Does Anyone Care?
The Ministry of Care

by Joel Stephen Williams

David Holwick tells that from 1986 to 1990, Frank Reed was held hostage in a Lebanon cell. For months at a time, Reed was blindfolded, living in complete darkness, or chained to a wall and kept in absolute silence. Although he was beaten, made ill, and tormented, Reed felt most the lack of anyone caring. He said in an interview with Time: "Nothing I did mattered to anyone. I began to realize how withering it is to exist with not a single expression of caring around (me). ... I learned one overriding fact: caring is a powerful force. If no one cares, you are truly alone."

Does anyone care? That is a question all of us ask at one time or another, young and old. The answer from the Bible is a resounding “Yes!”

• When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? (Psalm 8:3–4; NRSV).
• Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you (1 Peter 5:6–7).

In ministry we are privileged to be ambassadors for Christ to reach out in a caring way with the gospel to people who have a wide variety of needs. The church’s ministry for two millennia has included care for widows, orphans, the poor, those in prison, the bereaved, refugees, the sick, the disabled, the handicapped, the persecuted, children, and many other groups in need. One of the best resources to study how the church has reached out to care for these different groups, especially in the early centuries, is Thomas C. Oden’s book The Good Works Reader (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007).

One group in particular that needs to hear that God cares for them is the lost. The Bible tells us that God cares for lost sinners, and God has shown his care in the most powerful way possible by giving his Son at Calvary. God cared enough for every person that Jesus Christ, his Son, came to earth and went to the cross as an atonement for the sins of the world. God “desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:4). Christ has given us the church as a support group plus a way of life that binds us together in care for one another.

Does anyone care? It is our duty as Christians to let the lonely, hurting, lost people of the world know that someone cares.