By Kaler Carpenter
It's rare when someone objects to an act of kindness, but we experience this from time to time as our church goes out and performs regular AoKs for our community in Oneonta, New York. At The Redemption Movement, we're not deterred by criticism. On the contrary, we welcome it because it gives us an opportunity to tell people why we do what we do.
Our favorite response that we like to give our critics is "kindness is contagious." What we mean by this, is that kindness is such a powerful force for good that it inspires those who experience it to do good themselves. This is why people that do random acts of kindness will tell recipients to "pay it forward." It's the givers hope that their single act of kindness will spread and the world will become a better place.
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| Free Sack Lunches for the Staff of a Local Hotel |
When we do our act of kindness projects at The Redemption Movement, we hope for the same thing, but we're a little more specific with our acts. First off, our AoKs are not entirely random. We put a lot of thought and prayer into meeting specific needs with our actions. And secondly, instead of telling people to "pay it forward," we tell them, "We're doing this to show God's love." Either way you go about doing an act of kindness, the world becomes a better place and people are inspired to share kindness with others.
The criticisms we've faced with our AoKs isn't from spreading goodwill, or even serving in God's name, but the biggest objections we've heard are from people that are annoyed with how we show kindness in such a public manner. I will address this objection along with others at the end of the article, but first I want to highlight how one of our recent AoKs spread beyond the people that directly experienced it and
impacted the world for good in a big way--because kindness is contagious!
The AoK that made such a positive impact was
our outreach to retail workers having to work on Thanksgiving. We made 50 handmade "Thank You" cards that included an encouraging message and a $2 bill, and on Thanksgiving we went to various stores and passed the cards out to workers with a smile and message of God's love. In addition to the cheer that was spread, we have seen three more ways that this one AoK has successfully impacted the world.
Success 1: Our Local Community Took Notice
As soon as we got home from passing out the thank you cards, I wrote a
blog article about the experience and posted it. I also submitted it to Oneonta's newspaper "The Daily Star," because I thought, "Hey, you never know." To my surprise, I received a call from a reporter the next day. She interviewed me about the AoK, asked me questions about other service projects that we have done, and she even inquired about what our goals are for these AoKs. Sure enough, the story was printed in the newspaper the very next day, on the front page!
Here is an excerpt from the story. You can read the full article on
The Daily Star's website.
“As Christians, we are to show others the unconditional love of God,
instead of displaying a holier-than-thou attitude and being insensitive
with our religious practices,” Carpenter explained. “Ultimately, it is not about religion, it is about a personal relationship with God,
lived out in a community of people known as the church.”
As a new church trying to get the word out to our city about who we are and what we are all about, we couldn't have asked for a better story. For years we have struggled to communicate to our community who we are, and with one AoK and a nice write up, this was achieved in a grand way. In fact, the article was better publicized and more attractive than if we had spent money on any form of marketing.
Success 2: A Long-Distance Friend was Inspired to Show Kindness
While we were making the cards for this Thanksgiving outreach, I posted our plans and our progress on our
Facebook page. One of my friends living over 2,000 miles away in New Mexico saw the post and felt inspired to perform an act of kindness in her local community for people having to work on Thanksgiving. She lives on an Air Force base and decided to bake cookies for the servicemen and servicewomen on duty during the holiday. There is no doubt that many people were cheered up upon receiving the kind gift, and I am amazed to think that those cookies in New Mexico wouldn't have been baked if we kept our kindness a private matter.
Success 3: Holiday Shoppers Were Reminded of God's Love
With the AoK receiving front page treatment in the local newspaper, the story was fresh on people's minds for the holiday shopping season. Speaking of shopping, one consequence of the Thanksgiving AoK is that we injected the local economy with fifty two-dollar bills. We chose two-dollar bills because you don't see them very often, which makes you pause and look at it when you come across one, and even think twice about spending it. With all of these bills being passed around during the holiday shopping season, you can bet that many shoppers came across a two-dollar bill and thought about the AoK our church did to show God's love. I got confirmation of this a few days after the outreach when a coworker approached me with a two-dollar bill he got back as change.
Kindness is contagious. We make extra efforts to tell of the world of our kindness in order to spread God's love and make the world a better place. I think that the objections we see with our public displays of kindness come from a misunderstanding of our motives. To clear things up, I want to address three specific objections that we have come across.
Objection 1: Public Acts of Kindness are Selfish
Some of our critics think that public acts of kindness are a selfish grab for attention, and that only kindness shown in private is acceptable. One woman posted this comment on our church Facebook page in response to our
designated driving outreach. "Instill
daily living participation in society is what's needed. Why does the
generation born in the 1980s think they rule the f***in world?" And there was another young man (intoxicated) that scoffed at us when we gave him a free ride and handed him a kindness card with our contact information. He said, "I give people rides all the time but don't give out cards."
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| Giving Free Rides to Oneonta College Students |
The point that these critics are making is that doing something nice for a person on a personal level is superior to doing it publicly. My response to them is this,
of course doing quiet and regular acts of kindness is a good thing. At our church, we teach that kindness is a lifestyle and we encourage our people to show kindness every chance they get, in both big and small situations. And we're not trying to do public AoKs in an attempt to "rule the world;" on the contrary, we're trying to help bring healing to the world by making as big of an impact as possible with our service.
Objection 2: The Bible Says that Good Works Should be Done in Secret
There are some Christians that will frown on public displays of kindness because of Jesus' teachings in Matthew 6 that says, "But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." To put this verse into context, Jesus is talking about being discreet when giving money as a worship offering to a religious institution, not about doing good deeds in God's name.
Money complicates things and people are sensitive about it. This is why all of our AoKs are free (not fundraisers). We serve others for free so the message of God's love will come through clearly. Plus, Jesus is highlighting how Heaven's spiritual economy works by teaching that God rewards giving done in secret. This is in direct opposition to making a big public announcement about how much money one gave, which was the religious practice of the day. Also, Ephesians says that "We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works." This truth, paired with Jesus' teachings to "let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven," makes it very clear that churches are to be loud and proud with their public displays of kindness.
Objection 3: Acts of Kindness do not Grow the Church or Get People Saved So they're Not Worth Doing
I have talked with some church leaders that will not consider doing AoK outreaches because they don't believe it will lead to people coming on Sunday morning. To be fair, these pastors are correct. It's a rare occurrence when we do an AoK for a person and then see them at our next church service (even though they often say they will come). But at our church, AoKs aren't a marketing gimmick to bring people into the fold. Instead, we do AoKs out of obedience to God's command to love the world, and we feel this command was given primarily to the church body, which is why we prefer to go out as a group representing the church instead of lone wolfing it.
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| The RM Kindness Team Moving Students into Dorms |
I've also had conservative church leaders express disapproval to how we show God's love with our AoKs. Because we're not carrying Gospel tracts or trying to get the person saved right then and there, to them, this ministry is not valid, and to show love without an invitation to salvation is "liberalism" (btw, God liberally loves everybody, "for God so loved the world"). To be clear,
we care about salvation and feel the need to evangelize the lost, but we don't feel the need to push salvation in every situation. We believe that salvation is a process, and for many of the strangers that we meet while doing AoKs, we understand that showing them God's love and
proving to them that not all Christians are pushy and judgmental may be the first healing step needed for them to eventually come to faith in Jesus Christ. Salvation is the work of the Holy Spirit, not the preacher with a Gospel tract.
We've been
doing AoKs for a few years now, and yes, we still have the smallest church in town, but that's not what it's about. For us, doing AoKs is about showing God's love in a practical way. While we can't boast of record-breaking attendance, we can tell you story after story of all the good that we've seen happen from showing kindness. And in the end, isn't that what kindness is all about?
To hear more act of kindness stories, you are welcome to visit The Redemption Movement's
Friday Evening Gatherings. Doors open at 6pm at 148 River St., all are welcome. Or you can join us on Sunday to volunteer for the week's AoK project.
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