Lisa Sharon Harper

We don’t really like to talk about “enemies” in the church. I mean, who likes to think they walk around with people out there who mean to do them harm? Jesus said it plainly, though: “Love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44). Jesus knew that sometimes, for whatever reason, we will have enemies. They will actively or passively wish for, work toward, or plot our ruin. Still, the command is to love.

I’ve had a few enemies in my life.

Brian was a friend of mine in junior high. I moved from Philadelphia to Cape May, New Jersey—from a mostly black world to a world that was so white, the 4H club was huge. Brian was one of the first friends I made in my new home. We grew apart in high school, but I always considered him a friend.

One day during my senior year in high school, two guys showed up at our family’s home at 12:15 AM. They parked their car, got out, and yelled at our house: “Niggers! Go back to Africa! We don’t want you here!” and stuff like that. They yelled for about 15 minutes. Then they drove off. They came back and yelled at our house at 12:15 AM, every night for two weeks. We didn’t know who it was. Finally, one night my dad hid in our car and followed them when they drove off. He got the license plate number. The plate traced back to Brian.

How do we deal with enemies? My response then was to do nothing. Brian was found guilty and sentenced to community service, and we didn’t speak again until our 15-year class reunion.

Four years before the reunion, I was on staff with Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, and I led a Bible study for non-Christian students at UCLA. We studied Matthew 5:43-48. Jesus says the weirdest thing at the end of that passage: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” In context, “be perfect” means love perfectly. What it looks like to love perfectly in the text is to love your enemies. (And here’s the kicker…) That’s what Jesus did with the Pharisees who plotted to kill him. And it’s what the Father did with us. The Father loved us—his enemies—by sending Jesus to die for us—his enemies.

I thought of Brian. Could I “love” Brian? Eleven years later, I was still angry. I was still hurt. I still saw him as the enemy. I prayed. I asked for God’s eyes to see him. What I saw was disarming. I saw a broken boy made in the image of God. I released him of his debt to me.

It was about 11 years after the fact. I lived 3,000 miles away and didn’t have a clue where he lived anymore, but I got an idea. I made some phone calls and tracked him down. I bought a cool Los Angeles key ring and placed the key ring inside a simple envelope. I wrote a note letting Brian know he’d hurt me but that I’d forgiven him—completely—and that I was praying for him and for his well-being. And I wrote, “Every time you look at this key ring, I want you to know you are forgiven.”

Four years later, I saw Brian for the first time in 15 years. And he said simply, “Forgive me.”

“I already have,” I said, smiling.

Love your enemies. It seems that nowadays, political enemies are the hardest to love. I’m a Democrat, and I’m in the middle of writing a book with a Tea Party Republican. The book’s title is Left, Right & Christ: Evangelical Faith in Politics. We’re both evangelicals, but our experiences of the world and our approaches to Scripture have shaped vastly different political passions. As a result, we often find ourselves on opposing sides of the public square.

I wish I could say I have loved perfectly. I haven’t. Maybe society has done an outstanding job of dehumanizing the political other lately. It’s much easier to hate and fear people when you can’t see their humanity—when you can’t see the image of God in their eyes.

Remembering Brian gives me hope.

Lisa Sharon Harper
Author, Evangelical Does Not Equal Republican…Or Democrat (The New Press)

Co-founder and Executive Director, NY Faith & Justice President, National Faith &

Justice Network Board Member, New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good (Speaker/Activist/Author/Playwright/Poet)

Having worked with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship as an Arts Specialist and as the Greater Los Angeles Director of Racial Reconciliation, Ms. Harper helped develop the Ethnic Reconciliation tool “Race Matters” and co-wrote the “Race Matters” Handbook. She conducted ethnic reconciliation training conferences and wrote analyses of and consulted with IVCF campus movements throughout Southern California. She also conducted staff training in ethnic reconciliation through Intervarsity’s National Institute of Staff Education and Training (NISET) and spoke for students throughout the U.S.

Dave Rahn

This question must be personalized to make sense. A sociological survey might allow us to say that 38% of us are ready. But this isn’t really satisfying, and we could hardly make sense of such data anyway.

Then there’s the moment-in-time aspect of this question. If I can say yes today… If I could say yes for each of the past 14 years without interruption but cannot say yes this afternoon when an opportunity presents itself to love my local liberal or crazy conservative, it doesn’t count that I’ve accrued previous credit, does it?

I’ve probably got a pretty erratic résumé when it comes to loving everyone, especially those I may have permission to hate. But it’s not because I dispute in any way that this is my obligation.

I am convinced that we Christians are to be a holy people, set apart by our distinction so the God of all creation might be known by the truth-bearing weight of our lives in Jesus. As Paul told the Athenians, in God we live and move and have our being. Our lives, the apostle wrote the Colossians, are hidden in Christ, who is our hope of glory. But today, in spite of Jesus’ clear warnings to double-minded or less than earnest followers, it is too frequently culturally acceptable to assume a personal editorial posture when we consider the words of Christ.

The very notion of following has been co-opted by our Facebook-Twitter way of relating to each other. We can watch what others say or do as often as we want and engage in any way we want. Customize. Personalize. This is my social network so I can make it work to my taste.

This may be a fine formula for popularity contests, but it’s a lousy way to discover objective, absolute truth that requires a reversal of my own self-referential tendencies. We don’t easily embrace lifestyle expectations that challenge what we already believe. And if we take seriously the call to follow our Lord (boss, right?) Jesus and what he taught us to obey (ugh, can’t we soften that word?), we will inevitably be forced to make changes that are not personal-preference friendly.

We may admire the theoretical teaching of Jesus about loving enemies because it so clearly would make the world a better place. But we don’t like to linger in front of expectations that demand we make personal changes so that we accurately represent the King and his kingdom in 2011 America.

Back to me. I use deflection to disguise the gaps in my own practice of the great commandment. If we begin talking about loving those who live outside the realm of political or social acceptability, I can come up with a few stories that will get me off the hook. (This is a tactic many underprepared students use—offering an early response in a discussion can make them less likely to be called upon later!) But there are entire groups of people with whom I never engage relationally. I easily ignore both the opportunities and obligation to love them as I hasten along to my preferred target of lost teenagers.

This would be a sad confession if it weren’t for the fact that it doesn’t tell the whole story. By God’s grace, my extremely long list of acceptable exclusions to be loved has dwindled over the years. It keeps shrinking. And the biggest reason is that I have come to believe that I truly deserve to be on such lists myself.

I suspect that more of us will become more ready to love without qualification when we truly recognize that the love of God we enjoy is totally undeserved.

Chris Folmsbee

I really dislike this question. It bothers me on several levels. First, the fact that we even have to ask it to evoke a sense of clarity around this subject is disturbing to me. It makes my stomach hurt.

Second, I’ve never been told to hate anyone and can’t imagine that this is true for any person. If this question genuinely represents the way some people think about others, then we are much more distant from shalom than I had hoped we might be at this point in history. And if that is true, then that just sucks because that means that the church is doing a horrible job of living missionally.

I suppose that, for people who use the words tolerance and love as synonyms, this question might be helpful to evoke deeper thought on the subject. I suppose I’ve been taught to tolerate the views of others but not to hate them. But tolerance isn’t love. Love envelops tolerance, but tolerance is too small of a human quality to envelop a robust theology of love.

I think Christians are ready to love those with differing convictions and beliefs. My use of the word ready, however, is to mean prepared, not necessarily willing. We have everything we need in order to love others. Here is what we have that prepares or readies us:

• A God who values peace and wholeness
• A God who values community
• A God who commands that we love others
• A God who models how to love others
• A God who continues to transform a people to mediate God’s love for the sake of the world
• A God who desires that kingdom principles are active on earth as they are in heaven
• A God who gives us biblical teachings in which to embrace and engage

So the question has straightforward responses. But are we willing? Now that is a different question with a whole other set of responses. In my mind, to be willing is to be eager or to be enthusiastically looking for opportunities to unreservedly love others. This is a much different scenario from being prepared.

To be willing to love others who have differing convictions and beliefs requires that we be people who:

• Are culturally sensitive
• Are aware of our contexts
• Are humble
• Are a praying people
• Are aware of the needs of others
• Are a forgiving people—the first to forgive
• Are the first to admit wrongdoing
• Are seeking ways to right the wrongs in the world
• Are good listeners
• Are people of hospitality
• Are people who believe proximity and time are essential to community
• Are people who see with compassion, not comparison

Are we ready to love those we are told to hate? Yes, as Christians, we have everything we need to ready ourselves for that privilege. Are we willing to love those we are told to hate? I sure hope so, since that is the whole point of Christianity.

Brooklyn Lindsey

What a complex question! I find it hard to know where to start. Except to say that we could improve on all areas and I’m not sure if there is one that is more lacking than the others.

Many learned and deeply spiritual people have tried to help the church see its blind spots in the area of seeking the kind of justice God calls to. These are usually some of the most selfless and sacrificial people you will ever meet. Their voices are compelling and loaded with the fullness of the gospel.

Why is it, then, that it seems like they are some of the most difficult lessons to learn and actively live out as we receive them? This is why I often feel inadequate speaking to the church on where it needs improvement when my position has tended to be stranded in postures of learning than entrenched in devoted praxis. At the same time, I believe that when we learn what God is calling us to do, both individually and corporately, we have a responsibility to do it—if we love Jesus, we will obey his commands. Even if we do so a little bit at a time.

One such leader has been my long-distance mentor in this area. She will continue to mentor me for the rest of my life. Her advice on how we can improve in the area of justice goes without argument. She proved with her life that it’s possible to live out justice with the greatest of love and care for every human and creature God has created—one person, one moment, one opportunity at a time. The church would do well to seek justice in the same way, to see every program and gathering of worship as a chance to seek justice and show mercy. Her name is Mother Teresa—I’m sure you’ve heard of her.

There are a few things she has said over the years that the church would leap from mediocre meandering to fearless participation if we (and by “we” I mean we leaders) could get our heads, hearts, and hands around these biblical ideas. God help us all.

Most of what I’ve learned has come from one compilation of her works, titled No Greater Love.

A good foundation: “God has not created poverty; it is we who have created it. Before God, all of us are poor.”

The church needs to see itself through the lens of the Creator. We’ve all sinned. We all deserve the penalty. But we’ve been rescued. Sometimes we become so focused on those who have received the gift of life that we forget that they too were lost before. Some are lost in debt; some are lost in poverty; others are lost in lies and competition. Whatever it is, we all start in the same place. Knowing this can change the church’s outlook on where our responsibility exists—with all people.

Where to begin: “Strive to be the demonstration of God in the midst of your community. Sometimes we see how joy returns to the lives of the most destitute when they realize that many among us are concerned about them and show them our love. Even their health improves if they are sick. May we never forget that in the service to the poor we are offered a magnificent opportunity to do something beautiful for God…for He Himself said, ‘You did it for me.’”

The church doesn’t need to go far to learn how to actively alleviate injustice. There are days when I feel like our local radio station does more for our community than the churches in our community do. That shouldn’t be the case. We are rooted and built up in Christ. This knowledge should compel us to see those who live in oppression—whatever kind that may be—and to reach out with hands of love. Stay involved, stay informed, and respond when opportunities come. The culture will grow as we respond.

Where to rely: We have to model and teach the church to rely on God’s strength—we are human and subject to leaning on our own strength and ideas—lending ourselves to temptation and all sorts of evil. We must pray. And I confess, this is the hardest part for me.

“I don’t think there is anyone who needs God’s help and grace as much as I do.” (Brooklyn may have you on this one, Teresa.) “Sometimes I feel so helpless and weak. I think that is why God uses me. Because I cannot depend on my own strength…my secret is very simple: I pray. Through prayer I become one in love with Christ.”

What to remember: Jesus had to remind Paul of this important truth. “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9, RSV).

The church has a long way to go in our weakness in this area. May power be made perfect in it as we rely on his grace. May we respond to the daily invitations to respond to injustice, and may love, justice, and grace be seen in the children of God.

Claire Smith

Each time we limit our witness to handouts, we constrict justice. Each time we drive an hour to feed the hungry and ignore the racial profiling in our own neighborhoods, we ignore justice. Each time we treat a short-term mission trip as a way of building the faith of our youth with the hope that it will “stick,” as they help “those poor people” and discover how fortunate they themselves are, we thwart the possibility of seeking justice on behalf of the oppressed.

The thing is that much—though not all—of the church needs to open its eyes and heart to the God of justice that the Scripture portrays and understand justice as the Bible does. For too many congregants, justice is something associated only with the judicial system. The word in its broader biblical sense remains unknown. Yet when we read the Old Testament, it is clear that the absence of justice among God’s people is abhorrent to God and brings God’s wrath and judgment as Isaiah 1 makes clear.

On the contrary, Jesus, the suffering servant, proclaims and brings justice in Isaiah 42:1-4 and Matthew 12:18-21. Jesus’ justice puts people first. The healing and salvation of persons came before laws, institutions, and customs, which Jesus was quick to critique when human interpretation robbed these of compassion and the fair treatment of all. What is different now?

Frequently, like the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’ day, we tithe and give to the church and are concerned with its upkeep and superficial efforts at outreach while neglecting “the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith” (Matthew 23:23). We fail to grasp how our existences and preferred lifestyles may affect others adversely, and frankly, we too often do not care. Relatedly, we don’t quite get why laws should protect the vulnerable in the land and get lost in our own agendas without grasping that God expects us to look out for the least in society’s eyes. This looking out is not simply a pat and a bowl of soup, as critical as those may be. It also entails engaging, critiquing, and changing the situations, laws, institutions, and customs that oppress, beginning at home in the church.

This broader view of justice calls for experiential teaching that is grounded in the good news of God’s reign. It requires teaching that is action/reflection based and centrally located in the reign of God. This is teaching that justice as an aspect of holy living that is personal and communal. It is simply educating from and living out the Bible.

Danny Kwon

As a youth pastor working with adults and students, I have found that missions has been a wonderful way to promote justice, both locally and more broadly. Our youth group is a big proponent of all types of mission trips and service opportunities. Every summer, our youth group takes four short-term mission trips domestically and internationally, serving in various ways, such as building homes to running youth camps.

In general, I am a huge proponent of the short-term mission trip, even though I know there are pros and cons to these trips, especially for the participants and churches. To help combat these cons, our church has considered how we can improve these trips, which directly correlates to how our church wants to improve in the area of justice.

Overall, when it comes to these short-term mission trips and considering how we can more effectively serve in the area of justice, our church has really sought to think long term. It’s almost an oxymoron. Tangibly speaking, this means always asking the question of why things are the way they are in each context and then doing something about it. Subsequently, it then means seeking out solutions that will combat injustice for a “lifetime.” Ultimately, when it comes to this type of justice, we always remind ourselves to try to practice the justice Martin Luther King, Jr., talked about when he stated that “true compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars need restructuring.”

Hence, with our short-term trips, we have actually developed long-term relationships. This means teaming up and supporting the efforts of the local missionaries. Internationally, we continue to have and nurture partnerships with specific missionaries and churches so we can foster long-term change and development in the places where these churches are located and in step with the local missionaries.

Locally, when it comes to service projects, our youth group has partnered with three inner-city ministries in long-term relationship. It has meant teaming up and supporting the efforts of the local leadership, not just one time or once a year. Ultimately, this means that justice is not just a fad, but it is seeking long-term solutions even though we may be serving in short-term time periods.

I cherish this long-term philosophy. It is a vital way for churches to rethink and improve what it means to do justice. One benefit it has on our youth group students is that they see that doing justice is not just a summer or short-term-mission thing, but it is a lifetime thing. In fact, doing justice is a calling each believer has for a lifetime.

Mike King

The word justice and especially the phrase social justice have been in the media spotlight lately, thanks primarily to the culture wars and the attention-grabbing techniques of Glenn Beck. The issue of justice has been a focus of human beings since the beginning of recorded history. Often the issue of justice has forced Christians to determine where their primary allegiances lie—with God’s in-breaking kingdom or with political powers and national governments?

The prophet Micah declares in Micah 6:8, “He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Children of God are required to “do justice.”

One of the common phrases of children when they begin to interact with one another on playgrounds, neighborhoods, in social settings, schools, and especially among siblings is, “That’s not fair.”

“Studies at UCLA in 2008 have indicated that reactions to fairness are ‘wired’ into the brain... This is consistent with the notion that being treated fairly satisfies a basic need.’ 1 The issue of justice is a very important part of youth ministry and spiritual formation.

There are many ways the issue of justice has been classified. For instance: legal justice, commutative justice, procedural justice, criminal justice, social justice, punitive justice, restorative justice, universal justice, distributive justice, retributive justice, personal justice, supernatural justice, poetic justice, etc.

Instead of defining all the various forms and types of justice, I will respond to the question by suggesting two primary ways the issue and types of justice will impact your youth ministry.

1) Community Environment. The spirituality of your faith community is greatly influenced by how you deal with many of the different types of justice issues at work in your context. Let’s take the issue of punitive vs. restorative justice as an example. If your culture believes that those within your faith community must be punished (as an example for all) if they violate the group’s values, disobey Scripture, and/or make a serious mistake and sin, then you may be willing to lose a member of the community in order to maintain the group’s ethos and rules. Misguided punitive justice often relies on shame to recover and maintain a sense of order. Punitive justice focuses on the supposed need of the community to punish offenders. I’ve seen many young people in youth ministries significantly wronged and humiliated by unjust punitive justice.

Restorative justice, on the other hand, seeks to repair the wrongs and damages done and works to restore both victims and offenders. Often, restorative justice takes more time and is more complicated to accomplish, but the results are more in line with restoration and God’s redemptive mission. Allowing your environment to be shaped by grace and restorative justice will go a long way toward nurturing a faith community that is a safe place for all. Attempting to make things right for all is hard work but is essential for fostering Christian community.

2) Christian Formation. If we are going to be youth workers who make disciples who become lifelong followers of Jesus Christ, we must help the young people in our faith communities grasp the overarching mission of God. It is not possible to fully cooperate with God’s mission of redemption and restoration without doing justice, as the prophet Micah states in the above verse. The prophet Isaiah weighs in on the mission of Messiah in Isaiah 42:1-4.

“Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth.”

Jesus Christ will fully establish justice in the earth. As Christ’s disciples, we are to follow Jesus in the movement toward a just world. One of the biggest problems we face in the Christian church today is our propensity to mostly talk about justice. We talk about justice but rarely do justice. And yes, I’m talking about us, I’m talking about you, but mostly, I’m talking about me.

Last week our Youthfront staff watched the movie Romero together as a part of our monthly formational practice. The movie is about the life of Oscar Romero, who was appointed archbishop of San Salvador, El Salvador, during a tumultuous time in the 1970s. Great injustices were happening throughout the country, and the poor were being exploited, raped, and murdered. Archbishop Romero was assassinated because he was willing to stand up against gross injustice. The movie portrays many different ways individuals who claim to be Christians react to what is going on around them. The issue of what it means to “do justice” was the focus of our staff discussion. The questions we wrestled with following this film are still provoking our imaginations and dominating our conversations.

As youth workers, we must search our hearts and explore what it means to live cruciform lives. As we read the gospels and see the life of Jesus, we see the reality of God’s in-breaking kingdom. Jesus Christ is doing a new thing, and it is this way of life that God is calling us to lean into. This is the way of life we invite young people to embrace. I believe it is a life that moves toward shalom and a world made right, a cause that young people might be willing to lay down their lives for.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice#cite_ref-4

Helpful Resources for Students:

Living Justice: Revolutionary Compassion in a Broken World

Steve Argue

Recently I was with a group of youth pastors and senior pastors reflecting on the topic, What is a question that can only be answered by the youth pastor and the senior pastor together? I’ve been pondering that conversation and came up with what I think is an important question: Who are the people we exclude?

The injustice of reaching out without welcoming in. Often in ministry conversations, there inevitably comes a point where the topic turns toward “outreach” or “reaching” someone. For deeply theological reasons (both redemptive and sometimes dangerous), many churches feel compelled to reach out toward someone, somewhere. What is often missed, however, is that if a faith community reaches out, there also must be a complimentary and equally high value of welcoming in.

Within the physical walls of churches, ministries have reached out to kids, students, and emerging adults, providing them with programs and pastors. These initiatives have often created a silo effect, where the groups reached end up entrapped and still unwelcome in other parts of the community. Consider the main service and the many looks they get when kids act like kids and students dress like students. Similarly, how many youth pastors have touted parents as the primary disciplers of their kids (inaccurately quoting Deuteronomy 6), while systematically excluding them from all youth ministry programming, except to ensure they pay for ever-rising mission trips? Reaching is valued. Welcoming is not.

In an odd sort of way, church programs designed for specific groups (especially young people) become ghettos of segregation, contradicting Jesus’ prayer for the people of God to be one. Something is wrong when adults want to populate their church with the next generation as long as they don’t touch anything and when youth pastors want parental support while excluding parents from their thinking, relationships, and programming.

Thus, the question remains for our faith communities, Whom do we exclude? Where are the lines drawn within one’s own church? And might the very structure, assumptions, and spirit of our faith communities be the walls that feign outreach but actually communicate, Keep out? When we reach out without welcoming in, we perpetuate the injustice of exclusion.

The injustice of preserving distance between your space and our space. Beyond local congregations, churches attempt to reach out to the poor, needy, and oppressed. I commend the good work done across the street and around the world. My only concern is that most of the people whom churches reach out to remain conveniently “out there.” When we reach out, we can be generous and compassionate on our terms, in our time frame, away from our place. How many of the poor, needy, and oppressed are actually welcome in our churches and homes? I know the issue is more complicated, but the simply perpetuated message of separation exists where: We will reach out to your space, but you are not welcome in our space.

Sadly, many churches are known more for what they are against, welcoming people as long as they’re “just like us.” Emerging adults often feel like strangers in their own home churches and are accused of leaving; single men and women are often overlooked because they don’t fit into a traditional family; and the marginalized of all kinds find sparse connection. Whom do we exclude?

Whether internal segregation or external separation, churches can have a welcoming problem that contradicts the nature and purposes of God. Throughout the biblical narrative, we see God as one who pursues and calls people, committing to be their God; who comes near through incarnation; who extends God’s love to all, engrafting outsiders, calling them “my people,” “my friends,” “my co-heirs,” and “my children.” We are a people who have been welcomed, empowered to welcome.

These are not easy issues to work through, but the level of difficulty cannot dictate the level of necessity. Faith communities’ inability to welcome the “other” typically has little to do with espoused theology and doctrine and has more to do with fear of the unknown, love of power, and resistance to change, fueling postures to keep the other “out there.” I’m not saying everyone in our faith communities is intentionally cruel, but many may be unaware of these injustices, blinded by their majority lenses. In either case, “reached” outsiders remain excluded and unwelcomed.

Senior pastors and youth pastors must work together to communicate a consistent posture of welcoming that will take more resolve, dedication, and sacrifice than any mission trip or outreach program. For it will call us to change us, more than them, to be we.

The reason I am a follower of Jesus is that someone welcomed me in. Yes, even me. This is the beautifully overwhelming, barrier-breaking, system-crushing grace that God offers to all. It’s a justice issue that must be owned by senior pastors and youth pastors together. It’s a justice issue that declares that, as we seek to change the world, our worlds may need the first changing.

Dave Rahn

Justice originates with a set of standards; a code; the law. The notion that there are various forms or types of justice implies that there may be different rules that apply to different contexts. This reminds me a bit of the construct of intelligence and research by Howard Gardner and others to make the case for multiple, domain-specific intelligences. Are we better served by looking at justice through categorical filters (e.g., economic, political, or racial) or by thinking of it as a holistic concept like that which is freighted by the Hebrew word shalom?

We live in a day when the social construction of knowledge is all the rage. Morality can be defined without the need to establish a first cause or authority. My own doctoral research was embedded in this wing of social science. The moral domain is defined by universal obligations that people agree are right or wrong regardless of circumstance, situations, or culture. The conventional domain acknowledges that there are some contexts where matters of right and wrong are of a different quality, rooted in legitimately acknowledged authority, and regulated by a source that can alter the standards at any time.

So it’s always wrong to hit other children so as to hurt them (moral), but it’s only wrong to chew gum in class if the teacher says it’s wrong. And Mrs. Snider, my paddle-wielding, second-grade teacher at William Carr Elementary, made it clear always that chomping was impermissible in her presence.

Please forgive my short detour into an area of obscure inquiry that I lived in 20 years ago while pursuing my PhD. I am convinced that the social forces interested in exploring a relativistic basis for knowledge have only accelerated in the last two decades. Years ago, the quest for truth was at the heart of all questions of morality and justice. Today’s discussions pursue such wisdom without any need to anchor it in notions of absolute truth that can be known, however imperfectly.

So I return to my original question about the question. How is it somehow better to divvy up justice into assigned analytical categories for improved practical use if that guidance is as weightless as anything that spins away from its gravitational orbit? Can you tell I’m concerned about self-referential justice, even that which is cloaked in community consensus as “self?”

I have only the desire to know and live more thoroughly according to justice as defined by the rule of God our King. Hundreds of detailed Torah regulations did not bring about this justice. The Ten Commandments also failed to usher God’s people into justly living communities. Even the great commandments, reduced to two huge summary pursuits that allow us to affix them to our bumper stickers, do not give us power to live justly. But when God graciously saved me and dispatched his Holy Spirit to live within me—well, I’ve got a fighting chance to actually make a difference.

And so I’m not interested in expanding my circle of concern unless I can keep my circle of influence from shrinking (thanks, Covey). I live in a small town that has a history of racial bigotry. I became part of a multi-ethnic church plant over five years ago, driving 35 minutes each way to participate in this fellowship. For me to love my black and brown brothers and sisters better—and to experience more love—my wife and I would probably need to relocate.

But we are not called to live in another community; we are called to live in this broken Indiana town and be salt and light. And so, for now, our Sunday church excursions fortify my resolve to live justly in our hometown. And, though it may seem like a woefully small and insignificant response, we have resolutely chosen to pay whatever the pump price is at the community’s ethnic-owned gas station so we can contribute to a welcoming atmosphere reflective of the shalom of God.

This little move is one that my blue-collar neighbors understand. It takes a page out of John’s epistle: We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother (1 John 4:19-21). It tips toward doing something where I live—that makes a difference now—rather than talk about injustices where I do not live.

I am drawn to justice in reality; actions I take because I am compelled to be faithful in my obedience to the Lord Jesus. All else is another type of hype, and I frankly fear being distracted from acting on what I know I should do by wondering about what else could be done. With Paul, I want to live up to what I’ve already attained (Philippians 3:16).

Sarah Arthur

Short answer: change your zip code.

Yep. Move into the neighbor-’hood (to loosely quote Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of John 1:14). Radical? Yes. Feasible in this moment for everyone reading this post? No. But imagine what kind of incarnational transformation might take place if every American Christian—including the youth we work with—had the goal of downward mobility.

Change your zip code, and suddenly injustice is the pothole you hit on the way to work each morning. Would such a pothole have lasted very long in the typical middle-class suburb? Not likely. Will the city respond if you call about this particular pot hole? Don’t count on it—at least not the first time. But keep calling.

Change your zip code, and you now have a personal interest in news about the grease recycling plant possibly moving into the empty lot across the street. If you don’t show up at the city council meeting to object—(you have learned that your neighborhood will smell like dead chickens for the next century)—no one will. Not because your neighbors don’t care but because they gave up trying to claim some dignity a long time ago. But you try anyway.

Change your zip code, and the 911 dispatchers will get to know you personally. Gunshots around the corner? On Christmas Eve? While there are small children in the house? You will pick up the phone. And you will pick it up again tomorrow and again in the oppressive heat of summer (when gang violence increases) and again when the air conditioning unit at a nearby church is destroyed by someone seeking the valuable copper inside. You will become a pro at telling the dispatchers up front exactly what they need to know. Because someone has to remind the city that this neighborhood is not off the grid. People live here. Children live here.

Change your zip code, and you are now more aware of the injustices in the world. Because they mess up your day.

It’s sad but true. When these issues are out of sight, they are out of mind, no matter how passionately we might claim to want to serve “the least of these.” But put them front and center—make them the first things you see when you step out of your front door every day—and they aren’t so easily forgotten.

Or at least, that’s what happened to me.

Several years ago, my husband and I moved into an intentional Christian community. It was a household created in the spirit of the Catholic Worker and New Monastic movements—and thus intentionally situated in what is often considered the ghetto of northeast-central Durham, North Carolina. It is a community of poverty and crime, gangs and violence. It is also a community of corner churches and little grandmas who have been praying longer than most of us have been alive.

My husband and I had been living elsewhere but attending a church in that neighborhood when we met our future housemates one Sunday morning. One thing led to another, and soon we found ourselves backing a moving truck up the driveway. We moved into the neighborhood.

And they were some of the most transformative three years of my life.

We slowly got to know our neighbors, most of whom experience more injustice in one week than many of us do in a lifetime. We made those calls about the potholes and the disintegrating railroad tracks. My housemates and neighbors went to the city council meeting about the grease recycling plant. I called 911 on Christmas Eve and said that gunshots were unacceptable, there were small children in the house, and could a patrol car at least come by and give the impression that the city cared.

Injustice was in my face, and I couldn’t ignore it. Changing my zip code, an act of incarnation, meant that the suffering of the world became my suffering.

My husband and I now live in a parsonage in the suburbs—not by choice but in submission to the pastoral appointment system of the United Methodist Church. We have made a different kind of incarnational move. And trust me, there is plenty of brokenness behind the perfectly painted doors on my street. But now, every time I see a pothole (look fast: they don’t last long around here), I am very, very aware that not all communities are created equal.

“The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood” (John 1:14, The Message). Where will the moving truck take you next? Where will it take your youth?

Jim Hampton

I have to admit that when I saw this topic, I immediately thought, What do I have to say to this? This isn’t really my area of expertise.

But after I got over the initial shock and actually gave some thoughtful reflection to the question, I realized that I just might have a few things to offer based on my own experiences and what I’ve read in Scripture.

Perhaps the most important thing we can do is first to recognize our own self-centeredness. I find it fascinating that almost all of the world’s major religions emphasize the need to look beyond ourselves in order to help others. Christianity makes it clear that the only way this happens is through a complete reorientation of our heart and mind as we allow God to radically transform us.

Christians are called to “be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32). We’re also called to “look not only to our own interests, but to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:4). We do this because Jesus himself first loved us (John 13:34-35). And if becoming like Jesus is not enough of a goal, Jesus reminds us that “not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21). Scripture is clear that “the Lord loves righteousness and justice” (Psalm 33:5), and therefore Christians are called to be engage in activities that promote justice: “Hate evil, love good; maintain justice” (Amos 5:15). When we do this, we are blessed (Psalm 106:3). Given our sinful nature, this will never happen in our own strength but only as God begins to change our hearts and minds.

I’ve come to realize that one of the primary ways we become more aware is simply by asking God to give us his heart for the other. As this happens over time, our eyes and ears slowly become attuned to the needs of those around us. I remember watching the evening news once when the focus was on a country that had been been ravaged by a tsunami. As I watched the images, my heart literally broke for those affected by this disaster. I had never been to that country. I didn’t personally know a single person who lived there. Yet I found myself openly crying as I watched this tragedy unfold.

As I reflected on why I was crying, God gently reminded me that my prayer in recent days had been that I develop his heart for others, that I begin to see people the way he did. “You see,” he seemed to say, “how painful it is?”

Another way I’ve become more aware is by listening to those around me. That sounds simple, but in reality, really listening is difficult. Most of us listen just long enough to figure out the thrust of what the conversation is about then immediately begin to formulate our responses. True listening involves listening with our heads and our hearts, taking time to consider what the person is sharing and why. When we begin to listen like this, we become safe places where people can share things they might not share otherwise.

One such conversation with the Hispanic pastor at our church really helped me come to better understand the real needs of and the injustices often perpetrated on migrant workers. Whatever your take on the illegal immigrant issue (which itself is a major theological issue the church needs to respond to), the reality is that there are tens of thousands of migrant workers, both legal and illegal, who are regularly taken advantage of, often working horrendous hours for incredibly little pay. And there is often no recourse they have for fear of being deported (for the illegals) or fear of being blacklisted by the farms for causing trouble (for the legals). This conversation helped me understand the incredibly wide systemic nature that contributes to and perpetuates the injustices imposed on this group of people.

The third way I’ve become aware is by simply exposing myself to issues I generally ignored previously. For instance, I had always considered slavery to be an issue “over there.” It didn’t really impact me, so I didn’t really think too much about it. I recognize now that I was intellectually aware of the injustice of slavery. But that was the extent of it.

Then I read a story about a young girl from Cameroon who was brought to the U.S. with the promise of living with a couple from Cameroon who would send her to school. This would be a major life improvement, so her parents readily agreed. However, once the girl arrived, she was turned into a slave, working 18 hours a day and unable to have any contact with others outside the household. Slavery isn’t an “over there” issue, for the place where this story happened was just 60 miles from where I used to live! This moved me from intellectual awareness to emotional awareness.

But the reality is that the awareness wasn’t enough. Don’t get me wrong. Being aware is important. It’s the first step. But my great concern is that far too many of us simply stop there and don’t do anything more than just be aware.

This bothered me considerably, so I started reading other articles and books on this topic, having conversations with those in the know, and generally trying to educate myself about the extent of the problem. And the more I learned, the more I felt the need to act. I think this is the biggest issue we have to address here: being intellectually or emotionally aware of injustice and fighting injustice are two very different things. Unless we then choose to be engaged in finding ways to fight the injustices and help people find justice, we are withholding justice, and the Bible makes it clear that when we do this, we are cursed (Deuteronomy 27:19).

So in the end, I want to rephrase the question to ask, “How do we become more aware of the injustices around us and the world and then act on them?” For it is only when we act, Jesus seems to say in Matthew 25, that we actually are doing the work of the kingdom.

Claire Smith

When I see a question like this, I’m tempted to say: “Open your eyes. Injustice is all around.” But it is never that simple, is it? Yes, injustice is all around us, but unless we have the right filters, it goes clean over our heads. This is especially true of systemic injustice.

The texts we read are important in recognizing injustice. There is the Text. The Bible talks a lot about justice and injustice—a lot. Deuteronomy 16:19-20, as well as other passages, is clearly against bribes: “You must not distort justice; you must not show partiality; and you must not accept bribes, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of those who are in the right. Justice, and only justice, you shall pursue, so that you may live and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”

Questions to consider with our youth around this text could be: What is a bribe? How do people give and receive bribes in our society today? How are those who cannot afford to give bribes affected as well as those who receive bribes? What makes the practice unjust? How do we see institutional bribery in our time?

Jeremiah 22:13-14 addresses the issues of just and unjust wages and living well at the expense of others. What is a just wage? What should a just wage be able to do for a person, a family? How does that compare to what many people receive in our society? How are people who receive unjust wages viewed when they seek better conditions? Who is living well at the expense of others?

I’ll take a final sample from Isaiah 58, a passage we often turn to when we think about and discuss fasting. The chapter addresses unjust wages and feeding the hungry, providing shelter for the homeless, and clothing those in need of clothes—not just in a distant, sanitary way but in a fashion that impacts our space.

So how do we become more aware of the injustices around us in the world? We can start by taking the Bible seriously and checking our lives and what happens around us in its light.

There is also the text of society. We are inundated with lots of news. Unfortunately, many of us only seek one source for our news. We need to seek several sources so we can get a more well-rounded picture of what is going on. Seek views that do not coincide with ours and that are not comfortable for us. Always ask why. Why have they said this? Why did they give the story that particular slant? Ask who as well. Who benefits? Who loses? Who is not even mentioned, and why are they left out?

Finally, we can check out texts that help us gain a better understanding of the ways in which privilege and power create injustice and systematically exclude significant numbers both in the United States and in the world at large from ever participating equally in society.

Justice is about everyone having fair access and therefore a share in society. It is about equality and value of those God has created. It is something God demands. Let’s open our eyes, read the texts, ask the questions, and—as we become more aware—make the change.

How should we be rethinking short-term missions?

Danny Kwon

I will admit it. I am a short-term mission trip junkie. I love going on short-term misson trips, and I love going on them with the students in our youth group. Whether it’s fixing up homes in our own state of Pennsylvania, building a home hundreds of miles away, doing evangelism in Mexico, building a school in Kenya, or running a youth camp in Kazakhstan, I can honestly say that every short-term mission trips I have taken with our youth group students has been a blessing. We have made short-term mission trips the focus of our summers in our youth group.

In all this, there has been some great rethinking about short-term missions over the years by many leaders and churches that I have been happy to see. I am thankful that leaders are speaking out against short-term missions arrogance, where short-term mission trip participants go with a savior and superior mentality, as if they know everything and are the only ones who can save the world. Rather, more and more leaders are understanding and teaching how short-term missions participants need to be humble, culturally sensitive, open to learning; need to understand the importance of supporting the local, long-term missionaries and need to understand that often the greatest benefactors of the short-term mission trips are the participants.

Similarly, I am glad to see that many leaders are considering and practicing pre- and post-trip training and debriefing, to equip students before trips and enable long-term spiritual growth and fruits after the trips are completed. Like we say in our youth group, the mission trip begins when we get home. Thus, we want to make sure that missions becomes a lifestyle and not just an activity that has happened for a few days in the summer.

For the past few summers, some other thoughts have crossed my mind as I consider how our youth group and perhaps other groups could be rethinking short-term missions.

First, rethinking the cost of short-term missions. Because the economy has affected everyone, the cost of the mission trips has increased. Even the trips within our state cost money for travel, accommodations, and materials. For our group, rethinking this has meant that these past two summers, we teamed up with urban churches and created urban-suburban partnerships. In doing so, we created mission trip opportunities for our youth group students and adults that were a week long, but we met at church each morning and returned home each night. Sure, we lost some of the bonding of sleeping overnight at a location together. However, many students who could not afford to go on an overnight/out-of-state/out-of-country mission trip could now go and have a powerful short-term missions experience.

Second, rethinking the purpose of short-term mission trips. In 1996, members from our church built a church in a rural location in Vera Cruz, Mexico, after the son of one our families tragically died during a mission trip there. While it still remains a tragedy in our church history, God has used it for his good and glory. The family decided that the savings they planned to use for their son’s college education would be used to build a church in his memory. That church has become a center for refuge during the winter months in Mexico, when great flooding hits the area. Moreover, 11 other churches have been planted in the area. Our primary ministry over the years has been to encourage the local church there, as well as do Vacation Bible School (VBS) for the local children. However, in recent years, the local economy has also grown. The church has done its own VBS ministry in the few years we could not go back. And the local, rural area has given way to modernization. In all this, with the indigenous church and economy flourishing, I have begun to think during our recent trips, What is our purpose for coming here now?

Chap Clark and Kara Powell, in their book, Deep Justice in a Broken World, helped me consider this question even more deeply and how it relates to our short-term mission trips. I want to be clear that I am not saying that VBS is not an important ministry. However, what Chap and Kara are talking about is youth ministries that are “willing to do whatever it takes, for however long it takes, until the systems that perpetuates brokenness are fixed.” They talk about the idea of not just doing service but really asking the why questions of injustice and then doing something about that. Moreover, they are asking ministries to consider more than just service that helps others but rather, having a goal of justice that removes obstacles so people can eventually help themselves.

For our groups, this has meant rethinking our short-term missions to go to areas where there is a “greater” need for VBS ministry, such as Haiti. Moreover, we have worked with local missionaries in Kenya and Tanzania to build schools so that long-term change and benefit can be provided for these areas. Even building homes with Habitat for Humanity has been a powerful ministry for our group in trying to help alleviate the perpetual cycle of brokenness for some people. Our urban-suburban partnerships have been developed so that continual, long-term relationships and partnerships would be nurtured rather than just a one-time summer service trip.

Finally, we have strategically been to and are planning more short-term trips to places where “the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few” and trips to “the ends of the earth,” where the gospel is rare. Ultimately, we are trying to rethink so that we are not making repeated trips to the same places and doing the same things but are considering short-term mission trips where we can contribute to working on helping to fix the systems that perpetuate brokenness.

Helpful Resources:
Bleed Out: Stories of Christlike Compassion

Brooklyn Lindsey

Writing this slant puts the pressure on because change is what we need as we continue to pack students up with money and medical release forms for weeklong trips to serve, but change requires movement and work and a lot of intentionality.

We jump in with willing hearts and a desire to make missions a lifestyle but quickly get pulled away by the loudest things in our ministry to douse water on fires, answer phone calls from people who have the solution to all of our fundraising needs, and attend meetings that may or may not have much to do with the method and praxis of our youth ministries.

Changing the way we do short-term missions can be difficult because we’ve grown accustomed to getting by with the basics; because we know that in serving, there is power, and someone’s life is going to get changed by it regardless.

However, it’s hard to ignore the findings that say we may be off on this assumption. The work that Fuller Youth Institute did in collaboration with The Global Learning Center and Bethel College (at summits that convened with experts on short-term missions) tells us that short-term service trips might not be producing the spiritual and relational growth spurt we might expect for the long term1.

The research2, as cited in Deep Justice and Short-Term Missions curriculum, sheds some light.

• The explosive growth in the number of short-term mission trips among both kids and adults has not been accompanied by similarly explosive growth in the number of career missionaries. • It’s not clear whether participation in service trips causes participants to give more money to alleviate poverty once life returns to “normal.” • Participating in service trips does not seem to reduce participants’ tendencies toward materialism.

My husband, a thinker and a problem solver, has said on many occasions, “Why not take the $10,000 that we raise to fly us all to Mexico and send it to the locals to build 10 houses instead of us going to build one?” We raise money to travel and do work that locals could be doing, and it would benefit a lot more in need.

This thought was solidified as I read the study3 done by Dr. Kurt Ver Beek from Calvin College (after Hurricane Mitch in 1998), also noted in Deep Justice, that tells us that those receiving new homes, while overwhelmed and appreciative, would rather the money be sent in order for more homes to be built.

At the same time, youth ministers know that short-term missions are a valuable tool that help us—by way of experiential learning and cross-cultural interaction (even if it’s at an assisted living center across the street)—make a deeper and more formative impression of God’s kingdom on the hearts of our students.

So what do we do? A good start would be to use well-researched and practical help that’s been provided through others who think about missions more than we do.

I’ve been using the Justice Mission curriculum with teenagers since I was 21 years old. I’ve immersed myself in the words of Jesus and am convinced that God requires us to walk humbly, seek justice, and love mercy.

So when we are encouraged to do a better job by way of walking with students long before a trip happens, doing a better job of reflection and interaction during a trip, and making efforts to extend our debrief into our “normal” lives for ongoing transformation, we have a difficult time actually doing it.

Isn’t our problem just that? We often listen, subscribe, and hope, but we leave the concepts sitting on a shelf, lost in the past.

The apostle Paul had this same struggle. He often wished to do other things but never could seem to do them. The things he wanted to do he left alone and often did the things he didn’t want to do. Wow. Isn’t that all of us?

Where do we start? Where do I start?

We have to start with the question of why. I learned in college while studying for ministry that we must always ask, Why do you do what you do when you do it? What’s the objective? What are we after?

Why are we involving our teenagers in service and justice work? Our answer to this question will help us plan in advance for a short-term trip. It will help us teach these lessons throughout the year as a foundation for the experience we hope will have the impact.

The second and equal starting point is investing this understanding of why in our parents. Most of the time, students who come from families who understand what it means to serve tend to understand it themselves. Let’s start conversations with our parents.

Finally, it would be good to dust off our social justice shelves. Find the resources that are rich in helping us. They are there, waiting for us to customize and use to incorporate justice learning and lifestyle before we even think about painting a house or reading books to kids.

May we have grace as we grow on this journey, and may we always help each other along the way, regardless of where each youth ministry finds itself. There’s always room to grow.

Further Reading:
The Justice Mission
Deep Justice: Journeys
Deep Justice In a Broken World
The Kingdom Experiment
The Kingdom Experiment: Youth Edition
The Revolution

1. Brad Griffin, Kara Powell. Deep Justice Journeys. Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 2009.

2. Robert J. Priest, Terry Dischinger, Steve Rasmussen, C.M. Brown, “Researching the Short-Term Mission Movement,” Missiology Volume 34, no. 4, October 2006, 482-483. Volume 34, number 4, October 2006, 431-450.

3. Kurt Ver Beek, “The Impact of Short-Term Missions: A Case Study of House Construction in Honduras After Hurricane Mitch,”

Claire Smith

There’s a fine line we walk when it comes to short-term missions. That line is between selfless serving and self-gratification; between overbearing and/or subtle patronizing ways of relating and relationships of mutuality as equal members of God’s creation; between seeking a lesson for youth to learn how privileged they are and finding an opportunity to live out God’s love; between a romanticized trip and being a part of what God is doing in the world.

I find it alarming when people think a good incentive to get others to participate in short-term missions is that you get more out of it than you give. When this is the primary lesson with which we return, it’s called self-gratification. Similarly, but in some ways differently, we can fail to see the people to whom we go as equally valued creatures of God who may need our support and empathy rather than our pity. Oddly enough, those less fortunate materially can make us feel superior and better about ourselves, often at the subconscious level. Thus, we return with the story that begins, “Imagine, they did not even have…”

It is no wonder parents and youth workers use short-term missions as a way to teach students how privileged they are so they can better appreciate what they have. There is also the romantic glow that surrounds short-term mission and prevents us from seeing ourselves as laborers together with Christ—God’s servants. In these cases, mission is about us and not about God and God’s people. In other words, we have de-centered God.

There is a way, however, in which we can go on short-term missions (call it a different name, maybe) to witness to God’s love and join in what God is already doing. We then share, learn, value, dwell with God and God’s people, seeing ourselves as God’s servants.

Mission begins with God. It is about God and God’s people. Mission is characteristic of who we are as Christians rather than periodic activities for self-centered reasons. Here is my definition of mission: Mission is the witness of God’s people to God’s love as seen in Jesus Christ as they respond to God calling and sending them out in the power of the Holy Spirit to participate in God’s mission.

This means that who we are, what we say, and what we do individually and collectively in our congregations and youth groups should always reflect the life of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ demonstrated the love of God through loving God and others, reconciliation, right relations with God and people, forgiveness, and newness. Furthermore, we witness in and through the enablement that comes from the Holy Spirit and not in our own strength. Jesus, by his own confession, did and said nothing on his own (John 5:30). Can you see why God has to be at the center of mission?

Rethinking short-term missions, therefore, begins with questioning and challenging our understanding of mission to see if it lines up with Jesus’ statement: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (John 20:21). It means studying the life of Jesus Christ so that we understand our pattern. If we engage in short-term mission, it should be a natural part of who we are as a congregation, as a youth group. We’ve already been witnessing at home. We are now extending our call to witness to God’s love further afield. If we are not witnessing at home, why are we bothering to go somewhere else?

Why do you want to do short-term missions? Is that an appropriate name?

Reference: Smith, Claire. “Mission: Avoiding Fragmentation, Living in Love.” Loving God, Loving Neighbor: Ministry With Searching Youth. Sondra Matthaei, ed. Xlibris, 2008, 127-144.

What are youth workers' roles in "community development" in their own cities?

Steve Argue

Due to the limited space here, I’ll lay out my assumptions pertaining to this question. I’m going to focus on paid/professional youth workers because I think there are different expectations based on the nature of their roles versus volunteer youth workers who are equally qualified but have more limited resources. Second, I’m going to define community development as the process of helping the community develop to its full potential through empowering individuals and groups.

Youth workers must have a commitment to the whole person. Often, youth ministry forces false dichotomies, creating sacred and secular. This has often led youth ministry to emphasize the spiritual at the expense of the equally sacred aspects of the adolescent. While it is essential that youth workers mentor young people in spiritual disciplines and in the practices of their faith community, adolescents also need help learning, relating to their parents, negotiating peer influences, and dealing with pressures at home, neighborhood, school, and society. Youth talks, Bible studies, and lock-ins get lost in translation unless youth workers see a more complex and colorful adolescent.

This also means that the youth worker must see elements of community development as an essential part of the gospel, not as a means to an end. When we start “meeting the needs of adolescents” in order to “tell them the gospel,” we reinforce a sacred/secular dichotomy that bifurcates rather than integrates adolescents. Instead, we must bring “good news” and “gospel” back together.

What is interesting is that in Matthew 25, where Jesus pronounces judgment over the sheep and goats, we observe that Jesus highlights gospel in terms of what good news means to the poor, the hungry, the lonely, and the sick. I’d suggest, then, that instead of youth workers merely defining gospel in abstract concepts, they re-imagine gospel as good news as defined by young people in their communities. The question youth workers must ask each adolescent is, What is good news to you? Appreciating these answers may change youth ministry’s assumptions, budgets, programs, and approaches.

Youth workers must have a commitment to the whole community. Christian Smith’s work (also referenced in Andy Root’s work) claims that youth ministries often subscribe to “free-will individualism” and “anti-structuralism” that ignores systemic problems within society, placing the problem and the solution on the individual. An overemphasis on the individual misses the systemic problems that affect young people (poverty, racism, family systems, education, policy, etc.).

In my estimation, this assumption creates a misunderstood role of the youth worker in the broader community. Some youth workers operate as if they are the only true game in town, living in competition with other youth groups or assuming that it’s up to them alone to “save” this generation in their community. Lack of true partnership with other churches, schools, government, social services, counselors, etc., fosters an unrealistic perspective of how best to serve one’s community through youth ministry. The SEARCH Institute’s 40 Developmental Assets are a helpful step toward rethinking what your youth ministry’s role is within the whole community and how youth workers can lead, follow, and partner with others advocating for adolescents within their communities.

Youthworkers must have a commitment to their whole discipline. My first two points likely make my last point obvious: Youth ministry that is committed to community development calls for a different kind of youth worker. Gone are the days where youth workers’ job descriptions were merely about programming and hanging out with kids. Those committed to a whole gospel for the whole community must have the knowledge and skills to appreciate sociology, adolescent development, theology, and community partnership (with teachers, parents, civic leaders). This past week, our student ministry team spent time reflecting on the major strands of adolescent/emerging adulthood research and theology we believe must inform our ministry practices. Conversations like these are reframing our roles, reestablishing our priorities, and remaking us as youth workers.

Community development, therefore, needs youth worker development.

Mike King

This is an interesting question. The phrase community development became a part of our culture’s vernacular during the 2008 presidential campaign because of President Obama’s past role as a community organizer. The phrase community development has defined organized and ongoing efforts dedicated to improving community life, especially focused on caring for those who have been marginalized.

Recently the phrase community development is increasingly used more broadly to describe efforts to improve the quality of life and deal with challenging issues in our residential communities, especially within neglected urban centers. A growing number of Christians who believe that engagement in social justice is a part of God’s missional calling are using the phrase community development to define their activities of service and ministry within needy communities. I have used this language because I live among networks of Christians who use this nomenclature.

However, as I have considered an answer to this question, I suggest that we use the phrase community development frugally and specifically. There are people who have been called vocationally into community development. I think we belittle their work when we call sporadic service projects the same thing. When our youth ministries and churches engage in meaningful work that blesses our communities, we are behaving missionally and honoring God. It is important for God’s people to participate in God’s mission to help those in need, to extend mercy, and to work for justice.

Our activities of service should be intentional and ongoing. The church of Jesus Christ exists to engage in God’s mission. The church is to be about blessing the world, not itself. Our commitment to follow God in the way of Jesus sends us into the world to serve God, our communities, and our neighbors so that God’s will may be done on earth as it is in heaven. The church is called to embody the love of God in our communities, our cities, and throughout the world.

Serving communities in proximity to where we live for the love of God and love of neighbor is crucial if we desire to embody the great good news. It is the role of a youth worker to help our young people understand what it means to participate in God’s mission in the world. Too often we depend on the Mission Trip to shape our kids missionally. The mission trip may result in wonderful ministry, but it can create a distorted theology of mission.

In fact, I will go so far as to say that short-term mission trips should be suspended until you find a meaningful way to serve in proximity to where you live. If we (youth workers) do not build a missional ethos and behavior in our own communities first, we reinforce the tragic idea that serving God is something done “over there.” Missional thinking and living must be rooted in the here and now if it is to become a way of life. If your response to suspending short-term mission trips is concern for the people you serve “over there,” wherever “over there” is, then I suggest sending the foreign mission a portion of the money your youth group would spend to go “over there.” In the future, make faithful involvement in serving communities locally a prerequisite to going on a short-term mission trip.

I think we should reserve the phrase community development until we are deeply, regularly, and sustainably involved in serving and living within a particular community of need. Even if we are involved with works of mercy and actions of justice as we participate in God’s mission in a particular community over a long period of time, I still think we would be remiss to call our efforts community development. I believe one must actually live in the community of need one is serving to be able to consider the efforts community development.

I see an ever-increasing number of Christians relocating to communities that have been neglected by churches, government, and society in general. I admire those who move into certain neighborhoods for the purpose of living missionally. We should connect our youth groups with these bold missionaries and develop consistent and deep partnership to glorify God by embodying the gospel in communities that have been forgotten.

Andy Root

I have to begin by saying that I’ve never really thought about this question as it’s being posed here. So that means, at least in my mind, that I can take back everything I say here if later I think it blows. Deal?

I think youth workers have absolutely no role in community development and yet everything to do with it. What I mean is that I think our purpose in ministry is to participate in the action of God; our concern is to seek out what God is doing in the world of young people. But God’s action comes from God’s future. God acts from the place of the resurrection, from the location of the new humanity and new creation, encountering all that is not the new, seeking to act to bring it into God’s redemptive life. The youth worker’s role is to participate in this action, to seek to place him or herself at the location of God’s action in world, to have eyes to see those places in the world where God is encountering death for the sake of life. It is the gospel that is the youth worker’s reason for being.

That said, to participate in God’s action in the world is to partake in the world; it is to delve deeply into the reality of the world. So the youth worker may very well participate in community development by providing outlets for the homeless or hungry or basketball programs for elementary-age kids. But these outlets exist not to develop social capital and lower crime rates (thought that’s not bad) but to witness to God’s action bringing forth the redemptive. The youth worker organizes these outlets as a concrete way of pointing to God’s future, a future where no one is without a home, a meal, or safety; the youth worker does these things as way of pointing to God’s action. The goal is not necessarily to be a community developer but to participate with God in the world, which can (and in some contexts will) lead to community development.

This means that success in ministry is viewed in a different way. If you see yourself as a community developer, than you have only succeeded when all homelessness and hunger are gone, when everyone is fed and sheltered. Anything short of this is short of success. The church does proclaim that society and structure must act to make human life human, using its structure to keep people from the dehumanization of homelessness and hunger. This is the church’s—the youth worker’s—prophetic calling. If you are the one who does this, then you are only successful when all problems are wiped away.

But from an eschatological perspective, from the perspective of God’s redemptive act, the youth worker’s actions of shelter and feeding come not with the naïve belief that they end homeless and poverty but with powerful proclamation that these acts, even small—feeding just this one child—witness to God’s future that is even now on its way into the world through the church’s action. Success in ministry is not solving every community problem but entering the problems and acting as a way of participating in God’s future.

How is caring for the environment practicing justice?

Jim Hampton

As someone who teaches at a seminary, it is not uncommon for me to hear students discuss issues about which they care deeply. These range from the care of migrant workers to how to reduce nuclear proliferation to providing healthcare reform.

When they engage each other and these issues, their passion is evident. They are finding ways to be involved because they believe they can make a difference, bringing justice to the world.

What I almost never hear from them is that the way they care (or don’t care) for the environment is as much a justice issue as any of these other items. For too many people, our tendency is to hear the word environment and immediately think of tree huggers, environmentalist wackos, or eco-terrorists. And just like with any issue, there are those on the far fringes who give a bad name to the majority of those who are in the mainstream.

The reality, however, is that both Scripture and orthodox theology are unfailing in their reminders that all Christians are called to care for the environment. “God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth’” (Genesis 1:28). It’s clear that “dominion” here clearly means stewardship or nurturing management, not selfish exploitation.

As stewards, we are called to serve God. The garden is his, and humanity is given the opportunity to rule it, to subdue it, and to nurture it in such a way that it continues to thrive in the way God intended. God’s good gifts are given to humanity to oversee. These gifts are not merely for the sake of humanity. They are God’s gifts, given as part of his created order and expressive of his very nature.

When we understand that the environment is really an issue of caring for and nurturing God’s gift, then we begin to understand that it is much more than just about being green. It really comes down to an understanding that, as my former colleague Sandra Richter says,

“the garden belongs to Yahweh…[and humanity] was given the privilege to rule and the responsibility to care for this garden under the sovereignty of their divine lord. This was the ideal plan--a world in which [humankind] would succeed in constructing the human civilization by directing and harnessing the amazing resources of the planet under the wise direction of their Creator. Here there would always be enough, progress would not necessitate pollution, expansion would not demand extinction.¹

When we understand our role as stewards in this way, we view creation care not just as the work of a few but “as an integral part of the faithful following of Jesus Christ and the worship of the Holy Trinity… We are to serve and honor God by caring for his creatures; to worship and glorify God by our work and our enjoyment of the garden God planted.²

So what does this mean for those of us in youth ministry? Let me suggest a few items to think about.

1) That we be intentional about teaching our students (and sponsors) what it means to be stewards of the earth. Our teenagers are idealistic, desperately wanting to make a difference in the world. They may not yet see creation care as a justice issue, but if we show them what the Bible has to say about their role, it may well become one of the most important issues to them, since it affects not just them but the rest of humanity as well.

2) That we be intentional about reducing our impact on the earth. Think about the typical youth group party or activity—lots of paper plates, napkins, and Styrofoam or plastic cups—all of which end up in the landfill, most of which takes a long time (hundreds of years) to properly degrade. In what ways can your group practice recycling or even using plates and cups that can be washed and reused?

3) That we be intentional about renewing the earth. Look around your community and find areas that need the nurture and care of your teenagers. Invite them to see this as an act of justice as they create (or renew) something that benefits others as well as nurtures God’s good gift.

In short, being good stewards of the environment is a justice issue. Love of God requires respect for God's gifts and for God's will for creation. Love of neighbor requires justice, which prohibits the selfish destruction of the environment without regard for those in need today or for the needs of future generations.³

Sandra Richter, “Stewardship of the Environment: A Christian Value,” Unpublished paper, Asbury Theological Seminary, 2004. Snyder, Howard. “Holiness of Heart and Life in a Postmodern World” in Grace and Holiness in a Changing World: A Wesleyan Proposal for Postmodern Ministry (eds. Jeffrey Greenway and Joel B. Green). Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2007. Mick, Fr. Lawrence E. Liturgy and Ecology in Dialogue. The Liturgical Press. Collegeville, Minnesota, USA. 1997.

Mike King

The Psalmist declares, “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it” (Psalm 24:1, NRSV). “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31, NRSV). God created human beings and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth” (Genesis 1:28, NRSV). “Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it” (Genesis 2:15, NASB).

These verses make it clear that God created all that was made and declares that it was all very good. Human beings were entrusted to care for God’s creation.

God’s creative work was good and whole, so God ceased creating on the seventh day. Shalom saturated all of God’s creation, a shalom of wholeness, peace, and beauty. This shalom was to be the state in which all of God’s creation existed and flourished. But as the creation narrative unfolds, we are told that human beings sinned and disobeyed God, introducing a brokenness that would bring destruction and interruption to God’s shalom for all creation. Human beings are not the only part of creation to bear the consequences and brokenness of sin. In Romans 8, Paul tells us that creation itself is in bondage to decay and that the whole creation has been groaning.

Francis Schaeffer wrote, "...nature: it is not our own. It belongs to God, and we are to exercise our dominion over these things not as though entitled to exploit them, but as things borrowed or held in trust.

We are to use them realizing they are not ours intrinsically. Man's dominion is under God's dominion" (Pollution and the Death of Man, 1970, p. 69).

God’s mission is to redeem and restore creation to shalom. God is liberator and has invited the people of God to join as co-agents of restoration. Unfortunately, we have not cooperated very well with the Spirit of God. In fact, for the most part, it seems that we have worked against God’s plan. Wendell Berry declares, “Our destruction of nature is not just bad stewardship, or stupid economics, or a betrayal of family responsibility; it is the most horrid blasphemy. It is flinging God's gifts into his face, as of no worth beyond that assigned to them by our destruction of them”(Cross Currents, Summer93, Vol. 43 Issue 2, p149, 15p.). In response to Berry’s assertion, I pray, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy upon me, a sinner.

How can we, God’s children, participate in such sloppy stewardship (at best) or flippant destructive behavior (as the norm) toward God’s wonderful creation? Yes, I understand how a whole generation of our fathers and mothers were turned off to environmental issues by tree-hugging crazies, but we must get beyond that stereotype and get on with recovering a theological and scriptural warrant for engaging in environmental justice.

Using the phrase “environmental justice” works for me for several reasons. First of all, our world belongs to God, and to misuse it is an injustice toward God. Secondly, it is often the poorest and most marginalized people who experience the greatest harm from a sick environment.

It wasn’t that long ago (40 years) when throwing trash out the car window wasn’t that big of a deal. But today, few people would even consider littering. The young people in our youth groups are much more environmentally aware today than the older generations of their youth workers. We have a wonderful opportunity to help them see that this is more than a political issue. This is a theological issue. This is a biblical issue. This is a spiritual issue. We must help our young people see how environmental care is a significant part of the narrative of God’s work of restoration.

I remember being mesmerized by the enchanted planet Pandora in the movie Avatar. The 3D animation allowed the flying creatures and animals to escape the screen and enter the movie theater. The luminescent fauna and flora were exotic. It hit me, as I watched the ground illuminate around each footprint of Neytiri and Jake as they navigated the mysteriously beautiful rainforest, that the planet I live on is equally enchanted. The beauty of creation is all around me—trees, flowers, clouds, sunsets, rainfall, thunder and lightning, waterfalls, mountains, streams, deserts; plus, creatures of all shapes, sizes, and kinds too numerous to count. What a wonderful world we live in, and what an amazing Creator we have. We have been blessed to live on such an amazingly beautiful planet. For the glory of God, let’s steward well that which has been entrusted to us by our Creator.

Dave Rahn

I’m pretty sure the weight of the argument for promoting justice comes from Micah’s (6:8) succinct summary of what most of the prophets had to say: “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”

“Deep justice” conversations (spotlighted by Fuller Youth Institute) have become all the rage in youth ministry; this is clearly a wonderful corrective to shallow ministry approaches. It is clear that the favored son in this question is the idea of practicing justice. But is this critically important concept worthy of being elevated to a status previously reserved for only the grandest purposes of God—to love God and our neighbors with all our hearts, souls, and minds; to participate with God as agents of reconciliation until all things are right in the created order; to glorify God and make him known throughout all the world?

I confess that I wish the key word in these discussions were reconciliation instead of justice. Something powerful and almost exclusively related to my systemic social obligations as a Christian gets watered down when I press the concept of justice into larger service.

On the other side of the equation, I feel I have to reframe the idea of justice to accommodate my interpersonal service and truth-telling obligations. I believe that justice is a strong and demanding arena of obedience for Christians. We ought to be careful that we don’t dilute the strength of justice by stretching it too far and asking it to carry too much.

Caring for the environment is part of what it means to be an agent of reconciliation. Every relationship in the universe—including how I interact with creation—has been fractured because of sin. Jesus’ grand plan is to reverse the trajectory of this spiritual and moral Big Bang, uniting all things in him (Ephesians 1:10). I fully embrace this vision of what it means for me to follow Christ.

Having said that, I still stare with appreciation into the heart of this question. It introduces me to a connection I’ve never made before. Given the definitions I would prefer (but not insist on—I’m a pretty amiable fellow on such matters!), it is still likely that my own choices to care for the environment have ripple effects that extend to social systems and their impact on the poor. Recycling is probably not a first-generation justice issue, like, say, cheating the poor out of their due wages. But a planet that is sick affects everyone, and it is almost a certainty that those who are weakest have the least capacity to stave off their demise. In God’s ultimate design of an interdependent world, I can either victimize or help rescue others with every choice I act upon—including those that are green.

The question on the table infers that we might engage in justice-practicing strategies that focus on environmental care. I want to humbly suggest that this is an unnecessary roundabout. Let’s practice justice and care for the environment as matters of personal obedience and simple trust in God. We should not feel the need to do advanced mathematical calculations about the way he connects the dots.

Can you practice justice without practicing cross-cultural communion?

Danny Kwon

I have learned that justice itself can be defined in many diverse ways, even among our Christian faith traditions. For example, liberation theology is about the realities of poverty and oppression and the commitment of Christians to struggle for liberation. Within this paradigm, God is a God of liberation, and his love is expressed in his justice and liberation of the oppressed. Justice is also part of the salvation paradigm of liberation theology, and injustice is something that has been structured and institutionalized by those in power.

In Catholic social teachings, there are underlying idealistic truths and foundations that any faith tradition that seeks to ameliorate injustice and champion justice issues can promote. For example, the Catholic tradition is rooted in three affirmations—the dignity of the human person, the social nature of human beings, and the belief that the abundance of nature and social living is given for all people. Subsequently, the dignity of each person created in God’s image and the transcendental worth of each person is foundational to Catholic social teaching. From this, Catholic tradition often links economic justice with issues of participation and political rights. Catholic teaching on justice also has a great concern for the poor and notes the treatment of the poor as a “litmus test” for the justice or injustice of a society.

Reinhold Neibuhr’s Protestant paradigm of justice begins with love. Yet Neibuhr follows this premise with the fact that human sin distorts the reality of the perfect harmony of love and stresses the fact that humans are fallen creatures. Within the realm of sin and fallen humanity, however, Neibuhr also raises the possibility of justice that is capable of improvement but which always reflects the partiality of human perspectives and is always within the conditions created by sin.

I believe that in considering what others are saying about justice, I can begin to consider how I define justice and how I want to practice it. Because if I do not do that—whether it be as a youth worker serving and leading others or as an individual—then the question of cross-cultural communion is moot. I want to have a profound definition of justice that will seek to nurture something so vital as cross-cultural communion.

During my last trip to Kenya—our second trip for our youth group—we were finishing building a school for children that we had begun the summer before. A picture of our youth group mission team hung on the front entrance of the church as some sort of memorial. I am really adverse to such hero worship of short-term mission teams. But I realized at that moment that unlike other trips, the school was more than just a one-summer fix for the Kenyan students we were meeting and ministering to. It would serve as a long-term solution to educate and equip a generation of students who would otherwise be subject to the injustice of not having such an education.

This reality and feelings about justice and injustice are something that Chap Clark and Kara Powell express in their book, Deep Justice in a Broken World. Moreover, it has shaped not only our understanding of justice but how we practice missions. I realized that embracing and fighting for justice means more than just temporary solutions. Practically speaking, it is more than just a summer mission trip or a trip to a soup kitchen. It is a change in my fundamental worldview and paradigm of justice, especially in the church. It means teaming up and supporting the efforts of missionaries who are on the front lines of need. It is asking the question of why things are the way they are in each context and then doing something about it. It means seeking out solutions that will combat injustice for a lifetime.

When it comes to this type of justice, Martin Luther King Jr. said it most appropriately when he stated that “true compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars need restructuring.” Similarly, Professor James Lawson of Vanderbilt University stated that “if you do not deal with the socioeconomic and political forces that inhibit people and create torture and cruelty, you can’t make progress toward justice.”

Ultimately, it is this type of justice that has helped our youth ministry and church to begin to see that justice, by definition, is cross-cultural communion. In seeking to understand the injustice of others and not just what we may think, we are moving across culture to seek true communion to restore justice systemically and holistically.

Lilly Lewin

Thanks to Glenn Beck, the word justice and the idea of practicing justice have gotten a lot of press lately. Somehow we’ve given “liberty and justice for all” a bad name. The Bible is filled with references to living justly. And there are many references making sure that the widow and orphan and the alien are taken care of and not take advantage of while they are among the people of God.

So, how should we live? How does this change us? Or does it?

According to Bible Gateway (www.biblegateway.com), the word justice appears in the NASB more than 100 times.

Micah 6:7-9 (New American Standard Bible):

“Does the Lord take delight in thousands of rams, in ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I present my firstborn for my rebellious acts, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

I don’t believe that our churches have to be culturally diverse in order for us to practice justice. I do believe, though, that we must have an understanding of other cultures in order to live justly. We must have exposure, and we must take time to gain understanding of where other people come from in order to understand their needs and really learn to love them.

If I’d never been broke and had my electricity cut off, I wouldn’t have the ability to understand how scary and humiliating this can be—when you are working your hardest and it’s still not enough. If you’ve never been denied health insurance or unable to get it because of a lack of money or a preexisting condition, then you cannot understand why people want reform and justice in this area. I’m waiting to hear back from an insurance company right now to see if they will cover my family and me. We actually have the money to pay, but our preexisting conditions and medication needs may cause us to get declined anyway.

If you’ve never been poor, it’s hard to understand all the painful aspects of not having enough money. If you’ve never gone without food, you cannot know the shame it feels to have to ask for help just to pay for the basics. And it is very easy to criticize those seeking justice for the least of these when you have a great deal of money and have not had to suffer much yourself.

Living justly involves learning to walk in another person’s moccasins; to see life through someone else’s eyes and experiences; to understand how others think, how they live, and why they do what they do. There are always different sides and multiple opinions on what is just and how one should live justly in the world.

For me, it involves beginning to look at the world through the eyes of God. God sees us all equally. He doesn’t rate us on our clothing, our lack of clothing, the cars we drive or the lack of a car, the houses we live in or lack of a house. God looks at our hearts, not the color of our skin or our countries of origin.

Are we loving people? Are we serving people? Are we considering others before ourselves? Do we realize that how we live and how we choose to spend our money and our time really does have an impact on others and their lives? Do we choose action or inaction?

Does it matter if I buy a shirt or a soccer ball that may have been made by children? Does it matter if I choose to keep buying water in plastic bottles? Does it matter if I recycle? Does it matter that kids are sold into slavery because their parents cannot afford to feed or clothe them?

This can all feel overwhelming and impossible, but difficulty cannot be an excuse for inactivity.

I have learned that it does matter how I spend my money and my time. I can share more with those who have less than I do. I can make better choices. And can I can encourage my students and my own children to see how blessed they are and that our job as followers of Jesus is to live out Matthew 25:40. Then we really will be doing justice.

Andy Root

Talk of justice has been popping up everywhere. It used to be a kind of code word for mainline liberals, but lately evangelicals have turned their attention toward justice as well. That said, I think it is important that we remember that justice (from a theological perspective) is not something we (as human agents) primarily do. It is God who brings God’s justice and often bringing God’s justice through God’s very judgment.

So while I think it has been important that we’ve taken this turn toward speaking of justice and encouraging young people to participate in justice-seeking action, it’s odd to me that when we talk about justice, we rarely talk about the judgment of God or God’s action at all. It is God who brings God’s judgment, and it isn’t necessarily a judgment of right and wrong but a judgment that seeks to bring the redemption of creation and the bursting forth of the new humanity.

God surely judges but not like a rigid teacher or a popular clique making comments on your new school wardrobe. When God judges, God seeks to bring forth justice, to bring forth within creation the new, to make things right, by God in God-self asserting that what is cannot be and then acting to bring forth the new creation and the new humanity.

Then can you practice justice without practicing cross-cultural communion? Maybe practicing justice is not about human effort or programs but participating in God’s action by coming under God’s judgment, knowing that when God judges (God kills), God always brings back to life. And this witnesses to the new creation that is on its way. So maybe you can practice justice without cross-cultural communion because justice is first and foremost about participating in God’s action, not in some kind human program.

However, it just may be that to participate in God’s action of justice is to be drawn into cross-cultural communion. A driving reality of the old, a driving reality of the broken world that God is acting to redeem through God’s justice, is that we are divided culturally and ethnically, and these divisions turn difference into the playing field of violence. Therefore, it just may be that to participate in God’s own action of justice, which is to bring forth the new creation and new humanity—where there is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female—demands that we ourselves be swept up into actions and relationships across every boundary.

So my point is that cross-cultural communion may be necessary for justice, not because it will work or because it is right, but because it is where God is found actively bringing forth God’s new reality. Justice is to participate with God.

There’s one more point to add. If we follow this way of thinking—that God is the one who brings justice and we are called not to do our own justice but to participate in God’s action and if God’s action of justice comes through God’s action of judgment—then why doesn’t youth ministry ever talk about God’s judgment?

I’m not advocating some kind of spiritually abusive self-esteem drain, but we take kids all over the globe into contexts ravaged by corruption, poverty, and racism, and rarely are these trips constructed in a way to help kids be open to listening for the judgment of God, of actually being judged by God. We usually just stick to helping kids feel like they have made a difference (with a rhetoric of do-goodism), but maybe—and I know this takes a lot more thinking—mission trips and service projects are not just about what we do but about participating in the judgment of God as a blessing to others. Maybe kids should hear God’s “No.”

According to studies (like some in the excellent book Divided by Faith, by Michael Emerson), a major reason that cross-cultural communion doesn’t happen is that people in power tend not to want to face the past and its judgment, while people who have felt the sting of oppression wonder how they can move forward in communion without the past being judged.

What is the difference between embodying justice and performing just acts?

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Chris Folmsbee

To embody something is to personify it or to be an ideal example. Justice is making wrongs right. Hence, to embody justice is to be a living and active illustration of what it means to make right the wrongs of this world. This embodied, consistent justice comes out of who a person is and has become—out of their way or rule of life.

To simply perform a just act is not to consistently embody but rather to occasionally take action. Taking occasional action on behalf of others is morally and spiritually fitting. Dependably embodying justice, though, is more. It is morally and spiritually forming in both self and others.

Dependable embodiment stems from a life of attentiveness, discipline, and selfless practice. And though it may be created through the above description, it is formerly birthed out of a holy love that is wrought by God and God’s grace, showered upon humanity—which, consequently, is passed on through the varied expressions of the one love that began it all. These expressions are performed in the hopes of righting what has been wronged because ultimately, God is a merciful God, and because of that, humanity still has the capability of being a compassionate people.

So the difference between embodying justice and performing a just act is quite simple. Where the question begs, Should I act justly?, there is most often standing a person who performs justice as an occasional act. Where the question begs, What kind of a person will I become if I don’t embody justice?, it is there that the consistent person stands and the morally and spiritually forming habit of righting wrongs takes up residence.

Just acts are morally and spiritually fitting, and the embodiment of justice is morally and spiritually forming. Inside of these truths one can appraise his life and answer the question, Do I embody justice, or do I simply perform acts of justice?

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Brooklyn Lindsey

What if Christ had this same mindset—viewing setting things straight as a side job or something he needed to do as a part of his ministry plan? Love wouldn’t allow him to view it that way. It was who he was—a just man, a just God, and a just Spirit.

Embodying justice in our lives, ministries, and future plans often calls us to really believe the stuff we say about justice. Doing justice becomes a response to a God we are beginning to understand more fully because we’ve allowed the Spirit to teach us and show us how to live.

And how should we live? Micah throws us an answer by saying that we should seek justice and walk humbly with God.

Humility is something I’m familiar with but not something I’m comfortable with. I’m not great at admitting when I’m wrong or when I don’t have an answer. I would like to say that I’m a person who thinks about justice more than most, but I still struggle with getting so focused on me that I forget that God wants justice to be a part of the definition of who I am.

While attending seminary, I was immersed in a more diverse culture. There were students and professors who understood what it meant to be “the least of these.” Through their eyes, for the first time, I began to see what it meant to live justly. It would have to begin with the attitude of my heart, the content of my words, the way I viewed those affected by the just acts of others.

It was a defining moment for me, to learn about justice from a new perspective, and I began to think differently, view life through different lenses, and speak differently too. Justice couldn’t be the end goal anymore. It would have to be a way of life for me, even when life gets full and loud and demanding.

With that said, I hope to seek justice with my mind and heart. It’s important to find ways to understand what justice is and what it means to those who receive it. After all, we’ve received justice that we didn’t deserve.

I’m still standing. There’s a movie playing for my daughter in the background to keep her from saying my name too many times as I write, and I realize that embodying justice is a journey on a path to the kingdom Christ has called us all to seek—even if that path lies in the simple and crazy life of a youth pastor’s house. Seek justice. Walk humbly. These are words not just to live by—but words to be defined by.

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Claire Smith

Have you ever had the distinct feeling that you were left out because you were different? Have you ever been in a situation where what people received was determined by whom they knew and/or what they had? Maybe you have even benefited from this. Where was the justice?

Justice is about access to the abundant life God intends for all. Everyone is able to participate in life, especially the disadvantaged. James 1:27 expresses a clear preference for the vulnerable, the widows and orphans, representing those who are denied entry into all of society.

There are some people for whom justice is about getting even. “I want justice,” we hear, void of compassion. Yes, actions have consequences. We need law and order. However, blind desire for one’s rights will destroy the very essence of justice because in our blindness we easily destroy those who stand in our way.

So I’m talking about justice that pertains to God’s reign and desires that were embodied by Jesus. In refusing to pass the blind man on the road whom everyone else tried to shut up (Mark 10:46-51), Jesus made a declaration: Even if nobody else values you, I will. Warren Carter points out the way in which Jesus’ ministry struck at the very structures of society. He notes of Matthew 22:34-40, “[Jesus’]declaration resists every societal system that benefits a few at the expense of the rest and deprives people of necessary life-giving resources…protests all such injustice and oppression as contrary to God’s will.”1

We hear it on the lips of Amos when he spoke out against bribery and the rich having their way at the expense of the poor: “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 4:24).<

Justice is a lifestyle issue. Yes. It’s okay to do good deeds and engage in right actions. Many people benefit from these just acts, and we feel good. We share a part of our lives for a moment, or moments. But could we go deeper and live it and act to bring about structural changes that last for more than a moment?

Here are some more questions that will help us:

Do you have to force yourself to notice those who are different from you and involve them, or do you do this as a matter of course?

Are you quick to speak up for and take action on behalf of those who cannot do so for themselves, or do you have to be pressured or cajole into doing this?

Do you by your position and influence stand in the way of those who need access? Which oppressive structure(s) are you effecting?

Last question.

Are you living like Jesus?

Am I going to make a push for you to encourage and/or empower young people to embody justice? No. Take it as said. We need to move from episodic acts to lifestyles of justice.

But I am going to ask you: How do you embody justice in your activities and relationships in your youth ministry? What do your structures perpetuate? Who is in and who is out? This is where it takes root.

Lisa Sharon Harper

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How should we be rethinking short-term missions?

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What are youth workers' roles in "community development" in their own cities?

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How is caring for the environment practicing justice?

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Can you practice justice without practicing cross-cultural communion?

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What is the difference between embodying justice and performing just acts?

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