Washington, D.C.-The global advocacy organization ONE is inviting pastors, priests, rabbis, imams, and leaders of congregations across the country to create and submit their best sermons connecting their own faith to the need to help people struggling against extreme poverty, global disease, lack of educational opportunity and hunger.

The ONE Sermon Challenge will accept original and inspirational sermons from faith leaders and collect them online at ONE.org, giving pastors and other leaders the chance to highlight their message to ONE’s millions of members and congregations nationwide. The challenge is part of ONE Sabbath 2008-09, ONE’s effort to mobilize people of faith to speak out and take action for those struggling against poverty and disease around the world at this critical time. Preachers from all faith traditions are welcome to make submissions and fully incorporate their own tradition into their messages.

“I support the ONE Sermon Challenge. Using their own voices, religious leaders can stand with people living in poverty, many of whom are affected every day by hunger and disease,” said the Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and president of the Lutheran World Federation. “Religious leaders can deepen understanding with their words, and inspire members to respond faithfully.”

Sermons for the challenge will be submitted in video, audio and written form, and will be featured on the ONE Sermon Challenge website at ONE.org/onesabbath/sermonchallenge. Faith leaders whose sermons are featured will also receive a ONE Sabbath action pack for their congregations. This action pack will include ONE t-shirts, white wristbands, detailed advocacy and issue materials, and a copy of the executive summary of ONE’s “From Vision to Action: Realizing the Potential for Development in an Obama Administration” policy handbook. Faith leaders who submit their sermon in video form will also receive a copy of the book “On the Move,” written by ONE co-founder Bono.

“The ONE Sermon Challenge invites faith leaders to raise their voices and put forth their best sermon showing why all of us must do our part to help end senseless poverty and deaths from treatable disease,” said Mark Brinkmoeller, the national coordinator of ONE Sabbath. “While its topic and purpose couldn’t be more important, the ONE Sermon Challenge is meant to be a fun, engaging and uplifting way to raise awareness and incite action on these vital issues. Faith communities and individual believers are already central advocates on these issues, and they have been for decades. This effort aims to promote and encourage the good work that continues to be done by countless houses of worship across America.”

The ONE Sermon Challenge will run from February 11 through April 15. In the Muslim tradition, it is called the ONE Khutbah Challenge. (Khutbahs are the primary occasion for public speaking in the Islamic tradition and are delivered during Friday noon prayers.)

“ONE is mobilizing the faith community around the belief that we can and must make a difference,” said Rabbi David Saperstein, Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. “Together, we can make a clear statement to our new president and Congress that helping those struggling against disease and despair is not about charity-and is certainly not about partisanship-but is about responsibility, justice and our highest principles.”

The Challenge is part of ONE’s faith outreach program, ONE Sabbath 2008-09, which aims to raise awareness and encourage advocacy around global poverty and disease issues during the first 100 days of the Obama presidency and the 111^th Congress. ONE Sabbath gives local congregations and believers opportunities to respond to such global challenges as AIDS, malaria, lack of clean water and children out of school, and informs congregations about the proven solutions that can be adopted during this critical time when American foreign policy and budget priorities are being set.

“The issues of extreme poverty, particularly in Africa, must be a priority for our leaders and for us all,” said Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, the Director of Outreach at the Dar Al Hijrah Islamic Center. “Our faith compels us to care and to act for those who are vulnerable. Holding a ONE Khutbah will provide powerful reminders why we must care.”

The ONE Sabbath effort includes Jewish and Christian congregations and is known as ONE Sadaqa in the Muslim community and ONE Seva in the Hindu community. While the ONE Sabbath effort encompasses different faiths, ONE is inviting each house of worship to make the effort fully specific and respectful to its own faith traditions. On ONE.org/ONESabbath, participants are connected to materials that are prepared by members of their own tradition and are consistent with the teachings and tenants of each faith, independent of others.

“To seek to live in the way of Jesus, communities and individuals must keep the poor at the forefront of our minds,” said Tim Hartman, pastor at Next Generation Baltimore and Justice Team leader with Emergent Village “Let us take this opportunity to allow the issues of the global poor: clean water, education, HIV/AIDS to significantly affect our sermons and proclamation.”

As a nonpartisan, secular organization dedicated to fighting global poverty and disease, ONE welcomes people of all faiths and those who profess no faith to get involved. ONE Sabbath is one way people of faith can lend their voices and contribute through action to help alleviate needless suffering, death and despair caused by global poverty and disease. ONE is proud to work alongside hundreds of organizations and millions of individuals dedicated to this same goal.