St Mary's Church, Dymock

Welcome

Jesus told us that as part of serving God, Christians should "Love your neighbour as much as you love yourself", in that way we also honour God as much as he loves us (Luke 10:25-28). (Return to top)

There are consequently many Christian-based charities which exist to put that theory into practice. Some are listed below, click on each for more details:

Tear Fund is a "Christian relief and development agency" - an NGO (Non-governmental Organisation) that helps people around the world. As an organisations it has small overheads and sends its money directly to local people.

Tear Fund has found that in any situation, the local church is best placed to know what's needed and to offer help most effectively. Local church people see and recognise the needs of the poorest, those without a voice of any kind, so they're working to create a network of local churches in poor countries in order that, through them, poverty can be reduced, if not eradicated all together. Their ten-year vision is to see 50 million people released from material and spiritual poverty through a world-wide network of 100,000 local churches.

Why should they do that? Both the Old and New Testament sections of the Bible teach us about helping our fellows. For instance, Micah 6:8 says 'What does the Lord require of you? To act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God', whilst Jesus said the summary of the Law is to 'Love God and your neighbour as yourself' (Luke 10:26) and he gave several parables to illustrate it, not least 'The Good Samaritan' (Luke 10:30).

Does it work? Yes! Tear Fund makes connections across the world between people in need and the practical resources available. Examples are given on the Tear Fund Website. The examples include: providing resistant seeds for draught conditions and training in making irrigation channels, help to cope with natural disasters like floods and providing defences to prevent them happening again, and education and support for preventing and coping with HIV/AIDS (across Africa 15 million children suffer, which is equal to 25% of the British population).
(Return to top)