Overview
Hunger affects every part of a person’s life. It limits children’s ability to grow physically and mentally. It multiplies the effects of diseases such as AIDS, malaria, TB, and cancer. It consumes suffering people’s energy so that they cannot work to help provide shelter, clothing, education, and medical care for their families.
Hunger is not a stand alone problem. It is the result of systemic poverty, and it contributes to the continuation of poverty.
Hunger is one of the most devastating forms of extreme poverty and touches the lives of millions of people around the world. And it is 100% preventable.
The statistics are unimaginable. We don’t like to hear about the magnitude of suffering in which people live. But we all have a part to play in stopping hunger and poverty. We can start by becoming aware of the problem.
The Church of the Nazarene’s call to responsibility:
Manual of the Church of the Nazarene (2005-09)
903.4. Responsibility to the Poor
The Church of the Nazarene believes that Jesus commanded His disciples to have a special relationship to the poor of this world; that Christ’s Church ought, first, to keep itself simple and free from an emphasis on wealth and extravagance and, second, to give itself to the care, feeding, clothing, and shelter of the poor. Throughout the Bible and in the life and example of Jesus, God identifies with and assists the poor, the oppressed, and those in society who cannot speak for themselves. In the same way, we, too, are called to identify with and to enter into solidarity with the poor and not simply to offer charity from positions of comfort. We hold that compassionate ministry to the poor includes acts of charity as well as a struggle to provide opportunity, equality, and justice for the poor. We further believe that the Christian responsibility to the poor is an essential aspect of the life of every believer who seeks a faith that works through love.
Finally, we understand Christian holiness to be inseparable from ministry to the poor in that it drives the Christian beyond his or her own individual perfection and toward the creation of a more just and equitable society and world. Holiness, far from distancing believers from the desperate economic needs of people in our world, motivates us to place our means in the service of alleviating such need and to adjust our wants in accordance with the needs of others. (2001)
(Exodus 23:11; Deuteronomy 15:7; Psalms 41:1; 82:3; Proverbs 19:17; 21:13; 22:9; Jeremiah 22:16; Matthew 19:21; Luke 12:33; Acts 20:35; 2 Corinthians 9:6; Galatians 2:10)
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