I had a conversation with one of my roommates last night about the incredible need that we are surrounded by everyday in our own city. We don't live in a culture that has the same kind of poverty as some of the third world countries, but do have people who are poor and homeless according the basic standard of living here.
My job gives me the privilege of seeing this need in my own community everyday. When I first started this job, my heart broke every time I walked or drove past the people waiting to come into our building for a meal or a cup of coffee or just some care. But, I noticed over time that I stopped having my heart broken by it. I eventually got to the point where I didn't even really see these people anymore. I had grown cold to it because it had become normal to me. When I realized this, I was quite horrified. I mean really . . . how can you get to the point where you don't see people in need? How could I be one of those people who just walks by and doesn't have my heart broken by the incredible need? I asked God to change my heart from what it had grown cold to. I didn't want this to be the case. God took me seriously when I prayed this prayer. He definitely broke my heart through a series of circumstances. Probably the hardest part of God breaking my heart for these people again was that He did it by bringing someone who I had known growing up into that place of need and me seeing that. This was someone who was more than another face on the street that I walked past. This was someone that I knew. But, as my roommate and I were talking last night I realized that God has answered that prayer I had prayed - that my heart would break with the things that broke His heart. It's not an easy place to live, but it's a place I would rather live.
I don't think we can really take seriously Jesus' call to look after the poor and those in need without our hearts being broken by the things that break His heart. And since Jesus talks in Matthew 25 about what we do for the least of these, we do for Him" we should be seeking to do just that. We should be helping out the least among us those - those in need.
Social justice . . . helping those in need . . . that is what we are called to. How are we - the church as a whole, world-wide - doing at living out this calling? How are you doing at living this in your own life on an individual level?
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Friday, August 15, 2008
leadership thoughts
Disclaimer: The first part of this blog might apply more to the women than the men. Not to say that guys can't read it.
At the leadership conference I was at, they interviewed two young women that I was quite interested in. Both of them are young women who have taken a dream to make a difference in the world and gone out done just that. They both started their own non-profit organizations and began working for towards these dreams they had been given. As a woman working in the non-profit world I was excited to be able to hear from these women.
I appreciated just being able to hear from them about how they did it. I know that for myself I often find myself holding back from getting involved in leadership because I'm female. One of the women said these words, that have engraved themselves in my brain: "make no excuses for being a woman in leadership." I am called to lead where God has placed me in life. It may look different than how a guy would do, in fact I think it should look different, but I don't need to shy away from where God has called me to lead in my life. I don't need to be making excuses for myself. I just need to step up and do what God has called me to do.
The rest of this blog applies to both men and women.
Another thing from this leadership conference that I attended last week that has really stuck with had to do with whole topic of accountability. It is something that needs to be a part of all leader's lives! One of the speakers talked about how sometimes we need to be willing to sacrifice our privacy for the sake of accountability. It just struck me as so true. When we make ourselvses accountable to other peole, we willingly give up some of our privacy. And this is a good thing! Our lives cannot be lived in secret. If no one knows what is going on in our lives - what we're doing when we're not working or volunteering - we can very easily fall into sin. When we have people in our lives who have our permission to know what we're doing in our off-time and to ask us the tough questions. Without that our lives as leaders suffer greatly.
Another thing that hit me was when one of the speakers talked about failing at something you step out to do. I tend to be someone who takes failing at something pretty hard. It's something that I often transfer to myself, seeing myself as a failure rather than just seeing it as an event. So for me, this reminder is something that I need often.
As I've thought back over this two day leadership conference, there has been so much that has spoken to me. It's taken me this week to really begin to make sense of all of it and to pull out what I needed to learn. The biggest thing I think I took away is the reminder that it will be easier - not always easy, but easier - to lead if it's something you really, really believe in. When you are really souled out to the vision that you're working for, you will be more committed to it and more willing to stick with it through the challenges that will inevitably come your way.
OK, so up to this point, this is my processing from this leadership conference I attended. There was so much more information that came my way in those two days, but I'm learning that in situations like that I need to take the things that I need to learn and then leave the rest of the information for a later date. You can't process that much information all at once. You have to leave the rest to be learned at a later date.
At the leadership conference I was at, they interviewed two young women that I was quite interested in. Both of them are young women who have taken a dream to make a difference in the world and gone out done just that. They both started their own non-profit organizations and began working for towards these dreams they had been given. As a woman working in the non-profit world I was excited to be able to hear from these women.
I appreciated just being able to hear from them about how they did it. I know that for myself I often find myself holding back from getting involved in leadership because I'm female. One of the women said these words, that have engraved themselves in my brain: "make no excuses for being a woman in leadership." I am called to lead where God has placed me in life. It may look different than how a guy would do, in fact I think it should look different, but I don't need to shy away from where God has called me to lead in my life. I don't need to be making excuses for myself. I just need to step up and do what God has called me to do.
The rest of this blog applies to both men and women.
Another thing from this leadership conference that I attended last week that has really stuck with had to do with whole topic of accountability. It is something that needs to be a part of all leader's lives! One of the speakers talked about how sometimes we need to be willing to sacrifice our privacy for the sake of accountability. It just struck me as so true. When we make ourselvses accountable to other peole, we willingly give up some of our privacy. And this is a good thing! Our lives cannot be lived in secret. If no one knows what is going on in our lives - what we're doing when we're not working or volunteering - we can very easily fall into sin. When we have people in our lives who have our permission to know what we're doing in our off-time and to ask us the tough questions. Without that our lives as leaders suffer greatly.
Another thing that hit me was when one of the speakers talked about failing at something you step out to do. I tend to be someone who takes failing at something pretty hard. It's something that I often transfer to myself, seeing myself as a failure rather than just seeing it as an event. So for me, this reminder is something that I need often.
As I've thought back over this two day leadership conference, there has been so much that has spoken to me. It's taken me this week to really begin to make sense of all of it and to pull out what I needed to learn. The biggest thing I think I took away is the reminder that it will be easier - not always easy, but easier - to lead if it's something you really, really believe in. When you are really souled out to the vision that you're working for, you will be more committed to it and more willing to stick with it through the challenges that will inevitably come your way.
OK, so up to this point, this is my processing from this leadership conference I attended. There was so much more information that came my way in those two days, but I'm learning that in situations like that I need to take the things that I need to learn and then leave the rest of the information for a later date. You can't process that much information all at once. You have to leave the rest to be learned at a later date.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
justice
I was at a leadership conference at the end of last week. Two days, nine sessions, 11 speakers (I think) . . . it was a lot to take in . . . and I've spent most of the past week trying to process through it all. That's something that I'm definitely still working on. I think it's going to take a while.
One of the things that really jumped out at me was the theme of social justice. It seemed to come up in so many of the sessions. While hoping to provide tools for us to learn from to be better leaders, many of the speakers also had call to be involved in righting the injustices of our world. It's something that has just really stuck with me since then.
It reminded me of the words to one of my favourite songs
God of justice, Savior to all
Came to rescue the weak and the poor
Came to serve and not be served
. . .
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
The first time I heard this song (God of Justice by Tim Hughes) those words just really struck me. And they were brought to mind again this past week with all of the call to be involved in social justice in our world.
The past couple of days, that song has become my sort of theme song for my life. I find it so easy to just get caught up in my life and forget about what is going on in the rest of the world. Even with my job and being face-to-face with some of the injustice in North America everyday, I find it so easy to forget what we are called to in Scripture. In some ways, I think my seeing it everyday when I go to work, makes it even easier for me to turn a blind eye to it all. That is not what I want to happen.
Anyways, back to this leadership conference I was at. The second speaker was the president/CEO of International Justice Mission which is an organization that operates all over the world working to free people from slavery and forced prostitution (read more here). He was talking about leadership that matters - that makes a difference. He talked about how this means that we continue to lead, even when the calling seems hopeless, scary, and hard. He also talked about how we can do this. And we lead in these situations by remembering where our hope lies and that the work we are doing is God's and we don't have to make it happen.
There was one thing he said that really hit me, and it was this: "Jesus didn't come to make us safe, He came to make us brave." It's so clear in Scripture that Jesus didn't call us to some safe thing where we sit in our own little group where we all believe the same thing. Jesus calls us to something that is counter-cultural, that requires that we take risks - it's not safe to follow Jesus!
I think often this is something that the Church (not a building, but the community of all believers), particularly in the West where being a Christian is relatively easy, struggles with a lot. We are okay leading when things are easy and everything is going according to plan. But, when we're faced with the injustice going on around the world, and even in our own communities to some extent, we get scared and lose hope that we can make a difference. But, these are exactly the situations where we need to step up and take the lead.
We should be working against injustice not sitting idly by as it happens!!! God is a God of justice and He uses us to make a difference in the injustice that is happening in our world. As a Church we need to step up and make that difference! Whether it be through financially supporting ministries that seek to right the injustices of our world or thtough getting personally involved in seeking to right the injustices of our world. We may not be able to stop all injustice, but we have to do our part!!!
One of the things that really jumped out at me was the theme of social justice. It seemed to come up in so many of the sessions. While hoping to provide tools for us to learn from to be better leaders, many of the speakers also had call to be involved in righting the injustices of our world. It's something that has just really stuck with me since then.
It reminded me of the words to one of my favourite songs
God of justice, Savior to all
Came to rescue the weak and the poor
Came to serve and not be served
. . .
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
The first time I heard this song (God of Justice by Tim Hughes) those words just really struck me. And they were brought to mind again this past week with all of the call to be involved in social justice in our world.
The past couple of days, that song has become my sort of theme song for my life. I find it so easy to just get caught up in my life and forget about what is going on in the rest of the world. Even with my job and being face-to-face with some of the injustice in North America everyday, I find it so easy to forget what we are called to in Scripture. In some ways, I think my seeing it everyday when I go to work, makes it even easier for me to turn a blind eye to it all. That is not what I want to happen.
Anyways, back to this leadership conference I was at. The second speaker was the president/CEO of International Justice Mission which is an organization that operates all over the world working to free people from slavery and forced prostitution (read more here). He was talking about leadership that matters - that makes a difference. He talked about how this means that we continue to lead, even when the calling seems hopeless, scary, and hard. He also talked about how we can do this. And we lead in these situations by remembering where our hope lies and that the work we are doing is God's and we don't have to make it happen.
There was one thing he said that really hit me, and it was this: "Jesus didn't come to make us safe, He came to make us brave." It's so clear in Scripture that Jesus didn't call us to some safe thing where we sit in our own little group where we all believe the same thing. Jesus calls us to something that is counter-cultural, that requires that we take risks - it's not safe to follow Jesus!
I think often this is something that the Church (not a building, but the community of all believers), particularly in the West where being a Christian is relatively easy, struggles with a lot. We are okay leading when things are easy and everything is going according to plan. But, when we're faced with the injustice going on around the world, and even in our own communities to some extent, we get scared and lose hope that we can make a difference. But, these are exactly the situations where we need to step up and take the lead.
We should be working against injustice not sitting idly by as it happens!!! God is a God of justice and He uses us to make a difference in the injustice that is happening in our world. As a Church we need to step up and make that difference! Whether it be through financially supporting ministries that seek to right the injustices of our world or thtough getting personally involved in seeking to right the injustices of our world. We may not be able to stop all injustice, but we have to do our part!!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)