The Importance Of Giving Back To A Community

In society as a whole, community service plays a very important role. Government programs can only go so far in helping the needy. The slack must be picked up by charitable organizations and other community outreach programs, and there is a lot of slack. In the metro Detroit area alone, there are over 25,000 homeless ("State of Homelessness in Michigan 2014") and approximately 700,000 people without adequate access to food in southeast Michigan ("Know More Hunger Facts"). Without great organizations like Gleaners Food Bank, Forgotten Harvest, Detroit Rescue Mission, local churches, and the countless other charities in the area, many of these people would go without a meal or place to sleep at night. This holds true for cities across the entire …show more content…
Giving back can be a way in which you can develop personally. It is also a way to help develop others and even work towards the greater good of all people. Furthermore, it is not only one or the other, by giving back it is more than possible to accomplish all three pieces at the same time (McManus and Perruci 252). Churches and other religious organizations are superb venues for giving back to your community. Churches are unique because they cater to your development, the development of others and the greater good of all people. This can be seen in the mission statement of my church, "Holy Family Parish strives to be the best version of ourselves as we lift up the fallen, heal the broken and share the love of Christ." As we can see, our personal development and the development of others is expressed through the first part "be the best version of ourselves as we lift up the fallen, heal the broken." The greater good is slightly trickier as it is based on Christian belief; it is expressed by the phrase "share the love of Christ." From a Christian viewpoint, there is no greater love than the love of Jesus Christ. By sharing Christ 's love with others, we can introduce them to the greatest love of all and therefore develop the greater good of all people ("About …show more content…
One teaching that shows how we can develop the greater good by sharing his love is the parable of the Good Samaritan. The story of the Good Samaritan is found in The Holy Bible in the Gospel of Luke 10:25-37. In the passage, a man traveling to Jerusalem is robbed and left for dead on the side of the road. Two people, a priest and a Levite, pass him and give him no aid. The third person, a Samaritan, who is considered an outsider, stops and bandages the man and takes him to an inn to be cared for. Jesus then asks "Who was the injured man 's neighbor?" Of course, the man 's neighbor was the Good Samaritan. This parable is essentially a teaching of the golden rule that we were all taught in school at an early age, treat others as you wish to be treated, or in this case love your neighbor as yourself (McManus and Perruci 250). Treating others, as you wish to be treated, is a moral code that has been instilled in all of us and is a basis of all outreach and service. By following this moral code, we tend to think of ourselves in similar situations and what we would want others to do for us. This idea of standing in someone else shoes is very powerful. If you were dying on the side of the road, you would want someone to come to your aid. Why would you not do the same if you saw some else in that same situation? There are times in which we may not be able to give aid to others for a multitude of reasons, but in the end, it is our moral