Critics of the Duggar family recently blasted Jill Duggar and her husband, Derick Dillard, for taking part in a program to provide meals to the needy. However, it’s not the food that was given to hungry families that the couple’s detractors took issue with.
On Friday, Jill Duggar took to Instagram to promote an annual Thanksgiving charity event organized by her church. She encouraged her followers to spend their Saturday morning helping to assemble “blessing baskets” at the Cross Church campus in Rogers, Arkansas. The blessing baskets actually appear to be brown paper bags filled with food that can be used to make a holiday meal. The bag in the image that Jill shared has the words of Isaiah 58:10 printed on it. The Bible verse promises believers who feed the poor that their lights “will shine in the darkness.”
“Tomorrow is Blessing Baskets where our church gives locals in the area food for Thanksgiving! Come to the pinnacle hills campus to help assemble bags at 9am, or come for a service at 12:30!” Jill captioned her Instagram post.
While many of the Counting On star’s Instagram followers applauded her for trying to help those in need, some Duggar family critics noted that the free meals her church was handing out came with a catch. According to the Cross Church website, hungry families had to sit through a sermon before they could take home their bags of food.
“At the conclusion of the service each family receives their blessing basket,” the website reads.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BbntcODlZmr/?hl=en&taken-by=jillmdillard
In response to Jill’s post about the program, the Duggar Family News: Life is Not All Pickles and Hairspray Facebook page shared a list of Bible verses about feeding the poor, pointing out that they all encourage feeding the hungry “with no strings attached.” Pickles’ followers also weighed in on Cross Church’s blessing basket program, with many of them comparing and contrasting it to the various ways their churches help the needy during the holidays. Some commenters said that their churches run food banks that give out Thanksgiving meals every year without requiring recipients to attend a church service, and others said that their churches even deliver food to needy families ahead of the holidays.
“Despicable. If their ‘compassion’ and ‘charity’ is conditional, then they missed Christ’s message,” wrote one critic.
“What about those families who are ‘working poor’ and will be working during the service? Are they unworthy of a basket?” another commented.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BX3yjEKDPjV/?hl=en&taken-by=derickdillard
As reported by the Duggar Family Blog, Derick Dillard is currently involved with Cross Church’s college ministry program, and he’s enrolled in the Cross Church School of Ministry. However, he did not use his social media pages to promote Cross Church’s blessing basket program. It was previously unclear whether Derick was getting paid by the church for his participation in its college ministry, but he recently indicated that this is the case by tweeting that he has a job. The scandal-plagued Duggar husband was using Twitter to reveal his employment status the same day Jill was using Instagram to find volunteers to assemble blessing baskets.
I have a job.
— Derick Dillard (@derickmdillard) November 18, 2017
[Featured Image by Duggar Family/Facebook]
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