Throughout its 275-year history, Bedford Presbyterian Church has sought to be a place that prioritizes the greatest commandments of Jesus: to love God with our whole selves and to love our neighbors as ourselves. In John’s Gospel, Jesus encourages his disciples to love one another as Jesus loves them. Love is the driving force – the compelling principle – of the Christian faith.
For Presbyterians, the love of God is a gift that we are to share, freely, when it comes to putting our faith into practice. And at Bedford Presbyterian Church, we have sought to show God’s love in the hands-on ways we serve. Over the past twenty years – since Hurricane Katrina – a major focus of our ministry has been loving our neighbors (both near and far) by responding to natural disasters and systemic poverty by doing home repairs: helping people to get back into a home that was damaged or repairing homes so that people can continue to live in them. What would Jesus, the adopted son of a carpenter named Joseph, do to make a home safe and whole for people to live? Our church has sought to answer this question with the sweat of our brows and the love in our hearts.
Time and time again, in doing this faithful work, we have encountered larger issues that go beyond hammers and nails, lumber and labor. One of these issues is that of affordable housing.
It is no secret that housing scarcity and affordability are major issues across our nation, in our own state, and in the Town of Bedford. Talk to anyone who has tried to buy a home in the past few years, and you will often hear stories of how hard the process can be. As a church, the question we have asked ourselves in the face of such a large and complicated issue is, “What can we do to love our neighbors?”
As a “Matthew 25 Congregation” of the Presbyterian Church (USA), Bedford Presbyterian is committed to put our faith into action by seeking to – among other things – care for “the least of these” by advocating for changes to detrimental systems and structures so that we can seek the wholeness of our communities.
Recently, an opportunity for affordable housing advocacy presented itself right here in the Town of Bedford, which has just gone through a four year process of studying the issue.
On March 11, residents of the Town of Bedford will be able to vote on Amendments to the town’s zoning ordinances, creating clarity around zoning laws and opportunity for affordable housing to be built in Bedford for the first time in many years. In a town that is 95% developed, these zoning amendments will affect just a small slice of available land in the Apartment Residential / Service Industrial Performance zone, off of Route 3 but will make a big impact on the availability of smaller, more affordable homes (and, as a bonus, bringing Bedford into compliance with New Hampshire state law around providing workforce housing).
It is not my job to tell you how to vote. We Presbyterians believe in freedom of conscience, and I would encourage you to vote yours. But I would also encourage you to educate yourselves about this opportunity to love our neighbors – and our potential neighbors – by helping to provide affordable places for them to live, whether they are downsizing from a larger home, buying a home for the first time, or simply seeking to live in and contribute to the Town of Bedford.
Grace and Peace,
John
Prepare for Worship
This week, we begin a new sermon series for Lent called “Everything [in] Between.” This Sunday’s sermon title is “Stranger and Neighbor.”
- Read Luke 10:25-37, which contains some very familiar verses and a familiar parable.
- Read Deuteronomy 6 and Leviticus 19.
- Read or sing Hymn # 771 – “What is the World Like”