Churches In Action: The Answer To A Broken World?Sample

Working Together 

What the disciples experienced in the feeding of the 5000 is very similar to that facing so many of us as we journey with Jesus today. 

We read how the disciples’ short break away from people was interrupted by the gathering of a large crowd. They were exhausted by the demands of following Jesus and serving others. As evening fell, the disciples grew alarmed that the crowd showed no signs of leaving even though the place was desolate and there was no food. Their impulse was to ask Jesus to send them away, for nothing could be done. We often want to do the same with those whose needs are beyond our capacity to meet. Our tendency is to focus on problems rather than possibilities. Equally, just like the disciples, we tend to push the problem entirely onto Jesus to solve, as opposed to asking him how we might work together. 

Many of our prayers are rather like the request of the disciples - Jesus, please take this responsibility off our hands! Jesus, however, is not content for people to remain in need. He has compassion for them. And his way of acting is in partnership with us. 

The disciples played a key role in finding the food which was multiplied (identifying resources), and it seems that the multiplication actually took place as the disciples gave the food out. Jesus wants us to identify the resources God has already given us and others, no matter how inadequate they seem, and to deploy them towards the meeting of needs. 

“Jesus needs what we can bring him. It may not be much but he needs it. It may well be that the world is denied miracle after miracle and triumph after triumph because we will not bring to Jesus what we have and what we are. If we would lay ourselves on the altar of his service, there is no saying what he could do with us and through us. We may be sorry and embarrassed that we have not more to bring – and rightly so; but that is no reason for failing to bring what we have. Little is always much in the hands of Christ.” (William Barclay)

Our mission is to support churches across the world in offering whatever they have to serve the needs of their community. The aim is for the community to lead and control their own development. This is a different approach to humanitarian aid. Because of the way aid sometimes worked in the past, some communities had come to depend on it. Rather than a top-down approach that can promote dependency, Tearfund uses a grassroots method. We call it Church and Community Transformation (CCT). 

Gadiru Bassie, Evangelical Fellowship of Sierra Leone, has seen this in action: “We have not only affected the community but we have helped to transform the perception of church leaders with regard to development. We help them realize that the message they are preaching–the message that Jesus preached–was holistic: he fed, he preached, he healed.” 

Find out more about CCT: Sylvia & Polly’s Story