imagining how the church can reorient around mission

  Please hear me on this. I do not think it was wrong for the American government through the CIA and Navy Seals to kill bin Laden. I seriously doubt that killing bin Laden makes the world a safer place, but that's a debate for another day. I too am grateful for the courageous military servicemen who serve America and the world.

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“If God’s tomorrow means the end of exploitation, injustice, inequality, war, racism, nationalism, suffering, death and ignorance of God, Christians must be ‘signs’ of God’s conquest of all these ‘burdens and evils’ through the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ"

David Bosch, Transforming Mission

Depicted in this photo, an image from an anonymous source on the ground in Egypt, is a team of Egyptian Christians forming a massive human shield to protect their Muslim countrymen as they prayed during the violent protests yesterday. Beauty amid the chaos.

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This is a short excerpt from my dear (and brilliant) friend, Al Tizon (you can find him at Word and Deed or on FB at Evangelicals for Social Action):

What is the role of the church in the face of national crisis in general and the recent Tucson
shootings in particular? The answer is multi-dimensional, but it always includes offering hope to a traumatized nation by way of prayers, sermons, and honoring those whose lives were lost. Churches around the state of Arizona did just that in their Sunday services after the rampage. And not just in Arizona, but around the nation. Churches in Houston, for example, united for a day of mourning the dead, praying for those who were still fighting for their lives and for the health of the nation. Along these lines, an article appeared in the Yakima Herald that aptly remembers a sermon-speech given by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the wake of the senseless deaths of four young black girls as a result of a church bombing. In the face of yet another national tragedy, the words of Dr. King—"God still has a way of wringing good out of evil"—defines the church’s message to the hurting, the injured, the needy, and the poor.

None of us knew anything ahead of time.  The only directions were:  dress warm, bring a sleeping bag, toothbrush, $5 in ones, and $1 in quarters, and meet at the church at 3 PM.  We were in for a full 24 hours on the Spokane streets.

Our internship team, under the direction of our fearless leader, Russ (who’s also our pastor), set out over that time all across Spokane to many different urban ministries that are making a difference in the lives of the impoverished and overlooked.  We had some amazing experiences.  At Second Harvest we learned that $1 donated produces six pounds of food that can feed four people.  We found lots of crazy items in the piles of donated goods when we helped organize for the Global Neighborhood thrift store.  We fasted until lunch the second day, but bought lunches for people on the streets and served breakfast to the homeless at the House of Charity.  We stayed the night beneath all the crazy wall art that street youth had drawn on the walls of the Cup of Cool Water drop-in center.   We got a peek into the missions of Christ Kitchen and YFC.  We walked a lot.  read more

Biblical justice involves making individuals, communities, and the cosmos whole, by upholding

  both goodness and impartiality. It stands at the center of true religion, according to James, who says that the kind of "religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world" (James 1:27). Earlier Scripture says, "The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern" (Prov. 29:7).

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"We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself." 

– Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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 There are times, like this Wednesday night, that I want to go full on Marvel or DC Comics style prophet.  I have had enough – heard enough stories, seen enough despair.  I don’t want to wait any more.  I don’t want to stall until I carry a harp, and I don’t want anyone else to stall in hopes of some heavenly choir.  I want to see hard work accomplished.  Shalom is hard work – not an ideal that comes easily, yet fully available as a part of God’s historic plan.

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From the archives (written in 2008)

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