We’re all Christians Against Poverty

Scripture is threaded through with a consistent message that we are supposed to stand up for and help the poor and disadvantaged in our communities.  However, not many of us have fields where we can let people glean (Leviticus, Ruth, Isaiah) or many opportunities to look after widows and orphans (Deuteronomy, Ruth, 2 Kings, Isaiah, James).  So what can we do?

Well for many years, originally St Mark’s and now the Parish of Basingstoke Down have been partnering with Christians Against Poverty to run Money Coaching for adults, children and young people.  We run Money Kids in quite a few local schools for Year 6, we run Money Youth for Year 11 and we run Money Coaching for adults hosted by different churches around the town.   All this Money Coaching is designed to help people learn great ways to manage their money – how ever much or little they have – and fill a gap in our education system which teaches nothing about budgeting and managing a household’s finances.  And we do all this for free! 

And you can help.   If you are interested in finding out about becoming a Money Coach, talk to Jon Morris, Ena Bull, Iris Dearden or Yvonne Hunt.  Or if you’d just like to help out with running Money Kids in schools, talk to Jon.  And we can all pray.  The CAP Money Kids season is upon us and we will be visiting 4 schools in the area while our partners in the Catholic Church (who we trained!) will visit the two Catholic junior schools.  So please pray for all the people who will be Coaching in May and June – that we will engage the children’s interest.  And pray for the children – that they will learn about managing their money and also hear that God loves them and wants them to prosper.  Please also pray for the work of CAP teams up and down the country who are showing God’s love in practical ways and responding to His call to us through scripture.