by Meredith Day

FRESNO - On Oct. 11, Southern Baptist churches will focus on a staggering worldwide problem: hunger impacts more than 800 million people, according to recent statistics.

In the United States alone, the Department of Agriculture estimates 13 million households are "food insecure," meaning 23 million adults and 12 million children eat less than the 2,100 calories an average person needs each day.

The Southern Baptist World Hunger Fund, established in 1974, seeks to alleviate that problem. One hundred percent of monies given to the fund are used to distribute food to undernourished people all over the world; 80 percent goes to the International Mission Board, and 20 percent stays in North America. The North American Mission Board distributes the funds through state partnerships, so churches and ministries are able to reach into their communities to meet immediate physical needs.

Individuals and churches can give to the Hunger Fund any time of the year, but one Sunday each October is designated as World Hunger Sunday, when churches place a special emphasis on how Southern Baptists can help. Last year, NAMB distributed more than $1.26 million in hunger funds to state convention partners.

In California, hunger funds help support 180 ministries that distribute food, noted Charles McClung, California Southern Baptist Convention ministry evangelism specialist. Those ministries may be community centers, individual congregations or associations of churches that are working to reduce hunger in their communities.

Julie Shockey, a CSBC community ministries field specialist, works with Kern County and Sequoia Baptist Associations, where 40 churches receive hunger funds to support their ministries. Shockey said the churches go about hunger ministry in different ways - some have food pantries, while others institute an open-door policy, helping people when and how they can.

"You find that people have needs and, sometimes, you can meet those needs in more ways than you thought," she said.

That principle also is at work in Inland Empire Baptist Association, where Don Overstreet is a CSBC church planting strategist. Part of his work is with new churches like Service Fellowship in Beaumont, a small congregation that feeds a crowd more than 10 times its own size every week. Overstreet said their dedication to meeting needs in their community is the reason why the church chose the name Service Fellowship - they're founded on a desire to make an impact where God has placed them.

Meeting spiritual needs, along with the physical, is also a primary goal at Telegraph Baptist Center in Oakland. The center helps 600 families each month, noted Director Steve Weaver, and about 20 percent of those are first-time visitors. Many aren't able to put food on the table for their families because of a sudden job loss or other emergency circumstance. Weaver said these recipients, who are facing "the worst crisis of their lives," might visit Telegraph two or three times before they get back on their feet.

"We get a chance to minister to them in the name of Christ, encourage them, and maybe remind them of things they knew, or introduce them to things they didn't know," Weaver said.

At Page Street Baptist Center in San Francisco, that introduction may happen during chapel services held before the food pantry opens every week, or in the relationships that are built when people receive help to meet their basic needs, said Eric Bergquist, Page Street's director.

"If you help people with food, you have an audience. People want to know what you're about, and why you do what you do."

The center serves 400 people each week; last year alone, they distributed more than 200,000 pounds of food. Bergquist said the weekly food pantry, meals and other service opportunities also provide a forum for discipleship, for people to learn as they work together. At Page Street, people who receive help are helping others.

That kind of lasting investment is the key to ministry evangelism, said Ken Dean, a CSBC community ministries field specialist who works with three Los Angeles-area associations. Dean serves nearly 100 churches and ministries that are engaging in hunger relief efforts, reaching out to a county that is home to more than 80,000 homeless and 250,000 in need of food.

"We have to keep praying, and the people of God should give generously on every occasion," Dean said, referring to II Corinthians 9:11. "My philosophy is meeting needs and sharing Christ. When you're feeding someone when they're hungry, it affords you the opportunity to share the gospel with them."

According to CSBC statistics, more than 6,000 made professions of faith in Christ last year as a result of Convention-sponsored hunger ministries.

(For more information on the Southern Baptist World Hunger Fund, including resources for promotion of World Hunger Sunday in your church, go to www.namb.net/hunger. To view a new video about Ken Dean's work in L.A. County, go to www.essentials.tv and click on "Beyond the Walls.")