Reflection and resources on Affordable Housing

This Epiphany, we are spending six Sundays looking at the six areas of focus of ACT (Anne Arundel Connecting Together) in light of our faith and scripture. Each week I will be lifting up resources to help you reflect and learn more about these areas where we as Christians are called to care for our neighbors in practical, loving ways.

For this week, here are some resources to help you reflect on our Christian response to Safe and Affordable Housing:

First, some graphics showing if people in our county/area working in different professions could afford to either rent or put a 3% or 10% down payment on an average apartment/home based on their annual income (courtesy of NHC.org):

To learn more, pursue some of these ways to educate yourself:

• Check out reports from Harvard’s State of the Nation’s Housing and the National Low-Income Housing Coalition
• Consider how the church can be part of the solution by reading articles from Ministry Matters and Sojourners that will inspire you to think theologically and creatively!  
• Learn about what IAF Affiliates like ACT have been doing around the country to address the need for safe and affordable housing by visiting https://metro-iaf.org/issuesvictories/77
• Be informed about what is happening in our own community. Go to the website of our local newspaper, The Capital, and search terms like “affordable housing” and “fair housing” to read articles talking about what’s going on in our community—many of which touch on the work of ACT!

 Finally, take time to listen again (or for the first time, if you were not in worship Sunday) to Rich Mullins' powerful song about Jesus' life with insecure housing, You Did Not Have a Home, by following this link or watching the video below.

Resources to help form and inform our Christian response to Immigrants and Refugees

This Epiphany, we are spending six Sundays looking at the six areas of focus of ACT (Anne Arundel Connecting Together) in light of our faith and scripture. How are these the work of Christmas as described by Howard Thurman in the poem at right?

Each week I will be lifting up resources to help you reflect and learn more about these areas where we as Christians are called to care for our neighbors in practical, loving ways.

Resources to help you reflect on our Christian response to immigration:

·      Inhospitable, a podcast telling the story of the journey of one man, Gilles Bikindou, in the context of immigration in the United States. Inhospitable is a production of Greenwood Forest Baptist Church in NC, Gilles’ faith community and a fellow Alliance of Baptists congregation. Visit www.inhospitableusa.org.

·      The Bible as the Ultimate Immigration Handbook by Joan Raduskin of Church World Service: https://www.greatplainsumc.org/files/ministries/mj_bible_immigration_handbook.pdf

·      Strangers in the Land, a six week e-book devotional on immigration, the church, and the Bible produced by Sojourners: https://sojo.net/node/216822

·      Read migrant stories at https://time.com/longform/migrants/

·      Learn about local organizations committed to helping immigrants in our area:

centerofhelp.org/   

www.aijnetwork.org/ 

www.catholiccharities-md.org/services/esperanza-center/

asylumprojectdc.org