You can learn about the organizations behind The Girl Effect at http://girleffect.org. One of the reasons I like this video is because of CARE, a humanitarian organization I support. CARE fights global poverty by helping poor women around the world. As they say, “women have the power to help whole families and entire communities escape poverty.” Read more here.

You can learn more about the project at www.socialjusticechristian.com. There’s also other resources for the “I’m a Social Justice Christian” campaign on their website. I’ve included the PSA in this post, as well as Brian McLaren’s response. Please pass the word about the project. Good work Ryan!

Second, what does the church have to say about living faithfully in earthquake country? Is this something we should be talking about with our congregations? If you’re a pastor, charged with protecting you’re congregation spiritually, do you have a responsibility to protect them physically as well. How about the rest of the community—in your church or not in your church? I say yes.

With all of the seismic activity around the world recently, many of us here in Southern California are wondering how long it will be until the “big one” hits us. It’s been relatively quite for fifteen years, but seismologists say a massive earthquake is inevitable. Will we be ready?

Will be ready physically? Will our earthquake kits be prepared (I am going to complete mine this week)? Will our homes be secured? Will our friends and families have a plan in place? I highly recommend “The Great California Shake Out”, I just registered this morning, and plan to encourage my congregation to do the same.

Will we be ready spiritually? Since the earthquake in Haiti earlier this year, I’ve wondered how I’d respond if I were a Haitian in the midst of such devastation.  What kind of a person would I be, what kind of Jesus follower would I be? Would I live courageously, or would I live in fear? Would I be willing to give my life away for the sake of others, or would I hunker down, looking out solely for my family and friends, myself? How would I respond to looting, rape, and fighting over rations, as we’ve seen in disaster like Haiti? Let’s not be so naive to think it couldn’t happen in Southern California, in our quiet suburbs. Going to the aid of those who suffer is one thing but what about when we’re suffering too? What then?

I think of Rodney Stark’s book, The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History, where he writes about the way people responded to plagues in Roman cities during the first century. Relying on the observations of Thucydides’ about the uselessness of science and religion of the times, Stark writes:

Doctors were quite incapable of treating the disease, people became afraid to visit anyone, and as a result thousands of people died with no one to look after them, indeed, there were many houses in which the all the inhabitants perished from lack of any attention. Bodies dying were heaped on top of one another, half dead creatures were seen wandering an staggering in the streets. Catastrophe was so overwhelming that people became indifferent to every rule of morality, many pushed suffers away, even their own dearest, often throwing them into the roads hoping to avert being contaminated.

But there were a group of people who chose to live differently in the face of such great disaster. Stark goes on to write:

Most Christians showed unbounded love and loyalty, never sparing themselves and thinking only of one another, heedless of danger, they took charge of the sick attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ, and many departed their life serenely happy, for they were infected by their neighbors and they cheerfully accepted their pain. They lost their lives in this manner and many of their elders and ministers did as well.

I think the question for us as followers of Jesus, is when do we become these kind of courageous people, willing to give our lives away at such times? Somehow I don’t think it happens in that moment, rather by the small choices we make each day to live like Jesus in all we do. God have mercy!

- Rev. Efrem Smith, Sojourner’s “Preaching the Word”

Within a few miles from my office I can leave the idyllic community of Loma Linda, California, where people live to be a hundred, and enter San Bernardino, once ranked the 16th most violent city in America.  Truthfully, I can go about my life, rarely venturing into this urban community in my backyard.

When you live in the city its on top of you, you can’t run from the needs, it’s in your face. But suburbia can anesthetize you to suffering and injustice. You can build a safe life (or so you think), a secluded life, where the world can be shut out. Not so in the city.

There’s lots of challenges to living missionally in the suburbs, but one of the most problematic for me? Complacency. I find myself too comfortable with nice sub-divisions, tidy neighborhoods, and picturesque streets. The Rev. Smith challenges me. I am responsible too. And here in my town I can’t escape the fact there’s enormous needs across the street. So what am I doing about? Sadly, the usual, not much.  What challenges do you face trying to live faithfully in Suburbia?

Jesus, have mercy on me. Remove my complacency. Compel me to action.  Let me not forget the city in my backyard. Amen.

]]> http://jeffreygang.com/2009/12/31/i-must-not-i-cannot-i-dare-not-forget-the-plight-of-the-poor/feed/ 0 http://jeffreygang.com/2009/12/27/the-do-good-pledge/ http://jeffreygang.com/2009/12/27/the-do-good-pledge/#comments Mon, 28 Dec 2009 02:22:49 +0000 Jeff Gang http://jeffreygang.com/?p=329 I stumbled on David’s Berman’s book Do Good Design: How Designers Can Change the World. I haven’t read it yet, but I like the premise of the book—no matter your profession, no matter your work, you can use your skills to help make a more just society. Berman’s book is primarily for professional designers, but his key question is relevant for any profession: Does your work make the world a better place?

His challenge is very simple. Take the Do Good Pledge, stating you will, 1) Be true to your profession (Ethics); 2) Be true to yourself (Principles); and my favorite, 3) Spend 10% of your professional time helping repair the world (Effort). Check out Berman’s blog and consider making the pledge (even if you’re not a designer).  So far 88,000+ hours have been pledged. It’s a simple idea, but I wonder how much better our world would be if we really took the pledge seriously—from food servers to CEO’s. So what do you think?

A 21st Century Prophet?

The prophetic voice of Shane Claiborne always challenges the gravitational forces of complacency in my life (by the way, I doubt he’d refer to himself as a prophet).  I love what he has to say and I hate what he has to say, the latter a result of me knowing how often I tend to be a hearer of Jesus’ words rather than a doer of his words. I was reminded of this today when I came across Shane’s op-ed piece from the November 18 issue of Esquire magazine titled “What if Jesus Meant All that stuff.” Here’s my favorite paragraph:

In fact, the entire story of Jesus is about a God who did not just want to stay “out there” but who moves into the neighborhood, a neighborhood where folks said, “Nothing good could come.” It is this Jesus who was accused of being a glutton and drunkard and rabble-rouser for hanging out with all of society’s rejects, and who died on the imperial cross of Rome reserved for bandits and failed messiahs. This is why the triumph over the cross was a triumph over everything ugly we do to ourselves and to others. It is the final promise that love wins.

I saw U2 in L.A. on their Vertigo Tour in 2006. Bono’s passionate appeal to join the ONE Campaign moved me join the fight against global poverty and AIDS. During the past three years I’ve remained involved with the ONE Campaign in many ways. I also encouraged our congregation to take action as well. So I was curious what U2 would do to promote the ONE Campaign this time around, especially considering the global recession.

On the way into the concert I stopped by the ONE Campaign HQ. There were lots of ONE volunteers going around with notebook computers encouraging people to join ONE. They were also taking photos of people kissing for ONE’s “Kiss the Future” campaign, kinda cheesy if you ask me. The photos are displayed on the round video screens at the end of all the concerts.

During the concert U2 approached the issues from a much different angle than I expected. The challenges to end poverty and AIDS were absent, instead Bono did a monologue about the difference the ONE Campaign has made for millions of people in Africa. He thanked Chicagoans for their part in making it happen, starting with Pastor Bill Hybels. U2 disappeared and a video segment opened with a speech from Archbishop Desmond Tutu. You can see it here at ONE’s On the Road with U2.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how we’re going to continue to mobilize people to action for Africa in the midst of the political-economic turmoil we are facing as a nation. It’s hard to talk about people dying across the ocean when people are loosing their homes across the street. Ok … I know, there’s no comparison. Still I’ve been wondering if the momentum for change may be slipping away. I think U2 sensed this trend and decided to focus on the good rather than the bad for the 360 Tour. For a nation where so many seem to be struggling financially, their approach was filled with hope and promise. Something we all need a little more of right now.