America's Moral Crisis

Pick up former President Jimmy Carter's new book, Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis.

Carter identifies the "world's greatest challenge" as "the growing chasm between the rich and the poor people on earth. There is not only a great disparity between the two, but the gap is steadily widening" (page 179).

I see this every day as a school administrator. I see the gap between the poor and those “that have” increasing greater each year.

When I first started as a high school principal in Osage City almost 15 years ago our small community of 3,500 people had about 10% of our students on free and reduced lunch. Today we are approaching 45%.

This year also marked the first time that the non-traditional home became the majority of living situations for our students in Osage City. We definitely have a societal problem that is not only impacting our educational system but our society in general.

As a church what will be our response be to this situation? Will we continue to see a problem and do nothing? Or will we become actively involved in seeking ways to teach people about Christ and what He can do in the lives of people.

The power of Jesus crosses that gap of poverty, family situations, prejudice and so many societal issues and allows us to have the abundant life that we have been discussing as a body at Central.