“This world is filled with so many problems you almost don’t know where to start. When you gather a bunch of people together there’s strength, and there’s encouragement in that…Instead of hearing a sermon, they come here and be the sermon,” says Grace Community Church senior pastor John Slye. More →

December 2, 2016

Jaipur Foot provides free orthopedic care to poor people with disabilities and missing limbs. That’s important in a country where disability still carries a deep stigma, according to the group’s founder D.R. Mehta. “They can go and work back in their field, factory, or shop, earn their living. They acquire social respect, and they acquire self-confidence again.” More →

March 18, 2016

“Our ministry is different because we focus on development as opposed to just relief. We want to end poverty more than just relieve people from the pain of poverty. We want to change communities,” says Katie Delp, executive director of FCS (Focused Communities Strategies) Urban Ministries. More →

November 25, 2015

Most millennials, says Rev. Wayne Meisel, “do not believe the church cares about them or the causes they care about. There’s this bubbling fervor and energy and possibility that we just have to figure out how to both tap and how to support, and then get out of the way.” More →

May 14, 2015

“I’ve realized that my neighbors are not just the folks living down the street or over a block, but they are living all around the world. They’re living in Rwanda, they’re living in Kenya, they’re living in Senegal, they’re living in Morocco, and so forth. And we need to be looking out for each other,” says Steve Clarke, a volunteer at Compatible Technology International. More →

March 27, 2015

Forty-two years ago, in a village south of Paris, a French-Canadian created a home where the mentally disabled could live in dignity and where others could learn from them the value of sharing and acceptance. There is now a worldwide network of these communities called L’Arche, the French word for Ark, a symbol of hope. More →

March 13, 2015

Read more of Judy Valente’s May 4, 2006 interview in Chicago with Jean Vanier, founder of L’Arche, a worldwide network of communities for the mentally disabled. More →

March 13, 2015

For the young Jewish professionals he works with in Washington, DC, “social justice is their faith,” says Rabbi Scott Perlo of Sixth & I Historic Synagogue. “If someone needs help from me, I really have to give it, because they are worth, in God’s eyes, just the same as I am.” More →

November 14, 2014

“Christmas is about Jesus’ birth and honoring Jesus with the priorities that Jesus would have in the world, especially amongst marginalized people. But what we’ve done is made it more about us,” says Rev. Mike Slaughter. More →

December 6, 2013

“St. Francis considers himself to be a brother to everyone,” say Father Larry Dunham of the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in America. “He had his own special vision.” More →

March 22, 2013