“…and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”
– Matthew 6.12
For Fall 2024, Hendricks Avenue Baptist Church (Jacksonville, FL) has chosen to address health and wellness gaps among our neighbors in Northeast Florida, and you can help! As a part of that, through a partnership with Undue Medical Debt, we are going to make a difference in our community by relieving the burden of accumulated medical debt in the lives of our neighbors.
It is our goal to raise (at least!) $15,000 in order to buy and erase—to forgive—$1,500,000 of medical debt in Jacksonville and neighboring communities. Because of Undue Medical Debt’s partnerships with hospitals, care providers, and other organizations, every dollar given to this campaign will, on average, erase—forgive—$100 of medical debt. That means that a $10 donation buys $1,000 and a $1,000 donation buys—and forgives—$100,000 of debt. Therefore, the amount that we will be able to forgive, together, will far surpass what we will all contribute individually!
Medical debt is particularly insidious. It’s rarely, if ever, simply chosen. No one chooses to have a terrible accident or develop a chronic illness in the way that someone may, for example, choose to incur debt by purchasing a new car. Indeed, numerous studies show that people who have significant levels of medical debt feel like they have to delay or avoid other needed medical care, including obtaining necessary medications, making it all too easy for someone’s health to decline even more rapidly.
Like our Biblical counterparts, we live in a world of debt and debtors. It can easily go unnoticed, but the crippling effect of financial debt is a recurring issue throughout Scripture. Indeed, the language of “redemption” that is at the core of the Christian Gospel is itself a metaphor taken from the world of financial debt. We are asked to forgive our debtors as we ourselves are forgiven, and we are grateful for this opportunity to change lives through debt forgiveness!
Our campaign will run through December 2024 and will culminate in a Jubilee Celebration at our 11:00 am service on Sunday, December 22nd 2024. It will be a time to give thanks to God for the opportunity to be generous towards our neighbors and for the resources that we have been given to share. More than that, however, it will be a chance to return thanks for the redemption—the forgiveness—that we ourselves have been given. Everyone—and we truly mean everyone—is welcome to take part in this celebration!
To support this campaign, you can click the “donate” button or click the “send a check” button and follow the instructions. (NOTE: please make sure to mention the campaign name “Hendricks Avenue Baptist Church” on the memo line.)
To learn more about this campaign or Hendricks Avenue Baptist Church itself, please reach out to us using the information below. And thank you for your consideration!
