Blog Action Day: Poverty

We'll be singing a worship song called "God of Justice" this weekend at church as the sermon series "Shake The System: Brave Not Safe" kicks off. Here are part of the lyrics:

We must go
Live to feed the hungry
Stand beside the broken
We must go
Stepping forward
Keep us from just singing
Move us into action
We must go
To act justly every day
Loving mercy in every way
Walking humbly before You God
You have shown us, what You require
Freely we've received
Now freely we will give

Speaking of church stuff, a couple guys my age from church, Curtis and Barry, started a blog Brave Not Safe to highlight social justice issues. Barry just got back from spending a few months in India working with Truthseekers, and Curtis works for the church and makes desktop backgrounds promoting social justice issues in his spare time. (I had this one as my background at work for a while. Not only a great message and reminder- the black background may be environmentally friendlier!)

As part of the sermon series, weekend services November 1-2 are canceled . Instead, everyone (and I do mean EVERYONE. Have you signed up yet? Got the tshirt ? The desktop background ?) is going out to serve. Shifts are on Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, Sunday morning, and Sunday afternoon, and the projects are as varied as the people who will participate. Eighty projects. Three-thousand people. Thirty-five organizations. One metro area. One church serving together. I'm so excited.

My contribution at church is at the library, where I spend about 2 hours a week re-shelving and cleaning up. It seems small and far away from the mission work and fight against poverty that is happening in so many other corners of the church's ministry. Last night, while I was cleaning up at the library, I saw that I could make a difference, too. I created a display of books for the sermon series, pulling out books like Good News About Injustice, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, God in the Alley, and Death By Suburb (links to Amazon books). By making people aware of issues (and aware that they can learn about issues via our library!) I'm helping to support the mission of the church, and helping church members be Jesus in the community. If, through the library, the ministry can help educate and turn hearts toward the priorities of God, the library has served its purpose. If those people are mobilized because they are informed and have concrete ways to act, change will happen in the city and around the world. Other good books are in the library too,absolutely- about parsing theology and getting through hard times and working on your marriage and raising your children. There will be a time (and a sermon series) for all of those, but for now, for this time, I was really excited to put up a display about God's heart for the poor. Fighting poverty matters.

In other news, I've gotten word from another library volunteer that books have already been taken from the display, and it hasn't been up 24 hours yet! Looks like other people are just as interested to read about & tackle the topic of poverty as I am! I'll go Friday night or Saturday morning & make sure the display's refilled in time for weekend services.