Although the overwhelming majority of comments that come into this blog are words of encouragement some say I am too critical of current church establishments and are therefore actually doing harm to the Body of Christ. In some ways I take pride in those type of comments. They are telling me that I am doing what I intend to do and that is to make people uncomfortable about not paying enough attention to the words of Jesus especially in our daily actions. By my postings it is not my intent to judge any particular person or organization. I thoroughly understand that God will have the final say on what is right and proper.

But, in reality I probably should be doing some positive posts once in a while on people and organizations that are living by Christ’s words. Yes, there are many out there but even those can never do enough. So, I start here posts on Christians who are attempting to follow the words of Jesus. In order to give them some special meaning I will be doing these post outside my normal Monday/Thursday postings.  

The American Friends Service Committee is a Quaker organization started in 1917. Let’s look at some of the words from their website www.afsc.org 

• AFSC’s work is based on the Quaker belief in the worth of every person and faith in the power of love to overcome violence and injustice. The organization’s mission and achievements won worldwide recognition in 1947 when it accepted the Nobel Peace Prize with the British Friends Service Council on behalf of all Quakers. 

They collect about $50,000,000 per year to accomplish their efforts. This is quite an impressive amount given that The Society of Friends is one of the smallest Christian organization around. Less than 10% of the giving is used for administration. This is low when compared to other charity organization. Since service is one of Friends primary testaments it is not surprising that this percentage of giving is more than three times the normal per congregant giving of most other Christian organizations.

Here are is part of their mission statement:

• We seek to understand and address the root causes of poverty, injustice, and war. We hope to act with courage and vision in taking initiatives that may not be popular.  
• We are called to confront, nonviolently, powerful institutions of violence, evil, oppression, and injustice. Such actions may engage us in creative tumult and tension in the process of basic change. We seek opportunities to help reconcile enemies and to facilitate a peaceful and just resolution of conflict.  
• We work to relieve and prevent suffering through both immediate aid and long-term development and seek to serve the needs of people on all sides of violent strife.  
• We ground our work at the community level both at home and abroad in partnership with those who suffer the conditions we seek to change and informed by their strength and vision.
• We work with all people, the poor and the materially comfortable, the disenfranchised and the powerful in pursuit of justice. We encourage collaboration in social transformation towards a society that recognizes the dignity of each person. We believe that the Spirit can move among all these groups, making great change possible.  

There is a large volunteer pool made up of primarily Friends to help them accomplish their mission. May God bless them in their efforts.