One important question can lead to important actions

We've drifted away from being fishers of men to being keepers of the aquarium.

--
Paul Harvey

A series of unexpected but informed actions started with a conversation over lunch: "What are you reading?" I asked the pastor. He recommended The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible, by Scott McKnight.

The question raised by the book is this: How is it that Christians who claim to be led by an authoritative Bible read it so differently? One thing led to another, and before I knew it I had sponsored a child in Ghana through the organization World Vision. Her name is Sosi Nyakoafre.

"What we are looking for in reading the Bible is the ability to turn the two-dimensional words on paper into a three-dimensional encounter with God, so that the text takes on life and meaning and depth and perspective and gives us direction for what to do today," writes McKnight. "Gaining Magic Eyes ushers us into the renewal way of reading the Bible."

I was on a journey and unaware of the destination. Each turn unfolded and led me to another opportunity to learn more, and challenged me to act. After reading McKnight's book, I decided to read and subscribe to his blog -- "Jesus Creed."

A post I read late one evening led me to another book recommended by McKnight, The Hole in Our Gospel: What does God expect of Us? The Answer that Changed my Life and Might Just Change the World, by Richard Stearns, the CEO of World Vision. According to Stearns, "Christians have a huge hole in their lives, an emptiness that comes from ignoring the plight of the poor."

One reviewer describes the book this way: "It reminds us that we must care for all people whether they be our neighbors next door or thousands of miles away. Stearns offers compelling stories, staggering statistics, and practical ideas of how we can eradicate poverty in our lifetime." Stearns provides ample evidence to support why we should act and how our actions can help those deserving and the benefit to us all. One compelling statistic is enough. About 26,000 children under the age of 5 die every day of causes related to their poverty.

He writes about filling the hole, his struggles to obey God in his life and how World Vision is "challenging people around the world to think again and again about their commitment to global justice, to compassion for the poor and the needy, and to financial support for the many, many folks involved in making a difference in the day-to-day lives of suffering people in the world."

"If your personal faith in Christ has no positive outward expression, then your faith -- and mine -- has a hole in it," he says. He has discovered "that almost all poverty is fundamentally the result of a lack of options. We must never see poverty or justice as ‘issues' that need solutions; rather we must see the human beings at the heart of those issues as people who need and deserve our love and respect."

I decided to visit the World Vision Web site (www.worldvision.org) and found out more about the organization. It wasn't long before I aligned what I had been reading -- with new eyes -- with the need and the difference a little support from many people could do in transforming communities. It helps feed, clothe and educate children worldwide.

Sosi is one of those children. The 7-year-old lives with her aunt and sister in the Brong Ahafo region of central Ghana. Her aunt is a farmer and struggles to meet the needs of the family. I found out that she is in satisfactory health and currently not in school.

Sosi's community needs help with clean water, immunizations, improved health care and renovated schools, a list of things that so many of us take for granted yet a significant number of the world's population doesn't. When I write her again, I will let her know I introduced her to our community.

According to Stearns, it is not what you believe that counts; it is what you believe enough to do. Is there a hole in your gospel?

■ Nigel Alston is a Dale Carnegie trainer and motivational speaker who lives in Winston-Salem. He can be reached at nalston1@triad.rr.com.