On Saturday, October 29, 2,000+ young people will prayer walk the streets of Manhattan with t-shirts that proclaim: “God Belongs in My City.”

At the same time, thousands of other young people will be entering their seventh week encamped at Liberty Square in Manhattan’s Financial District under the banner Occupy Wall Street. Their cry for economic justice that began on September 17, has so far inspired similar demonstrations in 100 US cities and 1,500 cities around the world.

The GBIMC prayer route, planned months in advance, walks right past Liberty Square.

The GBIMC organizers have embraced the idea that they cannot walk past the OWS Occupiers and ignore what’s happening in their City. Especially since the God who Belongs in New York and elsewhere cares about poverty too. Nor should they pray for or against the occupiers from the outskirts when they are otherwise celebrating a God who dwells among us.

For these reasons, they have chosen to engage. Below is their prayer for the day. Please join them in proclaiming God’s heart for justice in ever city and community throughout the nation and world.

WALL STREET PRAYER REFLECTION: A JUST WORLD

Today we pray in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street and those who occupy the offices along Wall Street, Main Street, and every street.

We pray as Jesus taught His disciples:

“Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

Our prayer aligns with the Gospel Jesus preached:

“The Kingdom of God is at hand.”

The Kingdom He’s building – on earth, not just in heaven – rests on a foundational mission:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
BECAUSE he has anointed me to preach
GOOD NEWS to the poor
… freedom for prisoners
… sight for the blind
… to release the oppressed, and
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

We embrace Jesus’ Kingdom vision for a renewed New York City, nation, and world that restores justice for:

• The poor
• The incarcerated
• The sick and infirmed
• The oppressed, put down, and neglected
• The 600,000 children who cannot read or do math at grade level in our city’s schools each year.

We embrace the Year of the Lord’s Favor which proclaims JUBILEE JUSTICE that forgives debts and restores equities.

Not only for Wall Street bankers, but for developing nations and credit dependent New Yorkers.

Let us renew a vision – both as Christ followers and as New Yorkers – to create a more just city. Indeed, a more just world. One that rights the underlying wrongs that perpetuate injustices everyday. One grounded in the Old Testament truth conveyed by the prophets:

“What does the Lord require of us?”
“To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”
“For I the Lord love justice.”

In Christ’s name we pray.

Learn more about God Belongs in My City here, or visit them online here.

On 9.10.11, I had the privilege of offering a reflection on justice during the Renewal prayer segment at Reaching Out: A Sacred Assembly. Here’s what I shared.

Reaching Out: A Sacred Assembly, 9.10.11

Renewal Reflection: A Just World

Ten years ago the Towers fell and our City began rebuilding.

Today we pray as Jesus taught His disciples:

“Your Kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.”

His prayer aligned with the Gospel He preached:

“The Kingdom of God is at hand.”

The Kingdom He’s building – on earth, not just in heaven – rests on a foundational mission:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
BECAUSE he has anointed me to preach
GOOD NEWS to the poor
… freedom for prisoners
… sight for the blind
… to release the oppressed, and
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Ladies and gentlemen, Jesus’ Kingdom vision for a renewed New York City is a city that restores justice for:

• The poor
• The incarcerated
• The sick and infirmed
• The oppressed, put down, and neglected
• The 600,000 children who cannot read or do math at grade level in our public schools each year.

The Year of the Lord’s Favor proclaims JUBILEE JUSTICE that forgives debts and restores equities.

Not only for Wall Street bankers, but for developing nations and credit dependent New Yorkers.

As we return to prayer, let us renew a vision – As Christ followers – to create a more just New York. Indeed, a more just world. One that rights the underlying wrongs that perpetuate injustices everyday.

“What does the Lord require of us?” The prophet asked.

“To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

“For I the Lord love justice.”

Let us pray.

Two geniuses said essentially the same thing this week — one cerebral and theological; the other satirical and cutting; both profound and morally convicting.

First, Tim Keller in Christianity Today, on his book, Generous Justice: How God’s Grace Makes Us Just:

“To believe in Jesus is to obey all he commanded, which means helping the poor.”

And:

“It is unjust by definition to not share with the poor. It’s biblical that we owe the poor as much of our money as we can possibly give away.”

And the clincher:

“All I know is, if I don’t care about the poor, if my church doesn’t care about the poor, that’s evil.”

Read the full interview here.

Next, Stephen Colbert, on Comedy Central’s Colbert Report:

“If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we’ve got to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are or we’ve got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition … and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.”

Merry Unconventional Xmas!

Related Christmas Blogs

• Re-imagining Christmas
• Barnyard Births in the City
• Unconventional Christmas Greetings
• The X Factor – Redefining a Generation for Xmas

I had the privilege of presenting a general session talk and two workshops at the Youth Specialties National Youth Workers Convention in Nashville last month. As promised during the seminars, here are the PowerPoint slides.

With Eric Iverson at the NYWC in Nashville (“Big Room” Session 3, Nov. 20, 2010). Photo by http://gavoweb.com.

“From Irrelevant to Revolutionary”

Workshop Description

We serve a generation desperate for authenticity, yearning to move beyond the rhetoric of cliche Christianity to something meaningful, transformative, and real. Christ’s model of revolutionary ministry was to concentrate His activity in a small number of authentic relationships. By modern standards, the immediate results of that strategy were mediocre at best and a failure at worst. Yet His influence over twelve disciples split history in two, changed the world forever, and manifested God’s kingdom on earth as in heaven. How did He do it? Are His methods applicable today?

PowerPoint slides (file type): .ppt // .pdf

“Joshua Paradox: Establishing Meaningful Mentorship”

Workshop Description

Emerging leaders need mentors and spiritual disciple-makers to invest in their lives like Moses invested in Joshua. Appointed by God to deliver His people out of slavery, Moses understood early on that someone else would lead them into freedom. Yet Joshua is a paradoxical figure. For as much as he received from his mentor, Joshua failed to reproduce the investment, and his spiritual legacy did not survive a single generation as a result. As leaders emerge around you, from an increasingly fatherless generation, will they find a Moses that embraces, guides and encourages them to greatness? Or will they find a Joshua, someone too busy fulfilling his own destiny to invest in someone else’s?

PowerPoint slides (file type): .ppt // .pdf

Big Room Talk: “On Earth, Not Just in Heaven”

Description

First of three Big Room talks by Jeremy Del Rio, Timothy Eldred, and Dr. Tony Campolo presenting an overview of God’s Kingdom values and how they impact the world around us.

PowerPoint slides (file type): .ppt // .pdf

Bonus Download, “Advent Worship”

Description

Explore how the musical set that accompanied heaven’s greatest lyric 2000 years ago contrasts with modern Western worship, and how we can refocus and realign worship from “ego-centric noise” to oceans of justice.

PowerPoint slides (file type): .pdf

Note: the “Advent Worship” talk is based on an article by Louis Carlo and me previously published by Charisma magazine, Sojourners, and Urbanfaith.com (unedited).

The May 2010 issue of Charisma magazine features “The Gospel and Marvin Gaye” about the intersection (or too often lack thereof) between worship and justice. Co-authors Jeremy Del Rio and Louis Carlo are both featured trainers at UYWI’s upcoming Reload 1.2.3 event in NY and NJ on June 12, and Pastor Lou is also leading worship (and justice!) at the Bronx venue.

Here’s a taste of the article.

The soundtrack that accompanied heaven’s greatest lyrics—the Word made flesh (see John 1:14)—bears little resemblance to popular songs we sing in our churches. When Jesus came and lived among us, His manner of doing so invited shame and ridicule, not material bounty.

He lived among us as a child of poverty (born in a barn); political refugee (in Egypt); social pariah (survivor of a capital crime: unmarried pregnancy); ghetto immigrant (“What good comes from Nazareth?”); and blue-collar worker (carpenter) who was a subject of an imperialistic colonizer (Rome). …

Jesus’ mission to bring good news to the poor, sight to the blind and liberty to the oppressed should define our worship, be it expressed in music or lifestyle. Music, because we feel it, penetrates our hearts and stimulates a response. It ennobles ideas, emotes passion and defines eras. Gaye’s opus reminds us of that.

Reflecting Christ’s purpose through our lives will require the courage to break free from convention, perceive the new things God is doing in our midst and zealously pursue them.

Read the full article here.

Register for Reload 1.2.3 here.

I read somewhere that Brian McLaren or Bart Campolo (maybe both) sign their letters with the phrase, “Plotting Goodness.”

It stuck. Keeps me thinking, especially when groups like Advent Conspiracy, One Day’s Wages, and New York Faith and Justice remind me what really matters about the holidays.

Advent Conspiracy says is especially well at their website.

Christmas can [still] change the world.

The story of Christ’s birth is a story of promise, hope, and a revolutionary love.

So, what happened? What was once a time to celebrate the birth of a savior has somehow turned into a season of stress, traffic jams, and shopping lists.

And when it’s all over, many of us are left with presents to return, looming debt that will take months to pay off, and this empty feeling of missed purpose. Is this what we really want out of Christmas?

What if Christmas became a world-changing event again?

Welcome to Advent Conspiracy.

Worship Fully. Spend Less. Give More. Love All.

Be inspired.

My church is conspiring for advent again this year with the goal of raising enough money to build a clean water well in Nigeria. The easiest way to help: buy a RUWA shirt (ruwa is Nigerian for “water”). For every $20 shirt, $14 will be donated to Living Waters International towards the construction of the well.

Sojourners features 20/20 Vision for Schools’ Advisory Board member Dr. Nicole Baker Fulgham on their God’s Politics blog today. She recounts an experience as a first year teacher in Compton, CA, when a 10 year old challenged her:

“Aw c’mon Ms. Baker, nobody thinks we’re smart! If they did, they wouldn’t give us this broken down school and these ratty old books. You don’t even have enough paper and pencils for us!”

As Teach For America’s Vice President of Faith Community Outreach, Ms. Fulgham has spent the last 15 years fighting to overcome educational inequity. Why?

The academic achievement gap, in a well-resourced country like ours, is a tragic moral injustice that should move people of faith to action. As Christians, let’s take stock of how we’re working to eliminate this problem. Are we encouraging our most talented college graduates and young professionals to teach in schools like Solomon’s? Are we mobilizing our church communities to volunteer, tutor, and provide much-needed supplies to under-resourced schools? Are we mobilizing on behalf of students like Solomon to demand that lawmakers create policies that will improve the quality of their education?

The Bible is pretty clear about our responsibility. God says that all children were created in his image, so we should believe every child has unlimited potential. God says that children are incredibly precious to him. And God tells us to eliminate injustice. It’s time for Christians to take a stand on behalf of the ‘least of these’ in our nation’s low-income public schools. Solomon and his classmates are waiting for us.

Full article.

My latest article was published in the September issues of Tri-State Voice and Love Express. Here’s an excerpt.

How many eighth grade Bible studies lead with Lamentations? Or Leviticus?

Yet last I checked, Lamentations and Leviticus are part of the Biblical canon, along with Romans and Revelation and lots of other heady reading material.

Should it matter to pastors then that average graduates of America’s city schools read at eighth grade levels?

If pastors believe Scripture, then absolutely it should. Romans teaches that spiritual transformation occurs by renewing the mind according to the Word of God – not at altar calls or church services. Besides being ill-equipped to compete in an information economy, where the currency is fluency with words, how likely are poor readers to engage the written Word?

Regardless of whether literacy matters to pastors, it matters to prison wardens. States allocate prison construction dollars based on fourth grade reading test scores.

Read the full article here.

Related

+ 20/20 Vision for Schools

My latest article, co-written with Pastor Louis Carlo of Abounding Grace Ministries, was published today at UrbanFaith.com. Here’s an excerpt.

… At its core, the Gospel is a story about a loving God who reconciles humanity into loving relationships with Himself, themselves, and each other. Justice fits into the story as Christ rights the wrongs that prevent those relationships. Worship as both music and lifestyle should reflect this. But does it?

… Sadly, too often our church music is directed inward as a distorted, selfish facsimile of worship. We long for God to meet personal needs and mediate justice on our own behalf, radically reducing our songs to individualized laundry lists of wants.

… How can worship leaders help navigate oceans of justice within congregational gatherings? First, in the music and expressions of worship we embrace; and second, by facilitating worship as lifestyle, not just musical ritual.

Marvin Gaye’s opus reminds us that music ennobles ideas, emotes passion, and defines eras. Because we feel it, music penetrates hearts and stimulates a response. Combine inspired notes with well-crafted lyrics and the results can be liberating. Or lethal.

In Call and Response, a 2008 documentary about sex trafficking, Dr. Cornel West describes music’s power to accentuate and ultimately eradicate injustice: “Music is about helping folk … by getting them to dance. Getting them to move. Getting them to think. Getting them to reflect. Getting them to be themselves, to somehow break out of the conventional self that they are.”

As musicians use that power to draw attention to injustices, people cannot help but get involved, West contends, because “justice is what love looks like in public.”

Read the full article here (or cataloged here).

Extreme Poverty and AIDS

Bill Hybels interview with Bono, featuring testimonies from pastors throughout
Willow Creek Leadership Summit 2009

(My notes below were taken real time via Twitter. Read them from the bottom up.)

# Hybels: we need compassion AND justice to end stupid, extreme poverty in this generation. #tls094:54 PM Aug 7th from twidroid

# Hybels: God in his humor chose bono to get the poor on our radar. #tls094:51 PM Aug 7th from twidroid

# Hybels: I get paid too much. Willow is a resourced church. Do I do enough? #tls094:50 PM Aug 7th from twidroid

# Hybels: Jesus had ‘blinding clarity’ abt church’s obligation 2 poor. Matt 25 #tls094:48 PM Aug 7th from twidroid

# bono: its not ok to have a child die for lack of immunizations and food. #tls094:43 PM Aug 7th from web

# bono: anger re injustice gives me reason to get out of bed an hr early. stats have faces. we must make poverty history #tls094:42 PM Aug 7th from web

# bono: nothing is dependent on you. but it’s hard, because there is resistence. journey of justice&equality requires each of us #tls094:41 PM Aug 7th from web

# Bono: grace happens in community. #tls094:38 PM Aug 7th from web

# soccer coach testimony: caring for the poor is more than giving money. give your life. #tls094:34 PM Aug 7th from web

# bono: people want preachers to be honest. have a spirit of humility. be real. #tls094:32 PM Aug 7th from web

# bono’s “fear of denominationalism” – hybels is pushing back. bono: “i go where the life is… hard to take lifeless ceremony” #tls094:31 PM Aug 7th from web

# After banks crashed, it was so easy to bail out wall st with $700 billion. but it was so hard to find $ for ppl in a far off crisis #tls094:29 PM Aug 7th from web

# “jesus created the church to exist for the world. … why did it take a rock star?” #tls094:28 PM Aug 7th from web

# testimony of infertile couple who gave their $ for fertility treatmnts to feed malnourished kids even if they nvr had their own child #tls094:26 PM Aug 7th from web

# testimonies from pastors who were afraid to talk abt poverty … until a rock start prophet brought conviction. WOW #tls094:23 PM Aug 7th from web

# bono: intuition is better than intellect. u2′s best work comes when we dont know what we are doing. #tls094:21 PM Aug 7th from web

# interpreting bono: god was with the hungry etheopian who inspired the song, and hes with u when u remember him. #tls094:20 PM Aug 7th from web

# Bono: i wrote the lyrics at an etheopian feeding station as ppl who walked all nite for food arrived. thats the street with no name. #tls094:19 PM Aug 7th from web

# Bono: when we sing “where the streets have no name” god walks thru the room. humbling bc it’s a bad lyric, but god uses it. #tls094:18 PM Aug 7th from web

# A mark of spiritual maturity is whether people are releasing their resources for the least of these. #tls094:17 PM Aug 7th from web

# When global poverty became personal, churches started making a difference. Find where God is working and join in. #tls094:15 PM Aug 7th from web

# Bono: the concept of neighbor has completely changed. in the global village, Africa and US are now neighbors. #tls094:13 PM Aug 7th from web

# Bono: The church is now in the lead, not the rear. we are now winning in some places because the church has woken up! #tls094:12 PM Aug 7th from web

# Bono: in last 3yrs, the church has “ruined it for me.” cant mock church anymore. “i didnt know the giant cld run that fast.” #tls094:11 PM Aug 7th from web

# Bono: has he seen a difference bw the disengaged, detached church 3 yrs ago, and the church fighting global poverty 2day? #tls094:08 PM Aug 7th from web

# Hybels: Don’t get heated re polarized extremes. “Resubmit our brains” to the HS so we can think abt both #tls094:05 PM Aug 7th from web

# Hybels: No child shld EVER starve to death in our world. BUT we must also fix systems that are broken. Smart ppl shld do both. #tls094:04 PM Aug 7th from web

# Hybels: there’s a difference between life saving compassion and long-term, empowering justice #tls09