In all your "busy"ness in the Church, don’t
forget to get involved in your local/neighborhood community! Christian voices and Christian
commitment is greatly needed in every community -- in the political arena,
in the school system, in hospitals, in nursing homes -- everywhere.
How can you get involved?
Keep up with social issues. Find out what you can do to
promote justice in your town. What issues affect ethnic, racial, and
sexual minorities? What is being done to assist the poor, the elderly, the
disenfranchised? What is being done to promote respect for life, respect
for the family? How are children being cared for? How can you help make a
difference in your town?
What about helping out in non-Church related charities
in your area? You could contact your local Volunteer Action Center,
or Volunteer Clearing House. Many cities and counties have centers which
can be contacted for local referrals. There are resources on the web
as well that match volunteers with agencies in need (see the
links page on this site.
Finally, what can you do at the most basic of local
levels-- your own neighborhood? What can you do to pull the neighborhood
together, to assist others in becoming committed to peace and justice as a
neighborhood? How about a neighborhood cooperative -- buying food in bulk
and then dividing it among the participants? How about taking on some
charitable project as a neighborhood?
It all makes a difference.
Helpful Resource:
Stand Up and Be Counted: The Volunteer Resource Book. Judy
Knipe; published by Simon + Schuster, 1992; Rockefeller Center, 1230
Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
