Christmas Break Reading List

Here's what I am excited to read in some of the quiet moments up north over the next several days:

1. new book on the rich rod years at Michigan... just can't help myself with this one...

2. Circle Maker by mark batterson...a gift from a friend...this author has deeply energized both of our spiritual passions...and this book on prayer promises to do the same...

3. Start Something that Matters by Blake Mycoskie...the story from the founder of toms shoes

4. stickyfaith by Kara Powell and Chap Clark...thoughts on how to build faith that lasts in students.

By the way, I love reading downloaded books from library on the kindle app!

Off to sit by the fire at the cabin with a book...

Reasons Younger Christians Check Out on Church

Here's some really interesting stuff I have been processing with our team at CU this fall after I read Dave Kinnaman's new book called YOU LOST ME...a great read for anyone connected to young adults...here's the info to process and respond to below...


Overall, the research uncovered six significant themes why nearly three out of every five young Christians (59%) disconnect either permanently or for an extended period of time from church life after age 15.

Reason #1 – Churches seem overprotective.
A few of the defining characteristics of today's teens and young adults are their unprecedented access to ideas and worldviews as well as their prodigious consumption of popular culture. As Christians, they express the desire for their faith in Christ to connect to the world they live in. However, much of their experience of Christianity feels stifling, fear-based and risk-averse. One-quarter of 18- to 29-year-olds said “Christians demonize everything outside of the church” (23% indicated this “completely” or “mostly” describes their experience). Other perceptions in this category include “church ignoring the problems of the real world” (22%) and “my church is too concerned that movies, music, and video games are harmful” (18%).

Reason #2 – Teens’ and twentysomethings’ experience of Christianity is shallow.
A second reason that young people depart church as young adults is that something is lacking in their experience of church. One-third said “church is boring” (31%). One-quarter of these young adults said that “faith is not relevant to my career or interests” (24%) or that “the Bible is not taught clearly or often enough” (23%). Sadly, one-fifth of these young adults who attended a church as a teenager said that “God seems missing from my experience of church” (20%).

Reason #3 – Churches come across as antagonistic to science.
One of the reasons young adults feel disconnected from church or from faith is the tension they feel between Christianity and science. The most common of the perceptions in this arena is “Christians are too confident they know all the answers” (35%). Three out of ten young adults with a Christian background feel that “churches are out of step with the scientific world we live in” (29%). Another one-quarter embrace the perception that “Christianity is anti-science” (25%). And nearly the same proportion (23%) said they have “been turned off by the creation-versus-evolution debate.” Furthermore, the research shows that many science-minded young Christians are struggling to find ways of staying faithful to their beliefs and to their professional calling in science-related industries.

Reason #4 – Young Christians’ church experiences related to sexuality are often simplistic, judgmental.
With unfettered access to digital pornography and immersed in a culture that values hyper-sexuality over wholeness, teen and twentysometing Christians are struggling with how to live meaningful lives in terms of sex and sexuality. One of the significant tensions for many young believers is how to live up to the church's expectations of chastity and sexual purity in this culture, especially as the age of first marriage is now commonly delayed to the late twenties. Research indicates that most young Christians are as sexually active as their non-Christian peers, even though they are more conservative in their attitudes about sexuality. One-sixth of young Christians (17%) said they “have made mistakes and feel judged in church because of them.” The issue of sexuality is particularly salient among 18- to 29-year-old Catholics, among whom two out of five (40%) said the church’s “teachings on sexuality and birth control are out of date.”

Reason #5 – They wrestle with the exclusive nature of Christianity.
Younger Americans have been shaped by a culture that esteems open-mindedness, tolerance and acceptance. Today’s youth and young adults also are the most eclectic generation in American history in terms of race, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, technological tools and sources of authority. Most young adults want to find areas of common ground with each other, sometimes even if that means glossing over real differences. Three out of ten young Christians (29%) said “churches are afraid of the beliefs of other faiths” and an identical proportion felt they are “forced to choose between my faith and my friends.” One-fifth of young adults with a Christian background said “church is like a country club, only for insiders” (22%).

Reason #6 – The church feels unfriendly to those who doubt.
Young adults with Christian experience say the church is not a place that allows them to express doubts. They do not feel safe admitting that sometimes Christianity does not make sense. In addition, many feel that the church’s response to doubt is trivial. Some of the perceptions in this regard include not being able “to ask my most pressing life questions in church” (36%) and having “significant intellectual doubts about my faith” (23%). In a related theme of how churches struggle to help young adults who feel marginalized, about one out of every six young adults with a Christian background said their faith “does not help with depression or other emotional problems” they experience (18%).

http://www.barna.org/teens-next-gen-articles/528-six-reasons-young-christians-leave-church

Section #1 from 58: FAST LIVING…How the Church Will End Poverty by Scott Todd

I just finished reading this remarkable read by Scott Todd inviting the church of Jesus Christ to imagine, believe, and then participate in helping to end extreme poverty for this next generation of children in our world...so many words and quotes and ideas struck me that I've decided to simply post some of the passages I underlined over the next few weeks on my blog...to be honest, I care too deeply about this huge idea and believe with all my heart that God is indeed calling those who know Him to engage in this remarkable Kingdom act in the days and years to come...so here's the first couple sections of many more to come...I hope you read the book or watch the accompanying documentary we showed a few weeks ago on campus at CU yourself!

The ideas in this book are designed to move you to expect that Christians, by God’s grace and power, will bring an end to extreme global poverty in the next 25 years. We can build a world where massive numbers of children will no longer die from mosquito bites, invisible killers in their water, or any other preventable threat. And on that journey we will no longer slouch under mediocre expectations of God or of ourselves. Instead we will discover sources of unexpected hope and draw strength to do what God has equipped us to do.

Expectations are not the same as hopes. They are hopes injected with confidence. Expectations also differ from possibilities. Possibilities are imaginable, perhaps even realistic, scenarios of the future. Expectations, on the other hand, are probable, seemingly inevitable scenarios for our future. Expectations provide a scaffold for our decision making, and we gamble on them every day. You can’t expect what you don’t believe possible.

High expectations innovate. High expectations persevere. High expectations don’t quit until they’re satisfied.

http://www.live58.org/

World AIDS Day--A Decade of Seeing December 1 as a Significant Day...

I spent World AIDS Day 2011 on another campus...and I didn't hear one person mention that December 1 held that particular significance for them...no students wearing orange as hundreds did at Wheaton Academy and their weren't stories of those affected by HIV hanging from clotheslines strung across campus like we've done at Cornerstone...and I was reminded how significant this day has become for me...I've attended AIDS prayer breakfasts, taken massive school photos that have hung in my office, and been part of panels talking with those infected and affected by this virus over the last several years...and today I missed those people and being part of those events...and I was reminded that in so, so many places with people filled with people like me they still need to know what causes HIV, who its victims are near and far, what can be done to prevent its infection and spread, theneed for its treatment globally, and how good it is to have friends in your life who are overcoming the challenges of HIV, and the remarkable opportunity as a Christ-follower to pour out the love and hope that comes from Jesus into the lives of those affected by this disease...

I'm looking forward to World AIDS Day 2012 where I think I'll make it a point to spend time with others concerned about AIDS in our world today as a guy who 10 years ago wouldn't have seen anything special about December 1 as well...

Thanksgiving 2011

I am sitting in a cell phone lot at the Detroit airport waiting for my dad's flight from Charlotte to come in...I've actually flown in to this airport on this same night a few times myself...and it has given me a few minutes of reflection as we head toward the annual Detroit parade and a huge lions game tomorrow...here's s few things I am do grateful for as this year winds down:

--a wife who never tires of taking care of our family and so many others as a nurse and all around compassionate problem solver...
--two kids who love to learn, love creating memories as a family, and care very much about what Jesus desires for them...
---parents and siblings we still love to go visit at all holidays and breaks...
--a soccer community that I love to be part of...
--people who believe in and are excited to read a book about Zambia and some students in this generation...
--the provision of God in a world where so, so many experience deep and profound suffering every single day...
--the joy of having a job where I daily see Jesus at work in the lives of those who long for his kingdom to explode all across our world...
--the love of my lord that sustains and keeps me going as it fills me with hope and anticipation for what is to come in the days and years to come...

My dad just called and he will soon be off the plane...it's time to reconnect and celebrate thanksgiving again...

Evangelicals and the Case for Foreign Aid by Richard Stearns

Here's a recent piece from the Wall Street Journal written by the president of World Vision...we just hosted Rich at an afternoon coffee event here on campus and I always walk away from time with him impressed with his personal passion to honestly and thoughtfully tackle some of the most compelling and complex issues in our world today...I know that many of my friends are not fans of government foreign aid programs...and I know there needs to be a greater response from the church and other NGOs who do remarkable transformative work...but I have also seen programs like PEPFAR save and change lives among communities I have grown to love...it's worth thinking about as we walk thru our own economic crisis as we consider our commitment to the poor across our world...

Americans think 25% of federal dollars go to aid. It's really about 1%.

Washington is in an era of budget-cutting, so we frequently hear calls to shrink or eliminate U.S. foreign-assistance programs. In response, several religious groups (including my own) are highlighting how these programs reduce global poverty and hunger, saving millions of lives. But why are evangelical Christians largely absent from this religious coalition?

In a recent closed-door session on Capitol Hill, representatives from the National Council of Churches, Catholic Relief Services and Bread for the World met with several senators about the Senate's proposed reduction of $3 billion from last year's foreign-affairs budget. (The House would eliminate $9 billion.) The director of Church World Service, John McCullough, told reporters afterward that "responding to hunger and poverty is not a partisan issue. . . . It is a moral issue that people of faith, across the political spectrum, agree upon."

This is largely true, but a Pew survey earlier this year found that 56% of evangelicals think "aid to the world's poor" should be the first thing cut from the federal budget. In September, a Baylor University survey found that Americans who strongly believe that "God has a plan" for their lives—as evangelicals do—are the most likely to oppose government intervention on behalf of the poor.

There's much misinformation around about foreign aid. When a 2010 survey by World Public Opinion asked Americans how much of the federal budget they think goes to aid, the median estimate was 25%. In fact, poverty-focused aid makes up just 0.5% of the federal budget, while the entire foreign-affairs budget, including the operation of embassies and the salaries of diplomats, is less than 1.5%.

Many Americans also perceive our foreign-assistance programs to be ineffective and wasteful. I disagree. Before becoming president of World Vision in 1998, I was the CEO of Lenox, a manufacturer of fine tableware. While I knew plenty about selling china to newlyweds, I knew little to nothing about humanitarian aid. But when I flew to Uganda and met orphaned children who lived alone and without any adults—often depending on American generosity to survive—my heart was changed forever.

Coming back to the U.S., I set out to spread the truth about the plight of AIDS orphans to evangelicals who support World Vision. By 2005, thanks in part to the support of President George W. Bush, most evangelicals had become supporters of the U.S. government's AIDS relief program, known as Pepfar.

Americans should understand that foreign aid strengthens democracy. A 2006 report out of Vanderbilt University and the University of Pittsburgh found a direct connection between U.S. aid and increased democratization and good governance, as measured by the Freedom House index. Evangelicals generally support promoting democracy abroad not only because they support the values on which our country was founded, but also because they are strong advocates for the freedom of religion that accompanies democratic values.

Then there are the lives saved. Our aid programs don't have an unblemished record, and waste and corruption need to be rooted out. But Pepfar, for example, is now providing lifesaving drugs to three million people living with AIDS, mostly in Africa. It also provides care and support to another 2.5 million orphans and vulnerable children. If Congress cuts that program 10%, my organization estimates, 400,000 people will lose their medicine and potentially lose their lives.

The U.S. Malaria Initiative, meanwhile, has saved more than a million lives in Africa. And at a time when more than a billion people do not have enough food to eat, President Obama's Feed the Future initiative provides nutrition assistance and helps 21 South American, African and Asian countries feed themselves, without dependence on aid. Finally, American relief following natural disasters such as the Haitian earthquake or South Asian tsunami save lives and win America friends.

One objection that I often hear from evangelicals is that while aid is good, it is not the government's job. Yes, individuals and churches play a vital role in aid and development. But governments play a unique and vital role that private organizations cannot. The poverty-focused programs in the foreign-aid budget are facing cuts of between $1.2 billion and $3.2 billion from 2010 levels. In comparison, the largest American Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, has a budget of $308 million for its missionary and aid organization.

We cannot let others suffer simply because times are tough in the U.S. All Americans must understand the urgency of the human need and the effectiveness of our government's aid programs.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204190704577026391811161000.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson

A little article about a new book coming out from one of my favorite authors...reminded me of listening to my African friends pray for rain...I've got to remember the central place of prayer in my leadership life...

I attended the Easter Prayer Breakfast at the Whitehouse this past April and right before walking through the buffet line we paused to pray. I was expecting the typical pre-meal prayer, but it turned into a defining moment for me. A sixty-seven year-old African American pastor began to pray with such familiarity and authority that after he said "Amen," I turned to Andy Stanley and Louie Giglio, who happened to be standing next to me, and said, "I feel like I've never prayed before."

Have you ever felt that way? Someone prays with such familiarity with God that you feel like you hardly know Him? Or they pray with such authority that you feel like your prayers are impotent by comparison? I wonder if that's how the disciples felt when they heard Jesus pray. Maybe that's why they asked Him to teach them to pray in a new way.

I've never met anyone who felt like they prayed too much or prayed too effectively. All of us feel like we fall short when it comes to prayer. But that's exciting because it means there is potential for improvement. There are new dialects, new tactics, new dimensions to be discovered. And if you transform your prayer life you transform your life. Why? Because the transcript of your prayers ultimately become the script for your life. We write the future with our prayers. Or in the words of Walter Wink: "History belongs to the intercessors."

The Legend

A few years ago, I was reading through The Book of Legends, a collection of stories from the Jewish Talmud, when I discovered the true legend of Honi the Circle Maker. It forever changed the way I pray. I pray more. I pray with more faith. I've learned how to pray circles around my dreams, my problems, my family, and most importantly, the promises of God.

A devastating drought threatened to destroy a generation--the generation before Jesus. The last of the Jewish prophets had died off nearly four centuries before. Miracles were a distant memory. And God was nowhere to be heard. But there was one man, an old sage who lived outside the walls of Jerusalem, who dared to pray anyway. His name was Honi. And even if the people could no longer hear God, he believed that God could still hear them.

With a six-foot staff in his hand, Honi drew a circle in the sand. Then he dropped to his knees and raised his hands to heaven. With the authority of the prophet Elijah who called down fire from heaven, Honi called down rain.

Lord of the Universe, I swear before your great name that I will not move from this circle until you have shown mercy upon your children.

Then it happened.

As his prayer ascended to the heavens, raindrops descended to the earth. The people rejoiced over the rain, but Honi wasn't satisfied with a sprinkle. Still kneeling within the circle, Honi lifted his voice over the sounds of celebration.

Not for such rain have I prayed, but for rain that will fill cisterns, pits, and caverns.

The sprinkle turned into such a torrential downpour that the people fled to the Temple Mount to escape the flash floods. Honi stayed and prayed inside his protracted circle.

Not for such rain have I prayed, but for rain of benevolence, benediction, and grace.

Then, like a well-proportioned sun shower on a summer afternoon, it began to rain in perfect moderation. Some within the Sanhedrin threatened excommunication because his prayer was too bold for their taste, but the miracle couldn't be repudiated. Eventually, Honi the Circle Maker was honored for "the prayer that saved a generation." The circle he drew in the sand symbolizes the power of a single prayer to change the course of history. It's also a reminder of this timeless truth: God honors bold prayers because bold prayers honor God.

The Challenge

We have not because we ask not, or maybe I should say, we have not because we circle not. We give up too easily, too quickly. If God has given you a dream, you need to keep circling it in prayer. You can't just pray. You need to pray through. You need to work like it depends on us and pray like it depends on God.

Prayer is the difference between fighting for God and God fighting for you. Some of you have been fighting so hard. Maybe it's time to pray hard. Then God will fight your battles for you.

I'm convinced of this: your leadership potential is directly proportional to your prayer capacity. You can't do anything until you pray, but when you start drawing prayer circles around your dreams and God's miracles, all bets are off. With prayer, all things are possible.

You tell me: is there anything more important or more powerful than prayer?

If the answer is no then let's pray like it.

Start circling!

http://www.catalystspace.com/content/read/the_circle_maker/

A Soccer and Life Story: A Coach, A Team, A Championship...

Two years ago I read for the first time Donald Miller's exceptional book A MILLION MILES IN A THOUSAND YEARS...I was grabbed not just my Miller's retelling of his fascinating life journey, but more so by the book's main idea that God invites us, calls us, often pleads with us to actually live a better a life story...it's one thing to dream it, but another thing to passionately and purposefully pursue it...the book's central themes and ideas fit well with the curriculum we've been putting together for our first year experience course and it now is the summer pre-read for all incoming CU students as we invite them to conside the kind of story they are going to write and live during their time as college students...

I was talking one day with our men's soccer coach here at CU who happens to be one of my best friends and gave him an extra copy I had in the office to read...he resonated with Miller's words and decided to send out a copy to each of our returning and incoming soccer players to read before we began our fall 2011 season together...there was a hope, a belief, a prayer that God would write new stories in the lives of all players as each CU soccer guy would daily choose to live out the story of being a Kopion team together...

Last night there was what I would call the first ending to the story that is CU soccer 2011 version...we clinched the first WHAC regular season championship in a few long years and as a group giddily celebrated a rather extraordinary run of soccer over the last month of competition...it was to be honest a bit of a twist in the story that seemingly was being written when we had a 2-5 record heading to a game in Cedarville, OHIO...the story leading to a conference title featured highlight wins against Aquinas and Davenport teams that had ruined previous seasons and a commitment to hard work and playing one's roles that raised our level of play to one that simply sucked the life out of opponent after opponent...and there is much more to go...the story is not finished and our final game hasn't yet been played...and who doesn't love a story with post-season drama and excitement?

But the story of our soccer community is about much more than just a 9 game winning streak and a string of shutout victories...this particular soccer story is also about individual life stories where the hand of God has been at work changing and moving in His team at CU...there are the stories of these guys who make up this very special group of young men:

*a winger whose commitment to keep working and playing with a reckless energy enabled him to score some of the biggest goals of the year...
*two central midfielders from Canada who rejoined our team and immediately gave us life and skill and a huge dose of fun as they combined with a wonderfully gifted kid whose chose CU over bigger programs to form a remarkable midfield presence...
*a rock solid group of defenders who became a literal wall that couldn't be taken down thanks to backs who refused to make mistakes and a keeper who just kept the ball from hitting the ned inside his goal mouth home...
*a former MLS player who chooses to invest his significant soccer mind and experiences as a coach in the lives of NAIA players because he believes so much in them and this little soccer program in Grand Rapids, MI...
*a host of guys who compete every day in our training sessions and are able to come through with moments of meaningful play when asked to do so and can rejoice with the team's success in the times when they aren't personally out on the pitch...
*and a relentless senior striker whose return from ACL surgery this year has meant so much as he leads with example, encouragement, and faith in the idea that God has even more in store for us than what we could have imagined as he keeps putting the ball into the back of the net...

And as I read in my mind again the story of this team there is a larger story that overshadows many other things...it is the story of a coach who never wants to take the spotlight off his players and even in 2011 hasn't really wanted to get attention or sympathy despite a dramatic life and faith challenge in his own life...when Mark was laying in a hospital bed suffering after a colon cancer surgery operation that was completely unexpected, I know he was wondering what in the world kind of story was being written in his life and the soccer program he's invested so deeply in as its leader...there were and continue to be moments of fear and confusion and struggle as he attempted to walk the very long road of recovery...we were walking to our cars after this fabulous night at Davenport saying to each other, "Who could have imagined this night six months ago?" And as I drove away from the lighted field I thought to myself, "I think only Jesus could have imagined such joy in moments of deep pain and sorrow..." I love the way that the themes of redemption and restoration are so clearly present in the text of the Scriptures, and God has indeed is redeeming even cancer in Mark's life and restoring his health and family and his team through the peace and provision of the Holy Spirit...One of Mark's favorite verses is I Corinthians 15:58 where the Apostle Paul writes, "Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain." CU soccer is very much the story of coach who has imprinted his Kopion spirit upon a team this year as they have stood firm together to fully pursue a better story as a follower of Jesus and a Christian soccer squad...

And as is almost always the case for those watching the hand of God at work in the lives of people in their world and especially for me when soccer is involved, the story of this particular group of guys is personal...simply put, they add depth and meaning and joy and stress and abundant life to my own life story and those closest to me...there's no group of guys and no team my 8 year old would rather cheer for; there's nothing quite like serving together among God's people near and far as His sports ambassadors; there's a unique life transformation that will happen for thousands of Zambians who will escape malaria's curse because of a new CU tradition called NIGHT OF NETS; and I have a remarkable community of men where I experience the love and friendship of the body of Christ as we travel to games, eat meals together, practice and play, and even win a championship...

So this is the story being written on a 75 by 120 yard piece of grass this fall on our campus, the story being written in the lives of college students who are bonded together as teammates playing the game all the world adores, the story of hope and healing reaching into a long time coach's life whose story is so very different than it was just one season ago...and that's what I celebrate and write about tonight...the very real reality that the author this remarkable soccer story isn't finished writing yet..and we aren't done living by any means...I can't wait to see and read and experience the final chapters this fall and in the days and years to come...

20 Points on Leading Millenials by Brad Lomenick at CATALYST

Here's some great thoughts from a leader whose about my age as we all work at empowering and engaging those dynamic under 30 year olds we get to lead and watch lead every day...

1. Give them freedom with their schedule. I’ll admit, this one is tough for me.

2. Provide them projects, not a career. Career is just not the same anymore. They desire options. Just like free agents.

3. Create a family environment. Work, family and social are all intertwined, so make sure the work environment is experiential and family oriented. Everything is connected.

4. Cause is important. Tie in compassion and justice to the “normal.” Causes and opportunities to give back are important.

5. Embrace social media. it’s here to stay.

6. They are more tech savvy than any other generation ever. Technology is the norm. XBOX, iPhones, laptops, iPads are just normal. If you want a response, text first, then call. Or DM first. Or send a Facebook message. Not anti calls though.

7. Lead each person uniquely. Don’t create standards or rules that apply to everyone. Customize your approach. (I’ll admit, this one is difficult too!)

8. Make authenticity and honesty the standard for your corporate culture. Millenials are cynical at their core, and don’t trust someone just because they are in charge.

9. Millenials are not as interested in “climbing the corporate ladder.” But instead more concerned about making a difference and leaving their mark.

10. Give them opportunities early with major responsibility. They don’t want to wait their turn. Want to make a difference now. And will find an outlet for influence and responsibility somewhere else if you don’t give it to them. Empower them early and often.

11. All about the larger win, not the personal small gain. Young leaders in general have an abundance mentality instead of scarcity mentality.

12. Partnering and collaboration are important. Not interested in drawing lines. Collaboration is the new currency, along with generosity.

13. Not about working for a personality. Not interested in laboring long hours to build a temporal kingdom for one person. But will work their guts out for a cause and vision bigger than themselves.

14. Deeply desire mentoring, learning and discipleship. Many older leaders think millenials aren’t interested in generational wisdom transfer. Not true at all. Younger leaders are hungry for mentoring and discipleship, so build it into your organizational environment.

15. Coach them and encourage them. They want to gain wisdom through experience. Come alongside them don’t just tell them what to do.

16. Create opportunities for quality time- individually and corporately. They want to be led by example, and not just by words.

17. Hold them accountable. They want to be held accountable by those who are living it out. Measure them and give them constant feedback.

18. They’ve been exposed to just about everything, so the sky is the limit in their minds. Older leaders have to understand younger leaders have a much broader and global perspective, which makes wowing Millenials much more difficult.

19. Recognize their values, not just their strengths. It ain’t just about the skillz baby. Don’t use them without truly knowing them.

20. Provide a system that creates stability. Clear expectations with the freedom to succeed, and providing stability on the emotional, financial, and organizational side.

http://www.catalystspace.com/catablog/full/OCT11--20_points_on_leading_millenials/

Why Christians Are Not in a Culture War by LAURA ZIESEL in Relevant Magazine

Here's a pretty thought provoking article exploring both sides of our "countercultural calling."

“The church has been called to counter and bless the culture.” - Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood

"[The church should be] unapologetically countercultural in our teaching of the Scriptures.” - Mark Chanski

We are gridlocked in a stubborn culture war. But I want to address the issue of being "called" to be countercultural. Opposing “the culture of the day” is often something I have heard we should do as Christians. But what does that mean?

Both of the above quotes seem to indicate a lack of understanding regarding the fact that we live among dozens of cultures as Americans. Shall we simultaneously be countercultural to each separate culture? That’s quite difficult since they are often opposed to one another.

It is implied that Christians should be countercultural regardless of what values are upheld by the culture. But acting in that way only encourages pride, stunts the growth of the Church and ignores the Spirit of God at work among all peoples. In fact, the Church can learn a lot from non-Christians—and if non-Christians agree en masse about something, that's called culture. And sometimes non-Christian culture is right.

Many cultures without the influence of the Church, for instance, are right about the importance of respect for their elders. Other cultures are right about personal liberty in the face of oppression. So to be blindly countercultural ignores the image of God emblazoned on each and every culture. Somewhere in each culture, He's there. We must learn to recognize those aspects, learn from them and use them as inroads for the Gospel.

Perhaps more embedded in the countercultural stance of the Church is the message that “you non-Christians” and not “us Christians” are full of worldly culture. A false dichotomy is established: “You” need redeeming while “we” are agents of redemption. The implication is that either a) the Church is cultureless or b) the Church has its own holy culture and that, because of a) and b), the Church is susceptible to the disease of contemporary culture and must always fight it.

And that is a major problem.

It is not true that the Church is cultureless. Culture is everywhere, even in God’s established Church. When tutoring some middle school students years ago, they asked me to define the word culture. The best thing I could come up with on the spot was the explanation that culture is those things in your life that seem normal to your family or friends but abnormal to other people. That isn’t the most sophisticated definition of culture, but I think it is helpful. The Church is full of behaviors and values that are abnormal to people outside (and often inside) our community. To say that any group of human beings can be cultureless is to be ignorant of what culture is.

In addition, it is impossible for the Church to be culturally holy. My argument for this is not theological as much as it is practical. The global Church is multicultural, and many of the cultures among our own brothers and sisters are contradictory to one another. Cultures within the American church alone oppose one another. On a global scale, the differences among cultures of the Church are overwhelming. So which one is right? American middle-class Southern Baptist culture? New England upper-class Presbyterian (PCA) culture? Kenyan poverty-escaping Pentecostal culture? Chinese house-church culture? They certainly don’t all agree.

I wholeheartedly agree that the Church is susceptible to the influence of worldly culture. But I disagree just as wholeheartedly that worldly culture is “out there” and is advancing into the Church unless we fight it. Because the Church is culturally imperfect just as the world is. So the problem with our view of the disease of culture is not that it exists, but where it exists. The Church should be made up of people who point to themselves and say: "Me. It's me. I am the problem with the world."

When Christians, as His representatives on Earth, fail to recognize the sin in our own hearts, even the cultural sin, we mar His image and bring ill repute to His name. Yes, there is sin in the world that we should fight. But we must always look to find the sin in ourselves first. When pastors, authors and teachers encourage us to counter contemporary culture without regard for the broken cultures within the Church, we look like a bunch of finger-pointing hypocrites.

I agree completely that the Church should be outside of culture, and even counter to it at times. But being countercultural should not be the aim of Christians and Christian teaching. We should be advancing God’s redemption first into our own hearts and then into the heart of each and every culture on the globe. But God’s redemption certainly doesn’t look like the exact opposite of whatever culture you are in. To be blindly countercultural regardless of the context is to make an idol of culture by shaping the Gospel around it instead of shaping our cultures around the Gospel.

Instead of simply being countercultural, Christians must counter the fallen and broken aspects of all cultures, even Church cultures. But while you do so, honor and build upon the redemptive glimpses of God you find.

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/church/features/27044-are-we-in-a-culture-war

Global Hunger Examined...Thoughts I Shared at our Feasting and Famine Event

Global Hunger Conversation Notes

1. Two different conversations taking place around the world:
a. What should I eat?
b. How can I keep from starving?
c. World produces enough food to feed everyone. World agriculture produces 17% more calories per person today than it did 30 years ago. Can provide 2720 kilocalories per person per day for all in world. We will need to double food production by 2050 to meet global food needs…

2. Hunger – issue is Malnutrition… lack of some or all nutritional elements necessary for human health…lack of food that provides energy…
a. Children who survive early malnutrition suffer irreversible harm- poor physical growth/compromised immune function/impaired cognitive abilities

3. Causes of Hunger:
a. Poverty – between 1.3 and 1.4 billion people in extreme poverty… living on $1.25 a day or less
b. Economic Challenges – high food (consumer demand increases) prices (maize, wheat, rice, soybeans@ 40% higher than in 2007); rising fuel costs to transport food and water; global recession; poor agricultural challenges and methods…
c. Conflict – over 12 million displaced refugees globally due to wars and violence…
d. Climate Issues – environmental patterns may be changing… increased levels of drought, flooding, and climatic pattern irregularities…
e. Hunger Itself – poor health, low energy levels, mental impairments as hungry people can lead to greater poverty by reducing people’s abilities to work and learn…

The reality of Hunger Globally & Locally

1. Globally:
a. In 2010, it was estimated that 925 million people suffer globally from hunger – spike upward…1 in 7 people in our world today
b. About 3 million children die each year from things directly connected to malnutrition issues… children who are poorly nourished suffer up to 160 days of illness per year.
c. Countries with high levels of childhood malnutrition, economic loss can be 2-3% of GDP
d. Global Hunger Index: 3 Key Factors… (2010)
e. Prevalence of underweight children; proportion of undernourished kids; and the under-5 mortality rate
f. Top 15 rates: 13 nations in Sub-Saharan Africa; Haiti and Yemen outside Africa
g. The Thousand day Window of Opportunity: Conception to age 2 is huge!!

2. Locally/In USA:
a. 15% of households, more than 50 million Americans, struggle to put enough food on table for families today…
b. ¼ kids at risk for hunger… 1/3 for African-American and Latino children
c. 20 million kids receive free or reduced price lunches each day
d. 100,000 people classified in Kent County as food insecure (600,000 people)
e. $4.37 per day per person if you are living on food stamps---$135/month

The Famine in Horn of Africa
Job 5:10-11… He provides rain for the earth; he sends water to the countryside. The lowly he sets on high, and those who mourn are lifted to safety…

1. What is a Famine?
a. Acute malnutrition levels/rates among kids exceed 30%
b. 2 deaths per 10,000 per day or 4 under age 5 deaths per 10,000 per day
c. At least 20% of households facing extreme food shortages

2. Current Famine Reality: Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania
a. 13.5 million people being stalked by hunger/ 35% of all children facing emergency levels of malnutrition
b. Water prices have increased more than 300% - families selling assets and going into debt to get clean water/food.
c. Animals and humans getting water from same place spreading diseases--Dying livestock, as high as 40-60% in localized areas
d. ¼ of Somalia’s 7.5 million people is displaced
e. 1500 refugees daily waiting to register at Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya, with over 400,000 people now living there – 3rd largest city in Kenya
f. Maize, staple food in Kenya, is currently priced 80-120% about normal, while projected harvest remains 30% below normal…
g. Historic levels of drought – some areas without measureable rainfall for several years
h. Children and adults now much more likely to die now from diseases like: malaria, pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria, measles…because of malnutrition issues…

3. Prayers to Pray:
a. End to drought – rain enabling food to grow and wells to be filled
b. Delivery of aid and implementation of long-term solutions
c. Pray for malnourished children and their families
d. Peace and good systems to deliver help in these days.

A Final Hunger Memory: Eating Porridge at Pre-School in Zambia…

DOES GOD REALLY CARE ABOUT SPORTS?...Some Thoughts Shared in Chapel at CU

DOES GOD REALLY CARE ABOUT SPORTS?
7 Reasons I Think He Does…
Reflections from a life-long sports junkie…

A FEW NUMBERS TO CONSIDER…
*163 million people watched the 2011 Super Bowl while only 132 million people voted in the most recent presidential election of 2008.
*The 50 highest-paid athletes earned a combined $1.4 billion, or $28 million average in 2010
*Over 2.5 billion people watched some of the action on the field in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa
*In 2006, Americans spent over $17 billion dollars on tickets to sports contests and $90 billion dollars on sporting goods, over double what was spent on books. ($42 billion) The magazine Sports Illustrated sells as many copies in a month as To Kill a Mockingbird has sold since it was published in 1960.

REASON#1: We find joy in doing what we were created to do...

ROMANS 12:6-8: In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you. If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well. If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly.

REASON#2: We experience community as we cheer our teams...

HEBREWS 10:25...And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.

REASON#3: Sports offers a dynamic place of Kingdom impact and witness through the influence of the athletic platform...

I CORINTHIANS 9:22-23...I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.

REASON#4: Real character is modeled and displayed in the crucible of competition...

I PETER 1:7...These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

REASON#5: We get to reflect on what we are truly passionate about and the level of engagement we have with certain things in our lives in comparison to others...

COLOSSIANS 3:2...Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things..

REASON#6: There is great learning and growing thru the challenges and risks and disappointments found in athletics...

ROMANS 5:3-5...We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment.

REASON#7: We often come to the realization that all things are spiritual and each thing in our lives matters to God

COLOSSIANS 3:17...And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.

NELSON MANDELA on SPORT:
"Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand. Sport can create hope where once there was despair. It is more powerful than governments in breaking down barriers. It laughs in the face of discrimination.“

A Family Weekend at CU We Hope Will Create Memories and Change the World

This coming weekend is a couple of days I always look forward to on the CU campus…it is Family Weekend and I love all the extra parents and siblings who come to CU and get a little taste of what college life is like in 2011…for parents it takes them back to past memories, and for siblings it gives them a little preview of what the future might hold…and in the midst of looking back and looking forward we’ve designed Family Weekend this year to focus on some really important things that are happening in our world right now…

On Friday we are inviting all CU students and the families visiting to help meet the needs of those in east Africa affected by one of the worst famines in recent memory…every day 18,000 kids across the world die simply because they don’t have enough to eat, and we are partnering with an organization called Feed My Starving Children because we think Jesus wants us to try and change that reality in our world…there are three blocks of time in where we need about 170 people to come to the Hansen Center blue gym and build meals for 2 hours that will provide the food and nutrition to children and families literally waiting and praying for food to eat…it is an experience I highly recommend as it has challenged me and my family to care more deeply about global hunger, and we’ve had a really good time trying to respond to the least in Jesus’ name…we are hoping to build 100,000 meals in just one day on our campus…sign up online today at this link and help us feed the hungry in our world:

http://volunteer.fmsc.org/Register/mobilepack/event.aspx?event=1109-169

On Saturday, we are hosting our second annual Night of Nets soccer matches to respond to another global crisis that threatens millions of children’s lives in our world today…malaria takes the lives of over three quarters of a million kids in sub-Saharan Africa each year, and this disease transmitted by mosquito bites at night is very much preventable…we never really charge students and fans at our soccer games on campus but we are inviting each person who comes to the women’s game at 12 pm or the men’s game at 2:30 pm to pay a suggested admission fee of $6 at this one match…you see, six dollars will purchase a treated bed net that will protect children all across Zambia from being infected with this deadly disease as they are sleeping… we love the fact that we get to play the game Africa loves and use the platform it provides to help save the next generation of soccer players on the other side of the world…in fact, these nets will be delivered to families this May by many of the athletes you can watch play on Saturday afternoon…you can check out more and even donate online if you can’t come to either of the soccer games at the website we created for our Night of Nets event:

www.cunightofnets.com

It really should be a fantastic weekend here at CU…we hope many of you share a bunch of laughs and create memories with your family members that have come to see you…and we hope that hundreds and hundreds of CU students do something on a fall Friday or Saturday that will together help make people’s lives and our world reflect more what God’s Kingdom looks like…lives where food is available and malaria is eradicated in the name of Jesus by His followers that love God and their neighbors…CUSG hopes you’ll be part of these events as we seek to make CU a place where our student culture loves to serve and bless those in need both near and far away…

Hope to see you packing food and watching soccer balls fly this weekend!

Chip Huber
Dean of Student Engagement/Family Weekend Coordinator

NIGHT OF NETS VIDEO

Check out this video about our upcoming Night of Nets soccer matches next Saturday October 1 at 12 and 2:30 pm here at CU...love watching our players get jazzed about using soccer platform to respond to huge global issues like malaria..

http://vimeo.com/29078529

SPORTS SAVES THE WORLD...A Writing Piece You Have to Read by Alexander Wolff in this week's Sports Illustrated magazine..

A fascinating, encouraging, inspiring article that speaks why I love sports more than ever today...I can't wait to go help prevent HIV/AIDS as we play soccer in Zambia this summer; I can't wait to provide thousands of bed nets to prevent malaria because we are inviting everyone we know to a couple soccer matches at CU next weekend; and I can't wait to dream and scheme with my son Trey in the years ahead how our love and participation in sports can bring God's Kingdom to this world...I hope you can read this whole piece and dream as athletes and coaches and fans along with us all...

In grassroots programs involving tens of thousands of participants around the globe, visionaries are using athletics to tackle the most pressing problems of the developing world—from AIDS in Africa to violence in Rio. Can such projects make a lasting difference, or is the dream of salvation through sports too grandiose? SI senior writer Alexander Wolff set off on a yearlong journey to find the answer

VANCOUVER

I ran into Johann Olav Koss again in February 2010, at the Olympic oval in Richmond, B.C. The sight of Koss, then a temporary coach with Norway's speedskating team, transported me back 16 years instantly, happily.

I can't help it: Listmaking is a male thing, even more a sportswriterly thing, and I fastidiously rank Olympic Games. With its glitch-filled first week, the trucked-in snow and the fatal crash of a Georgian luger, the Vancouver edition will forever be an also-ran. The Winter Games of 1994, on the other hand, still surmount my desert-island alltime top five list of Olympics. Lillehammer abides with me not just because Koss won three gold medals and set three world records in three races; Dan Jansen finally skated to a gold himself; and 100,000 Norwegians camped overnight in the snow so they could cheer cross-country skiers with cowbells the next morning. It was the harmonious vibe, the intimate scale, the clean Scandinavian lines of the venues, even the crisp weather—as if the Norse gods had dropped a membrane over the town, sealing it off from the world's impurities.

The only breach of this hermetic idyll was on the pedestrian mall of Lillehammer's main street, where a few people solicited for a charity called Olympic Aid. They invoked Sarajevo, the Yugoslavian city that had hosted the Winter Games a decade earlier and, as a result of the war in the Balkans, remained under what would be the longest siege in modern history. The looping anthem of Sarajevo's suffering, Albinoni's Adagio in G Minor, haunted me every time I walked by. It seemed to whisper that, even as nature re-created a little patch of Eden for the playing of games, mankind still ginned up reminders of its fallen state.

And then the Perfect Olympics delivered its own latter-day god, a man to go forth into the Imperfect World and set it right. I'd watched Koss skate his triple at the Vikingskipet Oval. I'd heard him pledge his bonus money to Olympic Aid and challenge his countrymen to give 10 kroner each for every Norwegian gold medal, inspiring his government and fellow citizens to give $18 million over 10 days (page 70). For this as much as anything else, SI named Koss its 1994 Sportsman of the Year, an award he shared with U.S. speedskater Bonnie Blair. My colleague E.M. Swift wrote the story about the Olympic champion from Norway with a "headful of dreams and almost a lifetime in which to accomplish them."

We were now 16 years into that life left to live. When I saw Koss at the Richmond Oval, I asked, How goes the battle?

Sport, Koss replied, is doing nothing less than trying to save the world. Olympic Aid, since renamed Right To Play, now reaches 700,000 children in 20 countries during any given week. But Koss's outfit is only one player among hundreds in a burgeoning global movement. Today the field known generally as Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) extends well beyond nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) such as Right To Play. It attracts growing support from foundations and corporations, while governments and international agencies are eager to serve as partners to groups on the ground. And as the effectiveness of programs is more precisely measured, SDP's value as a tool for good is becoming more widely acknowledged. Even the stodgiest onlookers agree that sport "plays the hidden social worker," in the words of former champion miler Sebastian Coe, now chairman of the London 2012 organizing committee.

That is a good thing, for almost half the world's population is considered poor, and a full 1.4 billion people—one fifth of humanity, including more than half of all Africans—are extremely poor, living on less than $1.25 a day. As maladies of plenty such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease afflict the developed world, and elite pro sports reek of excess, SDP is a sobering counterpoint, spreading health messages, pacifying communities in conflict, preparing refugees for resettlement and providing what experts consider the simplest means of promoting development: improved status for women. At the turn of this century, when the U.N. drew up its Millennium Development Goals to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015 and eliminate it entirely by '25, Koss and Right To Play led the way in determining how sport could best help.

On the morning of the 2010 Olympic opening ceremonies, across Vancouver at a symposium at the University of British Columbia, the former Canadian ambassador to the United Nations, Stephen Lewis, delivered a confession. Lewis, who had served the U.N. secretary general as an anti-AIDS adviser, had long been skeptical of the value of sports. But SDP had won him over. "[Koss] understood early that you could use play to convey messages that aren't available anywhere else," Lewis told his audience. "Sport has become a development philosophy. Who would have imagined that to be possible? What began as an instinct has now become a profound social cause."

I wanted to see how, exactly. So after the dousing of the Vancouver flame, I lit out for far corners of this Imperfect World in search of other friends of sport who, like Koss, had broken from their bubbles to heed the Adagio call of Lillehammer.

RIO DE JANEIRO

It's not a classic hillside slum, but Complexo da Maré is easily one of Rio's largest favelas—a sprawling neighborhood of 135,000 people hard by the route visitors will travel between the airport and the beaches when they come to this city for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics. Rival drug gangs recruit kids as foot soldiers and sort out differences with gunplay. Luke Dowdney has driven me into the favela beneath weltering electrical wires and past huddled walk-ups. He parks our car and we stroll a block. A boy of no more than 15 preens in an intersection, automatic weapon slung over one shoulder.

Dowdney, a former British universities light middleweight boxing champion, came to Brazil in 1995 to study street children in the northern city of Recife for his dissertation in social anthropology. He was haunted by the murder of two kids he had grown close to and by the words of a 12-year-old drug trafficker who told him, "I'm going to die young, but I'm going to live well." One day a group of glue-sniffing boys asked him to show them some boxing moves. "When they'd get in a stance, they'd leave the glue behind," says Dowdney, 38, "and a light went off in my head."

In 2000, Dowdney founded a boxing and martial arts program in Maré called Luta Pela Paz, or Fight for Peace, and five years later he opened a training and educational center. On its first floor, boys and girls practice boxing, wrestling and the Brazilian martial art capoeira. In a suite of second-floor classrooms the same kids learn computer skills, citizenship and conflict resolution; they also practice martial arts in a third-floor matted dojo. Boxer Douglas Noronha, whose brother was shot to death in '01, is one of about 4,600 young Cariocas to go through the program. "You'd think I'd have become more violent," he tells me. "In fact, I've become a more controlled person. It's all about the self-confidence and discipline of not finding yourself in a position where, before you know it, somebody's got a gun."

Dowdney introduces me to another fighter, Roberto Custódio, who was 14 when his father was ordered out of the favela by a drug trafficker who was jealous of his relationship with a local woman. When he returned to look in on his family, which he supported as a bus driver, the drug lord settled the matter in his usual way, with bullets.

Figuring that fitness and martial arts would help him square accounts with his father's killer, Roberto turned to Luta Pela Paz. Then the unexpected happened. The program transformed his bloodlust into something altogether new. As he developed the discipline that boxing demands—and took the academic classes required of all participants—relatives marveled that his anger gradually drained away. Last October, Roberto, now 24, won the light welterweight gold medal at the Brazilian championships, and he is likely to qualify for the London Olympics as a welterweight. "Our program isn't just about getting rid of energy," Dowdney tells me. "It's also about rigor and values. The disciplined fighter will always beat the overwrought fighter. Luta means fight, but it also means struggle, in a good way."

Dowdney hopes to develop a funding stream from a new line of fightwear and lifestyle clothing called Luta (luta.co.uk). "If the line hits, it becomes the engine," says Dowdney, who runs a second Fight for Peace center in East London that has trained 1,700 boxers. "We're not about being a traditional charity. It's like boxing: You get out what you put in. If you're not trained, you don't win. That's life. You've got to step up."

Last spring, as a crew filmed a commercial for the Luta brand in a ring set up in a warehouse at the edge of the favela, a gunfight broke out between police and traffickers. The film crew dove under the ring for cover. That's what favela dwellers such as Roberto Custódio deal with. Says Dowdney, "Luta is about celebrating the real heroes in the favelas, young people born into extraordinary adversity who get painted as victims when they're actually aspirational heroes."

PORT ELIZABETH, SOUTH AFRICA

Tommy Clark figured his sojourn in Zimbabwe to play pro soccer after college would be a joyous homecoming. He'd spent part of his teens in that southern African nation while his father, former Scotland international Bobby Clark, coached Highlanders F.C. in Bulawayo. But what he found upon returning in 1992 left him mystified and heartbroken. Seven of his dad's finest players—seemingly invincible footballers whom Tommy had idolized—were dead or dying. Worst of all, no one dared say why. "I was there for a year," says Clark, who also taught school and coached, "and I didn't have a single conversation about HIV."

Clark hit upon the idea of using soccer to break down this wall of silence and educate Africans about HIV. He embarked on a medical career, with a residency in pediatrics and a fellowship in HIV research in the U.S. In 2002, Clark launched Grassroot Soccer with three ex-Highlanders, including Ethan Zohn, the Survivor: Africa champion who donated a chunk of his $1 million prize money to the cause. Today the organization operates in South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe and shares curriculum and resources with partners in nine other African countries. Studies confirm that graduates of the program wait longer to engage in sex; have fewer partners; and are more willing to talk about HIV with peers and relatives, take an HIV test and stay on treatment if they test positive. Those proven results have attracted such patrons as Elton John, whose AIDS foundation contributed $1.4 million last year to fund the program in Zambia. There's no way to tie the 50% drop in the HIV infection rate among South African teens from 2005 to '08 directly to Grassroot Soccer, but foundations are showing their confidence in the program with more grant money. This week the Clinton Global Initiative announced a $1 million commitment to a Grassroot program for South African girls.

Among the organization's most effective tools are the voluntary counseling and testing tournaments that it uses to reach the men who drive the disease. Clark invited me to a tournament in Motherwell, a township in the South African city of Port Elizabeth. For years locals had hidden behind euphemisms, saying of an HIV-positive woman, "She has a House in Veeplaas," a play on the name of a local neighborhood. But there had been a breakthrough a week before my visit, when South African president Jacob Zuma—a father of 22 children by multiple wives—announced the results of his own HIV test. (They were negative.)

The grounds outside a school teemed with players who ducked into a makeshift clinic between games, and Grassroot personnel touted a posttournament dance contest to flush more prospects out of a nearby supermarket. By the end of the day 289 more people knew their HIV status. "Five years ago, if you'd bring up HIV, everyone would shut down," one of the tournament workers, 27-year-old Mkadi Nkopane, told me. "Now a 10-year-old will tell you of an uncle or mother who's positive. The stigma will always be there, but it's much less now."

As the game that launches countless conversations in Africa, soccer is a natural idiom to cut through the taboos surrounding one of the continent's most pressing problems. In one popular drill, each soccer ball stands for a sexual partner. A player dribbling two balls is easily chased down by a defender who represents the AIDS virus; a player dribbling only one ball eludes that defender much longer, and a memorable point is made. Grassroot Soccer distributed thousands of "red cards" during the 2010 World Cup to help teenage girls, who can be up to eight times more likely to become infected than their male counterparts, use sass and humor to fend off unwanted sexual approaches. "The culture soccer creates around this topic is our 'secret sauce,' " says Grassroot Soccer COO Bill Miles. "By focusing on intergenerational sex and multiple partners, you try to shift social norms. And if you shift social norms, you change the epidemic."

Clark and his fellow ex-Highlanders work in part to honor the dead of Bulawayo—men such as the former star of the Zimbabwean national team who was refused service by bank tellers because of the stigma of AIDS, and the ex-player who trained as one of Grassroot Soccer's first coaches only to die before he could work with kids. "We're trying to be both bold and humble," says Clark, 40, whose program is nearly halfway toward its goal of a million youth participants by '14. "We ask for millions of dollars, and we're trying to change behavior and norms on a huge scale. But we also know we're not always going to have the answer, and that there may be a better answer tomorrow."

TEL AVIV, JERUSALEM AND THE WEST BANK

When it ventures to global trouble spots, basketball can flash a kind of diplomatic passport. In South Africa, hoops comes without the racial baggage of soccer (a largely black sport) or rugby (mostly white). In divided Cyprus it's loved equally by citizens of Turkish and Greek descent. In Northern Ireland it's regarded as neither a Gaelic game by Protestants nor a game of the British garrison by Catholics. All of which helps explain the success of Peace Players International (PPI), which has spent the past decade using basketball to build bridges among young people in divided communities.

In the Middle East such efforts face a challenge of another magnitude. Upon launching there in 2005, PPI easily found Israeli Arabs to mix with Jewish kids in its programs. But Palestinian parents in the Israeli-controlled West Bank balked at letting their boys and girls travel to Israel for integrated play. Meanwhile, poor coaching and inadequate facilities in the West Bank led kids there to fear that their lack of hoops competency would only bolster Israeli stereotypes of worthless Palestinians.

On a brilliant spring day in 2010, Brendan Tuohey flashes me a smile as he oversees a PPI youth tournament in a Tel Aviv park. "Five years ago we decided to build up the skills of Palestinian kids," says Tuohey, a former player at Colgate whose brother Sean had the idea for the organization. "It's a big breakthrough that players from [the Palestinian city of] Ramallah chose to get on the bus to come here today."

Some parents on both sides of the Israel-Palestine divide still hesitate to let their kids enter PPI's programs—Jews out of safety concerns and Arabs because of cultural norms for girls. But the chance to get good coaching at no cost, plus uniforms and occasional travel, has enticed some 5,600 participants. "They all come for sport," PPI Middle East director Karen Doubilet tells me. " 'Meet the other side' is just something they put up with in order to do what they really want to do."

Children ages 10 to 14 participate in PPI's "twinning" program, in which Jews and Arabs at first practice regularly in their home communities, then combine into mixed teams under two coaches (one Arab and one Jewish) and meet weekly throughout the school year. At 15 they're eligible to become PPI coaches themselves; last season two teams of 15- and 16-year-old Arab and Jewish girls competed in the Israeli first division under the PPI banner. Meanwhile, in hoops-deprived parts of the West Bank such as Ramallah and nearby refugee camps, PPI continues to offer its "single-identity" program to boost the level of Palestinian basketball, provide constructive outlets for kids' energy and train coaches as leaders.

Once PPI gets them, most participants buy into the coexistence component. It's based on a curriculum, developed by a U.S.-based conflict-resolution think tank called the Arbinger Institute, that supplies strategies for exploring why one side stigmatizes the other and how to change those attitudes. "After Arbinger they might still clique up," says Heni Bizawi, who has played and coached in the program, "but according to different variables, like Jaffa versus Jerusalem instead of Arab versus Jew."

Peace Players has helped make a fan of Raneem Nashef, a 12-year-old Arab who lives in the West Jerusalem enclave of Beit Safafa. She'll wake up early to watch TV broadcasts involving her favorite player, Omri Casspi, the Jewish Israeli who plays for the Cleveland Cavaliers. Her mother, Lubna, who grew up despising the yellow and blue of Maccabi Tel Aviv, Casspi's old club, catches me by surprise: "My daughter feels Casspi represents her. She knows he comes from her part of the world."

In the seemingly intractable Arab-Israeli conflict, progress is measured in tiny steps. "A lot of people in my school don't like Arabs and don't know that I play PPI," says Naomi Goldstein, 14. "I don't tell them."

Amir Abu Dalu, 19, an Arab who's now a PPI coach, also keeps his counsel: "Otherwise I might get in trouble."

But a tiny step is a step just the same. First a bus ride, then a basketball game, ultimately the realization that someone you thought was your enemy makes a pretty good teammate. "In basketball it's easy to communicate," says Dalu. "You can play a game and connect, just like that."

TORONTO

Johann Olav Koss runs Right To Play out of Canada's largest city, and University of Toronto professor and former Olympic distance runner Bruce Kidd has been a reliable sounding board for him. I've turned up at Kidd's office because SDP is one of his academic specialties, and I'm looking for a sense of where the movement has been and where it might go.

In the 19th century, English-speaking exporters of sport, freighted with ulterior motives such as imperialism and evangelism, held attitudes strikingly different from those of Luke Dowdney, Tommy Clark and Brendan Tuohey. The Victorians took their "Games Ethic" from the playing fields of Eton and sent it overseas to "civilize" the ancestors of many of the very people engaged by SDP today.

Fast-forward to 1987, to Kenya and the Eastlands of Nairobi. A Canadian environmental worker named Bob Munro looks on as a handful of kids play with a soccer ball made of discarded shopping bags tied with bits of string. "Clean up the field," Munro tells them, "and I'll give you a real ball." Soon Munro launches the Mathare Youth Sports Association (MYSA), a soccer league with a blunt message: If you do something, MYSA does something; if you do nothing, MYSA does nothing. To join elite teams, players must pledge to perform thousands of hours of community service together each season. Those who organize cleanups, counsel peers in AIDS-prevention activities and coach or referee younger kids become eligible for scholarships. Teams can't take a field unless they clear it of trash—but earn points in the standings for doing so. Today MYSA, which is owned and run by the youths themselves and was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 and '04, touches 25,000 young Kenyans at any given time with nested-in-sport programs in community building, health education and environmentalism.

Kidd points out that the recent rise of SDP coincides with the fall of apartheid as much as it follows from the efforts of Koss and MYSA. Activists who had led the international sports boycott that helped bring down the South African regime—Kidd among them—essentially asked, "What do we do now?" They rallied to the answer that came back from their allies in the new Africa: "Help us build sport."

Today even those in sport's sunlit uplands are responding to that cry. When he stood before the IOC in Singapore in 2005 to deliver the final pitch for London's 2012 Olympic bid, Sebastian Coe pledged millions in aid for SDP to benefit 12 million people in 20 countries. The IOC chose London over Paris, Moscow, Madrid and New York City in large part because of that commitment to "legacy." In its winning bid for the 2016 Olympics, Rio also distinguished itself over rivals such as Chicago with a superior commitment to grassroots sport. With the most recent World Cup and Commonwealth Games having taken place in South Africa and India, respectively, and the next World Cup and Olympics ticketed for Brazil, a legacy component for the developing world is the new normal for major global events.

But Kidd is among many students of the movement who sound cautionary notes. "It's woefully underfunded and highly uncoordinated," he tells me. "And it's completely unregulated and largely isolated from mainstream development efforts." At international conferences dedicated to SDP, delegates from the developing world complain about Westerners who parachute in with things that aren't wanted or needed. As Right To Play spearheads the handoff of responsibility to locals, such as a 500-person team in Liberia led by a former refugee who first encountered SDP in a displacement camp, Kidd credits Koss with leading a move away from "a top-down, we-know-what-you-need approach with First World volunteers."

Before the Brazilian national soccer team visited Port-au-Prince in 2004 to play its Haitian counterparts, organizers proposed offering free tickets to those who turned in a firearm, only to cancel the plan at the last minute out of security fears. Even so, without a long-term violence-reduction campaign, such an event would have been a one-off with limited impact. "More attention has to be paid to context," Kidd tells me. "It's got to be sport plus. Sport plus education, sport plus health, sport plus peace-building." For all its networking and digital platforms, SDP's biggest challenge may be coordination. "In Zambia, I saw kids in slums who'd been trained five or more times by different NGOs, while just outside the city there was nothing," Kidd says. "NGOs aren't just fighting for donors, they're fighting for kids."

Or as Eli Wolff of Brown University's Sport and Development Project, who also coordinates the International Sport for Development and Peace Association, puts it, "There's been this boom, lots of networks and groups, but not really a professionalization of the field. There's no credentialing process or quality control, the way there is for teachers or lawyers. And there's the question, Is it effective?"

It's a familiar demand in sports: Show me the numbers. Is a program actually creating a positive outcome or just coinciding with it? "Because there's so much evidence that participation is a good thing, it's easy to assume that programs work," says Amy Farkas, a former sport-for-development specialist with UNICEF. "It's a lot easier to simply justify your program's existence than to do the hard work of justifying the impact of the intervention. That's why all sport-for-development programs need rigorous monitoring and evaluation."

Kidd believes the clamor for M & E, as it's known, can be taken too far. "People who have personal trainers, who choose schools for their kids based on athletic opportunities, tell us, 'Prove it! Prove that sport has benefits!' " he says. "That's where Johann has made a huge contribution. He continues to argue on the rights-based front."

But practitioners of all types recognize that funders are increasingly insisting on proof of results. "You're tempted to do sport for sport's sake, because it's fun," says Miles, the Grassroot Soccer executive. "We like it. But you have to show donors the outcomes."

CHICAGO

The Beyond Sport Summit is a three-day mixer for all sides of SDP's triangle—problem, practitioner and patron. It's a place to shake loose funding and inspire others, and it serves as the Grammys of the field, a place to call attention to deserving programs. Dowdney, Clark and Tuohey turned up for the 2010 edition in Chicago, but so too did scores of first-timers, many with little more than a notion and a dream.

Since its founding in 2008, Beyond Sport, a London-based firm that helps match practitioners with corporate sponsors, has had a particular eye for the modest initiative that would have an enormous impact if only it could be replicated or scaled up. But even Beyond Sport can't recognize every worthy project. Cambodia, for instance, is a country whose 40,000 amputees, victims of some of the millions of mines laid during a decade of war, were long considered unemployable. Now more than 60% of the players in the Cambodian National Volleyball League-Disabled (CNVL-D), mostly demobilized soldiers from both sides of the conflict, hold jobs. Even more notably, with its sponsors and broad fan following, the league has so transformed public attitudes that many disabled Cambodians, athletic and not, now wear shorts to show off their prostheses. A league like the CNVL-D could flourish in virtually any postconflict part of the world.

Moving the Goalposts is another initiative ready for its scale-up. It offers soccer to Kenyan girls, who are much more likely than boys to be HIV-positive. The program distributes packs of sanitary pads imprinted with health messages, but it operates only in the coastal region of Kilifi—which invites the question, What if it had the funding to expand throughout sub-Saharan Africa?

Similarly, in barely five years Globalbike has touched the lives of some 400,000 people by supplying bicycles to frontline aid workers in Africa and Asia. A microfinance loan officer serving village artisans in Ethiopia, an engineer working to ensure clean water in Bolivia, a health worker delivering vaccines in Zambia—each can see three times as many people and carry five times as much equipment by bike as on foot. A U.S.-based pro cycling team spreads word of Globalbike's impact so far, which suggests what could be accomplished if tens of thousands of bikes were delivered to the field.

No one in the developing world wants to depend on Western aid, so much buzz in the halls and breakout rooms in Chicago was about programs that have come up with their own revenue streams—groups such as Grupo Desportivo de Manica in Mozambique, a soccer club turned community hub that is building Futeco Park, three pitches girdled by 1,500 trees flush with mangos, lychees, oranges, avocados, guavas and papayas, which members will harvest and sell to fund the club's activities.

Indeed, there's a salutary realism amid all the idealism. John Sugden, an English sociologist who pioneered the "twinning" concept 25 years earlier with a mixed-faith soccer team in Belfast during the height of the Troubles and who is now the director of Football 4 Peace, doing in the Middle East with soccer what PPI does with basketball, puts it both wryly and well: "It's not as if you can sprinkle the pixie dust of sport and everything's going to be fine."

But sport does have its bewitching power, and for evidence a skeptic need only look at South Africa. Even in solitary confinement Nelson Mandela knew that many of his fellow black nationalists played soccer during their captivity on Robben Island. As he heard how the future leaders of his country brought the game to life with their own meticulously run Makana Football Association (MFA), Mandela recognized that soccer brought them to life—and he could imagine them in turn taking the obligations of democracy seriously. Since the fall of apartheid, former MFA players, referees and officials have served as South Africa's president, defense minister, minister for safety and security, deputy chief justice and sports minister, as well as provincial premiers and members of parliament. In prison Mandela began to recognize a truth he would articulate decades later as a free man: "Sport can create hope where once there was only despair. It is more powerful than governments in breaking down barriers. Sport has the power to change the world."

Mandela would demonstrate this masterfully as president of the new nation. Aware of the hold of rugby on the Afrikaaner imagination, he enlisted white captain François Pienaar to help him rally citizens of all races around the national team, the Springboks—long a symbol of white-minority rule—for the 1995 World Cup, which South Africa hosted and won. Says team manager Morne du Plessis of the story told in the film Invictus: "The very game that kept us apart for so long, he used to unite this country."

Thus modern South Africa owes its existence as a functioning, multiracial democracy partly to the braiding together of two epic sports stories—one from a largely black game, the other from a historically white one. Considering that sport, through the international boycott, helped do away with apartheid, it's not a bad showing for a few decades' work in one small corner of the globe.

Emmanuel Madonda grew up in Durban, South Africa's fourth-largest city, and now works for the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation. "I was 14 at the time of the '95 Rugby World Cup, and it was a pivotal moment for my country," he tells me during a break in the conference. "But even more powerful is the ongoing delivery of programming, of working deeply with young people. In Zulu we have this concept of ubuntu: 'I am because you are.' That is the essence of it."

Today sporting ubuntu extends from the street kid in Rio who, thanks to boxing, is transformed from avenging tough into potential Olympian; to the African AIDS orphan who, thanks to soccer, has a better chance of living long enough to raise children of her own; to the Arab girl in West Jerusalem who, thanks to basketball, feels bound to the fortunes of a Jewish Israeli player in the NBA. Yes, we look up to Mandela and Pienaar, and to former NBA star Dikembe Mutombo, the Congolese seven-footer who built a $29 million hospital in his hometown of Kinshasa and received Beyond Sport's Humanitarian in Sport Award. We will always look up, because as fans it's in our nature to do so.

But as human beings there's something else in our nature, which leads us to look around. Our eyes meet those of others, whom we engage as opponents, teammates, collaborators, neighbors and there-but-for-the-grace-of-God versions of ourselves. As Mutombo told the gathering in Chicago, quoting a proverb of his people: "When you take the elevator to the top, please remember to send it back down so someone else might use it."

Find this article at:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1190627/index/index.htm

THE POWER IN LIVING FOR THE OTHER

Here's a couple questions I daily wrestle with in light of Paul's words about Christ's model and passion for us to pursue the unselfish life in Philippians 2:1-11...I shared these with the women's volleyball team at a pre-game devotion this afternoon:

#1) Do I trust in what Christ has done on my behalf enough that I don’t have to be obsessed with proving to everyone else watching that I am popular, successful, and worthy of love?

#2) Do I trust in the principle that God will honor and lift me up in life if I choose to put someone else and their needs before my own?

Honoring A Former Player at a Soccer Game

Here's the text of something I shared yesterday as we honored those who have served our country...we loved wearing our special warm up shirts and sharing this day with one of our former players who is serving in Afghanistan right now...

Thanks for coming to the first home CU men’s soccer game of the 2011 season. We are excited for a great season ahead filled with lots of great soccer action on our home pitch. We are also excited today to honor a very special group of people at today's match. The men’s team is wearing special warm up camouflage shirts today to honor those who have and are currently serving our country as members of our military community. Written across the guys’ shirts is the team motto, the word Kopion, a Greek word that means working to the point of exhaustion for your cause and your team. There is no other group that embodies the Kopion spirit better than our armed forces as they protect and serve our nation and people around the world. The CU soccer team especially remembers and is grateful for the service of one of our former teammates and friends. Dan Kerstan was our starting goalkeeper who decided after his sophomore year to become an army ranger in the summer of 2010. Dan was one of the hardest working players in our program and was deeply involved in our team’s global service work in the Dominican Republic. Dan’s love for children and for justice in our world has led him to Afghanistan where he is currently stationed and is on the front lines in securing peace and safety and freedom for his fellow officers and the people of Afghanistan. We miss Dan every day but couldn't be prouder of what he is doing as our teammate and brother on our behalf. It is an unbelievable privilege and surprise to many of us to have Dan here today with us, as he is taking a bit of R and R time before returning to his post in Afghanistan later this month. Will you give him and all of our other military officers your thanks for their service with a round of applause? Thank you very much! Will you pray with me as we take a moment to pray for Dan and all those serving with him around the world today?

Why Student Leaders are Important by Doug Franklin

Here's a thought I resonate with from one of the leaders I respect deeply when it comes to engaging students and helping equip them for impact in our world...it is especially interesting in light of Dave Kinnaman's new book coming out on the generation of Christian students that has left the church in their years following high school:

So much is being said about students dropping out of church. Many are leaving at the end of high school and not returning until their mid 20s or later. The question we as youth workers must ask is: “Why did they leave in the first place?” Believe me; I am not looking to place blame. I just want to know what is affecting these students and what our ministries can do to stop it from happening.

I believe the answer to “Why” is found in what students identify with. Do your students see their youth group as a ministry of the church to students or as the students’ ministry to the world? The question is an important one because it’s the difference between just attending and being owners. Owners don’t walk away. They have an investment, a stake in the goal.

Student ministries need to make owners of students.

Here's the link to Doug's Blog and this post:
http://www.dougfranklinonline.com/student-leadership/why-student-leaders-are-important/?utm_source=LeaderTreks+E-blast+-+Everyone&utm_campaign=0ceb0f4f90-E_blast_May_18_20115_17_2011&utm_medium=email

How Not to Hate America After Missions By Curt Devine in REJECT APATHY

In about 10 days, we will kick off our annual Global Opportunities Week at CU...I love watching students get excited about joining God in His work around the world, and it is a major recruiting time for our spring and summer global mission/vision trips...I'm excited to take my first team over to Zambia...the impact of a trip like this is often life-altering...and yet there's often a huge tension coming back to the States...I appreciated these thoughts from the fantastic new website Reject Apathy below:

As I step into the church, bass booms against my chest. Neon lights reflect off the worship leader’s guitar as he sings, “There is no one like our God,” with an Auto-Tuned effect on his voice. I feel slightly uncomfortable. As the song builds, my friend turns to me and says: “Doesn’t this sound amazing? They just spent $300,000 on a new sound system.” I oddly laugh with a hint of anger. I’m now back in an American megachurch, yet I can’t help but think about the third-world churches I visited this year—the ones with one Bible, no electricity and a lot of passion. I think about the impoverished faces I met—the toothless street children in Nepal, the drug addicts in Kenya and the young prostitutes lining the streets of Thailand. I’m torn by the contrast. Even though I want to worship, I only feel bitterness.

Coming back to America after experiencing third-world missions is no easy process. I recently finished the World Race, an 11-month missions trip to 11 countries in Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe, and while I’ve loved being home with hot showers and cold air-conditioning, the transition has been rough. It’s so easy for me to judge friends when they drop $100 on a night out, thinking, “That could feed the homeless boy I met in Tanzania for a year,” or to think I’m better than the guy with a Lexus because my Grand Am is barely worth a grand.

Last week, a friend even told me she woke up crying every day when she returned from Africa because she couldn’t stand the wealth around her. While everyone coming off the missions field will struggle to different degrees, none of us should become bitter, America-hating cynics. Here are a few reasons why.

Abundance is not a bad thing
The first day I woke up in my own bed after coming home, I decided to go to the grocery store for some breakfast. I found myself in the cereal aisle reliving the scene from The Hurt Locker, staring at an endless array of General Mills cartoons staring back at me. I’d forgotten America is a land of excess. We can choose from more than 50 types of deodorant, 115 kinds of toothpaste and now 1,000 channels on TV.

This conflict between excess at home and scarcity abroad can be a lot to handle. The temptation will always be to either hate the abundance of America, judging your community for its consumption, or to forget the poverty abroad and go back to the way you lived before your trip. The key is to live within the tension. As Christy Vidrine says in her book Unearth, “There is a balance between the humility of scarcity and the peace within excess.”

James the brother of Jesus writes that every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from above, meaning every good thing we have is from God. Therefore, the first response we should have to the excess around us should be one of thankfulness. God has given us food, water, shopping malls, restaurants and Venti Mocha Frappuccinos even though we don’t deserve them.

Our second response should be wise stewardship. I recently overheard a friend saying she has a closet overflowing with clothes, yet she complains she has nothing to wear. This reminded me of Jesus’ parable of the 10 minas, where a ruler gives 10 minas (large amounts of money) to his servants to steward. Some make wise investments and use the money well, while one servant hides his share in the ground. The master returns and reprimands this servant for doing nothing. In turn, if we have full closets, stocked refrigerators or fat bank accounts, we should look for wise opportunities to give those things to others and encourage our friends and families to do the same.

Maybe the reason God has allowed us to live in abundance is so we can be a blessing to those who don’t. If we live within the tension of American excess and global poverty, we can respond with thankfulness and generosity, thanking God for what we have and giving much of it away to those in need. In this way, abundance is a gift.
God is the same—there and here

When my team did ministry in Iringa, Tanzania, we partnered with a young teacher named Peter who seemed a little overexcited about America. He told us: “Wow, I’m so happy to be with a team from the U.S.A. I love American churches. I love American books. One day I will go to America and learn so much about God!”
I stared at him in disbelief, thinking, Does he really think America has more of God than Africa? I told him most of my friends couldn’t wait to come to Africa to experience more of God’s presence. He didn’t understand.

The truth is, we are all guilty of thinking the grass is greener on the other side. The misconception most of us buy into says that community, miracles and true passion only exist in the third world. On the other hand, much of the third world falsely believes effective ministry only happens with lots of money and high-tech resources. Jesus says something completely different. In Luke 17, he teaches His disciples not to listen to people who say, “Here it is” or, “There it is,” referring to the Kingdom of Heaven. Rather, He says, “The kingdom of God is in your midst,” meaning that experiencing God’s presence has nothing to do with where you are and everything to do with how you live with those around you.

I’ve had friends tell me America is different from other countries because of rampant consumerism and selfishness, however, the truth is, every country has its struggles and poses unique problems for those seeking God. In Ukraine, alcoholism runs rampant. In Thailand, the sex industry plagues hundreds of thousands. In Tanzania, theft and crime create serious problems. Every country uniquely needs God’s grace, but the good news is that He faithfully pours it out on those who seek them, no matter the place or time.

New chapters bring new opportunities
Honestly, I do miss the World Race. I miss my community of friends. I miss the adventure of not knowing what next month will bring. I crave those raw experiences with God, yet I have to trust that new seasons in life bring new opportunities for living and loving well. Whether you’ve recently experienced third-world poverty or you simply want a change in your life, the great thing is that none of us have to sink back into the empty routines we used to live in.

Here are a few helpful questions to ask yourself:
•If you had all the time, money and resources to make an impact on the world, what would you do?
•Now, with the limited resources and relationships you do have, what impact can you have on your local community? Or, what small steps can you make toward making a global change in the future?

America is not your enemy; it’s another opportunity. You don’t have to wait until your next short-term missions trip to experience God and share His love with others. Take the lessons and experiences you loved from your trip and reapply them to your dorm room, church or neighborhood. The adventure isn’t over.

Here's the link to this article: http://rejectapathy.com/worldview/columns/26085-how-not-to-hate-america-after-missions

SOCIAL JUSTICE VS EVANGELISM--Maggie Canty-Shafer--NEUE MAGAZINE

Here's a good read from the recently released first issue of REJECT APATHY...a great resource I gave to all our new students at CU during orientation...

There's always been tension between doing good deeds and sharing the Good News.

The underground railroad was a social justice movement that led thousands to freedom long before slavery was abolished. Organized primarily by Quakers, white evangelicals and black churches, many risked everything to host and care for the runaway slaves, working together to answer a truly biblical call.

The same call heard now.

Social justice is a complex subject for Christians. No one can disagree that Scripture commands to love the poor and oppressed, but what that looks like practically today is largely debated and at times ignored. As the world becomes increasingly more globalized and information more accessible, awareness along with responsibility has grown.

This responsibility comes multiple fold. Why, how and even if we combine social justice with evangelism is an ever-evolving discussion that must be considered from a local and global level. Both the individual and the church must play a role for the Body to have the impact Scripture intended—an impact we’re capable of but nowhere near.

The Two Sides of Holistic Ministry

Dr. Ron Sider, a professor of theology and author of Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, doesn’t believe structural change is complete without sharing the Gospel. Referring to the active combination of word and deed as “holistic ministry,” Sider says that without social works, evangelism appears to be all talk. But without sharing the hope and good news of the Gospel, ministry lacks the Holy Spirit’s transformative power. Neither side of social justice ministry is complete without the other.

“People are both spiritual and material beings,” Sider says. “Addressing only half the problem only gives you half of the solution.”

This doesn’t mean the Gospel should be forced, Sider says. Offering to pray for those being ministered to or sharing evangelism through friendship can reveal Christ—without giving the impression that the material items given to them come from a place of self-righteousness or have strings attached.

“Each of us has contributed to the pain and suffering and decay in the world,” Sider writes in an essay on holistic ministry. “We thus serve with a posture of gratitude and humility, acknowledging our own brokenness before the cross. We recognize that ministering Christ’s wholeness to others is part of what makes us whole.”

But ministering the wholeness of Christ comes with a cost. With the average churchgoing Christian giving less than 3 percent of their income, the Church is lacking the necessary resources to make the changes the Gospel demands. Most Christians, Sider says, could afford to give 10 to 20 percent. And that disparity could mean a world of difference.

“We’re doing significant things, but the amount is pitiable. If Christians were giving what they are called to, we could vastly increase change,” he says. “We know how to reduce poverty—it’s just a matter of resources.”

The problem could possibly be starting from the pulpit. Fewer than one in 50 preachers stress responsibility to the poor as much as the Bible does, Sider says.

“God has a special concern for the poor, there’s no question about it,” he says. “If you don’t care for the poor and oppressed folk, then you’re not a biblical Christian.”

The Collaboration of Callings

One person whose life’s work is to care for the poor is Shane Claiborne. The Kingdom isn’t something Claiborne hopes for when he dies—it’s something he’s building now.

As a hands-on social justice activist, the author and Simple Way founder believes solutions must begin with relationship. Person-to-person contact is what will eventually lead toward reconciliation between the oppressor and the oppressed.

“It’s tempting to have virtual movements without roots on the ground,” he says of today’s society. “It’s often easier to care about the invisible children more than those right next to us. But without the relationship, it’s like eating virtual food: You end up starving.”

Acknowledging the call on each Christian’s life to be active in social justice, Claiborne believes much of the beauty of God’s plan is in the combined roles each individual can take, based on their own unique calling.

Claiborne references something the famous writer and theologian Frederick Buechner said about calling: “You have to ask yourself, ‘Where do my greatest gifts intersect with the world’s greatest need?’”

Changing How We Make a Change

Living in a community that cares for those nearest them, prays together, eats together and shares a love for God’s people has given new monastics like Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove—an author, speaker and minister—a glimpse of what it looks like when people stop building walls and start building bridges. The emphasis on community is key. Although it’s necessary at times, individual activism, Wilson-Hartgrove says, can sell Jesus’ original intentions for the Church short.

“The Church is Jesus’ plan for saving the world—which includes redeeming its broken social structures,” he says. “A conscientious objector to war is one thing, but a community of people who live peaceably together and do not return evil for evil is a more powerful witness, I think.”

In agreement with Sider, Wilson-Hartgrove believes social justice and structural justice cannot be separated when introducing God’s just order.

“Jesus doesn’t start a popular movement to take Jerusalem or Rome and institute God’s new order,” he says. “We’re practicing social justice when we invite friends into relationships of economic sharing. We’re practicing it when we live as communities of hospitality to those who are homeless. Jesus says the Kingdom is here—right here, right now—and you can begin living it.”

If the Kingdom is indeed here and now, then so must be the effort to increase the effectiveness of the Christian response to social justice crimes in the world today. For significant and lasting change, the solution must address the structures, it must have a long-term goal and it must always be a face, not a number. Whether giving shelter to people who need it, like those along the Underground Railroad years ago, or befriending the homeless in our city, that face must be His who called us in the first place.

Here's the LINK:
http://neuemagazine.com/blog/6-main-slideshow/1308-social-justice-vs-evangelism