Faith-Based Initiative

I think Ernst Troeltsch summed it up well when he wrote, “The Calvinist knows that his calling and election are sure, and that therefore he is free to give all his attentions to the effort to mold the world and society according to the Will of God. . . . Thus . . . the Reformed church was impelled toward activity; the individual was drawn irresistibly into a whole-hearted absorption in the tasks of service to the world and to society, to a life of unceasing, penetrating, and formative labor.”2

In our day this initiative based on our faith takes many shapes:

o A congregation sponsors a tutoring program for at-risk children in its public school system. But it also asks why these children are at-risk, why does the public school system not accomplish the task of having these children read at grade level. Certainly one reason is that the system does not have sufficient funds to have adequate staff for smaller classes to give more specific attention to such children in need.

Faith-based initiative means that the congregation continues to tutor –but also uses its clout, politically and economically, to pressure the city council, the school board and the community to raise the funds to provide an acceptable education for all the children of the community.

o A congregation gives money to homeless and hunger programs in its community. It also provides services by its members volunteering in soup kitchens, and it may house a number of homeless in its building with members who sleep-over each night and work with the guests.

Faith-based initiative means the congregation continues to do all this, but also uses its clout, politically and economically, to raise the consciousness of the whole community and pressure the city council to provide adequate housing as well as food and counseling services for all who need them.

o A congregation carefully studies Scripture and realizes that in our day to live the abundant life means more than preparing for life in another world. It means living responsibly in this one and making sure that resources are available to all others including those in generations yet to come. So they study the state of the planet and begin to understand its “wholeness” and the way all things are inter-related. They hear again the words of Calvin about ostentatious living, and his understanding that the whole world is the “theater of Godís action.” “. . . [L]et us not be ashamed to take pious delight in the works of God open and manifest in this most beautiful theater. . . . [God] has so wonderfully adorned Heaven and Earth with as unlimited abundance, variety and beauty of all things as could possibly be, quite like a spacious and splendid house, provided and filled with the most exquisite and at the same time most abundant furnishings.”3

Faith-based initiative means that the congregation not only studies and changes its own lifestyle as individual members and as a congregation. It uses its clout, politically and economically, to petition the government to set higher standards for air and water purity and more stringent standards for vehicle fuel consumption. It presses the government to legislate a more equitable worldwide distribution of resources through taxation and welfare, and to enter into environmental treaties to enforce environmental laws.

So I agree. It is time for congregations to get into faith-based initiatives in a proactive way — not just applying Band-Aids to the sores of society, but to move society to understand the necessity of being a community, and taking responsibility for actions that affect not only the local community but the planet as a whole.

William R. Phillippe is pastor, Brick church, New York City. This article is taken from a sermon he preached on Oct. 28, 2001, Reformation Sunday.