Call + Response has been out for a while, but alas, I just watched it. And go figure, I am inspired. First of all it is inspiring to see individuals who are giving their lives, their voices, their careers, their talents, to abolishing modern day slavery.  I realize I need to fight that voice in my head that says it can’t be done, because it CAN be done. Slavery has been abolished before, we can do it again, and this time with the help of much more resources. I am sold: I do believe that this is a 21st century challenge to an age old problem that we all are faced with and called to respond to. We are responsible. 

We must do what we can with what we have. And what we have is… a lot.

We have our voice, resources, education, talents, gifts, consumer power, the wisdom of God, the power of the Holy Spirit and community. Slavery was abolished before because of concerted effort and solidarity. It can and will happen again in the same way.

But I’m afraid.

I’m afraid that I will forget the hopelessness in their voices 

and the emptiness in their eyes.

I’m afraid I will forget the anguish I felt for them.

I’m afraid that the empowered voice in my head that said “Yes! I must do something. I can liberate these people!” will fade away.

But what if we don’t let it fade away.

What if we encouraged one another to 

consider the challenge 

to fight for another’s freedom

to fight for another’s laughter and song

to fight for another’s dignity.

What if “holding each other accountable” took on a whole other level?

What if we followed the ramifications of our actions to the ends of the earth (rather than foolishly thinking they stop at us)

and what if we saw the tremendous power we have as consumers, decision makers, social changers?

What if we harnessed this power and freed the oppressed 

to sing the better song of freedom.

I’m afraid I will forget the way I felt sitting there, looking at the faces of God’s beautiful creation–

tormented and broken–

wanting so badly to break into their lives and bring them hope and liberation,

to rescue them from their hell and lead them outside,

so they can look up at the endless sky

simply because

now they can.

I fear that the blatant corruption and evil I saw will be overshadowed,

that the moving music, impassioned calls, fiery convictions

will be subsumed by 

a stressful paper to write

a job to find

a family member I must call

a traffic jam I must endure.

And I will forget

the 27 million (individuals with names, fears, hopes, desires, just like us)

who know no freedom

of writing a paper

searching for a job

talking with family

battling traffic

And beyond this, they don’t even know how

to read or write,

express themselves or laugh.

They don’t 

even know how

to smile.

Again, I am pleading with my self, with my flesh in all its funk, with my community

with you

to cry with them

and to fight for them.

I fear I will move on and say one day,

Yes, I saw that movie.

Yes, I knew there were 27 million oppressed, enslaved individuals (each created and loved passionately by a God who knows them by name and calls us to love and liberate them)

and…no

I didn’t respond

because I had a paper to write

a phone call to make. 

And besides, what can one person do?

That, my friends, is the voice of an oppressor.

And I fear that in all my shock and paralysis, I will only succumb to being

yet another slave trader

out of cowardice and disconnect.

Like Ashley Judd said (something to the effect of), ” I don’t want my purchases to be another’s torture, my  freedom to be another’s slavery.”

“And now let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds.”  Hebrews 10:24

Solidarity + Action = Call + Response

Addendum:

It starts somewhere, and somewhere is all it takes. No action is too small.

In my humble opinion, these are the 4 first main steps we can take:

1) Become a conscious consumer. I am convinced that this is the first most tangible, immediate, powerful step. Know who you are oppressing. Know who you are empowering. Live, love, shop and eat intentionally. It does make a difference.  ”What you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.” (Gandhi)

2) Identify your strength. What are you good at? Do that. God intentionally gave us different gifts and I believe he desires us to use this to love and liberate the world. Making a musical documentary (a “rockumentary” if you will) was creative and beautifully harnessed the power of music for a greater cause. Those people used their strengths. If organizing is your “thing”, then organize an event to have a group or community write their senator requesting him/her to address slavery. 

3) Pray– for wisdom, vision, courage, for the slaves and slave traders

4) visit  http://www.callandresponse.com/responsinator3.asp

would like to cordially invite everyone to attend the upcoming membership meeting at *Warner Pacific College on Thursday, November 13, 2008 at 6:30 p.m. * The meeting itself will be held in Kardatzke Hall  below Schlatter Chapel, on the west side of campus near 68th Ave.

This will be a time of music, prayer, reflection, and fellowship.  Stephanie Ahn will also be providing a brief introduction to biblical justice.

You will also be able to hear about upcoming opportunities to serve together to promote God’s heart for the poor, sick, and all of creation.  Our hope is that this will be a time of reconnecting and spiritual refreshment for all.

If you are interested in attending this event and have not yet RSVP’d, please contact Seth in the office at 503.222.2072, or e-mail us at info@occv.org.

 Ron’s vision came in to fruition because of the help and support of churches and people in the area. This is a testimony to the power of community. It is amazing to me what can be accomplished when visions are shared and callings are fearlessly pursued. But this was only possible because Ron’s vision and calling was supported within the context of community. He shared his burden with others, and this was like oxygen to his dream. 

Rachel and Ronaldo shared their testimony regarding what New Wine has been and continues to be for them. It is refreshing to hear two totally different testimonies that both attest to the power of building relationships, and the transforming power of engaging culture with a loving, compassionate Christ, who deeply desires to have a deep, dynamic relationship with everyone. Realizing that our calling is to bear witness to this relational, compassionate God is powerful.

The night went well and I am excited for the opportunity we had to share what New Wine is about, and to, like Ron, invite others to catch the vision of living out the redemptive power of Christ in this broken world.

The theme for this year’s Christian Community Development (CCDA) Conference, referred to in the quote above, is “Shalom—Seeking The Peace Of The City”. It’s a great idea, right? I mean who doesn’t like peace? But how do we move and act to bring it about in this broken world? Peace is a great idea, as long as brokenness never enters the picture.  We often think of peace as the absence of any sort of tension. However, defining shalom apart from its relationship with tension is like defining courage without mentioning the need to face fears. True shalom seeks to lovingly redeem through entering into brokenness. The whole, completed picture after the restoration is where shalom rests.

So often in my personal experience, especially in regards to relationships, I have had this incomplete picture of peace. Rather than addressing and resolving tensions with people in my community, I tend to disregard, downplay, drown, or even desert associations with conflicts. This disengagement of emotional sufferings never results in my attainment of peace. Jesus suffered for the sake of love, bringing victory in the form of entering into and defeating death by his resurrection. As I find Him pursuing my heart here at the conference I am realizing true “Shalom for the City” must begin with the shalom of my heart that can only be found by living in Him. By being united in His Spirit I have courage to engage my emotional sufferings from the past, present, and future.

2 Cor. 5:17-19, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.”

Any attempts that we may have to “Seek the Peace of the City” apart from Him are impossible. As God’s community, we are found in the Prince of Peace and called to reconcile the tension in our hearts so that we may go out and bring that message of shalom to our cities and the world. Thread by thread He is weaving us all back together.

One, there is only one true incarnation, and he is Jesus of Nazareth.  Jesus is the only pure embodiment of the gospel; we are not.  I think we would all agree with this statement.  Yet, I find myself at times eclipsing Jesus in my attempt to be incarnational rather than simply pointing people to Jesus (as well as looking for them to point me to Him), the one full incarnation.  When we say we are living incarnationally this does not mean we are Jesus but that we represent and point to Jesus.

Second, we must acknowledge that incarnational living is a two way street.  If we are able to embody the gospel through the Spirit in a concrete location, then it would follow that we will at times also have the gospel embodied before us by others.  In other words, we reciprocally point one another to Jesus.  I know when I think of living incarnationally, I think of it as my behavior towards others and not others’ behavior towards me.  We must expand our view of living incarnationally to also include learning from others’ incarnational living.

What do you think?  Do you think speaking of living incarnationally in our neighborhoods undermines the incarnation of Christ, why or why not?  What other dangers do you think there are in using this language if any?  How would you define living incarnationally?  And what does living incarnationally mean to you?

It has always been useful to me to think of engagement with  culture when proclaiming the gospel using three categories:

1. Things we accept
2. Things we reject
3. Things that are redeemed

I believe that this fits in with Paul’s approach when proclaiming the gospel on Mars Hill in the book of Acts as well.  Admittedly this is a bit reductionistic in that some things aren’t quite this simple, but I wonder if these categories can serve as a primer to thinking through how the Gospel is proclaimed in a specific cultural context.

Do you think that there is anything of merit in the system I propose?

What can we learn from it?

What are weaknesses to this sort of approach?

If you totally disagree with this sort of approach, how do you think through issues of relating Gospel to culture?

Moreover, if you took a room of 100 people, 50 Christians and 50 non-Christians, and asked similar questions, you might as well put a bunch of hungry monkeys in a room with only one banana. The vibe in the atmosphere would certainly not be pleasant.

I think we as humans can correctly state that we can become rather uncomfortable around those of which we do not agree with. Be it theology, politics, ethics, personal practice, etc. we, the human race, throughout history have naturally tended to gravitate toward those in which we are in alignment with.

Ever since I can remember I have always struggled to love and befriend those of which I find disagreement with. More recently within the last few years, as my theological and political beliefs have shifted quite profoundly, as a Bible college student I have found myself becoming more and more uncomfortable with those of which I disagree in areas such as theology, politics, and personal practices. In some cases it has even gotten to the point where I don’t feel like I can completely be myself in some ways unless I am with people of whom I agree with. This is sad, but true. As in other cases, it has become a rather shameful practice of mine to subconsciously stereotype individuals of whom I disagree with into a completely separate group of people. For example, when disagreements arise, I have essentially said to myself “you think (blank) about this, you must be one of them” Fill in the blanks with whatever labels you wish (liberal, conservative, Calvinist, Arminian, etc) and voila, you have my rather vial thought process. I have conceived a rather dangerous “me vs. them” mentality. This is a personal aspect of which I do not envy, and I have spent many restless nights fighting with myself over my desire to be a truly loving person.

On a wider scale I have always asked the question of how we as evangelical Christians can engage those within our postmodern culture who share different beliefs. I have noticed that we seem to get so hung up on the other’s “wrong” beliefs that we never get past arguing, wasting precious time bickering with one another.

It wasn’t until recently that I truly began to understand engagement with culture can look like. I was listening to a sermon MP3 and the pastor mentioned this…
We could spend our time asking questions about rather mundane issues of theology, politics, morality, etc.

But what if we asked different kinds of questions?
Can we as opponents agree, as different as we are, that Christ’s body was broken and blood poured for the healing of the world? Can we agree on that? What would it be like if the next time we were in a shouting match with a fellow Christian we said
“Can we agree that Christ’s body was broken and his blood poured out for the healing of the world? Can we agree on that?”

Imagine what it would be like if the we engaged someone who was not a Christian, who didn’t want anything to do with God, Jesus, The Bible, or Church? What if we asked, “do you agree that the world needs healing? I believe Jesus’ body was broken and blood was shed for the healing of this world. Can we agree that the world needs healing? Can we agree on that?”

Also, can we agree on our need for the grace and peace of Christ? Can we agree on that? The interesting thing about our opponents is that we both agree that we both need the grace and peace of Jesus Christ. We have a connection we didn’t know we had. Our boundaries would soon look much different and we wouldn’t want to throw bombs at each other if we realized our mutual need for the grace and peace of Christ.

What it would be like if this was how we viewed things?
How would our world change?
How would our faith as followers of Christ be changed?

So what role does culture play? Is the gospel a part of–or apart from– culture?  I don’t want the gospel to be some abstract idea that I dance around, or am studying so closely that I miss the gospel for the theologies. (Get it…?) I want it, essentially, to be evident in and through my life. Ideally, our lives should paint a picture of the gospel. Do we need to disentangle ourselves from culture in order to embrace the gospel? Or do we need to embrace culture in light of the gospel? Does culture reflect the gospel, deflect the gospel, or both?

Thank the good Lord these issues will be addressed and explored on October 18th for the New Wine, New Wineskins Autumn workshop led by Dr. Metzger and Dr. Harper, as well as at the New Wine Benefit Dinner on November 6th. This is what New Wine is about: getting to the heart of these issues, and wrestling with how to live this gospel out in tangible, contextual ways. We comprise culture. And hopefully our lives, in community, exhibit Christ. So how do the two- gospel and culture- work together for his glory? In my opinion, that’s when it gets good. These are not simple questions. And, because the gospel is so profound and beautiful, it doesn’t not warrant a quick, simple answer. This would only limit Christ’s love, and show a lacking gospel.

The gospel is good news. But how do we show that to, for instance, a co-worker who is “just fine, thank-you-very-much”? What is so compelling about the gospel? Are we fanning the flame of this little light of ours, by engaging culture and issues (which, essentially is people) or are we cupping it with our hands, fearful that this light might wake up the neighbors, or be extinguished by the issues of today?

The workshop will provide an excellent time to explore these questions, but until then, what do you think? What is the gospel to you, and what relationship do you think gospel has, or should have, with culture?

We are looking forward to the conversations and reflections that will be posted here. In the meantime, I would also encourage you to check out consumingjesus.org the blog site for Dr. Paul Metzger’s latest book, Consuming Jesus.