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Monday, July 20, 2009

Life Long Learners


I mentioned in my post below on Leading the Dream that its important to be a learner! Being a learner means you get informed and you stay informed about the most important social justice issues of your city.

How do you do that? Here's a great place to start - Gary Haugen's book Good News About Injustice. Haugen writes as a champion of justice issues in various international contexts. His ministry sends teams of people to places where injustice is rampant. Teams of people who intervene and advocate for just treatment in the face of things like child labor abuses or sex trafficing.

One of the most valuable sections of his book are the helpful appendices at the back of the book with lists of web-sites and reading resources to help you stay sharp. Here's a sample of what you'll find:

Appendix 1 - Thirty One Ways you and Your Youth Group can Promote and Do Justice (things like visit InterNational Justice Mission's website and sign up for a confidential prayer partner, explore local immigrant advocacy groups in your community, invite a speaker in to address your group on specific needs in your community, raise $500 to free a child from illegal bonded labor, participate in missions trips, etc).

See the Get Involved on International Justice Mission's web-site.

Appendix 2 - Suggested Internet Sites (everything from IJM's web site to Voice of the Martyrs, University of Minnesota Human Rights Library, to Human Rights Internet. See IJM website on the Resources tab.

Appendix 4 is gold! Book and Web Resource Guide. Book recommendations and summaries that you'll find helpful in stocking your library with the right stuff to challenge and keep you digging deeper.

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posted by Tim Perry at 11:32 AM 0 Comments

Friday, July 17, 2009

Is God Colorblind?

Back to my Encourage One Another note. Part of the frustration we feel in taking about social justice issues is how messy it can get. Many who have tried and tried to make an impact get tired of talking about it... get tired of trying things and seeing little results... get tired of all the guilt that surfaces when we focus on it.

Colorblindness is a messy word to toss around in the conversation. On the one hand if a person means that how we judge each other should not be based on color, that's a true statement. We need a whole lot of that in our world to get anywhere in the discussion. We need a healthy sense of overlooking the distinctions in order to get along, in order to work together, in order to address issues and build a better tomorrow.

However, colorblindness as our only strategy for figuring out what's going on is actually dangerous! If in response to the disparities that still exist in our city, we simply say "It doesn't matter what color you are," then you just sweep the picture under the rug and move on. You have to ask the color question otherwise you don't do anything about the fact that the vast majority of those stuck in poverty in our city are of a specific ethnic identity. You also blur the lines between those who are still hurting and those who are living a relatively advantaged experience. In the book of Acts chapter 6, the ethnic identities of widows being overlooked mattered a great deal to God and the early church. It was such a big deal that the ministry of God's word was literally shut down over it. Colorblindness did not help the early church solve that critical impasse.

The second reason colorblindness is a false lure is that it does an injustice to the diversity which God creates. Why would God create such diversity only to tell us to ignore it! We're to enjoy it! If we're too quick to sweep cultural differences under the rug we may be saying "I don't care about the diversity God's created - it's too hard to appreciate and relate to. I'll take my world monochrome, thank you!"

I really don't think God is colorblind. He loves what he creates. He creates in titanic proportions of diversity. He creates diversity and redeems it in his son Jesus. That's what Kingdom Color is about!

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posted by Tim Perry at 8:37 AM 0 Comments

Let's Keep Talking

As you can tell from the anonymous nature of people's comments, getting down to the level of our gut feelings about race is not easy. Let me dispel something for the person who commented on my last post. I agree that the blog IS an extension of the message we're delivering from God's word at CCC. The "note of encouragement" below was not posted to gain sympathy for my hurt feelings. That's not really what's happening. What I think may be happening, though, is a misunderstanding about the message I'd like to talk about. I'd like the opportunity to extend the dialog till we've got some clarity about it. Why would I "dare use" my own blog for anything else? My apologies to anyone who thinks I'm trying to get others to sympathize with me! Maybe we can keep the conversation at a higher altitude.

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posted by Tim Perry at 8:17 AM 0 Comments

Thursday, July 16, 2009

This Is Difficult to Talk About!

 The above "Note of Encouragement" wound up in my mailbox on Monday morning in response to our Kingdom Color Series and my message in particular. They tell preachers to never gage how they feel about ministry on Monday mornings. I suppose this kind of note is why that's the case. I'll let you read it here. We'll talk about it in my next post. I think the person responding like this has missed more than one critical point of my message. I'm curious if you have a reaction to it. Here's what my nameless brother wrote me in case you can't read the writing in the image:

Tim,
That was the most depressing liberal message, that I have ever heard at this church. Thank you for the condemning messages the last two weeks. MLK taught that we should judge each other by their conduct, not by the color of their skin. God doesn't view us based on the color of our skin."

Maybe we should change the header on our comment cards...

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posted by Tim Perry at 10:38 AM 1 Comments

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

The Power of a Picture

In Sunday's message we made reference to a photograph of one of those ugly, dark events that plagues our vision of racial healing. There was no mention made of when that event happened. Wonder of wonders that this morning when I looked at the cover story of the Omaha World Herald I noticed the very same picture!

If you want the background on what happened check out the article yourself entitled "Lest we Forget our History". Its easy to think that perhaps the worst race relations uprisings took place somewhere in the deep South, but our city of Omaha has it's own history we are still struggling to reconcile.

The most amazing thing about the picture is how it hits you when you see the whole photo un-cropped! If you do a little research on it you'll find it, but realize it is a picture of horrific brutality. Once you see the whole picture the most jarring thing is the expression on people's faces. You can look it up on Wikipedia article if you want all the details.

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posted by Tim Perry at 7:22 AM 0 Comments

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Leading the Dream - Seven Kinds of People

Here were my points at the conclusion of Sunday's message on what it means to be a leader in the area of cross-cultural relationships and reconciliation. In my 20+ years of ministry experience I've seen a lot of things come and go. What does the church really need to move ahead in this big area? Here's my top Seven:

1 - People who are already leaders in their church, profession or community. Are you willing to make reconciliation a part of your leadership agenda?

2 - People who have taken the courageous step into the experience of multi-ethnic marriages and families.

3 - People committed to deep friendships across cultural differences. Anybody can make an acquaintance, can you keep a friend ... for life?

4 - People willing to engage in big needs, not just make short excursions into brief volunteer efforts. Pick a need and make an impact over the course of several years.

5 - High School and College Students! Make strategic choices about what you study and major in. Graduates, make kingdom-minded choices about where you'll live and work.

6 - People who lead are people who persevere in an attitude of grace and forgiveness. Regardless your color, if reconciliation is what you're committed to, you'll get hurt in the process. Choose forgiveness. Choose grace.

7 - People can not effectively lead without committing to being life-long learners. Get yourself informed, learn the race relations history of your community, know the needs and stay in touch with them.

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posted by Tim Perry at 4:15 PM 0 Comments

Monday, July 13, 2009

Kindgom Color


Yesterday we concluded a three week message series entitled Kingdom Color exploring the theme of racial reconciliation. I thought it would be good to post a few things I mentioned the message and flesh some ideas out a little more. I used a few Martin Luther King Jr quotes that I'll list and give the references to. There are tons of resources we churned through in the last month of preparing these messages. I'll get those posted as well. Stay tuned!

If you haven't seriously thought about where our world is headed and how the church should be responding, I urge you to jump into the opportunities that are staring us in the face! Christians can get so concerned about having the right answers for tough questions like the problem of evil. But if we could show the world that our faith actually has the power to bring healing to our city's biggest problems, we just might be more believable to a skeptical world.

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posted by Tim Perry at 7:41 AM 0 Comments