When I first started my life as a circuit minister in the Methodist Church, Christian Aid week was a big event in the life of the Church. It was a common practice to have loads of red carrier bags at the back of the church around this time of year as along with our Anglican friends we would prepare to push an envelope through every door in the village (around two and a half thousand houses if my memory serves me) and then go back a couple of days later and collect said envelopes. It was a huge commitment and progressively during the eight years that I was minister in that place it got hard and harder to find people to do this.
When the operation was completed a group of us would meet in the Methodist church hall and over mugs of tea and coffee we would open every envelope, recording the amounts of money contained therein, watch out for rogue foreign currency, buttons, washers and the like and record the fruits of out labours. The money raised always made the effort worthwhile and we banked several thousands of pounds most years.
It is now possible ten or eleven years since I was last involved in a big project like this and I confess that I always had feelings of trepidation in the weeks leading up to Christian Aid Week, because it became an increasingly challenging and stressful operation with fewer and fewer people prepared and able to be involved. If anything, much happens today, it tends to be much less of a military campaign than it was twenty years ago.
That is not to say that the Church is either less generous, or less interested than it once was. What I find today, is that the Church is much more reactive and as we face major crises in the world, like the war in Ukraine, and the recent earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, the church is on the case immediately, both in collecting money and sending it out as a matter of urgency, and responding in practical ways, like working with refugee agencies, and the like.
Today is Christian Aid Sunday, and I guess that the question is “Has Christian Aid had it’s day?” I would like to suggest that it hasn’t, the charity represents over forty different Christian Churches and with raise around thirteen million pounds during Christian Aid week, which makes up a significant part of its annual income.
Founded in 1945, it has been an advocate of change in the world and still supports projects in some of the poorest part of the world. I believe that it is an important part of the life of the Church that maybe for one week a year, we stop, and think about how we can support agencies like Christian Aid. Today most charitable giving is done on line and if you want to know more about the work of Christian Aid, or wish to donate, you can follow this link. https://www.christianaid.org.uk/