THIN SPACE
This week, Prayer Hour is all about justice, focusing in on a whole bunch of Manchester-based, Jesus-loving, Social Justice movements, aiming to punch holes in the darkness of our world to allow God’s love, God’s justice, God’s Kingdom to come pouring through.
Today – Chelwood Foodbank Plus
Foodbanks – The Stats
There are 2000+ foodbanks in the UK (1200 run by the Trussell Trust)
To get access to a foodbank in the UK you need a foodbank voucher from a person or an organisation connected to a foodbank (GP, social worker, Citizen’s Advice…)
In 2019, 1.6 million people used a foodbank in the UK (250,000 more than 2018)
In 2018-19, the Trussell Trust gave away 1.6 million 3-day emergency packs of food in the UK (a 19% increase from the year before)
Foodbanks – The Coronavirus Stats
During Covid-19, the Trussell Trust has seen an 81% increase in food parcels provided in the UK. (The London Borough of Brent has seen a 300% increase)
Research from the Food Foundation revealed that 1.5 million people in the UK are going a whole day without food during Covid-19 due to not having any money or access to food and 3 million people said they lived in a household where people were forced to skip meals during Covid-19.
Chelwood Foodbank Plus
In 2019, it issued 1537 food parcels, fed 2023 adults and 1091 children.
Is there enough food to go around?
YES
The world’s farmers produce enough food to feed 10 billion people – 1.5 times the global population.
What does the Bible say?
‘Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter –
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?...
‘If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
and if you spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
(Isaiah 58: 6-10)
“John answered, ‘Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.”
(Luke 3:11)
“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”
(James 2: 14-17)
Pray
Pray for Chelwood Foodbank Plus, pray for their volunteers, pray for their suppliers, pray above all for their clients
Ask yourself, when it comes to food poverty – what does God require of you and of us as a church?
Worship
God of justice - CLICK HERE