Wherever two or more are gathered ...

Tea: Jasmine Vanilla

Music: U2, "Gloria"

Time: Night

I went to bar church tonight. No, really. Sometimes, on Sunday evenings, I go to church in a bar.

A couple of my friends from my regular church also went, after more than a month of my urging them to come and check out the proceedings. So, of course, there was hardly anyone else there tonight.

It was the three of us, the pastor and his wife and their two children, and the song leader. So while the meeting went on as scheduled, the format changed. We retired into the side room to talk.

One of the church's main emphases is on social justice -- including doing what it can to raise awareness about human trafficking (which goes on, sad to say, even here in the heartland). On other fronts, there are monthly collection drives (food last month, coats this month, food again in January). There is a plan to launch a ministry where the church will partner with a laundromat to do laundry for homeless people -- and no one will have to convert to leave with clean clothes.

There are those within the faith who would label all this vaguely leftist. With all due respect, they're wrong. We're not just encouraged to take care of the hungry, the cold, the imprisoned and the stranded -- we're commanded to do it as though we were taking care of Christ Himself. While "The Lord helps those who help themselves" has taken on the weight of scripture, it's not.

(In this respect, many of other faiths, or no faith at all, act more Christian -- in the best, "love thy neighbor" sense of the word -- than we who would claim the name.)

So what are we to do?

Nothing more than all we can, really. None of us can end poverty, or trafficking, or any other human ill on our own.

But if we really want to be God's hands on Earth, then which use do you think he'd prefer: patting ourselves on the back for being among the Elect, or reaching out to do whatever good is given to us to accomplish, whenever we can?