Bread restarts Oregon monthly meeting
We held our first monthly meeting in a few years at Bread's western regional office on Sept 17th. The focus of these meeting is worship, education and action around the hunger issue.
The scripture reflection was from:
Matthew 5:14-16 (New International Version)
14"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
This passage is a call from God to be the light and take action in the world. An important thing to note is where does a lamp shine when it is put on the stand, it shines all around. In the same ways our actions should not stop with friends and family. It should also shine for the stranger in our community and overseas, it should shine in what we ask for from ourselves, our churches and community, and our government. As Christians we should not put barriers in front of the light or set areas areas where it cannot shine.
Our guest speaker was Chris Laing from Oregon Jubilee. He talked about the cancel debt fast and about efforts to get more cosponsored for the Jubilee Act (HR2634)(Reps Blumenauer and Wu are cosponsors). They have a very active group in Portland (the calendar on our http://www.breador.org/ website lists alot of their events), go to http://www.jubileeoregon.org/ to get more info and sign up for the fast.
Our Western regional organizer, Matt Ching, then gave us an update on the farm bill (our offering of letter issue). We got some good improvments for food stamps but very little in farm price support reform in the House. Action has now moved to the senate where we need to focus our attention. The links below give the most recent updates and sample letter.
http://www.bread.org/take-action/recent-developments-on-seeds-of-change.html
http://www.bread.org/take-action/offering-of-letters-resources/sample-letter.html
We will be looking for a more centrally located church to meet at for the next meeting (3rd monday of the month), check the website for more details.
The scripture reflection was from:
Matthew 5:14-16 (New International Version)
14"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
This passage is a call from God to be the light and take action in the world. An important thing to note is where does a lamp shine when it is put on the stand, it shines all around. In the same ways our actions should not stop with friends and family. It should also shine for the stranger in our community and overseas, it should shine in what we ask for from ourselves, our churches and community, and our government. As Christians we should not put barriers in front of the light or set areas areas where it cannot shine.
Our guest speaker was Chris Laing from Oregon Jubilee. He talked about the cancel debt fast and about efforts to get more cosponsored for the Jubilee Act (HR2634)(Reps Blumenauer and Wu are cosponsors). They have a very active group in Portland (the calendar on our http://www.breador.org/ website lists alot of their events), go to http://www.jubileeoregon.org/ to get more info and sign up for the fast.
Our Western regional organizer, Matt Ching, then gave us an update on the farm bill (our offering of letter issue). We got some good improvments for food stamps but very little in farm price support reform in the House. Action has now moved to the senate where we need to focus our attention. The links below give the most recent updates and sample letter.
http://www.bread.org/take-action/recent-developments-on-seeds-of-change.html
http://www.bread.org/take-action/offering-of-letters-resources/sample-letter.html
We will be looking for a more centrally located church to meet at for the next meeting (3rd monday of the month), check the website for more details.
posted by Mike Hiland at 12:31 PM
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