James 2:1-7
"My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court? Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?"
James 2:14-17
"What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead."
I wrote back in September when we first started our new nonprofit organization that, "I don't know what I expect MPOB to become. For now, my goal is to find somewhere to serve on a monthly basis. We've also looked at expanding our ministry to boxed meals that we can deliver to people where they are in the Eastern Jackson County and Kansas City areas." Well...I'm happy to report that, thanks to everyone who has continued to support us, we've served 13 times over the last 6 months and have served over 140 boxed meals to individual families battling medical bills and/or general financial adversity. We've got four more serve dates on our calendar over the next month and project to serve roughly 400 meals, bringing us to a "total meals served" north of 2,500 in our first seven months of operation.
I don't say any of that to brag in any way about what we are doing. I've said it before and I'll say it again, we physically cannot do any of this without you all supporting us. We are big on the idea of "Time, Talent, Treasure" at MPOB. Some people have time to give, that's us. Some people have talent to give, that's (debatably) all of us. Some people have treasure to give, and that's you all. Neither is more important than the next, yet they cannot function without each other. We have to have all three to exist. As a teacher I periodically have some extra time on my hands, but we certainly can't do what we're doing without the treasure that drives this operation.
This is the entire idea of "many parts" of the same "body" of Christ. This is our mission. Along with all of the meals we've served, and donations we've collected, we have also had over 30 different people volunteer with us over the last seven months. This is how we envision our building of the body of Christ. We believe strongly that EVERYONE benefits when a group of us serve together. The folks we serve, the volunteers themselves, and the people who will volunteer because of the experiences that our past volunteers have shared with them. We firmly believe that we can positively impact our community in a way that will leave a lasting impact, but we can't do it without a group effort. We need people to want to be a part of the change they want to see in the world, and we have been blown away by how many people have come forward ready to serve with us so far in this journey.
We are currently spending just north of $5.50 per meal we serve, but this includes a stockpile of plastic "to-go" containers, plastic silverware, plates, napkins, etc. that should easily last us well into 2025. My personal goal for the year 2025 is to get that number down closer to $3/meal before our Christmas Dinner Drive for the BSSD in December. I think it's completely achievable and sends a message to our donors that we are being as efficient as possible with how we are spending their money so that folks are comfortable making donations to our services every year.
I also wanted to send a huge THANK YOU to everyone who has helped us raise money through our fun little fundraisers online. We raised several hundred dollars with our "NFL Playoff Bracket Challenge" and another several hundred dollars with our Super Bowl Square fundraiser. The money from the playoff challenge helped us buy brisket and sides for dinner at the Ronald McDonald Houses in KC on 2/16, and the Super Bowl Squares money is going to help us put on an awesome event for the kids at the Drumm Farm Center for Children on Saturday 3/8. We'll have a March Madness bracket challenge in March to help raise money for our individual meal assistance program that we've been running, so keep an eye out for that if you're interested.
I've always been a big fan of bringing people together. I love watching football games with my buddies. I love Saturday night of Tomstock getting thousands of people to celebrate the raising of over half of a million dollars every summer. The gathering of people is fundamentally what makes up the body of Christ. Gathering together to serve our community is what we strive to do and what we'd love for you to join us in this year. If you ever have any interest in joining our family of volunteers, follow this link to our "signup" dot com page for a list of events that you can sign up for. We'd love to have you come out and witness the good things that your money is doing in our community and the joy that God's Kingdom can bring to folks here on earth.
I want to leave you with a passage from Luke's gospel. Jesus had just returned to Nazareth and was teaching in his local temple. He opened a scroll from Isaiah and read this passage:
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”
This is the first time in Luke's gospel that we have a recording of Jesus teaching publicly, taking place shortly after Jesus was baptized and tempted. The first thing that Jesus taught in his hometown was that the Messiah would come to proclaim good news to the poor and that he, in fact, was the Messiah. It's the very first thing he taught in his ministry. If we are to align ourselves with Jesus Christ and call ourselves his followers, taking care of our less fortunate neighbors must be a fundamental priority. I love that so many of my friends and family have made this a part of their lives. I love that we can join together and celebrate this. Can't wait to keep doing it with you all.
