Acts of Faith Lead to Medical Debt Relief
Faith United Protestant Church
In preparation of the celebration of their 70th anniversary, the congregation of Faith United Protestant Church in Park Forest, IL chose a biblical story that resonated with the needs of the church. The Parable of the Talents led to discussion of how best to use the talents entrusted to them.
Moderator Sue Harvey explained, “While FUPC has a long history of community service, the mood was that we are getting older, tired and less able to run big projects to impact our neighborhood. To change that, we committed to mission by performing 70 Acts of Faith in our 70th year.”
Acts of Faith include donating to help area programs, helping a stranger, volunteering to be a subject of a research study and encouraging others. It started out slowly but, with leadership by Interim Minister Rev. Michelle Hughes, the congregation became more comfortable in sharing how mission fits into their daily lives. By September, the group completed 72 Acts of Faith.
In November, the Illinois Conference challenged all churches to rally together to provide funds to buy third party medical debt at pennies on the dollar. Every dollar can eliminate $100 of this debt that burdens our neighbors in Illinois, a rate of return certain to please the Master in the Parable of the Talents. The congregation agreed eradication of $200,000 of medical debt would be the next Act of Faith.
The congregation was energized by the idea of people opening envelopes to find letters that say, ‘Your debt has been forgiven.’ The Church Council offered to match donations up to $1000. On November 30, Faith UPC sent $2712 to the Illinois Conference. It is a true Act of Faith to use our talents to erase $271,200 in medical debt for our friends and neighbors.
