Jan
18
2010
The Gospel Coalition and Ministry to Haiti
The catastrophic damage done by the earthquake in Haiti has doubtless prompted all of us to wonder what we can best do to help. We at The Gospel Coalition would like to provide a list of trusted places for giving toward Haitian relief. We shall not duplicate the efforts of others or collect money ourselves, but one small service we can provide is an aggregated list of organizations that members of our Council recommend.
This list includes trusted denominational agencies, funds started through broad church associations, and ministries either on the ground in Haiti or in the United States that we commend without hesitation. We will update the list as other organizations are suggested by our Council, as well as relay success stories from the ground. (We know that at least two of our Council members, Mark Driscoll and James MacDonald, are en route to Haiti to survey the situation first hand. Please join us in praying for their ministry.)
The crisis in Haiti is an opportunity to remind us of one of the non-negotiable characteristics of gospel-centered ministry. We say it this way in our Foundation Documents:
God created both soul and body, and the resurrection of Jesus shows that he is going to redeem both the spiritual and the material. Therefore God is concerned not only for the salvation of souls but also for the relief of poverty, hunger, and injustice. The gospel opens our eyes to the fact that all our wealth (even wealth for which we worked hard) is ultimately an unmerited gift from God. Therefore the person who does not generously give away his or her wealth to others is not merely lacking in compassion, but is unjust. Christ wins our salvation through losing, achieves power through weakness and service, and comes to wealth through giving all away. Those who receive his salvation are not the strong and accomplished but those who admit they are weak and lost. We cannot look at the poor and the oppressed and callously call them to pull themselves out of their own difficulty. Jesus did not treat us that way. The gospel replaces superiority toward the poor with mercy and compassion. Christian churches must work for justice and peace in their neighborhoods through service even as they call individuals to conversion and the new birth. We must work for the eternal and common good and show our neighbors we love them sacrificially whether they believe as we do or not. Indifference to the poor and disadvantaged means there has not been a true grasp of our salvation by sheer grace (Theological Vision For Ministry, “The Doing of Justice and Mercy,” section V, part 5).
May we show a watching world that we have “a true grasp of our salvation by sheer grace” by prayerfully supporting the relief efforts in Haiti.
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TGC Recommended Relief Organizations*
- Baptist Global Response (SBC)
- Churches Helping Churches
- Cross International
- Double Harvest
- Harvest Foundation
- Hope International Development Agency
- Mission to North America (PCA)
- Mission to the World (PCA)
- Presbyterian Mission in Haiti
- Sovereign Grace Ministries Disaster Relief Fund
- World Relief
[*Ministries listed in alphabetical order and represent organizations focused not only on relief, but on rebuilding the church.]