Feature: The Least of These My Neighbors
Don Baker
by Don Baker, pastor, Hinson Memorial Baptist Church, Portland, Oregon
In January, 1982, I had just finished preaching from Hebrews 12 on "How to Cope in a Crisis" when a young mother met me in the hallway with tears in her eyes.
"Oh, Pastor, thank you," she said. "You'll never know how much God is using these messages in our lives. We have lost our business, our home, our car, and we just don't know what's next. I don't know what we'd do without your encouragement."
As I walked away, I was smitten. Encouragement, I thought. She needs more than encouragement. She needs help, and she needs it now.
I called the staff, the deacons, and the deaconesses together, and we began a program we later called "Hinson's Helping Ministry." It was primarily for Hinson members.
We announced a special meeting for all the unemployed and underemployed in the church on Wednesday evening. People from 60 households responded. The enormity of the problem was frightening.
We began uncovering needs and seeking out resources, supervised completely by the members of the church. We solicited food, freezers, refrigerators, clothing, and money from the congregation in order to begin an immediate assistance program.
I met with the unemployed each Wednesday night to pray and share together, and then a specialist provided counsel in areas such as:
- Finding jobs when they're scarce
- Preparing resumes
- Food shopping on a low income
- Working with creditors
- Finding available money
- What medical assistance is available
- Government assistance programs
In these meetings we distributed cash for food and emergency needs and made arrangements for clothing and aid in job hunting.
Within 90 days we had located most of the "hurting" and had disbursed over $15,000, distributed food to 379 ...
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