However, the Christian response of love to such need is service and charity, not mutual aid. Mutual aid seeks to meet the special material and physical needs that arise among church members. Prayer and support groups, counseling, and visiting do offer mutual support to believers but do not typically involve material aid. Although some of these needs may intertwine with material misfortune, the church's role in addressing them falls outside our understanding of mutual aid. Furthermore, although mutual aid is an expression of care in the midst of material hardship, its primary aim is not to create an egalitarian society or to promote a communal sharing of goods.
Mutual aid is mutual aid.
In this sense it involves both expectations and obligations. The healthy farmer plowing his field anticipates that other church members will help plow the fields if he becomes ill. But he also carries an obligation to help when misfortune strikes a neighbor. The mutuality of mutual aid also distinguishes it from charity and service, which carry no obligation to reciprocate. Mennonite mutual aid does not pretend to promote a society of equals, offer help for social and psychological problems, nor serve the vast pockets of human need around the world.