideas to take back to your friends, your co-workers and your congregation.

For me, one of the great things about being a part of the Synod’s Task Force on Hunger, Poverty and Justice is the opportunity to see what a great force the church is in this world and how God inspires people to give of themselves and their abilities tohelp their brothers and sisters. It is my hope that you will attend the conference and come away more inspired and more empowered to fight oppression and to continue being a reflection of God’s love and mercy everyday.