A Troubling Week

This has been a deeply troubling week for me. Our nation is reeling economically and the anxiety level is palpable. The non-stop coverage by the media on this issue seems only to fuel the fear and tension. And with 40 some days to the election, the skeptic within me questions how politicized every solution offered actually is (and I write this at 9:25 AM, just minutes before President Bush is slated to make another statement on the bailout plan).

I am not an economist; my understanding of the issues on Wall Street from both a macro and micro level is incredibly limited. I have been accused by some to be both politically and economically naive. That may be true. But I do know that I am deeply troubled this week.$700 billion is a whole lot of money; more money that I can wrap my brain around. And I don't know what would happen (and or will) if the bailout plan isn't resolved quickly.

This recent statement from Bono only adds fuel to the stirring in my soul. He said, "it's extraordinary to me that the United States can find $700 billion to save Wall Street and the entire G8 can't find $25 billion dollars to saved 25,000 children who die every day from preventable diseases."

Every Friday I join with people from around the globe and pray the Micah Challenge. "And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6:8). The Micah Challenge is committed to praying for and working toward a 50% reduction in global poverty by 2015.

Recently, a group of evangelical leaders from the Church in the Global South issued a pastoral letter to the Church in the United States. The letter highlights the great good that the United States has done in the developing world. Millions of lives have been saved through relief and development efforts undertaken by both the US government and through the generosity of both private citizens and the community of faith. This week, as I have been thinking about some of the heroes in our community of faith, I have a great sense of pride and joy in the individuals, families, and groups who are bringing real help and hope to the children of Guraghe, Ethiopia. Through our partnership with World Vision, the root causes of poverty, disease, and death are not only being confronted but being defeated as new life and hope is springing forth.

And yet, despite a commitment we made as a nation to join with other G8 nations to the goal spending 0.7 percent of their GNP on global aid, the United States, is at the bottom of the list of what the G8 nations have contributed toward the reduction of poverty, disease, and death, spending just 0.16 percent of its income on development assistance and poverty reduction.

And so, in the midst of a deeply troubling week, I invite you to prayerfully read this pastoral letter to the Church in the United States. Let us have ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church.

TO THE CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES

As the Church of the Lord in what is known as the “Southern” part of the world, moved by the Holy Spirit to fight for the abundant life that Jesus Christ offers, we address our Christian family in the United States, a Church of the same covenant, faith and love. Grace and Peace to all of our brothers and sisters.

We know your works of love; these works have allowed millions of human beings for many generations in our countries in the South to receive the gospel, the Grace of Jesus Christ and the power of His Salvation. The U.S. church’s untiring missionary effort planted in our lands Hope in Him who came to reconcile EVERYTHING.

Nevertheless, the political, social and economic situation in the places where this hope has been announced is increasingly distressing. Millions of people in the global South are dying of hunger, violence and injustice. These situations of poverty and pain are not simply the product of the internal functions of our countries; rather they are the results of the international policies of the governments that wield global power.

Therefore, we have this against you, brothers and sisters, that along with this powerful announcing of the Gospel, the Church from the United States has not also raised its voice in protest against the injustices that powerful governments and institutions are inflicting on the global South - injustices that afflict the lives and ecosystems of millions of people who, centuries after the proclamation of the Gospel, still have not seen the sweat of their brow turned into bread.

The worsening inequality and poverty in the South is alarming. Seven years since the United States and 191 other nations publicly promised to cut extreme global poverty in half by the year 2015 through the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), your country has made only a little progress towards fulfilling its commitments. The MDGs should stir us to action because they echo the calls of the biblical prophets for justice and equity. Further, they are achievable and measurable markers on the roadmap to end extreme global poverty.

And so we ask you as sisters and brothers, citizens of the wealthiest most powerful nation on earth, to publicly challenge your candidates and political leaders – now and after the elections are over - to lead the world in the struggle to cut global poverty in half by 2015. If you who know the Truth will not speak for us who will?

The Church in the United States has the opportunity today to be faithful to the Hope that it preaches. We urge you to remember that the Hope to which you were called as a messenger demands that you seek first the Kingdom of God and God’s justice.

Out of love for us, the global Church, in holiness, use your citizenship responsibly for the benefit of the entire world; it is for this very reason that the Lord poured out His life on the Cross.

All who have ears, let them hear what the Lord says to His Church.

Just One Question

The first presidential debate is less than ONE week away. Take ONE minute to watch the video and ONE minute to act.



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Faith and Politics Reading List

It's that time again in the life cycle of our nation. Election time, that is. Later this month I will be facilitating a series of dialogues for our community of faith on some of the important and hot button issues facing our nation and world - issues on which people of faith sometimes disagree.

In my preparation for this dialogues I am doing some reading and research. Here is my current working bibliography. Do you have any recommendations - any must reads? I would love your input?

• Jesus for President (Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw)
• God and Government (Chuck Colson)
• The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church (Gregory A Boyd)
• God's Name in Vain: The Wrongs and Rights of Religion in Politics (Stephen Carter)
• The Future of Faith in American Politics: The Public Witness of the Evangelical Center (David P. Gushee)
• Beyond Left and Right (Amy Black)
• Red Letter Christians (Tony Campolo)
• The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith and Politics in a Post-Religious Right America (Jim Wallis)
• Personal Faith, Public Policy (Tony Perkins and Harry Jackson)
• The Scandal of Evangelical Politics: Why Are Christians Missing the Chance to Really Change the World? (Ronald J. Sider)

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Moving into Neighborhood

This past Saturday our community of faith began work on our Uptown Center, located at 668 Washington Road in Mt Lebanon, PA. This 800 square feet space was previously a retail store featuring finely crafted glass figurines. As you can see from the image, the space currently is a empty shell (you can view additional images at this on-line gallery). But we believe in time it will become an environment where people will connect with God, one another, and our world.

The Uptown Mt Lebanon neighborhood is a vibrant community that is intentionally living into the realities and principles of new urbanism. There is a unique and wonderful fusion of the economic, residential, cultural, and the political orders. An eclectic mix of coffee shops, restaurants, merchants, and helping professions and organizations is embedded into a residential, walking community filled with single family homes, townhouses and condos, and apartment complexes.

Now you might be asking why a church would lease an 800 square foot space in the midst of this type of neighborhood? It certainly isn't a large enough space to become a home for our Sunday worship gatherings. And as much as my wife would like me to have an office outside of our home, a workspace for Marlaena and me is not priority number one. Our hope and prayer for the Uptown Center is that it might become a tangible expression of the kingdom of God in the midst of this neighborhood. Our intention is to join in the work that God is already doing in this neighborhood and by faith, contribute what we can to the promotion of flourishing in this community. And by the grace of God and the empowerment of the Spirit, perhaps God will use us in some way in the work that God is doing to bring all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe together again in Christ.

For me this simple antidote speaks volumes and confirmed to me that we are heading in God's direction with this initiative. On Saturday morning as our first work crew was beginning its labors, one of the neighboring merchants stopped by to welcome us and inquire about our presence in the neighborhood. Steve's first words were to me were, "Moving in?" The full weight of his simple question did not hit me until Tadd, one of the guys on our work crew (and a leadership team member) said to me, "Did you hear what he said? 'Moving in?'"

And in a moment it all made complete sense. As a missisonal community of faith we seek to follow Jesus into the world. And a primary text for us has been Eugene Peterson's rendering of John 1:14:

"The Word became flesh and blood,
and moved into the neighborhood."

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What Would You Ask McCain and Obama?

Yesterday I received an email from Rick Warren. No, I do not personally know Rick (although I did meet Rick at the Live 8 event in Philadelphia a couple of years ago and was very impressed by his winsome nature and willingness to spend time with the common people). As a subscriber to Rick's email updates, I along with thousands of other pastors received the following request:

"This next Saturday, August 16, 2008, I will interview Senators John McCain and Barack Obama for an hour each at our nationally televised Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency. The following morning I will be preaching a message entitled “The Kind of Leadership America Needs.” I’d value your opinion and feedback. What question would you ask BOTH candidates if you had the chance? Please frame your question in a way that it could be asked of both candidates (to be fair) and email it to me at pastorrick@saddleback.net. This would be a great help to me."

OK, I have a couple of questions to ask you:

• Should Rick Warren as a pastor be interviewing the two candidates?
• Will you watch the event?
• What question would you ask BOTH candidates if you had the chance?

I would love to hear your thoughts about this historic event.

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Blessed with Discomfort, Anger, Tears, and Foolishness

This morning I have been taking some time to process through my experience at this year's Leadership Summit. Once again, it was an amazing, inspiring, informative, and transformative event. It was a gift to share the Summit with other members of our leadership community and I look forward to enlarging the number of summit attenders next August (mark your calenders now August 6-7, 2009).

I took a ton of notes throughout the two day event as I find the environment to be highly stimulating in terms of both my receptivity to God and to the generation of fresh ideas. My notes take the form of both speaker content and the brainstorming of new approaches and fresh ways f living out both my personal and our communal mission. Today as I reviewed my notes from the first three sessions, I discovered fifteen integration and action steps. Some of these are small and can be acted upon with a phone call, email, tweak in my schedule or face to face encounter with a friend. Others will require more time, space, energy and prayer. And a few will take a lifetime perhaps to flesh out. I look forward to sharing some of this along the way here at my site.

For today, I wanted to leave you with a prayer that one of the Summit speakers, Craig Groeschel prayed over us at the end of his session on IT. It is a Franciscan blessing that, in a sense, summaries my experience at this year's Summit and captures my heart for the ongoing journey with Christ.

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain in to joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.

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Staying Connected to Hope

This is the second post on Nancy Ortberg's new book on leadership, "Unleashing the Power of Rubber Bands." Ortberg posits the thesis that hope is the core of leadership. She writes, "Few leaders I know have taken seriously the power of hope and done whatever they can to infuse it into their people. I'm not talking about mindless, inauthentic, cheer-leading hope. Real hope is a potent force and when it sits at the center of things it becomes an epicenter. "

As I reflect upon Ortberg's words, Bill Hybels' voice echoes in the background. I remember hearing him speak at the very first Leadership Summit in the mid '90's. He stated two things at that Summit that have been imprinted upon my mind and heart:

• the Church is the hope of the world
• the Church is the most leadership extension organization in the world
  

(BTW: I am looking forward to getting recalibrated at this year's Leadership Summit which will take place on Thursday and Friday).

The heart of this post is our need as leaders to stay connected to hope. Ortberg writes:

"It is critical for leaders to do whatever they can to stay connected to hope and to drink deeply from its well. We need to find new ways to live that renew the life of God in us because the life of God is a life of hope - a meal that sustains."

How do you stay connected to hope? Here are a few of the things I try to do on a regular basis:

• listen to life-giving, hopeful music (for example right now I am listening to Jars of Clay new EP, "Closer" and Third Day's, "Call My Name")
• spend time with hopeful people
• exposing myself to new ideas or old ideas recast in new ways from fresh voices
• taking the time, place and space to think and dream and imagine
• leveraging my gifts and seeing the difference it can make
• pray the Morning Office
  

What are some of the things you do to stay connected to hope? What practices, rhythms, or relationships nourish you and invite you to drink deeply from the well of hope?

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