Last Friday in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Bishop Penrose Hoover delivered his first convocation and ONE was there!

The bishop presided over Lower Susquehanna Synod’s convocation and declared his intent to fight extreme poverty and recruit others to join the ONE Campaign. In opening the day’s festivities the bishop said, “The idea is to spread the concept of grace by doing advocacy and to give voice to the powerless. This starts with the ONE Campaign, and it starts with each one of you. We need to push out the walls of our congregation to expand grace as ONE.”

ONE member Brian Sweeney met with the bishop a few months ago to discuss ONE, leading to Bishop Hoover’s decision to choose global extreme poverty as the topic for his first convocation. Brian also brought in help through ONE partner organization, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The ELCA sent two representatives to speak at the Bishop’s Convocation to promote ONE and ONE Lutheran.

Of his efforts to promote ONE in his community Brian said, “I became an active member of ONE because I felt compelled through my belief in the Lord that there is a need to help those who are hungry and sick around the world. It is my duty, as a Christian, to make sure we don’t turn our backs on those people.” Sweeney continued, “Proverbs 31:8 says that we should speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. ONE gives people like me the chance to use my voice to help the poorest of the poor. I’ve already done several things… I’ve asked my church to address these issues and I’ve asked my mayor to make my hometown a ONE City. There are still many more ways I can spread the word and get these issues out.”

Whether it is one person, one church, or one Synod, we need everyone to join in the fight against extreme poverty! We want to welcome the Lower Susquehanna Synod to ONE; together we can start to make poverty history!

-Kim Smith, ONE Regional Organizer

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 19th, 2007 at 1:38 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.