INDIANAPOLIS — Loving thy neighbor is key tenant in the Christian faith. One local church is promoting that tenant through community education.
"We wanted to do something that would empower the community to actually help people that were in need, " Brian Showbe the Pastor of Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church
The free community classes included everything from hands only CPR training, smoking prevention, food security and a stop the bleed training.
According to the American Heart Association, if someone is in cardiac arrest there is only about a 40 percent chance that someone around you will step in to deliver lifesaving hands free CPR.
"Hands only CPR.. our science tells us it is as effective as CPR with breath, but it allows community lay responders to have some sort of bystander response,” Yolana Wakefield-Wilson the Community CPR Manager at the American Heart Association for the Midwest said.
Classes like that are what the church and instructors say is best way to love thy neighbor.
"God told us to love our neighbor and so we've got to really think about are we prepared to love our neighbor in ways that our neighbors needs loving,” Showbe said.
“There really isn't a better way to love your neighbor then to know hands only CPR,” Wakefield-Wilson said. “There are so many things that we have no control over so many ways we wish we could have helped our family. But by at least knowing hands only CPR we can act in case of emergency and feel like we've helped to love our neighbor."
Offering these classes in one place is one way the church believes will help solve some complex issue plaguing the community of Indianapolis.
"People are just not aware they don't have the opportunity and so we've got to bring the opportunity,” Showbe said. “One of the reasons we want to use churches as hubs is because it brings those things directly in to the community so people can access those services."
Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church hopes that people can use these skills they have used to better their life the life of those around them.
