Each of us has a unique role to play in addressing global challenges such as poverty, HIV/AIDS, clean water and maternal health. For over twenty years now I’ve been telling stories, through video and web media, designed to inspire small groups to live out their faith. In particular, I have a deep passion that individuals in small groups discover their role in seeking solutions in the fight against global poverty and pandemic diseases.

That’s why I created a small group and Church video and print resource called START: Becoming a Good Samaritan. That’s also why I’m excited to partner with ONE—to get this resource into your hands…your Church. Starting today, we’re offering “Becoming a Good Samaritan” as a free resource to small groups and Churches looking to raise awareness in their congregations and their communities.

This teaching tool will help your small group or Church become inspired to take action in the fight against global poverty—especially treatable, preventable diseases such as AIDS and malaria. You’ll hear personal stories from Kay Warren of Saddleback Church, Rich Stearns, president of World Vision, as well as Princess Kasune Zulu who shares her hope that we can end the senseless suffering of HIV/AIDS. Sign up and register at ONE Sabbath today to receive this free DVD session and study guide chapter from START: Becoming A Good Samaritan curriculum. Together as ONE… We can make a difference!

-Mike Seaton, C2 Group

Last week ONE joined with hundreds of leaders at the National Association of Evangelicals “Evangelical Leaders Forum” at First Baptist Church of Glenarden in nearby Landover, Maryland mobilizing action in the fight global poverty alongside other national and global challenges. The consensus here is that despite many differences and difficulties, there is hope when we work together in achieving positive change.

ONE was a cosponsor of the event, along with Micah Challenge USA, where we led discussion and discernment in how churches can best raise awareness and act in concern around AIDS, clean water, education and maternal health issues through ONE Sabbath and Micah Sunday. Other ONE partners such as Bread for the World, Save Darfur, and World Relief were also in attendance.

Friday morning we heard from Wesleyan General Superintendent and ONE Sabbath supporter Jo Anne Lyon on the importance of the church’s role in working to end poverty by direct relief and development as well as its role in advocacy to elected leaders. Lyon, in reflecting on Psalm 82 , made a compelling and passionate plea for the church to work towards women empowerment, continued AIDS initiatives like PEPFAR, as well as leadership for care for the environment – because “the world’s poor are hurt first and worst” amidst the climate crisis. Later at lunch, former President George W. Bush’s speechwriter and adviser Michael Gerson gave an eyewitness account of the President’s historic PEPFAR initiative and his on the ground stories of seeing US funds at work to rebuild a community in Ethiopia.

It was a spirited couple of days of conversation and calling – I look forward to the action that will come out of this national gathering in the days to come.

Trinity Presbyterian Church and Dar al Hijrah Islamic Center co-hosted an Interfaith Hunger Banquet this past weekend in Arlington, VA to unite the community in the fight against hunger. The Oxfam Hunger Banquet simulates the number of people living in poverty worldwide. Guests sit according to a randomly assigned income level and eat a corresponding meal with the high group enjoying a nutritious feast and the low group, half of all attendees, eating just a small portion of rice.

Pastor Bernie Nord and ONE Sadaqa endorser Imam Johari Abdul-Malik opened the ceremony with prayers from their distinct traditions. Despite their differences, these two faith communities are working together in the fight against global hunger. They welcomed Congressman Jim Moran to the podium who shared a message of unity reflective of his career-long commitment to human rights issues in the developing world. He invoked a metaphor of the human organism to illustrate how our lives are interconnected. He said:

“We really are part of a human organism, of really one organism, hence the organization that is represented here, ONE…A majority of the humans on this earth really don’t have a whole lot of opportunity to realize their full potential, so we as a human species will never realize our full potential…when we ignore so much of that body of which we are a part.”

At the end of his speech, Rep. Moran pointed to my ONE shirt and reminded the audience, “That’s really what this night is all about. It’s recognizing that we’re all one.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5ReK927cjo&feature=player_embedded

Faith communities in Virginia and across the country are organizing to raise awareness and take action to end the suffering caused by global poverty. Learn more about ONE Sabbath here.

-Lauren Conn

This past week, Australian’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, along with Leader of the Opposition Malcolm Turnbull, lifted up the role that citizens, people of faith, and governments have in the fight against global poverty at the launch of the new Poverty and Justice Bible, at the Parliament House in Canberra.

Joined by Tim Costello of World Vision Australia as well as representatives of Micah Challenge, Prime Minister Rudd highlighted Australians collective commitment to increased international development assistance, and the role faith groups have in advocating for more and better aid:

Of course, for those of us engaged in national political life, our work on policy is incomplete unless we are working arm-in-arm with the great organisations of the Church and charitable sector.

All of you in this room know full well that there is a limit to what Government can do. All of you know full well that, when it comes to dealing with poverty, at home and abroad, this is often done best when you have a creative and effective partnership between the resources of Government and the compassion of Church and charitable organisations.

…In Australia, what we have sought to do in recent times is to put our shoulder to the wheel by lifting Australia’s contribution to ODA around the developing world…

Problems abroad however, cannot be ignored. Remember, it was [John] Wesley who said ‘the world is my parish’. And so it is for us as well.

Therefore, by lifting what we seek to do around the world, and by also putting our shoulder to the wheels of other countries in pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals, our objective is to make a real and quantifiable difference.

Video of the speech can be found here.

-Adam Phillips

Last night I was joined by 100 faith leaders from across the country, to launch and begin to plan ONE Sabbath events in churches, mosques, synagogues and temples. Speaking on the call with me were 4 national faith leaders – Princess Kasune Zulu, a noted AIDS activist, Zambia native and Christian activist in Chicago; Rabbi Shawn Zevit, Director of Tikkum Olam for the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation; Imam Mohamed Hag Magid, Vice President of the Islamic Society of North America; Ishani Chowdhury, the Hindu American Foundation Director of Public Policy. They endorsed ONE Sabbath and discussed the role of faith inspired advocacy with ONE.

ONE Sabbath organizes congregations to raise awareness and advocate with ONE through their worship services, small groups, youths groups and women’s organizations.

If you missed the call last night and would like to listen in, check it out here.

And do be sure to learn more sign up to host your own ONE Sabbath event at www.one.org/onesabbath.

-Adam Phillips

Tonight at 7:00pm EST, ONE Sabbath 2009 kicks off as ONE members across the nation answer the call to engage in the fight against global poverty and suffering, literally.

The call will be led by Rev. Adam Phillips from our faith team, who will be joined by four activists representing a diverse range of faith communities. They’ll be talking all our exciting plans for ONE Sabbath, and its companion ONE Seva and ONE Sadaqa programs.

To join, call 877-229-8493 tonight at seven o’clock and then enter 15195 when prompted for the passcode.

On the call, you’ll learn how leaders in your church, synagogue, mosque, temple, study group or youth group can raise awareness while bringing belief and action together.

The inspiring conference call scheduled for tonight will also feature the voices and experiences of four activists of diverse faiths who add power to the fight against poverty and disease.

They are:

• Princess Kasune Zulu – a noted AIDS activist and speaker, as well as an associate pastor at River City Church in Chicago.
• Rabbi Shawn Zevit – the Director of Outreach and Tikkun Olam for the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation.
• Imam Mohamed Hag Magid – the Vice President of the Islamic Society of North America and Executive Director of the ADAMS Center.
• Ishani Chowdhury – the Director of Public Policy for the Hindu American Foundation.

To hear from them, learn more about ONE Sabbath and ask questions and share your experiences, join the call at 7:00pm EST tonight:

Call-in info:

Dial-in number: 877-229-8493

Passcode: 15195

-Sydney Skov

ONE Sabbath is back for 2009 and we’re kicking off this new season of faith and anti-poverty activism with a very special conference call that we want you to be on. Next Wednesday, September 16 at 7:00pm EST, I’ll be hosting a call to talk about how you can organize your faith community to raise awareness and take action against global poverty through ONE Sabbath and its companion ONE Sadaqa and ONE Seva programs.

And it couldn’t be easier to get on this call. That’s because there’s no dial-in number to remember. All you have to do is sign up by clicking on the link below and our conference call system will automatically call you at 7:00pm on Wednesday. Sign up here.

In addition to myself and other members of the ONE faith relations team, we’ll be joined by a diverse group of religious leaders who are also active in the struggle to end global poverty and preventable disease. From the Christian community, Princess Kasune Zulu will be on the call – she is a noted AIDS activist, Zambia native and associate pastor at River City Church in Chicago. We’ll also have Director of Tikkum Olam for the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation, Rabbi Shawn Zevit; the Vice President of the Islamic Society of North America, Imam Mohamed Hag Magid; and Ishani Chowdhury, the Hindu American Foundation Director of Public Policy.

We’ve got some exciting resources and special materials we’d like to offer you free of charge made by experts in the fields of preaching, small group and youth group curricula. So be sure to register for the call – and don’t worry about calling us, we’ll call you!

-Adam Phillips

Recently, Willow Creek’s Pastor Bill Hybels sat down with Bono at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit for a conversation, amongst other things, on the church’s role in the fight against extreme poverty. Reflecting on his conversation, Pastor Hybels wrote “What Bono Taught Me About Fighting Poverty” this week in US News and World Report.

“Nearly two weeks ago, I stood before 7,000 people—and an additional 60,000 connected via satellite feed—who gathered for the Willow Creek Association’s annual two-day conference the Global Leadership Summit to hear from diverse faculty on the subject of how to get better at leading whatever it is that we lead. Part of the assortment this year included Bono, who agreed to a follow-up discussion to our 2006 interview, during which he called out the local church for being inexcusably late to the game of fighting extreme poverty and treatable disease.

The evangelical church has taken a lot of justifiable heat in recent years for being vocal about the things we hate while staying silent about some of the most pressing needs in our world. There are times when I believe the church should be the conscience of our culture, but to Bono’s point, a reframing must occur, one where the divisiveness that once defined us as people of faith gets edged out by a unity around great societal causes. And what has to unite us in this day and age is the fight against poverty and disease. Faith leaders the world over expected this day would come. What we didn’t expect was that it would take an Irish rock star to demand the dawn.

Since Bono’s clarion call three years ago, well-resourced churches have banded together to take a bite out of poverty, pouring vast amounts of resources into building orphanages, clinics, schools, and sports fields through partnerships with underresourced churches around the globe. Not that the ultimate judge comes in the form of a leather-clad superstar in shades, but still it was gratifying to hear Bono’s assessment of progress to date: “I knew [the church] was a sleeping giant, but I didn’t know the giant could run so fast.”

In some parts of Africa, malaria deaths have been halved. Antiretroviral drugs are being shipping back because villagers have what they need. Education is having an effect. These are all good changes, but admittedly more must be done….”

Full article may be found here.

-Adam Phillips

The General Convention of the Episcopal Church, meeting in Anaheim, California last week, overwhelmingly adopted a budget for the next three years that allots 0.7 percent of the Church’s non-government revenue to international-development programs that support the Millennium Development Goals.

This 0.7 percent line item, which originated in the last three-year budget adopted at the 2006 General Convention, was created both to bolster the Church’s own overseas development work and to serve as a model of best practice that Episcopalians can cite in their advocacy for similar commitments from the United States government.

Due to the difficult economic crisis, the draft budget received by bishops and deputies prior to the Convention had recommended the elimination of the 0.7 percent line item amidst sweeping across-the-board cuts. Both the House of Deputies and the House of Bishops overwhelmingly passed resolutions asking that the line item be restored in response to an outpouring of support for it in open budget hearings held last week.

Bishop Robert O’Neill of Colorado, who serves as Chairman of Episcopal Relief and Development and led the supporters of the resolution in the House of Bishops, said the 0.7 percent commitment “has been the proverbial mustard seed planted in a way that has challenged individual parishes and dioceses across our church to think and act globally. It’s become a way of framing our mission collectively in a way that makes sense to and captured the hearts of our young people across the church.

“That $3 million raised out of $1 million [committed in the past triennium] has tangibly revealed our explicit and sacrificial commitment to the global healing and reconciliation and restoration that is the essence of our participation in God’s mission.”

Bishop James Mathes of San Diego said the increase “is really about leadership. What we’re trying to do here as The Episcopal Church is to say that the Millennium Development Goals is a way that we lead as a church.”

-Alex Baumgarten, International Policy Analyst, Office of Government Relations, Episcopal Church

This past 4th of July weekend, ONE was with over 30,000 Muslims at the Islamic Society of North America Convention engaging people to act against extreme poverty. Meeting this year in Washington, DC, the ISNA gathering brought together Muslims from the US and Canada as well as people of other faiths to share ideas, build community, and broaden engagement in the areas of faith, art, culture, and global challenges.

Along with our partner Islamic Relief, ONE was there raising awareness about global poverty and treatable, preventable disease and signing up people to act in the fight by planning a ONE Sadaqa event for their local masjids and congregations back home. In a Muslim Youth of North America (MYNA) workshop, we also had some fun breaking classroom rules together to take out our cell phones and text “Sadaqa” to 23663 and join ONE.

A highlight of the gathering was Saturday night’s keynote message by ONE Sabbath supporter Pastor Rick Warren. Addressing the crowd on Independence Day, Pastor Warren stood alongside ISNA President Dr. Ingrid Mattson and challenges the “the two largest faiths on the planet” (Christianity and Islam), to work together to tackle the major problems of the world, which include poverty as well as education for all.

Check out Naeem Muhammad’s comments from Islamic Relief who was there as well:

-Adam Phillips