• Home
  • About Off The Grid
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
Friday, May 23, 2025
  • How-To
  • Grid Threats
  • Survival
  • Gardening
  • Food
  • Worldview
  • Health
  • Privacy
  • Hunting
  • Defense
  • Financial
  • News
  • Misc
No Result
View All Result
  • How-To
  • Grid Threats
  • Survival
  • Gardening
  • Food
  • Worldview
  • Health
  • Privacy
  • Hunting
  • Defense
  • Financial
  • News
  • Misc
No Result
View All Result
Off The Grid News
Home Worldview

Mutual Aid And Membership In God

by Joanna H
in Worldview
Print Print
Mutual Aid And Membership In God
Share on FacebookShare on XShare on TruthEmail Article

Mutual aid should be distinguished from charity, and resources shared in ways that  recognize interdependence with others rather than fostering perpetual dependence of many on a few.—Sue Bender, Plain Living

I live and work in a community that seeks to live an alternative to the consumer culture and to be good neighbors to folks in various kinds of trouble. People come from churches and schools to help us out. Often they say they want to help ‘serve the poor’. Their generosity is commendable, but they are often uncomfortable when we begin to speak to them about the ways in which the poor are already serving them—by working for little pay to grow their food and build and clean their homes and work spaces. We invite them to join for a while in a life where they and the people they see as poor can work together and be helped by one another.  Homesteading and generosity are good foundations for such a life.

Such a life makes the help we give and the help we receive direct, obvious, personal and voluntary rather than distant and mediated by an economy of which we are largely ignorant. It enables us to is to do more for ourselves and for others and to help others to do the same, so that we form networks of mutual support. Neighbor families, regardless of income, help us in the garden and take fresh produce home.  Some ask questions and learn how to grow more in their yards, if they have any. We sent vegetables and goat cheese to the soup kitchen up the road, and they bring us surplus bread and whatever else they have to spare.

Living by gifts freely given and freely received is not the same as living by strict exchange. People who are ill, injured, very young or very old, in the first raw stages of grieving, or recovering from any kind of disaster, need a hand up. But we recognize that part of what each person needs is the chance to help, to give, to serve.

These practical networks of support are small visible manifestations of the fact that we are all members of one another and members of the body of Christ, inseparable, each one in need of the other.

 

ShareTweetShareSend

Related Posts

How Christianity Destroyed Classical Culture

How Christianity Destroyed Classical Culture

by Bill Heid

The End of a Civilization and the Birth of a New World In ancient days, the clash between Christianity and...

Believe This And You’ll Never Be Alone Ever Again

Believe This And You’ll Never Be Alone Ever Again

by Bill Heid

Rediscovering the Power of God’s Personal Providence The doctrine of providence has long stirred debate, especially in how it relates...

Standing Strong and Speaking True: What Apologetics Really Means for Christians Today

Standing Strong and Speaking True: What Apologetics Really Means for Christians Today

by Bill Heid

What Is Apologetics, Really? Apologetics to some might sound like saying “I’m sorry,” but it actually means something very different....

Next Post
Space-Saving Gardens

Space-Saving Gardens

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE

Churn! Churn! Churn!

Churn! Churn! Churn!

10 Fast-Growing Spring Vegetables You Can Harvest In About 30 Days

10 Fast-Growing Spring Vegetables You Can Harvest In About 30 Days

The Basics Of Beneficial Weeds

The Basics Of Beneficial Weeds

TRENDING STORIES

  • bubonic plague

    Is Another Bubonic Plague Pandemic On The Horizon?

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Waco Fertilizer Plant Explosion & A Look Back On The “Waco Massacre”

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Make Yourself 3 Times More Likely To Survive A Heart Attack

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • AI Surveillance Of Shoppers: Walmart’s Newest Tool To Grab Your Data

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • ‘Apocalyptic’ Microchip Implants Are Here – And Being Inserted Into People’s Hands

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0

Subscribe to our Insider Newsletter

Huge discounts on off-the-grid gear and life saving supplements.






‘Off The Grid News’ is an independent, weekly email newsletter and website that is crammed full of practical information on living and surviving off the grid. Advice you’ll never hear from the mainstream media.

  • How-To
  • Grid Threats
  • Extreme Survival
  • Survival Gardening
  • Off-Grid Foods
  • Worldview
  • Natural Health
  • Survival Hunting
  • Privacy
  • Financial
  • Current Events
  • Self Defense
  • Home Defense
  • Pain-Free Living
  • Miscellaneous
  • Off Grid Videos

© Copyright 2025 Off The Grid News.  All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • How-To
  • Grid Threats
  • Survival
  • Gardening
  • Food
  • Worldview
  • Health
  • Privacy
  • Hunting
  • Defense
  • Financial
  • News
  • Misc
  • Videos

© Copyright 2025 Off The Grid News.  All Rights Reserved.