Embarking

One of the interesting things that Dr. Tim Keller said at the North American Network gathering for City to City was something like the following:

“The reason secularists are afraid of Christians is their belief that if we get in power, we will take everyone else’s freedoms away.”

I found this to be an interesting and enlightening comment.  I’m not sure the word “afraid” hits it quite right, but what Keller is getting at is that Christians are often not great “citizens” in the secular society because of our propensity towards creating a government which takes things away from people – rights, civil liberties, freedom of belief, etc.  I’m not sure this has happened in recent history in any way of significance, but the threat is certainly there from the Christian Right.  The sense that, if Christians would be placed into major political positions of power, we would use our power to estrange others of different beliefs is palpable in at least the rhetoric.  The interesting thing about this is that certainly, any political group lobbying for power hopes in someway to use that power to leverage their beliefs for their version of the good of the country.  I’m not so sure that Christians are all that different in this political sense than any other idealogical group.  However, my deeper question (and possibly Keller’s) is whether there is another way to approach cities, politics, and the social sphere in general from a Christian perspective or from Christian values and beliefs.

There are lots of questions wrapped in whether and how Christians should be involved in politics.  And historically, there are any number of ways in which Christians have approached the public realm, from ruling and reigning to fomenting revolution to isolation.  Today, Christians can be found on the left, on the right, in the middle, and on the outskirts.   What I appreciated, though, about Keller’s comments was that it is disturbing that our neighbors and fellow citizens would be worried about persecution and oppression under a Christian lead government.  That’s enlightening when we think about it deeply.  I realized that I’m afraid of many of the Christians I know getting into the political realm for the same reasons.  So, Keller asks, why don’t our neighbors think we love them?  Why don’t people in the city think we love their city?  If we are truly loving our neighbors as ourselves and seeking the welfare of the city (and country), why would that be threatening?  Is it the confusion in their hearts and minds, or is it in something we have done? (my bias is that it’s something we are responsible for more than anything… cf. the wonderful book UnChristian by Gabe Lyons and David Kinnaman).

I’ve been reading the book To Change the World by James Davison Hunter, which is a fascinating book on culture, history, power, Christianity, and change.  In that book, I think it’s chapter 5, Hunter shares some history of the relationship between Christians and political movements.  One of his arguments (to be really simplistic) is that when the cultural elites are truly converted and lead with humanity in mind through true care for the poor, estranged, and powerless that Christianity has been the most effective in cultural change.  Though I haven’t heard enough on Keller, I think this is where he’s pointing.  How do you impact the cultures of power and ideas while maintaining a heart for true justice and care for all humanity?

Jesus said this in his inauguration into ministry in Luke 4, quoting from the Isaiah 61 vision:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

One of the questions here is how this message and mission of Jesus – the good news – is being missed by our culture when Christians try to enter into the public realm?

I think Keller’s right.  We don’t know how to enter the public discourse, and often aren’t allowed into the public discourse as Christians because of our reputation.  We do need a new apologetic that arises out of the message and mission of Jesus for a new humanity, rooted in love and redeemed by love, for all people.

Again, we return to love, the gospel of love, the message of love, the heart of love, the approach of love, the words of love, the power of love, the conviction of love, the character of love, the way forward through love.  Love.  Jesus.  Simple.

What would a politics or public discourse of love look like, feel like, and sound like?  What if the world looked to Christians and said instead, “We would love to have you at the table because we know if you were in power, more people would experience the true freedom that love brings.”

I spent this past week in Miami a meeting with a number of Church Planting Networks and planters too look at the possibility of beginning a North American Network for city movements.  This gathering was catalyzed by the folks at Redeemer City to City and brought together people from  Renew South Florida, Acts29, the RCA, many from the PCA, the SBC, the GCM Collective, and others.  It was an awesome time to meet other folks who are passionate about reaching North America, particular through cities.  It was great to hear the unique challenges and opportunities that cities bring and present to the church.  The outcome of this gathering was that a group will be formed, likely to be called the City to City Collective for shared resourcing, networking, encouragement, and more.  It’ll be great to see what unfolds.

Tim Keller of Redeemer in New York was the keynote speaker, and I want to share just a few things.  In the first session, The Challenge of North American Cities, Keller said that the expense of cities, the complexity of cities, and the mobility of cities makes a church plant there very hard.  Knowing that, it’s important to see larger trends, and in that vein he spoke about the decline of cities from 1970-1990 in which cities were hollowed out at the core, with suburban flight the order of the day.  This left an urban desolation in many cases, with increased crime rates, devalued properties, and a cultural malaise.  The rich would commute from the suburbs and leave the urban poor in the central city.  From the 1990′s to today, there was been an upsurge in cities, a renewal of the urban core.  In many ways this was due to gentrification (young professionals re-locating to urban environments).  Crime went down, cultural productivity increased, and the core of cities have thus seen a resurgence.  However, the poor are also often displaced as property values increase and the city finds cultural and economic renewal.  Each era presents a different kind of opportunity, different needs, and different responses by the church.    The follow up question is, then, what is the future of the city?

Keller, then, offered his analysis of what the future holds for American cities.  First, he spoke of the following positive trends:

• North American churches are globalizing.  This is a positive trend because strong international connections create stability and prestige.  Because the era of America as an economic self-sufficient engine is over, globalization is important.
• North American churches are urbanizing.  By urbanizing, Keller was particularly speaking to the trend in cities towards smart growth, urban planning of  the New Urbanism kind.  He referenced the return to a walkable, mixed-use human settlement in cities, including places to work, live, shop, play, and learn within 10 minutes as opposed to the suburbanizing affect in which everything is about commuting and doing life with people that are not the same people you live with.  There are lots of great books on this, and I think he’s right on about not only emerging urban planning, but also that this is a positive trend not only for cities and human beings in general who live there, but also for the church because it creates a possible parish that is not merely made up of people commuting to their favorite church or speaker.

Secondly, he spoke of negative trends:

• The rise of great need:  Here, Keller focused on the recent recession and global financial meltdown, particularly in American cities.
• However, though this is a negative trend in some ways in terms of urban development, Keller rewinded to remind us that through our history lessons we learn that God has often used urban dysfunction to win the hearts of people.  When we are in times of great need, there is also great opportunity for the church to respond.

So, for Keller, the future of urban ministry looks good because of globalization, new urbanism, and increased need.

Lastly, in terms of cities, Keller mentioned the following future trends to expect:

1. Increasing hostility in the culture wars.  He was particularly on target when he said that we are fighting a Two Front War:  Secularists think Christians are too moralistic.  Muslims and Hindus think we are too permissive.  There will, then, be increasing hostility from secularists and increasing hostility from fundamentalists (of all sorts, including Christians).
2. More opportunities for justice and mercy.  This is true particularly because of the increasing needs in the global financial meltdown and the increasing gap between the rich and the poort.
3. Culture-making will be increasingly important, particularly with respect to the integration of faith and work.  People in the city will desire more and more the integration between multifarious worlds.
4. A new kind of apologetics.  This part was particularly poignant for me.  Back in 2000, I started a class called “Beyond Apologetics” because I was realizing that because of the shifts we are experiencing in late modernity or post-modernity, that a new kind of apologetics is needed.  This doesn’t mean that the classic apologetics are wrong or bad, but merely that we need a new apologetic for a new emerging culture.  In Keller’s words, “We need to answer questions people are actually asking” or in one of the bylines of my former church in Ann Arbor, “Ask questions worth answering; seek answers worth believing.”  Here are some of the points and reasons for a new apologetic:

• The world essentially says to Christians, “You are not good neighbors.”
• We need more cogent and powerful answers to questions that people are actually asking.
• The basic objection alongside of evil & suffering, etc. is that Christians are bad citizens of pluralistic cities because as we grow and if we grow, we will take away people’s rights and freedoms.
• We are completely outflanked in the public arena.
• We have to care for the whole parish, including our secular neighbors.
• The public narrative is that Christians are intolerant, and that is very powerful and makes it extremely hard to enter public discourse.

Keller also spoke about the stages of development of the catachuminate which we need to revisit, and how the church is failing in its response to homosexuality.  That’s a long conversation for another time.

I’ll blog a bit more on this in the future if I can find the time, including some of his other sessions.

I’ve had about 10 books going for awhile, and I’m trying of focus on finishing one at a time. I just finished reading The New Monasticism: What it has to say to the church, “an insider’s perspective” by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove. I’ve mentioned the new monasticism before, and I have a lot of respect for what they’re trying to do. The New Monasticism movement reminds me a little bit of the way George Hunger III described St. Patrick’s monastic project in the Celtic Way of Evangelism (a fabulous book, and a must read as far as I’m concerned.)  He talked about how the early missionary monks to the Celts moved into their cities and rural sprawl and created a kind of monastic island in the middle of these people.  These monastic communities had a strict rule of life, served the people in their community, offered hospitality to strangers, and sought to transform a culture from the inside out.

I really appreciate the 12 Marks of the New Monasticism.  Hartgrove gives a good basic understanding of how monastics have been a part of renewal in the church throughout various centuries.  He writes about how monastics seek not to separate from the church or become an alternative, but to bring renewal and reformation to the church by returning to some key roots such as hospitality, sharing all things in common, prayer, and serving others.  This is how Hartgrove begins, by sounding the call, “the church in America isn’t living up to what it’s supposed to be.  Somehow we’ve lost our way.”  The point of monastic movements is to remind the church of its true identity, and that’s true for the New Monastics as well.

I had a fabulous conversation with a gentleman from my church recently who’s feeling the same way.  He loves the church, and yet he feels like the church in America missing the point of the mission at so many levels by putting money and energy into too many things that are not the heart of the reasons for the church in the world on God’s mission.  In his words, “We’ve so boughten into the American dream, that we’ve forgotten what the church is supposed to be.”  Hartgrove writes about this very thing.

What’s unique about this movement is that it takes seriously the renewal of the church and the ancient practices of monasticism in a way that is both inclusive of married couples and families and is also deeply embedded within the cultures of this world, particularly urban settings.  These settings are often referred these days by many of us as “abandoned places of the empire,” referring to those places, particularly urban, that have been deeply affected by the contemporary empire’s of consumerism and progress.  I’ve appreciated everything I’ve read and heard from the many in this movement and am already seeing how they are affecting the church in dramatic ways, Shane Claiborne being one of the key players here.

The New Monastics have also, like many people I respect, been deeply influenced by John Perkins.  Years ago, I sent some students to learn from Perkins and his community, and it was a life-changing experience for many of them.  Particularly, his 3 R’s are foundational (Relocation, Redistribution, and Reconciliation) for only only the New Monastic movement, but for other renewal thinkers in the urban settings as well (ie. Christian Community Development Association).  The other thing I deeply value is people like this who are able to speak intelligently and passionately about justice issues, poverty, and concern for the least of these while also maintaining some of the evangelical commitments of the Scripture.  More and more voices are emerging that are neither conservative nor liberal, fundamentalist nor mainline, republican nor democrat but hold together the biblical truths which cross such narrow, dualistic, and truncated views of the Scripture.

Good read for anyone who is thinking about the emerging church, renewal of the church and culture, poverty, urban ministry, community, and what some consider a more “radical” Christianity, which I think is probably closer to the identity of the early church than many of the churches in America today.

These are some of my notes from the second part of the fifth session of the Willow Creek Leadership Summit.

I’m not going to write much on this interview, even though Jessica Jackley was great.  She was very articulate and is clearly passionate.  Some of the best things at the Summit are these interviews, particularly with younger women who have done some extraordinary things (cf. one of my favorites, Catherine Rohr last year).  I think it’s awesome that Willow highlights young woman and gets behind their leadership at least in this way.  I’d like to see some more women keynote speakers, and not necessarily your standard Nancy Ortberg and Lynn Hybels (even though I like them.) I just think we have a lot to learn from some of the emerging young female leaders in the church today.

Also, just want to say that KIVA highlighted in Jessica’s talk is great, and micro-financing and micro-loans in particular is something that has taken far too long for the church to take notice  (I remember hearing first about these back at an Urbana Conference sometime possibly in ’99 or ’01) This is one of the best ways to get at financial and justice issues in terms of poverty and development globally that really doesn’t fit in either the category of trade or aid (the big debate in development).

Had a little time to read tonight the draft of the final call of the IV Summit of Religious Leaders in Rome on June 16 – 17 , 2009 on the occasion of the G8 Summit in L’Aquila, Italy.  Here are some of the highlights of the call to the world’s most powerful and richest nations, including of course, the US.

• We, leaders of the worlds religions and spiritual traditions gathered in Rome on the eve of the G8 Summit of 2009, are united in our common commitment to justice and the protection of human life, the building of the common good and the belief on the divinely established and inviolable dignity of all people from conception to death.
• In a time of economic crisis when many securities are crumbling, we feel even more acutely the need for spiritual orientation.
• We are using the term “security” in a new way… the wellbeing of each is related to the wellbeing of others and to our environment.
• The current financial and economic crisis weighs most heavily upon the poor.
• In continuity with previous world religious summits we continue to call for the fulfilment of the Millennium Development Goals.
• …we call for nations to resist making war a means of international politics and to make every effort to establish a just peace for all.
• We request the G8 Summit to pursue rigorous implementation of nuclear reduction and nonproliferation policies leading to the goal of total nuclear disarmament.

It is good to see some cooperation between religious leaders, including Christian leaders, continuing to make the call for nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, commitment to justice, care for the world’s poor, resistance of materialism, a call to seek spiritual answers and orientation, the call for peace and nonviolence, commitment to the Millenium Development Goals, and the value of human life and dignity.  I found it interesting in light of my last post the focus once again upon an understanding of security in terms of “global” security and interdependence rather than merely the security of particular groups and/ or countries.

Instead of making progress on hunger globally, indicators show that the hunger crisis around the world is increasing – one out of every 6 people.  Take a look at these statistics (for more information, read this article or this one:

• World hunger is projected to reach a historic high in 2009 with 1,020 million people going hungry every day.
• “A dangerous mix of the global economic slowdown combined with stubbornly high food prices in many countries has pushed some 100 million more people than last year into chronic hunger and poverty,” said FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf.
• The number of hungry people increased between 1995-97 and 2004-06 in all regions except Latin America and the Caribbean. But even in this region, gains in hunger reduction have been reversed as a result of high food prices and the current global economic downturn.
• The urban poor will probably face the most severe problems in coping with the global recession, because lower export demand and reduced foreign direct investment are more likely to hit urban jobs harder. But rural areas will not be spared. Millions of urban migrants will have to return to the countryside, forcing the rural poor to share the burden in many cases.
• While food prices in world markets declined over the past months, domestic prices in developing countries came down more slowly. They remained on average 24 percent higher in real terms by the end of 2008 compared to 2006. For poor consumers, who spend up to 60 percent of their incomes on staple foods, this means a strong reduction in their effective purchasing power. It should also be noted that while they declined, international food commodity prices are still 24 percent higher than in 2006 and 33 percent higher than in 2005.
• The number of hungry has increased from 825 million people in 1995-97, to 857 million in 2000-02 and 873 million in 2004-06.

I’m saddened that in a world with such forward thinking, progress, innovation, resources, and abilities that hunger worldwide continues to be on the increase.  What’s interesting to me (among a lot of things) is the interaction between poverty, globalism, trade, and their relationship to security.  Often we seem so concerned about security, and yet we miss the potential problem with such glaring numbers of people in poverty.  I don’t want, though, to regress to merely caring for the poor and hungry because we’re afraid they might revolt against global consumerism (and hence global consumerists), and I would hope that we could find it in our hearts to actually care for the poor and hungry who are our fellow human beings – our brothers and sisters.

A good and challenging Christian book that looks at issues of poverty, greed, globalism, and security  and asks some great questions (not so sure about the answers) is Brian McLaren’s Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crisis, and a Revolution of Hope.

If you don’t know about One, it’s a global advocacy and campaigning organization backed by more than 2 million people from around the world dedicated to fighting extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa.  I recently read the One Data Report, which is an accountability report following the progress (or lack thereof) of countries seeking to go after the United Nations’ Millienium Development Goals for Africa.  I want to encourage you to read both the Millenium Development goals if you never have, to encourage and follow their progress, and to follow One as well.  Here are some of the MDG’s and some measureable targets:

Goal 1: To eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

• Target:  Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day)
• Achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people
• Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger

Goal 2: To achieve universal primary education

• Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling

Gaol 3: Promote gender equality and empower women

• Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015

Goal 4: Reduce child mortality

• Reduce by two thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate

Goal 5: Improve maternal health

• Reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio
• Achieve, by 2015, universal access to reproductive health

Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria & other diseases

• Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS
• Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases

Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability

• Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources
• Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss
• Halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation
• By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers

Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development

• Address the special needs of the least developed countries, landlocked countries and small island developing states
• Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial system
• Deal comprehensively with developing countries’ debt
• In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries
• In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications

The One Data Report focuses primarily on the progress that the G8 (and other) countries are making on their promises to financial commitments for aid, particularly to Africa, in pursuit of the MDG’s.  This report is particularly focused on the Gleneagle’s Summit of the G8 in Scotland in 2005 where leaders focused on Africa and climate change. They agreed to double aid to Africa and to eliminate outstanding debts of the poorest countries. As outlined in the Gleneagles communiqué the G8 nations agreed together to increase aid to developing countries by around $50 billion a year by 2010. Of this, at least $25 billion would go to Africa.  The One Data Report looks particularly at these commitments.  Here are some highlights from One’s Data Report 2009:

• “It is unfortunately true that when the rich become less rich, the poor become even poorer.”  One of the important things noted in the report is that the global economic crisis, while hurting the rich and middle class of the world, hurts the impoverished and hungry in an even more alarming way.
• “As capital inflows dwindle and access to credit becomes more difficult, we not only have a shared responsibility to ensure that the poorest are protected from the devastating impact of the crisis, but also that this opportunity to move towards a more sustainable economic development model is seized.”  There are some powerful thoughts here that I agree with.  The first is that we are all dealing with the financial pinch and with being out of control.  Our tendency might be to immdediately become self-protecting, without thinking of those who are more vulnerable than we are.  Secondly, there is an opportunity in this crisis to face our penchant for greed and the riches of this world, to confess it, and to creatively imagine a more sustainable, biblical world of justice, peace, and sharing of resources.  The bible certainly makes the case for both the care of the vulnerable and poor as well as the radical redistribution of wealth.  Maybe this global crisis is the wake-up call we need.  There is certainly a danger in recovery that we will forget and miss the opportunity to see what God may be saying to us about our interdependence and our responsibility to our brothers and sisters around the world.
• “The evidence is that aid, used accountably by governments acting in the interests of their people and in an open manner, can make a measureable, positive difference, contributing to better educated, healthy and employed men and women.”  Though I’m generally skeptical of what government can accomplish, and I’ve had reservations about the effectiveness of global aid (maybe later we can talk about that…) I was surprised to see the measurable positive effect that aid to Africa has been making.  Government cannot solve our problems.  God is our King, our Providor, and our salvation.  It is true, though, that God uses governments and blesses the nations whose hearts follow his.  Read the goals above again.  Do any of them reflect the heart of God?  Might he bless the UN if it’s heart beat is his?
• “African citizens have used the ODA (Official Devlepment Assistance) flows that have been delivered to provide AIDS treatment to nearly 3 million people, to dramatically reduce deaths from malaria and to help put 34 million more children in school.  Sub-Saharan Africa’s economies on average expanded by 5.4% in 2008; for the first time in more than 45 years, the continent’s growth has exceeded 5% for five consecutive years.”
• I was pleased and suprised to see that the US has not only met its commitments at Gleneagle’s, but has surpassed them and will likely meet the goals sometime in 2009 ahead of schedule.  It was interesting to learn that France and Italy were the countries that are far behind their goals and commitments.  Now, having said that, the US commitments were much more modest in terms of actual percentage of Gross National Income.  One of the things I realized in reading this was the way that the G8 countries can a) challenge another accountable to high commitments, and b) hold one another accountable.  I loved the tenor of the report in its sense that even if some countries meet their goals, if the whole fail, then they all fail together.  There is a real sense of mutual responsibility that I like.  It’s also important to look at such things as global trade percentages as well.  (Some will advocate for “Trade not Aid,” but I would advocate for both until a more balanced global economy emerges, if that’s possible.  The reason some advocate for Trade not Aid is because a 1% increase in trade for Sub-Saharan Africa in 2007 was worth $119 billion, which was more than 3 times the total amount of ODA.  Trade can be more powerful, but again, that may be only for the rich and middle class in Africa as well.)

That’s probably enough to chew on for now.  If (like me) you’re really interested in this stuff, you can read a more indepth analysis of the full UN Millenium Development Goals in The Millenium Development Goals Report 2008.

I don’t know how I missed this film before.  I appreciate the Ordinary Radicals and the New Monasticism and much of what they’re about.  For a good intro to these and similar movements, read The New Conspirators by Tom Sine.

I recently re-read an old article written in The Other Side that I read back in 2000 written by Shane Claiborne.  At that time, I didn’t know who he was and it was only later that I would re-discover Claiborne and the New Monasticism and my affinities with much of their thinking and then get the chance to hang and talk with him a bit last year up north.  Anyway, the article, “Downward Mobility in an Upscale World” is a great article that I shared back then with a bunch of college students to get at the importance of being missional in a truly incarnational way, rather than merely being charitable.  Though, as a friend of mine says, Claiborne articulates an overly naive view of how the economy works in this article (remember how young he was at the time), he gets at something deeply difficult for so many of us – being with the poor.  (PS, this article from long ago probably also inspired 3 previous posts Downward Mobility, Downward Mobility 2, and Downward Mobility 3 from 2007).

I recently read a great book by Ash Barker called “Make Poverty Personal” (preface by Claiborne) that hits on some similar themes.  Allow me here to quote a few from the forward:

I am convinced that the tragedy in the church is not that rich folks don’t care about poor folks, but that rich folks don’t know poor folks.  Amid all the campaigns, issues, slogans, and political agendas, perhaps the deepest hunger in the world is: “Make Poverty Personal”  The prophet Amos cries out that if our faith does not bring justice flowing like a river, then we should cease the clamor of all our religious festivals and gatherings and songs, for they are noise in God’s ears (Amos 5:21-24).  And lest we let the liberals off the hook, I’ve met plenty of progressive “social justice” types who have shown that it is very easy to live a life of socially-conscious comfort that is compartmentalized and detached from any true relationships with the poor.  Mother Teresa once said, “It is very fashionable to talk about the poor… unfortunately it is not as fashionable to tlak to the poor.” [p. 11]

As so many missional minded Christians and Churches are now embarking on new campaigns of social justice and seeking to make a difference in global, urban, rural and even suburban poverty, it is important to make poverty personal and not a project.  As a pastor in a church making a missional turn, I am convicted once again of the importance of incarnational ministry and that neither I, my church, nor any program or amount of dollars will be anyone’s savior, but that relationship, incarnation, brotherhood, solidarity and personal identification not only with the poor, exploited, and marginalized, but with my own poverty, exploitation and marginalization and with how I bear the responsibility for having benefited from a being part of a system that has impoverished, exploited, and marginalized.

I think often back to my days in political theory and concepts of alienation and dehumanization at the hands of the socialist and totalitarian revolutions which I studied in those days.  I am beginning to realize how much our current systems of life dehumanize and alienate not only others, us as well.  

Jesus came to bring life, and life to the full.  Blessed are those who walk in the ways of Jesus.  I pray that I will have the guts to follow him into a deeper incarnational living.

By the way, some recommendations:

• Read, reflect on, and discuss the article, “Downward Mobility in an Upscale World“. 
• Listen to The New Monastics on Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett and Repossessing Virtue from the SOF Observed blog.
• Read The Iresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical by Claiborne and Jesus for President by Claiborne, Haw, and friends and Becoming the Answer to Our Prayers by Claiborne and Wilson-Hartgrove
• Read Make Poverty Personal by Ask Barker with a small group and go deeply into the questions and discussions in the book.