This past weekend, our church was visited by Rob Morris, who is President and CEO of an organization called Love146. Love 146 is one of the amazing organizations out there that are on the front lines fighting the monstrous evil of human trafficking. Rob is an amazing man with an amazing gift of teaching, and gave this week’s sermon.
During his presentation, Rob showed a video that told the story of how one of the girls they are trying to bring back to life ended up in the child sex trade. The story was horrible – she was raped at a young age and ran away from home. What she said then was something I will never forget. “I was hungry and they [a brothel] fed me.”
Think about that for a second…this girl was selling herself for sex and going down an extremely dark path so she could eat.
When I read those words on the screen (she said them in her own language, so we had to read the translation on the screen) something in me screamed “THAT’S THE CHURCH’S JOB” (Matthew 25:35). We’re commanded as Christians to feed the hungry with no strings attached so people can see the love of a living God.
I then realized that we as a church body can’t be doing a very good job with this if girls feel like their only hope is to sell their bodies into exploitation. Ouch.
I have a friend right now who’s currently in a struggle with his neighbors over an issue that seems like it should be a trivial matter. These neighbors are all Christians and my friend isn’t atheistic, but he isn’t exactly what you would call a “hard core” believer either. Unfortunately, these neighbors have been less than helpful in dealing with this situation. In fact, just about everything they’ve done has made him and his family feel even worse.
When I talked to my friend last time, he was incredulous – “What happened to love your neighbor?” he asked. He then told me some of them have been trying to get him to go to church with them. I have to ask the question (and so is he) of why he would even want to based on how he’s being treated.
As Christians, I feel that it’s our responsibility to model love, grace, compassion, and forgiveness, and to have others see those things reflected in our words and actions. Sure, no one’s perfect, but how much more attractive would Christianity be if we all did the best we possibly could? Maybe then, people would see the church not only as a much more attractive offer, but as the only one worth pursuing at all…