Acts Of Compassion

Member Responsibilities

The word "compassion" has several definitions -- some of those include synonyms such as "pity" or "sympathy." These are NOT the meanings we intend for this word, "compassionate."

Rather the Church of Compassionate Service intends for "compassionate" to mean:

An Act which is effective in changing conditions for the better for some group of people.

It would be a good deed, to qualify for Level One, to give a fish to a hungry man, but an "act of compassion" to teach him to fish. That is the difference. 

At a higher Level in this Church, teaching him how to fish might qualify as a Good Deed, but not be sufficiently significant to qualify, at that Level, as an Act of Compassion.

In order to qualify for Level One, a person could, indeed, volunteer to go into a family's home, clean house, do the laundry, cook dinner, all while the housewife might be sick in the hospital.  It would be an act of compassion to teach the eldest daughter, in that house, how to cook, and convince the younger son to help with the house cleaning.

"Welfare" that creates a permanent condition of poverty is harmful to society -- this Church does not accept that type of "welfare" as either a good deed or an act of compassionate service.

Acts of Compassion ought to rise to the level of being very suitable for the local news media to cover.  In fact, this Church believes that good works, well publicized, is the key to the recognition and expansion of the Church -- we value the actions of Members where that action results in "good PR" in the media, or recognition by a government agency.