Hospitality, Helping Hands, and Servant Hearts Needed in Hurricane Relief Effort
by Allie Martin
September 14, 2005
(AgapePress) - An attorney and author says Hurricane Katrina has given the church in America one of its greatest opportunities to practice the biblical model of hospitality. Chuck Crismier, author of The Power of Hospitality and founder of Save America Ministries, is urging churches to help those left homeless by the hurricane by providing temporary housing, meals, and other necessities. He notes that many storm victims remain in dire straits since the Category 4 storm struck southeastern Louisiana with devastating force and then made a second landfall on the Mississippi coast after being downgraded to a still serious Category 3 event.
Many of those in desperate situations are believers, Crismier notes. The immense need in the wake of the disaster strikes him as "an opportunity for the body of Christ to be the body of Christ -- to display that holy hospitality that is at the very heart of Christ." Of course, he adds, "that requires then, as the Apostle Paul said, that we should do good to all men, but especially those of the household of faith."
The author of The Power of Hospitality says Christians' first responsibility is to the household of faith. Believers are called to "extend hospitality to those that are part of the body of Christ so that, in fact, the world then will look at us and say, 'Behold, how they love one another,'" he says. But the Save America Ministries spokesman says churches throughout the nation should look for ways to show hospitality not only to believers affected by the hurricane, but to nonbelievers as well.
"Can you imagine," Crismier adds, "the power of the church of Jesus Christ stepping up to the plate instead of quoting some kind of Apostle's Creed or something -- actually living out the reality of the truth of the gospel so that people can see it in living color? They will look at what we're doing, and they'll say, 'This is the way it was always intended to be.'"
That is a model being implemented in many areas. There are more than 40 Southern Baptist churches in the Jackson County Baptist Association on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and many congregation members and leaders are lending a hand with relief or recovery assistance and outreach.
Charles Rodgers, associate missionary with the Jackson County Baptist Association in Pascagoula, is helping to coordinate volunteer work crews from numerous states to help out with Southern Baptist Convention Disaster Relief's efforts on the Gulf Coast. He says there is one overriding need -- people with servants' hearts.
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Charles Rogers |
"What we're needing, more than anything," Rodgers notes, "is people who are willing to come down and just do what needs to be done. We have had folks that will come and say, 'Well, we want to do this,' and that may not be the urgent need at that point. We like for people to come and say, 'Whatever you need for us to do, we're ready to do.' Now, that means they'll have to come prepared to do multiple things." The associate missionary says there are a few guidelines for those wanting to pitch in. "We're getting our share of trucks and trailers and things with food and stuff in," he points out, "but we're asking people, if they want to send a tractor-trailer of food, to come with it and bring a team big enough to not only bring it down here; but we park it on a church parking lot, and we ask them to take it out of the truck and distribute it to the people."
Hurricane relief is "a hands-on activity," Rodgers says. "We don't have teams that are sitting around waiting for stuff to do. Everybody is busy. If we're not taking stuff out of houses and cleaning out houses, we're distributing food."
The disaster relief workers need all the help they can get, especially when that help is willing to be flexible and responsive to the needs of the moment, Rogers notes. He estimates it could take from one to three years to rebuild houses, churches, livelihoods, and lives devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
Allie Martin, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
