Action Cards to Help You Get Involved in Social Issues 

Open Heart

 God made us with a design and purpose called, “God’s Image”.  Every person is precious in God’s sight and every person has a ministry to fulfill, a goodness to experience and to express in covenant with God, others, and all of creation.  When covenants are working well, life goes well.

When covenants do not work, life holds its most painful moments: fear, want, oppression. God, full of compassion, works continually to make and strengthen covenants which hold all together.  Our people’s captivity in Egypt and the exile were preludes to God’s redeeming action. It is an incredible gift that God chooses to act through persons to bring the redemptive work.  Most supremely we see this work in Jesus, whom God sent that the world might be saved.

Jesus loved and worked for the release of the blind, the captive, the oppresses, the widow, the foreigner, the poor. All are included in God’s love; therefore they should be included in ours.

Our denominational emphasis has always stressed the unity of personal and social holiness. And the Holy Spirit continues to open our hearts to the needs of people, and continues to inspire Christians to acts of mercy. 

Open Mind 

With these cards, the Social Issues Committee of the Kansas East Conference of the United Methodist Church hopes to help that work of the Holy Spirit.  John Wesley urged us to use four sources to guide our decisions: scripture, tradition, reason, and experience.

The format of each card is the process of your journey: Open Heart, Open Mind, and Open Doors.  First, open your hearts to the needs of your congregation and especially to the needs of those in the world around you.  The action cards are meant only as starting points for your journey.  Next, open your minds to learn about the problems.  The more you know, the more God will guide you to action.  Countless resources are available through denominations, through local schools, and governmental agencies. United Methodist Women, Women’s Division, The General Board of Church and Society, and the United Methodist Office for the United Nations offer wonderful resources. Lastly, opening doors means much more than hoping people come to our churches.  Open doors means taking our plan into the world. 

Open Door

We pray for you as your start on new ways of showing boundless love.

You might soon be organizing forums, prayer vigils, letters sent to Topeka or Washington, D.C, acts of protest, radio ads, rallying people to boycott companies, opening a shelter, or inviting families to do adoption or foster care.  You might soon be applying for a grant from The United Methodist Ministries Health Fund to begin an exciting new ministry.

The Holy Spirit is just waiting, ready to generate interest and greater love through your work for God in Christ. 

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