What Is A Matthew 25 Church?
In an attempt to meaningfully follow the words Jesus laid out in Matthew 25: 31-46, The Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUSA) has encouraged congregations to become more engaged in our world. While Witherspoon has a long record of helping those in need, a congregation committed to Matthew 25 goes much further. As a Matthew 25 Church, our Three pillars of action are:
Congregational Vitality
You might think that the vitality of a congregation or worshiping community is based on the number of members, the scope of programs, the size of financial gifts or some other statistics.Not so — at least not entirely. Rather, a community’s vitality is primarily its spiritual strength and its capacity for purposeful mission. Congregational vitality is evident in a worshiping community when its structural systems, finances and discipleship practices are aligned in such a way that the community is actively engaged in the mission of God in their local community and the world, and they are powerfully focused on growing as disciples in the way of Jesus Christ. Faith comes alive when we boldly engage God’s mission and share the hope we have in Christ. In other words, we put our feet into action!
Witherspoon is proud to join PCUSA congregations worldwide by being a Matthew 25 Church.
Dismantling Structural Racism Racism is deeply embedded in the life and history of the U.S. Through colonization, slavery and a shameful history of legislative action and judicial pronouncements, our nation created and embraced a system that valued and devalued people based simply on skin color and ethnic identity. People of color were deliberately subjugated for material, political and social advantage. Racism today is the continuing and enduring legacy of this history. There is a growing awareness among Presbyterians that racism is a crisis and must be addressed. The PC(USA) is strongly committed to the struggle for racial justice.
Eradicating Systemic Poverty There are structures in our society that all but guarantee that people living in poverty will stay that way. Systemic poverty refers to the economic exploitation of people who are poor through laws, policies, practices and systems that perpetuate their impoverished status. Poverty is complex and overlaps with many other social ills and oppressive structures in our society. Our goal is to give those in poverty a hand up, not just a handout.