Tuesday, October 11 | It’s what we’ve always done
Read Acts 5:12-16
Eusebius was a 4th-century church historian. He wrote Historia Ecclesiastica (A History of the Church), which is one of the most complete pictures we have of the church in the first few centuries after Christ. In his writing, Eusebius talks about a long season of war and famine that was followed by a pandemic. The disease killed many people. Lots of people fled the cities to the country, in order to avoid getting sick.
But the Christians, he says, stayed in the city to take care of the sick, not being afraid of becoming sick and dying themselves. And in fact, many Christians died from the disease.
This is just one beautiful account of the ways in which the Church has historically shown up in times of great difficulty in the world. This points to the reality that from the time of the early church, the church has seen our mission as one of service to our city. The people of Christ were never meant to hide away, protected in our church buildings. We are meant to be OUT - among the city - bringing peace and hope and practical care! We are meant to work actively for the welfare of our city - for shalom.
There is a retreat center in central Illinois that is the site of a convent. The sisters in this convent have created a visual timeline of the ways they have been able to “meet the needs of the time” in their city. The specific needs changed over time but these sisters were involved in their city enough to know what the needs were, and cared enough to meet them.
As you looked over the town summaries yesterday on commteam.org, what did you notice about the needs of our communities? Was there anything you saw that captured your heart? What “needs of the time” might you/we be able to meet? Email outreach@harborofhope with your observations and thoughts!