Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, Springfield, Mo., has always had a Social Ministry committee. We collected food for the local food agencies and money for World Hunger, and did all the normal things social ministries do.

Several of us on Social Ministry felt there had to be something more we could do to help end poverty. One of our members had heard about Bread for the World. We decided to meet with one of their representatives. We found out that Bread for the World is a nationwide Christian citizens’ movement that seeks justice for the world’s hungry people by lobbying our decision-makers. The ELCA, ELCA World Hunger, Bread for the World, and other Christian organizations have joined together in a letter-writing campaign called the ONE Campaign. This Campaign is ongoing through 2015.

What is the ONE Campaign? In September 2000 at the United Nations (UN), 189 countries agreed to set eight goals for combating poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation, and discrimination against women by 2015. These have come to be known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The ONE Campaign is a new effort to rally Americans ONE by ONE to the cause of ending poverty in our world and achieving the MDGs by 2015. Through political action, its goal is to direct an additional ONE percent of the U.S. budget toward developmental aid in the poorest countries.

The approach is simple. Individuals are asked to write letters to their Senators and Representatives asking them to hold America accountable to the MDGs and direct an additional ONE percent of the U.S. budget toward development aid in the poorest countries. Approximately 30,000 people die each day of extreme poverty, yet the portion of the budget allotted for development assistance remains less than one half of 1 percent.

This was what we were looking for at Prince of Peace. As individuals, we were limited on how much we could do. If we could influence Congress to act, we could help so many more people. Sometimes unfair laws make it hard for poor people to get the food and resources they need. This can only be solved by governments changing laws and working together around the world.

We went to the ELCA Web site: www.elca.org/advocacy/one to learn more about the ONE Campaign and the Millennium Development Goals. On the web site, we found a downloadable brochure that was very easy to understand. In the brochure it explained that a congregation can become a ONE Lutheran Congregation by organizing a ONE Sunday and having an “Offering of Letters” and having classes, sermons, collecting money for ELCA World Hunger and other activities promoting the ONE Campaign. The Congregation would than receive a ONE Lutheran banner.

We decided we wanted to become a ONE Lutheran Congregation. Here was our plan: Starting in mid-September, 2007, we held a four-week World Hunger Forum during the Sunday School hour in which we discussed the Millennium Development Goals using a study guide called “God’s Mission in the World,” which we downloaded from the ELCA Advocacy web site. Over a span of two weekends, we set up our letter-writing tables in the Narthex, Fellowship Hall, and in our youth Sunday School class, grades 6th through 12th. We had tablets, envelopes, stamps, examples of letters, and the names and addresses of our Congress representatives available. This was our first time we had attempted to organize a letter writing campaign and we quickly discovered that very few knew about this issue, making our job challenging. The brochure from the ELCA was very helpful in explaining everything. We quickly learned to hand it out first. We then helped people write their letters to Congress if need be, or they could take the information home and commit to bringing letters back the next week. The goal of the letters was to ask for a 1 percent increase in the development assistance area of the U.S. budget. You see, very few handwritten letters are written and sent to Congress. Congressmen will read a handwritten letter. The funny part was convincing people to use pen and ink, not word processing. Yes, the old fashion way.

During the announcement portion of our church services on those weekends we worked on writing and collecting letters, our pastor, Pastor James Banner, promoted the concept of participating in the letter writing campaign. He held up an ELCA World Hunger envelope in one hand and our Offering of Letters basket in the other hand. He said we don’t want to give up writing our checks to ELCA World Hunger, but just think of the impact we could have if we could fill this basket with letters to our Congress, and convince them to keep our promise to the UN and help eradicate extreme poverty by 2015. Also, one Sunday’s sermon was devoted strictly to poverty, hunger, and justice. One statistic that has, and will be, a driving force: One child dies every three seconds of a disease that could be prevented. You see, we can eliminate poverty in our lifetime. We have the means; we just need the will. We are trying to spread the word whatever way we can.

On the last Sunday of our campaign, we took ONE to the annual Crop Walk. Church World Service, one of ELCA World Hunger’s major partners, which holds an annual event called a CROP Hunger Walk. The purpose of this event is for neighbors to walk together to take a stand against hunger in the world and to raise awareness as well as funds for international relief and development along with helping to fight local hunger. Each year some 2,000 communities across the U.S. organize walks and raise over $4 million for hunger organizations. Individuals can sign up to walk and ask family and friends to support them financially as part of the CROP Walk. At the CROP Walk, we handed out the Millennium Development Goals and ONE Campaign literature to the walkers, asking them to sit down and write letters. It takes as little as four minutes for an individual to write a letter.

Response at Prince of Peace and at the Crop Walk event was encouraging. People really did care about helping. They just hadn’t, like us, been shown how. At the end of our campaign, we put all the letters in our Offering of Letters basket, set the basket on the altar, and the pastor blessed them at each service, before they were sent! In addition, our congregation raised over $14,000 in 2007 for ELCA World Hunger.

Gary, Mary Ellen, Pastor James Banner
CROP Walk Event -- September, 2007

We plan on making this an annual event. The first time was a real learning experience for everyone, but it sure left a warm feeling in everyone’s hearts.

Join the ONE Campaign at www.ONE.org! Help save a life!

Mary Ellen Thursby
Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, ELCA
Springfield, MO
12/27/07

“If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother. Rather be openhanded and freely lend to him whatever he needs…Give generously to him (the poor) and do so without a grudging heart…be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land.” (Deuteronomy 15:7-8, 10-11)