After several years of this, members within the church began exploring the concept of establishing an Economic Justice covenant. The UCC's Economic Justice Covenant Program is a process of formally exploring issues of economic justice -- from a Biblical perspective, from a modern-day faith perspective, from our collective perspective as local and worldwide citizens, and from a personal perspective. A group called Faith Works came into being last year to help guide us through this process and the church membership agreed to formally proceed with the Economic Justice Covenant process at our Annual Meeting this past January.
Early today, several members of the Faith family were featured in an article within the Gazette about our community outreach and about our journey towards becoming an official Economic Justice church within the UCC. The article not only talks about what we do to serve our local and global community, but why we do it -- and why we have trouble applying the breaks sometimes:
Boxes of juice, containers of applesauce and piles of granola bars crowd three tables where Faith United Church of Christ just finished a recent Sunday service. Members of the small church, located at 1609 DeForest Ave., line up on each side, filling plastic grocery sacks with the food. Each bag — 36 total — were delivered to Mark Twain Elementary School on Friday. The bags eventually will go home with students who might otherwise be hungry.The article notes that Faith UCC went through a similar -- though likely more contentious -- covenant process back in 1992 when we studied and eventually became the first UCC church in Iowa to declare itself open and affirming to all who seek Christian fellowship, regardless of sexual orientation.
“The idea of any child — of any person, but especially a young a child — being told ‘I’m sorry, there’s no food until Monday,’ is difficult to comprehend,” says Marilyn Calkins, a member of Faith United Church of Christ. “How can any of us not do something?”
Each week, for at least five years, volunteers from Faith United make the drive to Hiawatha to collect food from the HACAP Food Reservoir and bring it to the church. The weekend food program is just one way the church reaches out to those in need...Nationally, more than one in seven Americans, or 15 percent, of the entire population live below the poverty line ($22,811 for a family of four with two children), according to U.S. Census Bureau statistics released in late 2012.Nearly 15 percent of households in the United States (50.1 million Americans, or one in six) are food insecure— meaning that the people in the household are unsure of how they will provide for their next meal at some point during the year. Households with children are more likely to experience food insecurity.
Slightly more than 40 percent of Iowa’s public school students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches, according to the Iowa Department of Education. This is an increase from 27 percent 10 years ago.
If we do indeed adopt this new covenant, I believe that Faith UCC will be one of the first within the nation to have officially adopted this Economic Justice Church identity. If I remember correctly, there may have been one or two before us. There is no deadline for Faith UCC to become an Economic Justice Church within the UCC, but the plan is for us to have a scripted resolution by early 2014, assuming this is the decision the membership chooses to embrace.