Jesus and the Kids

We’ve tossed out several Bible story books in our home. In a Western world painted with pictures of Middle Eastern “terrorists,” the last thing we want is for our children to forget that Jesus looked a lot more like bin Laden than their white dad. We realized this one evening when reading out loud one such book that had been given to us as a gift. Our daughter quipped to her brother, “Maybe you’ll look like Jesus when you grow up!” Jesus did have blond hair in the cartoon, just like her brother. I quickly pulled out a news magazine with photos from Iraq. “I’m pretty sure Jesus looked a lot more like that guy than this cartoon drawing.” Their faces were puzzled. The book was in the trash by the time the kids were in bed.

In great part, my wife and I have practiced “church” the way we have due to our children. When I resigned from professional ministry, my wife was pregnant with our first child, our daughter. Around that same time, I had the privilege of interviewing author and pastor Chris Seay of Ecclesia in Houston, TX. He said something that I thought was quite profound. Out of all the interviews I’ve conducted, his words have stuck with me more than most:

We tend to subdivide the Body in a way that has no natural relationships or interaction because we’re built on felt-need models. Instead, single people need to learn from married people; young marrieds without kids should learn from married people with kids; and married people with kids should learn from married people with grown kids.
(read the article)

I don’t know if Seay would have drawn the conclusion I did from that statement, but it was as if the light was turned on for me. I realized that my Christian experience had primarily been “subdivided” just as Seay explained. As a leader of young people, I often saw the complete disconnect between parents and their children in regards to the child’s spiritual development. That was my responsibility.

Every Sunday morning, we all head in our varied directions. The elderly go to their senior’s study. The children go to Sunday School. Teenagers go to youth group. In an era of obsession with a programmatic approach to ministry, we had completely diced up the Body of Christ. No wonder our divorce rates were as high as any other groups! No wonder young people left after high school, never to return!
With my own child on the way, I wanted to do things different. Not just for my own need as a protective parent, but as a person wanting to provide a Christian paradigm that better prepared my children to be missional people and allow them to learn about life from people from a variety of stages and experience.

Since then, as we’ve met in more egalitarian modes over the years, there have not been any great “solutions” of what to do with children during meetings, worship, and prayer. A long time ago, I stopped trying to do anything about kids during our meetings. It bugs some people. Mostly young, single adults. They’ll get over it. Kids are honest. They don’t pretend to be holy when they aren’t. They don’t pretend to be interested in conversations that go nowhere. But attempting to talk over the noise or putting them in front of a movie isn’t the answer. The answer doesn’t even exist in those moments when a community meets. It is in the rest of life.

We, as parents, need to take back our right to be our children’s spiritual directors. We owe it to our children. I have told families in our community that it is our responsibility as a community to help them be more radical followers of Jesus so that they may do the same for their children. Of course, we welcome children in our meetings. We are a spiritual family. With joy, we work through each of our limitations and abilities, no matter what age or capacity. But we are conscious of the fact that we have to support and empower parents to be just that: parents.

What we discovered is that many of us don’t know where to start with our children. Other people had done it for us for generations. Christian bookstores aren’t much help in resourcing us either. They sell terrible children’s music and offer cheesy white-Jesus story books that typically pull out oversimplified moral platitudes from complex narratives.

The first time I read to my children the story of Noah and the Ark, they were appalled! I decided to read the classic Bible story–that exists on everything from wallpaper to night lights–out of the Message version. I stopped midway through the story, looked up and asked, “What do you guys think about this so far?” With jaw on the floor and eyes wide open, my son replied, “God is mean!”

This storytelling set us into a week-long conversation that we continued to come back to. Was God mean? What does this say about justice? What do we know about God’s promises to us because of this story? What does this tell us about what God thinks about Creation? Our four year old son and six year old daughter wrestled with these uncertainties and came to their own conclusions that were often different from each others and mine. Of course, I told them what I believed about this story but it didn’t make Noah and the Ark a cute story anymore!

Why do I share these stories? Because we need to be deliberate about sharing ideas, stories and resources with each other as parents trying to raise kids that are growing up in a globalized, post-Christendom world. Because we need to root our kids in the fact that biblical narrative is supposed to inform reality today in every context. Because we can’t depend on programs and products to do it for us anymore (not that we ever should have). Because when we’ve dissected ourselves into age-specific quadrants, we’ve been prone to make the biblical story no more than feel-good solutions for minor life problems, rather than an over-arching story that we form our entire lives around. Chances are, your children are more prepared for this than you are.

Jason Evans, along with Brooke and their two kids, are a part of an intentional community called the Hawthorn House. He is a co-founder of the Ecclesia Collective, a group of people committed to nurturing grassroots expressions of the Kingdom in San Diego, CA. Before the EC, Jason and Brooke helped start Matthew's House, a cluster of house churches at the north end of San Diego county.

Find Yourself In The Faces Of Others

Who are you? What makes you who you are? How comfortable are you with the person you are becoming?

These questions grow ever more urgent in a world where the media and society seem determined to form and shape us according their ideals, their demographic categories and their fashions. Increasingly, it seems, who we are is defined at the surface level – body fat percentages, smoothness of skin, awards on shelves, zeros on bank statements. I can’t help wondering, though, how we can really know ourselves without giving attention to our souls. And how we can know our souls if we focus only on ourselves?

In South Africa we have an indigenous word that has become somewhat overused since the birth of our new democracy in 1994. This word is Ubuntu and it means, “I belong, therefore I am” or “I am a person because of other people”. Ubuntu affirms the connectedness of all human beings with one another, and acknowledges that individuals can find little meaning or truth in isolation. It reminds us that we can only really find ourselves in the faces of others.

This truth lies at the heart of Christian spirituality. We proclaim that our God is both One and Three, that God’s essential nature is community, is relationship. God has never existed in some isolated, divine individualism. The essence of God is love expressed and received – diversity brought into complete unity. The challenge of worshiping this Triune God is to live out what we pray and sing in relationships. We cannot love the Trinity without also expressing God’s nature and purpose in communities of love, service and shared life.

And if we will embrace this call, we discover a hidden gift of immense and eternal value. As we join with others to love God and live out our faith, we discover that we are truly connected – that the universe and everything in it is an expression of God’s Word, and is filled with God’s breath. And, as we gaze on all these ‘others’ – God, people, creature, thing - we find our place, we discover our souls, and we learn to know who we really are.

So, let me ask again – who are you? Who are the people that help you to know the answer to this question? And what would happen if you expanded your community to embrace those that you might prefer to exclude? Let me encourage you, in the weeks ahead, to seek God in your community. Not just your church community, but that of your town, your country, and even the world. Seek God in those that you disagree with and those you are afraid of. Seek God in those you consider your friends, and those you consider your enemies – for they are all created and loved by God. And as you find God in these others, as you discover your connection with these others, you may experience a surprising thing – you might just see yourself looking back from their faces.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning is now and forever shall be. Amen!

Author Bio:: John van de Laar is a Methodist minister, liturgical consultant and the author of the book Food for the Road – Life Lesson from the Lord’s Table. He holds a Master’s Degree in theology and is the founder of Sacredise.com, an international worship training and resourcing ministry. John is married to Debbie, and they have two sons.

An Economy Stimulating Giving Spree!

Come May, most of us tax paying citizens will be receiving a check in the mail. Now, regardless of whether you agree with capitalism, our government, or the Economic Stimulus package, the fact remains that you’ll be getting a check either way. Now, the question becomes how to spend it.

It’s true, once you get the check, it’s your money to do what you’d like with it, but the intent is that you spend it on consumer goods, thus stimulating the economy. You might just save it away for a rainy day or use it to pay off some debt, but I’d like to recommend another idea: A Giving Spree.

What an amazing opportunity to take make a statement flipping a value system on it’s head. The money given with the intent of spending it on ourselves in our consumer society, thus stimulating our capitalist economy (thus saving us from impending doom) basically makes the statement that we can ‘Save Ourselves by Consuming.’ We have the opportunity to take that same resource and use it for good, clothing the needy, feeding the hungry, bringing justice to the captives.

I’d like to propose that come May, when you receive your rebate check, that you take a large portion of it (or all of it) and go on a Christ-honoring Giving Spree. Here are some ideas:

• Take some homeless people you meet out to a fancy restaurant.
• Buy a CSA Share for a needy family in your neighborhood.
• Purchase and give away CFL Bulbs, Cloth Shopping Bags, Fair Trade Chocolate, Fair Trade Socks.
• Host a Pizza Party for students at your neighborhood school.
• Sponsor a child for a year.
• What’s your idea?

If you’re interested in participating then click here and sign the Giving Spree pledge. The hope is to use a pledge to build some momentum to the Giving Spree. You are free to give money away even if we don’t reach the pledge numbers, and you’re also free to give away all of your rebate check. But either way, sign the pledge!

The description of the pledge reads:

Recognizing that the Economic Stimulus rebate checks we will receive in May sole purpose is to be spent to help stimulate the economy, we are willing to follow through, but not as expected.

In a prophetic statement against the rampant consumerist culture that we live in, as a declaration that more money and capitalism will not save us or our economy, and as a statement to those around us that we follow Christ’s teachings (Matt. 23) and the only true hope is through him,

We will take a large portion of these government issued checks and begin a ‘Giving Spree’ to meet the needs of those around us, pressing, important and immediate needs.

[Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared on JM on February 21, 2008. Now that the checks are officially arriving, we thought it would be good to once again ponder the idea of how to best utilize the discretionary income in the service of the Kingdom of God]

Ariah Fine is a husband and father living in North Minneapolis. He blogs at Trying To Follow and recently wrote his first novel, Giving Up.

“What the…!?”

There are few things as frustrating as collapsing into your bed in your new apartment, bone tired from moving heavy boxes all day and ready to sleep hard, only to be jolted awake by your new neighbors’ music or video games. Particularly when it’s no different the next night, or the next, or the next…

Even the most devout Christian can lose it and end up screaming in righteous fury – though to no avail – at the offending neighbors, or just your shared wall or floor. We feel powerless and angry about becoming such a hateful person. In fact, when we don’t get to know our neighbors as fellow humans, if we never see them, they can morph into disembodied evil spirits in our heads, whose every noise and move are laced with malice.

Frankly, there’s not much you can do to figure out and avoid noisy neighbors when you’re looking for an apartment beyond trying to visit at night and listening carefully to see if the walls are soundproofed. Asking the landlord about noise problems will more than likely result in a less than straight answer. However, you can do a lot once you move in to feel more at peace in your apartment, all the while putting your faith into practice:

1. Get to know your neighbors. You don’t have to be Mr. Rogers or the newest member of Desperate Housewives to get to know your neighbors. Just being on a “smile and nod” basis with your neighbors goes a long way. You’re both much more likely to look out for each other in small and big ways (picking up stray mail, calling in potential gas leaks, etc). If you are used to smiling at your neighbor and maybe even saying “hi,” it’s then much easier to progress to asking about a building issue (“Is it true they’re going to be renovating the basement next week?”) and much easier to have a calm, rational conversation about noise or other problems— even at 4 am, when he’s drunk or high. And you might find that your neighbor’s laugh no longer seems maniacal so much as vivacious, and that you’re happy for her because you know she needs the joy in her life.

You shouldn’t expect to become best friends with your neighbors. People in apartment buildings usually don’t want to live next to their best friends, but they do like to be on good terms with their neighbors. Sort of like an office environment, but hopefully less stressful and without the awful lighting!

Tips: Bolder people often knock on their neighbors’ doors on the day they move in. If you want to try this, make up an excuse for knocking beyond introducing yourself, like asking them to please let you know if you’re being too loud while you move in. If you’re a shy person or just conscientious about not invading other people’s space, then slip a card under your neighbors’ doors inviting them to your housewarming party. Even if they don’t attend, they’ll probably be flattered to have been invited, and be much more willing to deal with you in a respectful manner.

2. Start a building e-mail list. One of the best ways to create a good overall environment in your building is to start an e-mail list. An e-mail list can be a good way for neighbors, especially younger ones, to trouble-shoot common problems or plan building events, or just share tips (e.g., washing machine is eating quarters).

Tips: Set up a list on Google or Yahoo (or your preferred service) and put cards underneath your neighbors’ doors asking them to join. Be sure to explain what it is, why they might want to use it, and what won’t be allowed (for example, you may want to avoid using it to share grievances about the landlord, since it’s likely she’ll see a copy and try to shut it down if you distribute it around the building). Once it’s set up and you have some users, start using it right away so that the idea will stick.

Now that you have an e-mail list, it’ll be much easier to:

• Throw a building potluck.
• Organize a trick-or-treat set up in front of the building on Halloween.
• Plan, plant and maintain a common tree, flowers or garden.

You don’t need a building e-mail list to do any of these things, but it certainly helps. If you don’t have an e-mail list, use cards and flyers around the building or try the old knock-on-the-door technique to get your neighbors involved. Building events or tools that promote civil interaction and helps create a universal expectation that people will treat each other well, even when we’re behind our apartment walls. The change in the ethos of the apartment building will impact even those who choose to not participate directly.

Please note that you don’t have to be new to your building in order to do any of the suggestions above. It’s never too late to start getting to know your neighbors!

Finally, check out our guide to Neighborly Home Design at neighborsproject.org, which includes more ideas and tips ranging from simple to advanced projects towards making your building more neighborly.

Author Bio:: Kit Hodge is the CEO of Neighbors Project, a 501c3 non-profit that inspires and trains members of the new urban generation to connect with their neighbors through projects that improve the neighborhood for everyone. She has also successfully coaxed her downstairs neighbor to turn down his music at 4 am when he was dead drunk.

Onward, Christian Soldiers

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Jonah on Climate Change

I’d really like to know something, please educate me if you can. After leaving Egypt, the Israelites moaned and complained and worshiped false idols, and then spent 40 years wandering around in the desert being miserable.

Another time, God sent the world’s-worst-prophet to Nineveh, the ancient capital of Assyria one of the enemies of the God-people. Jonah eventually proceeded to preach destruction on these people, who he really hated.

The first group were the God-people and had seen some pretty amazing things. Locusts, frogs, rivers of blood, water from rocks. The second group weren’t the God-people, presumably knew nothing of the stuff this crazy man was saying (and it is a bit of a surprise they didn’t just kill him on the spot, given he was covered in fish sick) and yet “turned from their evil ways.” What was the difference?

The reason I’m asking is that it seems to me that Global Warming is clearly the most critical issue any of us are likely to face in our lifetimes. To be frank, it scares me. Did you know, for example, that one of the leading climate scientists is now saying that the CO2 target in last year’s IPCC report was a serious overestimate? According to his calculations, the international negotiations are pointless - because they are all assuming that we can reduce the /rate/ of increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, whereas the truth is that we actually have to reduce the /absolute/ amount in the atmosphere. If true, it has massive ramifications. It isn’t good enough to stabilize the current CO2, causing economic growth. We actually have to cut back.

And given that we are within the 10% of the world’s population rich enough to actually read and understand these words, that has implications to the way we live our lives.

Or try this one: did you know that 50% of all food produced by farms in America is wasted before anyone eats it? That, if we somehow had the technology and willpower, all that wasted food in a year could meet half the annual import needs for the entire continent of Africa. That amount is just the wasted food from the UK. Imagine the amount of wasted food from all the developed countries. Think of all the cost of producing that food, only for it to end up in the dustbin.

The problem is not the thousands of people in Egypt fighting over bread or the billions living in absolute poverty, who face an even more uncertain future due to climate change. The problem is the small percentage of rich people who are taking more than their fair share: us.

I know many of us have been banging on about this for a long time. And I know there are some churches which have really grasped the message. But is anyone actually prepared to repent of their wealthy lifestyles and face up to their responsibility for our greed which is causing the climate to change? OK, we might be prepared to change a few light bulbs, but is that honestly going to stop the tsunami that is coming?

This morning in church, I heard something a bit like this from the pulpit - “Climate change is a fact. But thinking about it can paralyze us because of the magnitude of the problem. So I just want you to remember this: don’t panic, God is in control.”

Don’t panic? Millions are dying because of the human greed of a few rich fat people, and the church is telling us “not to panic?” Whilst panicking might not be the best move in the face of a global catastrophe, surely repentance is. Costly repentance. The kind that says actually my lifestyle is totally wrong and I need to change my ways, fast. God being in control in some ways is irrelevant. From my bible knowledge, it seems quite likely to me that we are going to have to live with the consequences of our actions. God being in control does not necessarily offer a Get Out of Jail Free Card for the future. So what does this knowledge mean in our own lives, and how do we get the message out? How do we do better than Moses - with all his multi-media presentations and flashy graphics - and take lessons from the miserable, soaked, sick-smelling Jonah? Is there any point in even trying?

Author Bio:: Joe Turner is an angry 30-something with a bad memory for dates. He is founder of the Freedom Clothing Project - an effort to bring trade to some pretty dark places - a regular contributor to the Celsias climate change blog, a husband, father and ham-fisted user of theology. Blunt and annoying.

Emerging Middle-Aged Women

If you’re old enough to understand the idiom, “You could have knocked me over with a feather,” you’re probably too old to be hip to its current equivalent. Since I’m both, I’ll simply tell you what happened yesterday and let you supply the metaphor.

A woman I know who’s pushing 60 works as an administrative assistant in a local, evangelical church. For the past 15 years, she’s been devoted to tireless service, nurturing the women’s ministry and a healing prayer ministry along with managing the church office. Her faithful labor, under the paradigm that men lead and women follow, has been split between implementing the details of the surrounding elders’ vision and helping the younger women in the church “obey God and love their husbands.”

Yesterday she told me she was considering stepping down from her position.

“We’re just a ‘G’ rated version of the world,” she said. “And I can’t be a party to it anymore. Our idea of being evangelistically bold and counter-cultural is bringing people into this building. But once we get them here, we don’t offer them anything different from what the world offers. We certainly don’t love and forgive each other and we don’t build into each others’ lives. I don’t think this is the way we’re supposed to do church. The secular world is doing a better job at loving people that we are.”

My friend went on to say, “Here’s a quote from a Korean leader: ‘When I encounter a Buddhist priest, I meet a holy man. When I meet a Christian leader, I meet a manager.’”

I was stunned to hear such words coming from this particular woman. By all appearances, she’d been submitting unwaveringly and unquestioningly to her elders’ authority and wisdom. To hear her say she thought something was wrong in the church was about 180 degrees from what I expected.

But here’s what’s more remarkable about this incident: it was the third time in the space of a week I’d had a similar conversation with a staunchly conservative Christian woman over the age of 45.

One woman I know actually left her church and hasn’t sought out another. I meet with her and pray on a weekly basis. Two other acquaintances in the PhD-level academic world told me they “don’t fit” in their churches, but they stay because of a sense of duty. But they’ve intentionally distanced themselves from the traditional programming aimed at or directed by women in order to be free to use their gifts and follow their calling to serve grossly unmet needs in the wider community–needs their churches don’t seem to have much interest in addressing.

But it’s not just marginalization of women and neglecting the “least of these” in the community that concerns these women. They say they’re grieved by a narrow, impoverished version of gospel that keeps believers in an infantile state of spiritual formation.

My friend put it like this, “It’s like inviting a horde of babies to church and dumping them in the foyer. Who’s going to help them grow up? Who’s going to change their dirty diapers in the meantime?”

I asked my friend what she believes the Spirit is calling her to do.

“It’s relational. It’s small. It’s one-on-one or two-on-two. It’s in living rooms and coffee shops and kitchens, not big sanctuaries where you get a rock concert and a seminar. I don’t know what God is doing. And I’m not worried about how big it is. All I can do is be faithful with what he puts right in front of me.”

What’s going on here? We tend to view the younger generation as the force of change and the fresh wind of the Spirit. But this generation of middle-aged women is unlike any previous one. These women are educated and informed, most of them have worked outside the home at some point in their lives, and even if they’ve followed the complementarian marriage model, they’ve had more freedom and decision-making power than women before them.

And they are rising up with a prophetic voice. They are emerging from their child-bearing and child-rearing years with spiritual wisdom and energy and integrity. And they are a tremendous resource for the upcoming generation seeking to be faithful in following Jesus in the midst of Empire. Younger people would be wise to listen to them and enlist them in implementing their missional and communal vision for the church.

Editor’s Note: The original location of the image above would be a good place to start exploring the voice of women in the emerging church movement– www.emergingwomen.blogspot.com

Liturgical persistence and Ecclesial resistance

If Stanley Hauerwas calls himself a ‘high-church Mennonite’, then I would like to become the official Jesus Manifesto ‘high-church’ advocate. My thesis is simple: there cannot be any sustained ecclesial resistance without a corresponding liturgical persistence. Over the weeks I plan to unpack this under various themes as a way to get my own thoughts clear on the topic, and to learn from you all.

By liturgical persistence I mean both a real commitment to practicing a liturgical form of communal worship and a relatively deep understand of what is going on and why (passing the peace, exchanging greetings, the Eucharistic Prayer, benediction, etc.). I’m not really going to define ecclesial resistance because Jesus Manifesto is all about this.

Now I could marshal all the missional, emerging, neo-monastic reasons against emphasizing so strongly the gathered moment of corporate worship, but I thought I would let you all raise those objections in your own words, or the words of those you interact with.

So what say you: Does ecclesial resistance require a deep liturgical persistence?

The More Perfect State

One thing about this post that might throw off long time readers of JM: This will not be about “the Man,” that overbearing nation-state. (At least not directly).

One thing about this post that will not catch anyone off-guard who has ever read my stuff: There will be at least one quote from a church history document that hardly anyone else finds interesting.

Seeing as how it is election season (anyone who says it is an “election year” apparently missed out on life since 2004), it is little surprise that posts on Jesus Manifesto about voting are gaining in link power. Two of the most popular are Mark Van Steenwyk’s 1o Reasons Why I’m Not Voting and Casey Ochs’ 10 Reasons To Vote (a gentle rebuttal to Mark).

For Mark, voting only gives us the chance to choose between the “lesser of two evils,” something he’s not satisfied with. The system is just set up this way, there is no way around it. Furthermore, any choice for President is to effectively place someone in a position where non-Christian decisions have to be made (going to war being the main one). How in good conscience can a Christian make such a choice? Much of Casey’s rebuttal falls along the lines of “the system isn’t perfect but it is the best we’ve got.” We should be faithful to Christ before we are faithful to the Constitution, but where the two do not directly butt heads, we owe it to our ancestors and immigrants to vote (This is a simplification. His article is much more nuanced and well presented than this). You can vote and still be prophetic in many areas.

This dialogue gets to the heart of what I have been wrestling with in many of my latest posts. It is Voltaire that is held responsible for the saying “Don’t let the perfect become the enemy of the good.” Pushing towards some perfect state, whether in studies, religion, or even exercise, can indeed become the enemy of the good. We feel beat down when we don’t reach the pinnacle of perfection–when we choose the “lesser of two evils.” When someone volunteers at a soup kitchen we remind them that they don’t “really live among the poor.” Or when a middle-aged mom of three buys a hybrid SUV in an effort to go “green,” she is bombarded by her even more progressive friends that she still lives in the suburbs and relies on oil every day.

But the opposite of Voltaire’s often summoned quip is true as well–the good can become the enemy of the perfect. After all, we are fallible human beings; why not just try our best and see where we land? We are at the same time saint and sinner (Luther’s famous “simul justus et peccator“), so sin boldly. The “good enough for now” can become “good enough”…which gets translated through time into “the way it has to be.” Our familiar rocking chairs become comfortable as “adequate” gets passed off as “reality.”

And now for the historical quote that you’ve all been waiting for:

For many readers of church history, the Counter-Reformation in the Roman Catholic Church overshot the mark, as many reactionary movements do. Ignatius of Loyola, for instance, wrote that if the Church had “defined anything to be black which to our eyes appears to be white, we ought in like manner to pronounce it to be black.” But Ignatius’ “Spiritual Exercises” had me pondering another passage in light of my struggle to balance the good with the perfect:

“Let us remark in passing, that we must never engage by vow to take a state that would be an impediment to one more perfect…” (Spiritual Exercises, part ii)

There is no doubt that Ignatius was referring to the vow of celibacy in contrast to the state of matrimony. Marriage was “good,” but it was not as “perfect” as the vow of chastity. For Ignatius, the good could certainly become the enemy of a more perfect state. The question is where to employ this attitude in our daily lives.

When are we to search after “the more perfect state” rather than settling with an apparently good option?

Where are the areas where the “good” is never “good enough” and all lesser options should be shot down?

General Editor’s Note: Mike didn’t choose the image for this post. I (Mark) chose it for the 3% of those readers nerdy enough to get the joke. End note.

If Pakistan Matters

Perhaps it would seem strange that on a site like Jesus Manifesto, I would argue for state education as one of the keys for undermining the state. But so often I hear the talk of revolution, talk of changing the world, talk of globalization, and talk of a new kind of Jesus centered kingdom permeating the world, but my first question is, “How?” How can such a movement begin? How can we be catalysts for change in the midst of world-wide chaos in places like Iraq? I just finished reading an article on pandemonium in Pakistan, and I had a thought:

I really wish I spoke Urdu.

Living in California, I wish that I could speak the language that almost half of my fellow citizens speak. When my roommates and I talk about subverting the culture that immigrants are forced to endure in California, I have another thought:

I really wish I spoke Spanish.

It is thoughts like these that make me wish I would have tried harder in my Spanish classes. It is thoughts like these that make me wish I would have taken Arabic in my time here at Azusa Pacific University. It is thoughts like these that make me think that those four years of high school are the most pivotal if we want to really bring about radical change for Jesus Christ. I read a lot of Christian blogs, but few of them deal with a Christian approach to economics. Granted, the word “economics” brings up a negative feeling among most evangelical Christians because we are told to be against the culture of consumerism and hedonism that the American Empire represents, but don’t we all have some system of economics? We might admit that as Christians we have a subversive type of economic system, but it is still an economic system. And then I hear another thought:

I wish I had studied harder in my economics and government classes.

If we are really about change—if we really think Pakistan matters—we will learn the language of the Pakistani people, we will study their culture, and we will actually put our feet on the ground in grass roots organizations of social change for the betterment of Jesus Christ and his radically different kingdom. We can build an alternative society there that gives people other options besides running to the state for change. It is often assumed that revolutionaries do not have to work as hard as the “hard working American capitalist,” but this is simply not the case. The revolutionary might have to learn new languages, might have to deconstruct whole economic systems and start out anew with new small-scale economies that justly and fairly treat the least of these. The revolutionary might have to take far less pay than what they are entitled to for the amount of hours that they put in.

I am reminded in part of one of the lesser known parables of Jesus:

“Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple. Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”(Luke 14:25-34)

In other words, Jesus said there are a lot of people who are willing to build houses, but few are willing to do the hard work to finish it. Are we going to be revolutionaries one minute and in the next minute give up because it is too hard? If that is the case, Jesus says it is better not even to start.

Author Bio:: Danny is a senior at Azusa Pacific University. He likes to think of revolutionary ways to serve Jesus that are beyond the usual Christian cliches. He hopes to become a professional boxer or perhaps even a world entertainment wrestler. If those two do not work out, he will probably become a high school history teacher when he graduates this year. He keeps a blog at www.coldfire.wordpress.com

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