Haiti, Hedonism and Capitilism...

Ok, I hope that the Hope4Haiti telethon raises a ton of money...that would be a great result. I'm not trying to be a scrooge about that...any help is needed at this time.

My issues are that I wish I could cheer louder but I'm not a fan of actors and sports figures who make obscene and in my mind immoral amounts of money off a economic system that breeds the very injustices that perpetuate this kind of inequitable reality. Why are actors who more than not, represent the worst about ourselves...lifted up as our mouthpieces in times like these? Yah, I get the celebrity thing and how they can stimulate more giving etc...but as principle, it frustrates me.

It would be like John Edwards becoming the spokesman for Focus on the Family. I just don't by it.

Yes, I know they give lots of money and that becomes the over arching excuse for each and every institution or individual that seems to be living in contradiction to their actions. This idea that it doesn't matter how I make millions because I might give a lot. The means to the end, do not seem to matter anymore. I have a problem with that.

We say things like...hey, Americans give more than anyone else on the planet. Which is true in dollar amount...but not per ca-pita.

Example, regarding Haiti...taking all money given so far by Americans, it averages out to:
.40 cents per person.

Canadians give $3 dollars per person

So we give more, true...but only from a certain point of view. This kind of accounting justifies so much around these types of events. So, do I sound cranky and finger pointy...yes, I am sure from a certain angle, I do.

But Justice is as important as mercy, in these types of things.

Do what you can, with what you got...I'm all for that....but think and act.
Check out Charity Navigator to make sure the org you are giving to, is acting responsible with the money it is getting. I did that yesterday in researching where our church giving will go to...and I discovered some things that will alter where I am going to give that money. Do your home work.

It's like giving to the homeless...you can give money to a drunk and facilitate the addiction or...give it to the folks that help the drunk get free from their addiction. Which is a better use of that money?

I wouldn't give to some of those orgs represented last night because the work they do or the world view they promote doesn't help the long term issues in my opinion. Why throw money into the hands of some orgs that will rebuild a culture with the very foundations that promote the crumbling of healthy culture?

These issues go into many areas....we could talk about the Catholic churches culpability in all of this, with their stance and teaching on family planning in Haiti. Or the historical realities regarding agriculture and the export and import issues with the USA and Haiti. We could talk about national Debt forgiveness and the reparations possibly needed sense the USA has benefited economically in the past from the slave trade issues, France and the sanctions that went along with all that. Not to mention all the political history between us and Haiti.

In the end, I feel an inner sense of contradiction; like when I saw the big Cruise line ships docking in Haiti this week. All the vacationers pouring off the boats to swim, jet ski, gorge themselves on seafood buffets on Haiti's white sand beaches...oh, and all that's perfectly ok, because these ships bring supplies and relief and hey, they employ locals or other poor folks from around the Caribbean. I could not jump off the boat and play in the ocean there...knowing the realities that are taking place a few miles away.

But in the end...that has always been true, to some degree or another...So in the end, the light falls on me again...and my need to repent of participating in a culture of excess, fantasy and unrestrained hedonism and consumerism.

The fact of all that hits me, as I watch multi-millionaires dressed up in philanthropist garb...asking me to give whatever I can to the poor.

I'm sorry...the whole thing reeks of hypocrisy and its convicting, on a very deep level both, personal and public.

Christians...what they really care about

Breaking News: Christians Give Poor People The Shaft....read about it here

What Would You do...?

"Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had arrogance, abundant food and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and needy. "Thus they were haughty and committed abominations before Me Therefore I removed them when I saw it. -Ezekiel 16:49-50

I thought this article in the "Inlander" was a thought provoking and deserved some wrestle among us believers and especially Spokcompton Christians, since our alternative paper wrote it.

Generously Angry...

Amina died..she was a little orphan in a Orphanage in Ethiopia that some friends of our are serving at, you can read about it here at their site. I am sure the death of this little girl is one more step away from life as it was lived before they came; to life as it will be lived in the days ahead. A path that wont be ascended without a trail of tears. I was thinking about this quote as I reflected on the tragedy of another child dying in poverty.

What is, therefore, the task of the preacher (or the church) today?
Shall I answer: "Faith, hope and love?"
That sounds beautiful.
But I would say....Courage.
No, even that is not challenging enough to be the whole truth.
Our task today is recklessness.
For what we Christians lack is not psychology or literature,
We lack holy rage.
the recklessness that comes from the knowledge of God and humanity.
the ability to rage when justice lies prostrate on the streets...
and when the lie rages across the face of the earth...
a holy anger about things that are wrong with the earth,
and the destruction of God's world.
To rage when little children must die of hunger,
when the tables of the rich are sagging with food.
To rage at the senseless killing of so many,
and against the madness of militaries.
To rage at the lie that calls the threat of death and the strategy of destruction...Peace.
To rage against complacency.
To restlessly seek that recklessness that will challenge and seek to change human history until it conforms with the norms of the kingdom of God.
And remember the signs of the Christians chruch have always been...the lion, the lamb, the dove, and the fish...but never the chameleon.
-Danish Pastor, Kaj Munk,1898-1944 (Danish playwright and priest, whose outspoken, passionately patriotic sermons during World War II led to his being killed by the Nazis. Munk helped revitalize the Danish theatre by his rejection of the naturalistic drama in favor of the more spiritually oriented plays. Dominant features in Munk's writings were his deep Christian faith and admiration for the strong-willed man of action)

When I boil with these issues of injustice, I think of Dickens who George Orwell reflected about when he said: "Reading Dickens I see the face of a man who is always fighting against something, but who fights in the open and is not frightened, the face of a man who is generously angry." (Orwell: The Life, 2003)

Fight the good Fight Daniel and Melissa...and anyone else who has taken on the spirit of Jesus.


Maybe my post is a reflection of the song I was listening to while writing it...

Kings without us...

This is Eyael she is 5. She has a brother Samuel age 12, Abraham 10, Hannah 7, and a baby sister Ruth age 3. Their mom died and dad couldn't take care of them. Eyael has HIV. This little girl is on my computer as wall paper and my cellphone wallpaper to remind me to pray and to act.

You see, God is haunting me through her story and picture...her smile, her need, who she represents...she is the face of HIV to me, in a way that no one ever has been for some reason. I confess, she is messing me up.

A couple friends of ours from our church are in Ethiopia bringing home some girls that they are adopting, they are also serving for three months in the Orphanage as well. You can follw thier journey at: http://daileysinethiopia.blogspot.com/. These are some of the kids from the Orphanage. Unfortunately for me, or really, fortunately...their journey is colliding with mine, as God usually works...

You see, I woke up yesterday with this little girls face in my heart and on my mind. I opened up the bible to read and in 1 Corinthians 4:8 I read this:

"You are already filled, you have already become rich, you have become kings without us..."

That verse shredded through all my calloused defenses, it tore through the materialism that has hardened my resolve to follow Jesus in a prophetic way. Like a flaming arrow it ignited in the dry places of my heart and like someone laying unconscious, I found myself shaking out of slumber like a knocked out boxer with a nose full of smelling salts. This verse reverberated in the dark, quite rafters of my soul, until the cathedral of my soul filled with the music of tears. Like rain drenching away a long drought of accumulating dust, the clogged drain of my compassion fatigued inner life. Once again living water pumped free flowing life from the inside of that deep well of love inside me, that too often gets stopped up in the work I do.

I stood face to face with those scriptures like a modern day David with the finger of Nathan stuck in my numb chest.

"You are the man!"

Those words blew over me and ushered in a wave of repentance for allowing mundane, pointless distractions steal from me the clarity that the way of love brings. All the drama, the agitations, the offenses, the meaningless arguments and pointless energy draining controversies were exposed for the smoke screen that they were. Like quicksand that was dragging me down with each attack, every complaint, every call, email or look...I was struggling in a quick drying cement of love hardening mirages. Guilty for wasting time on stuff that the enemy seeks to inflate around us to keep us beating at shadows instead of realities.

These verses came on like Sinai's thunderous boom. Two carved out of flesh commandments fell with a earth shaking thud before my weary feet. There they smoldered fresh from the finger of God...Love God...love people.

Simple...and too often...forgotten.

We live in a dying world in need of awake people, who are wrestling with the fires of love within their burdened but alive souls. We need clarity that suffering and death bring. We need to hear the world we are profiting from rise up and expose us as fleshy kings that have built a world of comfort that has lured us into a state of disengagement from the call of Jesus.

This little girls face reminds me of why I am here, why I am a pastor, who God is weeping over.

I pray that I will faithfully respond to the demands of love in this day.

Crisis or a chrysalis...?

I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. -Helen Keller

It amazes me that in light of the realities of the world and the immense privilege we have as Americans, that people can still spin themselves into a sense of purposelessness or fear. If you are daring enough to read through the stats below, spend a moment and think about how you could move towards acting in such a way that these sins are cleansed. Working for justice could alleviate ones sense of personal ambivalence. Extend a plan and act on that plan in your world for the sake of their world. Maybe losing it all will open the door to gaining something worth having. Maybe our crisis is more of a chrysalis that will make us more human, and more reflective of the community of Heaven, here on Earth. Our challenges are so far removed from the normal lives of most people on this planet. The incessant bemoaning of our economic woes must sound ridiculous to the ears of those who are reflected below. The sad thing is that the charity towards these major issues will dry up as we move towards saving ourselves. That means even more death to the marginalized and poor of the world.

1 Billion people in the world do not have access to clean water, while the average American uses 4 Hundred to 6 hundred liters of water a day.

Eveery 7 seconds, somewhere in the world a child under the age of five dies hunger, while Americans throw away 14 percent of the food we purchase.

Nearly 1 billion people in the world live on less than 1 American dollar a day.

Another 2.5 billion people in the world (More than half the world) live on less than 2 American dollars a day.

40% of the people in the world lack basic sanitation...while 49 million diapers are used and thrown away in AMerica every day.

1.6 billion people in the world have no elcectricity.

Nearly 1 billion people in the world cannot read or sign their name.

Nearly 1 hundered million children are denied basic education.

By far most people in the world do not own a car...1/3 of Americans families own 3 cars.

1 in 7 children worldwide (158 million) has to go to work every day just to survive.

4 out of 5 American adults are high school graduates.

Americans spend more annually on trash bags than nearly half the world does on all goods.

1 million people commit suicide every year.

Today nearly 4,500 people in Africa will die of AIDS

More than 17 million children will starve to death this year.

Every 14 seconds, a child loses her parents to AIDS.

The HIV/AIDS pandemic is producing orphans on a scale unrivaled in world history. AIDS orphans are expected to number 44 million by 2010.

150 million children live on the streets because of poverty neglect and abuse.

10 million children are being sexually exploited.

In 2008 the US spent more on defense than the next 45 countries combined.

The superfluities of the rich are the necessities of the poor.
Superfluities: an unnecessary thing.

Read about Babylon: Rev 17:1-6 &18:1-24

The cry of blood....

Then the Lord said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?" And he said, "I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?" He said, "What have you done?" The voice of your brother's blood is crying to Me from the ground." -Genesis 4:9-10

I've been wrestling in my spirit with a sound, a haunting, distant murmur that stands behind most of the daily noise. It's been growing louder in the subterranean places of my inner life...down where spirt and mind, heart and conscience seem to poke at each other. Like tv static...I can't shake it, even when I change the channel. It's been gnawing on my American consumeristic tendencies like a dog hungrily chews a gristly bone. I've been dodging names, places, stories, new articles, situations, tragedies and people who might call me...brother. At the same time I've been staring like a passerby, at a bloody accident. I'm curious, even sad or shocked but in a way that only lasts until the light turns green. It has been to easy to move on.

I am getting cornered by Justice....and she won't let me excuse myself, justify myself, convince myself of my innocence any longer.

""If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered." Proverbs 21:13

I'm feeling the weight of this verse and it's feeling like I am kicking against the goads...my lifestyle, my goods, my shopping, my stuff...the tags on my clothes and the imprinted "Made in...." stand in judgment against me. I'm burning in the rust of my things...and it's not going away.

As a believer, as an American...as a pastor...there has to be a greater response than tears.


Puddle of blood pic by Edward Sudentas'
Child pic by Kevin Carter

Just imagine...

Go watch this short video...its will inspire you.

Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of all sickness and disease, and kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. Many people in the developing world, usually women and children, walk more than three hours every day to fetch water that is likely to make them sick. Those hours are crucial, preventing many from working or attending school. Additionally, collecting water puts them at greater risk of sexual harassment and assault. Children are especially vulnerable to the consequences of unsafe water. Of the 42,000 deaths that occur every week from unsafe water and a lack of basic sanitation, 90% are children under 5 years old.

Compel them to come in...

"And the master said to the slave "Go out into the highways and along the hedges and compel them to come in, so that my house may be filled." -Luke 14:23

As I was painting over some graffetti and replacing some burnt out lights around our church block the other day; a pretty rough dude came walking up to me. He was mumbling about not leaving my pliers on the ground because someone might steal them in this neighborhood. But then he kept saying something about things are changing in this neighborhood. I said..."Yes, we are doing what we can to help that happen." I am not sure if he was too happy about that change...he kind of marched off still talking to himself or whoever was sitting on his shoulder about the drugs and needles on the streets. As he left, the mailman was getting into his truck and said..."Yep, there used to be tons of needles right here, all over the ground." He was pointing to the area in front of our church. He then said, "Yes, you can still see them all around this area...just go over to Haven and you can see them." Haven is the street I live on...it's my street.

My heart breaks for my Father's house to be filled. But I know that in order for that to happen, we need to "Go out" as Jesus said. We have to have a broken heart that pleads with the lost, that will dare to compel them to come in. We must break out of the comfort zones that end up keeping us IN. Jesus knew the issue well, when he shared how there will always be those who give you a host of "real good reasons" why they wont be at the feast.

Jesus called them "excuses in vs. 18. Stuff like...Jobs and taking care of stuff we have bought and of course....marriage or my wife wont let me. The scriptures get real pointed when it says "The head of the household got angry." I fear that the Lord is getting ticked off these days. He sees His churches empty, compared to the masses that are lost for eternity. He sees His people more concerned about the passing pleasures of this world than the fact that His son spilt His blood so that His Father's House would be filled. Oh the high cost the Son of God paid....what are we willing to sacrifice so that His blood was not shed in vain?

I am compelled.
Needles...compel me.
Battered women....compel me.
A handicapped woman struggling to drive her wheelchair down a snow and ice filled sidewalk...compels me.
A mother screaming at her little children...compels me.
Empty seats during a service...compels me.
A recovering addict...saying he wants to lead a NA meeting in our building compels me.
Gang tags on a church wall....compels me.
Young girls crying out in the dark as they stumble down the street...compels me.
A mentally challenged woman who serves the homeless women of the city and does it smiling....compels me.
People taking time to teach refugees to learn english...compels me.
Young people being loved, cared for and being led towards Christ....compels me.

Jesus angry....compels me.

perspective...

Turning tables....

And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all those who were buying and selling in the temple and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves...and the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple and He healed them. -Matt. 21:12-14

February is Black History month, and I will be posting some stuff in honor of those thousands of Black American's both men and women, who have made America what it is. I think the issues that are often more vocalized in black churches, communities and from black leaders need to be expounded and proclaimed. Often the issues emerge from the the voices of the poor and disadvantaged, a fact that often irritates more than mobilizes those who have more than their fellow Americans. I don't think the answer is throwing more money at the problem alone. We need to harness the gifts, talents and God given passions that reside in the human heart and mind and help unleash those forces to generate empowerment, dignity and wealth.

The cry of the poor...is a call to the believer.

The gospel of Jesus has a powerful way of turning over tables. The gospel has a revolutionary effect on the economic structures that tend to establish themselves in ways that are not the best for the community. As in the Temple they get erected in places they shouldn't be. The pursuit of wealth can end up displacing those who should be allowed in the temple and instead it ends up pushing the poor outside. The church/temple should be a place where justice is lived out, where she is found living among both the poor and the rich. Where the tables of ecomomic empowerment have seats for everyone. Open access is a gift of the gospel. Those values translate into the way we do business, handle our wealth and structure communities.

A new kingdom is pressing in on the old one.
A new way of living is dawning in the dusk of the old patterns of this world.
A new community is outliving a different set of values than this world is pushing.
We find in the house of the Lord...a new sound, a new song, a new life, a new way of living together.

Jesus is still turning over tables. He still hates injustice and the oppresion of the poor.
He is still weaving whips to drive out those who have turned His house into a place where profit instead of piety is the driving issue.

I fear that the blind and the lame are still waiting out there somewhere...for the church to once again return to the Lord, who turned over the tables.

Looking for a needy person?

Well it is the holiday time of the year, and without sounding too Scrougeish can I rant a bit? At this time of year Christians, churches, businesses start looking to show some charity. So they start calling churches like ours. They want to reach out, give, bless some families...basically show goodwill during the season. Good hearts, good works. So we help facilitate people with names and families for individuals and groups to do something for someone in need...down here there are plenty of good people to bless. And we sincerely love partnering with people to do such things.

But the issue raises some sticky problems. It raises the issue of why these people dont have relationship with the poor in their own circles?

Too many people just dont know the names of anyone who is needy. If we have to go to some organization or church to find the poor..I think that is sad position to be in as a human being, christian or church. Before we can care for the poor, we need to know the poor...they have names. They are not "needy" they are people with names and deserve the respect of relationship before charity.

Charity has its place but the issue of poverty is tough...When we have gone and delivered gifts in the past, I've seen some dads not even come out to receive charity..it is too humiliating. So I have sought for ways to sidestep that issue a bit, still give people a way to bless and reach out, but do it in a way that doesn't hurt the recipients too much. Granted there will always be open hands around here...and for some-people a gift is something they dont have to spend their-money on...so they will take anything and everything...for free. But I am not convinced that is the best for them or their kids. Kids need to see the gift that was purchased, wrapped and given...from a loved one. A gift from someone-else...good but not best. Hard issues, and I dont say any of this to downplay any other works or ways...its just me and my thoughts based on living in an area that wrestles with these issues.

As a church we are doing a thing we call Jubilee Christmas, where we are picking families depending on how much money we raise and paying their rent (to the landlord). We do this so it feels a little more like empowerment than charity to the families. They can then take their "rent" money that they would normally spend on rent and buy their family presents they know they want or need. It helps with saving the families dignity a bit.

Giving gifts is awesome but giving dignity to the poor as well is better. I challenge you to live out a faith that walks with the poor day to day, not once a year. The poor are everywhere...not just "down here". Become friends with people who are struggling...build friendships with them. Know them...invited them into you homes, love their children. Then you will know how to "help" them when holidays or situations come around.

You shouldn't have to call anyone to find someone in need...the church should be caring for the needy already.