A pledge to fight poverty.

I'm going all spiritual on y'all. Today's sermon at church was called "The church as a service industry". Our pastor reminded us to help others of all faiths, abilities, incomes, orientations, races...we are ALL people. As a church we said this pledge today, which really struck me:

We are standing now with millions around the world on this symbolic day to show our commitments to the fight against extreme poverty and inequality. We are standing because we refuse to accept more excuses in a world where 50,000 people die every day as a result of extreme poverty and the gap between the rich and poor is getting wider.

We are standing because we want our leaders to honor their promises to meet the Millennium Development Goals and we ask them to exceed these goals.

As a Jubilee people, we are standing because we believe that debt cancellation is essential to bringing economic justice and an end to global poverty. We stand today in the light of God's Jubilee vision of abundant life for all and right relationships between people and nations.

We join in solidarity with people from over 100 countries to say, to the leaders of the wealthy countries, we urge you to keep your promises on poverty- debt relief, more and better aid, trade justice and gender equality.

To the leaders of all countries, make it your first responsibility to save the lives of your most impoverished citizens. We ask you to tackle inequality, to be accountable to your people, to govern fairly and justly, to fight corruption and to uphold human rights.

Today, and every day, we will stand up and take action against poverty. We will continue to fight against poverty and inequality and to hold leaders in every part of the world, faithful to their promises. We are asking not for charity but for justice.

We are millions of voices standing in solidarity to say, no more excuses. End poverty now.