Challenge To World Leaders:

KEEP YOUR PROMISE TO THE POOR

Micah Sunday prompted hundreds of churches in the UK and thousands of churches worldwide to send a clear message to global leaders: keep your promises to help the poor.

Churches across the UK used sermon themes, creative prayer and worship ideas to present practical ways to engage with the issues that face the world’s poorest people on 19  October.

This year’s theme highlighted the effect climate change has on the poor. Participants were encouraged to make a stand by calling on Prime Minister Gordon Brown to secure a global deal that helps poor communities adapt to the effects of climate change, ahead of December’s UN climate talks in Poland.

Micah Sunday is an annual event that aims to galvanise the international church family to act on behalf of the world’s poorest people. Last year, 43.7 million people joined the Stand up and Take action campaign worldwide, setting a new world record, and they anticipate that the record has been broken again this year.

Thirty-one Micah Campaigns worldwide took part in Micah Sunday. Kenyan Christians hosted a huge prayer rally and many churches across the world organised practical aid as part of their campaign, with food being distributed in Burundi to those affected by the drought in Gitega and medicine and clothes to Abidjan village in the Ivory Coast as part of their practical response.

Andy Clasper, Micah Challenge UK Executive Director, said, 'To my mind the interconnectedness of our world that the current financial crisis demonstrates makes it more important, not less, for us to keep our promises to the world’s poor. If the Church worldwide can raise its voice on the issue of extreme poverty, then huge changes can be made.  This generation could yet be remembered as the one that wiped extreme poverty from the face of the earth.'

Visit www.micahchallenge.org.uk/micahsunday  to find out more.