Your Turn is Now!!!
To put right, to set free, to bring hope, to turn it around, to do your bit for justice and healing in the name of Jesus.
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Action No. 5. Take a Carbon Fast
‘The term environment is simply a secular word for what Christians call Creation’. Try replacing the using the word creation instead of environment and see how it shapes your thinking.
The effects of climate change are hitting the world’s poorest the hardest, through increased drought, flooding, unreliable weather patterns and sea level rise, directly threatening the homes, livelihoods and health of millions of people.
Join with churches around the world to fast, act and pray to reduce your carbon footprint and help protect our neighbours across the world from climate change.
Through our friends at Tear Fund you can organise your own Carbon Fast, its informative and most of all an action you can take both as a creation keeper and concern for the worlds poor.
Through Tear you can register yourself or group/family and use bible studies and DVDs for discussion and education. Click here to download all the info, the group discussions and action guide from the Tear website.
You can help turn around Australia's carbon emissions and reduce negative impact on God's creation and the world poor.
Individual: Gather together some friends, or just do it alone.
Youth Group: As a group register and meet weekly to view the DVDs and do the bible studies. Take the time to share how you have managed over the past week and take time to consider how you can continue to improve over the long term. Consider putting a couple of paragraphs in the church letter each week explaining what you are doing that week.
Household: As a Household, signup and set aside a weekly household meeting where you sit to view the DVDs and explore the study together. You may wish to ask some family friends to join you, if not, how about plan making it a plan that you will pass on the carbon fast resources to another family when you are done, explaining to them that they have to pass it on to another when they have finished. You could even have households write their name on an attached sheet so people can see who else has done it.
No. 4. Become an Organ Donor.
Transplants save lives ... but there is a desperate need for donors in the world. More than 2000 people in Australia are waiting for an organ, and each year about 300 die waiting. You can only donate your organs if you have willingly agreed to in writing before you die.
YouTurn is exposing for you, simple ways that you can make a BIG difference in a suffering and broken world, a world and a people that God loves, here is another opportunity for you to turn around pain and suffering in someone’s life. In 2005 in Australia, 727 transplants were carried out from 204 donors following their death.
Organs that can be donated include; Heart, Lungs, Kidneys, Pancreas, Liver, Small Bowel. Tissues that can also be donated are; skin, corneas, heart valves, bone and tendons.
It is something we hear a little about and think about from time to time but never seem to get around to. Well, right now, click here, and register to be an organ donor. Why? By becoming an organ donor you have the power to save someone’s’ life and end a families suffering and anguish.
You can turn suffering and sickness into hope and life even after you die.
Individual: Surf over to the organ donor website and register. Also send an email to 5 other friends encouraging them to do the same.
Youth Group: Trawl the web beforehand and find some success stories of organ donation. Read them as a group, discuss organ donation and grapple together if it is something you think Jesus would want us to do. Gather around a WiFi point and take turns registering. Spend time in prayer for those that will receive your organs, pray for success and pray that they will come to know and follow Jesus.
Household: As a family discuss organ donating. Young children will not be old enough to register. They will be old enough to understand in most cases. Explore together ways the family can alert medical staff that a person is a donor should anything happen. Have the children looking on when late teens and adults in the family register. Spend time in prayer for those that will receive your organs, pray for success and pray that they will come to know and follow Jesus.
Action No. 3 Tithe your stimulus package
Thanks Kevin for helping me help others! In this country and even in our very neighbourhoods, the catastrophic effect of sin is obvious in the hurting, the violated, the degraded and the abused creation of God. At this period in time Kevin and Co are sending Australian tax payers economic stimulus packages, giving you and I, with a Christ focussed concern for God’s good creation, an extraordinary opportunity to turn around injustice in our neighbourhood.
In the Old Testament, tithing was a part of the law. The Israelites were required to give 10 percent of their earnings and this was used to help the less fortunate, the widows, the orphans etc. A small portion of this was also used to support the priests. Our challenge this month is to tithe your stimulus package to support the poor and less fortunate in our land, it is not law, but it seems like an awesome opportunity, being blessed to bless others and turn around local poverty, contributing to the restoration of broken lives in your community.
Kevin did say spend it on the economy, so we are recommending you find local Australian ways your 10 percent can be spent.
You can turn your stimulus into changing local situations of injustice.
Individual: Find a local mission organisation working with the poor, indigenous, outcast or refugees and donate to them. If you are stuck then try this; Urban Neighbours of Hope (UNOH) have mission workers in poor suburbs in most Australian capital cities, surf their website and donate to help support their mission workers. www.unoh.org
Youthgroup: Pool your stimulus tithes into a hefty little package and plan a night with your deacons to discuss its local distribution. Don’t just give it to the deacon fund, seek their wisdom and advice and knowledge of local needs and then decide yourselves how you will spend it.
Household: Put together a shopping list of non perishable and tinned foods and have a family shopping night spending your tithe to overflow your churches foodbank on Sunday. (If your church does not have a foodbank it is not hard to find a church that does, otherwise, ring your local council).
Action No. 2 Ethical Easter Eggs
If you do Easter eggs, this Easter, buy Fairtrade. It is well understood that over half of the world's cocoa is harvested in Africa with the use of trafficked slave labour in poor and dangerous working conditions. The "Stop the Traffik" campaign is a great place to sign up and to get information on people slave trafficking and its exploitation in the global cocoa industry. Educate yourself. www.stopthetraffik.org. Also, explore youtube for documentaries on slavery and cocoa, starting here. For more info on Fairtrade in general go here
Where can you buy Fairtrade chocolate? Find out here
Even if your chocolate claims to be fair trade or eco friendly, always look out for the fair trade logo, which assures you that it is officially certified as fair trade.
One doco on this issue said that this is exploitation of a persons mind, body and spirit. As followers of Jesus we realise it is also more than that. These exploited people are created in the image of God, Jesus died for these people and our Father God rages against injustice towards his creation, as workers in Gods world we rage with Him.
You Can Help to Turn Around Slave Trafficking
Individual: Buy and accept only Fairtrade Easter eggs.
Youth Group: Host a chocolate fondue party for your church. Using Fairtrade chocolate invite the church to a fondue party and through media and display boards, educate your congregation on slavery and cocoa, ask your pastor to prepare a small bible based reflection also. Consider using the event to fundraise for the cause.
Household: Buy Fairtrade chocolate bars and using egg moulds, make your own Fairtrade Easter Eggs to distribute to your neighbours and friends. You may wish to explain to them why you have made them from fairtrade or just relax, knowing that your gift to them is not contributing to the exploitation of children.
Action No. 1 Change Your Startup Page
To kick YouTurn off we are suggesting a simple way that you can act now and everyday to feed starving people across this globe. Your action for this month is to make www.thehungersite.com the start up page on your internet web browser. Every time you go online, simply click the ‘give food free button’ and continue your daily internet routine. For more details on how this works, please see the notes on the www.thehungersite.com
You Can Help to Turn Around Hunger
Individual: Right now, log on and set it up as your start up page.
Youth Group: Tell everyone to bring their laptops to group and explore the site together. Cut and paste the above paragraph in your church bulletin to expand the cause.
Household: As a household log onto your individual users or computers and set the start up page.
