Calgary Church – Join a movement….

There's something sexy with justice initiatives. Many churches like to get on board with the latest justice craze to capture the imagination of their congregations in an attempt to raise the most cash or awareness. That's all fine and dandy (albeit I would like to see more response rather than just writing cheques), however, is there a balance to be had with justice and gospel?

Here's what I mean.

As with most everything we have to observe a spectrum to describe the situation.

On one hand there are the stories about foreign missionaries who made their starving target mission field sing and dance for hours on end before allowing them to have the free food being served. People have dropped dead from this empty attempt of religious piety.

Then you have some people who say it's worthless as Christians to, for example, build a clean water well in a poverty stricken village if you don't share the 'living water of the Gospel', and said village isn't subsequently converted (reformed position).

Then you have the opposite end of the spectrum where people say the Gospel is about engaging in justice and we can measure our success in engagement by simply measuring how many 'wrongs we right' and that's it.

So what is the right balance of Justice and Gospel?

I think there's an important mix to be had.

I do'nt think it's prudent to do justice just for the sake of justice and attach it to the mandate of the church. There's nothing wrong with doing justice without any strings attached, but if that's your only church/community response then you've missed a fuller picture.

I also think it's heinous to withhold justice if you aren't assured conversions.

I've been reading a new book by Len Sweet and Frank Viola called 'Jesus Manifesto'. The title pretty sums up the book which doesn't reveal too many surprises to me, but it did bring up a good point on justice.

...When we reach out to the poor and the sick, we are not doing so because of some principle of justice, or some theology of poverty and sickness, or some political platform or legislation, or some responsible way of dealing with surplus wealth. We do so for 3 reasons

1. The deepest hungers of the human heart are for forgiveness and reconciliation with God.

2. We are reaching out to Jesus Himself ("I was sick and you visited Me"). In the poor and the sick, it is Christ whom we attend and feed and love. Followers of Jesus exist for others, not for themselves.

3. The life of Christ within us compels us to reach out to such. The Galilean prophet who healed the sick and care for the poor continues His ministry in through us today.

pg. 108, Jesus Manifesto

IT's really easy to start a club around social justice things because everyone loves to make a difference. From a Christian perspective there's more to be had.

This is not to suggest a church or Christians cannot join an organization that doesn't have the same ideals or attempt to supplant existing organizations from what they do best. Rather, it's the impetus for Christians to actually mobilize into response, the reason to get involved.

Cheque writing and feeling bad about yourself as your become aware of the plight of humanity in your community and abroad is one thing. Doing something about it because we follow a God who has a dream of reconciliation that lasts for eternity is quite another.

With Micah 6:8 remember to DO justice and to love mercy.