How can generosity bring joy when finances are distressing?

With the news headlines and the upward leap in food and energy bills, the cost-of-living crisis is impossible to ignore. For charities, the current financial crisis looks set to be both deeper and longer than Covid, says the Charity Excellence Framework. Yet in villages, towns and cities across the country, church communities are bringing warmth, light and stability in the storm. Christians are organising prayer events, mobilising research and finding ways to help.

Christine is part of a church that set up an emergency food bank during the pandemic, they kept it going ‘for such a time as this’. Hearing individual stories from those using the food bank, Christine began to realise the extent of the poverty on the doorstep. “Yes, I saw that the church is at the forefront of responding, but it was still distressing.” Sometimes we can see the need around us and find it paralysing. We feel more distress or guilt than motivation. Perhaps we feel our own struggles mean we have nothing of value to give, or the need is just too great.

How can we continue to give as the need keeps increasing? How can we find joy in it whilst stretching further and further? The first step to finding joy in generosity might surprise you: it’s simply being prepared to talk about it!