From the UCC Network: 08/30/2011 "Open Doors"

Open Doors

Excerpt from Revelation 3: 7-13

"See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut." (NIV)

Reflection by Kenneth L. Samuel

The book of Revelation was written by the disciple John to Christians who were experiencing severe persecution by first-century Roman emperors determined to destroy the church of Christ.  With doors of social acceptance, religious tolerance and political favor being closed violently in their faces, John proclaims to Christian believers that "God has set before you an open door!"  Really?  How realistic is it to believe that God will open doors in contexts of systemic confinement, disenfranchisement and oppression?

I grew up in the slums of New York City – the South Bronx.  It was an economically depressed community, full of drugs, delinquency and crime.  But in that concentrated ghetto of closed doors, God sent me a teacher by the name of Ms. Hutchinson, who taught and mentored me from grade 7 to grade 9.  Upon my completion of the 9th grade, under Ms. Hutchinson's tutelage, I was able to apply for and receive a scholarship to a private, prestigious college preparatory school in the hills of northern New Jersey.  Upon graduation, I received four-year scholarship offers from Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. and Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT.  God does open doors.

This summer, a group of about 30 of my church members and friends journeyed to Senegal and The Gambia, West Africa on a cultural excursion.  In The Gambia, we visited an orphanage that educates and serves children with special needs. The Gambia is a developing country with not very many doors of educational and economic advancement open to the vast majority of its citizenry.  But after our visit,  our church made a commitment to adopt that orphanage and to give what we can to provide consistent financial and material support so that it can keep its doors open for the impoverished children of The Gambia with special needs.  God does open doors.

The church I serve is itself located in an area of metro-Atlanta that has seen doors of business development and employment opportunity close consistently over the past ten years.  Like many black and Hispanic urban areas across the country, we are experiencing the consequences of diminished resources for investment in transportation, infrastructure and education.  But in partnership with a local community college, our church has recently launched a program that offers free GED prep classes to the growing number people in our community who have slipped through the public education system without a high school diploma.  God does open doors.

Are there any doors of opportunity, advancement or blessedness that God could open through you today?

Prayer

Lord, we are grateful for the doors of opportunity that you have opened for us.  Now please give us the opportunity and the desire to open doors for others who would otherwise be locked in or left out.  Amen.

About the Author Kenneth L. Samuel is Pastor of Victory for the World Church, Stone Mountain, Georgia.

We Are All Illegal [cross-post]

We Are All Illegal

We are all illegal aliens in the kingdom of God granted entry only by the amnesty of Christ’s blood. That is the strange foundational truth of Christianity. There is nothing I can do to get a green card that will prove to God that I deserve his love. There is no line for me to wait in at the embassy. The single citizenship requirement for heaven is to acknowledge that I don’t deserve to be there and accept God’s offer of mercy through Christ. Those who understand that they are illegal before God are able to receive God’s mercy and share it with others. But thinking that I can earn my way into heaven by accepting the right doctrine or living the right way is like trying to get around with a fake ID.

Today’s immigration crisis gives us a helpful metaphor for articulating in evocative terms what Paul is writing about in Romans 3:23-24: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are justified freely by the redemption that is in Jesus Christ.” Additionally, our response to the immigration crisis as Christians is a good litmus test of whether we truly understand our own illegal status before God. Recognizing that we deserve God’s wrath but have received grace instead radically alters our ethical perspective. We no longer consider ourselves worthy of judging what other people deserve.

There are legitimate questions to be asked in resolving our immigration crisis, but they can only be addressed once we disqualify the entirely un-Christian question of whether undocumented immigrants “deserve” to be granted legal status. Christians who know that they stand on God’s grace alone have renounced the right to ask a question like this. If I recognize my total depravity before God, then “deserve” is not a word that should exist in my vocabulary. Furthermore, why do I deserve the advantages of American citizenship simply because I was born north of a river in the desert rather than south of it? I don’t. And it is abominable of me to judge someone for breaking a law that, being a US citizen, I cannot possibly break myself.

When we expunge self-righteousness from the immigration debate, we can actually consider the causes of illegal immigration and possible solutions. I’ve worked in various capacities with the undocumented immigrant population for a little over a decade. I’ve studied the visa system that we have in place in this country. Our problem is that we have a very large employment sector that is not currently covered by any visa category: temporary day labor. We have H1 visas for white collar workers, H2 visas for seasonal farm workers who stay with the same employer (most have to hop between farms), and TN visas through NAFTA for Mexican and Canadian nationals who work in professional industries that all require college degrees. There is no visa available for roofers, landscapers, carpenters, housecleaners, and a whole slew of other independent contractor jobs that currently employ more than ten million undocumented immigrants in our economy. If you live in Mexico and don’t have a college degree, the only way to legally migrate to the United States and work, outside of the very small and already full H2 visa pool, is to sweet-talk an American tourist into marrying you. Here is a link to a helpful graphic that illustrates the ins and outs of our broken visa system.

President Bush’s bipartisan immigration reform proposal sought to address this problem by creating a “guest-worker” visa. His proposal was torpedoed by those who thought this would “reward lawbreakers.” It had other problems too, such as denying “guest-workers” the right to organize unions. But if there is no way for blue-collar immigrants to come here legally, then how in the world can we blame them for coming illegally? It would require more government bureaucracy to oversee a temporary worker visa program in which workers are not hitched to a single employer, but I’m not sure this wouldn’t amount to a reallocation of the resources the US government already has in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). If undocumented immigrants were given a means of maintaining their legal status by reporting regularly to an ICE office, then it would separate those who want to be transparent from those who have something to hide. Since crossing the border illegally is currently an expensive investment of $6000 or more, most undocumented immigrants see it as a one-way, one-time trip for them and their families. If immigrant bread-winners could cross the border legally to work for a few months and return home regularly without paying a coyote smuggler, then many immigrant families would opt to keep their residence in Mexico or Central America where the cost of living is so much cheaper.

It kills me that the main thing standing in the way of resolving our immigration crisis with a solution that seems to address the underlying issue is the sanctimonious moralism of the anti-immigrant lobby. I wonder how many people in this lobby are professing Christians who see their adherence to a certain doctrine and lifestyle as the ground from which they can cast stones at other people. If instead we really accept God’s mercy, then it necessarily makes us humble. Paul says this much in Ephesians 2:7-8: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” When Christians recognize our illegality before God, then our gratitude for God’s mercy determines how we treat other people. Perhaps people who are used to being called “illegal” are entering the kingdom of heaven before the rest of us.

—-

Morgan Guyton is the associate pastor of Burke United Methodist Church in Burke, Virginia, and a Christian who continues to seek God’s liberation from the prison of self-justification Jesus died to help him overcome. Morgan’s blog “Mercy Not Sacrifice” is located at http://morganguyton.wordpress.com.

Jesus, Bombs, and Ice Cream: Re-Imagining the World Post-9/11 [cross-post]

PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIAN PORTAL

Jesus, Bombs, and Ice Cream: Re-Imagining the World Post-9/11

In a country that is going bankrupt as it continues to spend $250,000 a minute on war, it's clear that it is time to re-imagine things.

By Shane Claiborne, August 18, 201

I was in Baghdad in March 2003, where I lived as a Christian and as a peacemaker during the "shock-and-awe" bombing. I spent time with families, volunteered in hospitals, and learned to sing "Amazing Grace" . . . in Arabic.

There is one image of the time in Baghdad that will never leave me. As the bombs fell from the sky and smoke filled the air, one of the doctors in the hospital held a little girl whose body was riddled with missile fragments. He threw his hands in the air and said, "This violence is for a world that has lost its imagination." Then he looked square into my eyes, with tears pouring from his, and said, "Has your country lost its imagination?"

That doctor's words have stayed with me.

In a country that is going bankrupt as it continues to spend 250,000 a minute on war, it is clear that it is time to re-imagine things. That doctor's words have inspired a little something.

On the eve of the 10^th anniversary of September 11, Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream, and I are teaming up. And we have rallied a bunch of other artists and storytellers to create a 90-minute variety show and multimedia presentation raising questions of violence and militarism . . . and sharing stories of reconciliation and grace.

We've been calling it "Jesus, Bombs, and Ice Cream."  

A victim of 9/11 will share about why she has insisted that more violence will not cure the epidemic of hatred in the world.

A veteran from Iraq will speak about the collision he felt as a Christian trying to follow the nonviolent-enemy-love of Jesus on the cross . . . while carrying a gun.

A welder will tie an AK-47 in a knot, while a muralist paints something beautiful on stage.

We're going to do a Skype call with Afghan youth working for peace, and hear their dreams for a world free of war and bombs and other ugly things.

We've got the world's best juggler Josh Horton doing an original anti-violence routine . . . and we've got some of the finest musicians rocking out some old freedom songs.

Ben and I are sort of like the ringmasters of the circus. He'll do this spectacular demonstration with Oreos, with each one representing 10 billion dollars of federal spending so we can see how the money stacks up with all these budget talks. I'll share about Jesus, and that grace that dulls even the sharpest sword.

We hope you can make it.

Oh, and word on the street is—ice cream will be served.

But even if you can't make it to Philly on September 10 for our little party, find some way to do something that doesn't compute with the patterns of violence. It's time to re-imagine the world.

Find a way to interrupt injustice and to build the kind of world we are proud to pass on to our kids—a world with fewer bombs and more ice cream.

I hope to go back to Iraq in a year or two, find that doctor again, and tell him: "We have not lost our imagination."

Watch Ben Cohen's invitation:

Shane Claiborne is the co-founder of The Simple Way, and is a bestselling author, prominent Christian activist, sought-after speaker and recovering sinner.

Looking to the Future on the 15th Anniversary of Welfare Reform [cross-post]

Looking to the Future on the 15th Anniversary of Welfare Reform

Establishing a Goal to End Poverty

President Clinton prepares to sign legislation in the Rose Garden of the White House Thursday, Aug. 22, 1996, overhauling America's welfare system.

SOURCE: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

By Joy Moses | August 22, 2011

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August 22 marks the 15th anniversary of the signing of the welfare reform bill, making this a good time to reflect on the future of what is now known as the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, program. One would expect that during this unprecedented time of high unemployment and hardship that TANF—one of the biggest programs serving people in poverty—would be of interest to Congress.

Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case. Instead, the tragic state of the political debate has kept certain topics off the table and has generally limited Congress’s ability to solve any of the major problems our nation is currently facing. Meanwhile, TANF is overdue for reauthorization. Necessary hearings and debates have yet to occur, and the program is now poised for another inevitable extension without full consideration.

There has to be a better way forward. In the coming months Congress should seriously work toward defining the next era of the program. And what makes the most sense is a shift to a singular mission of ending poverty.

This shift in emphasis is a logical next step for TANF. Before the program was reformed, welfare’s primary aim was income support. Not enough attention was paid to successfully supporting families’ participation in the world of work. Welfare reform encouraged work and produced positive results for many families, but it left some serious loose ends with many mothers entering the ranks of the working poor or being poor because they totally fell of the grid.

21 percent of working single mother households today live below the poverty line of $17,285 for single parent families with two children. Nearly half make do with incomes that fall below 200 percent of the federal poverty level, suggesting that these households are struggling to get by. And there is an additional group who are poor, not working, and not on TANF due to significant barriers such as limited education, physical or mental illness, substance abuse problems, and full-time caretaker responsibilities for sick children or other family members. The number of women in this group has grown from 1 in 8 low-income single mothers at the time of welfare reform to 1 in 5.

In short, TANF did not solve the problem of poverty—nor did it expressly seek to do so. A new mission to reduce poverty should continue to encompass a focus on work along with temporary income assistance for those who need it, but there should be some reshaping of those efforts and growing service access for those not tied to the income assistance part of the program along with some other additions.

Some potential items include:

Establishing a national poverty reduction goal. The Half in Ten Campaign has urged the creation of a national poverty reduction goal. This should be accompanied by regular measurements of progress towards achieving that goal.

Better connecting families to jobs. HHS should establish a permanent interagency effort bringing together government programs such as weatherization, child care, and parks and recreation that could provide job opportunities to low-income people. The effort should address crucial concerns related to connecting the TANF population and other low-income people to these jobs, training, and wages. At the federal and state levels, HHS programs should also have a place at the table of any job creation strategy efforts.

Improving what we already do. Few people have been able to rely on the TANF as a safety net during the current economic crisis. Reforms, including reversing course on the program’s legislatively mandated funding freeze, must ensure that the program is more responsive during emergencies. TANF-erected barriers such as mandatory work requirements that don’t allow for sufficient education and training opportunities needed to access living wage employment must be altered. Work supports such as child care should reach more families and experience continued quality improvements. And efforts to spur innovation must continue despite funding challenges.

Strengthening families. Welfare’s history has largely been defined by an emphasis on women and children. This approach did not pay enough attention to fathers and other family members who play a role in reducing child poverty. Efforts have better targeted fathers in recent years, but whole family service models should become more common.

Supporting high quality social workers. Although most people in poverty just need a hand up, others could benefit from quality services from professionals such as social workers and mental health professionals. These individuals may be attached to a variety of systems including TANF, child welfare, and K-12 education. A centralized national-level effort should encourage professionals to serve low-income populations, expand and appropriately target access to their services, and support their professional development and cultural competency.

Establishing a sustainable knowledge base. A useful addition would be an office within HHS that researches poverty (including causes and differences across populations) and the effectiveness of antipoverty strategies.

Effectively accounting for those who can’t work. We must ensure the well-being of those who are temporarily or permanently unable to work. Much of this will involve ensuring access to existing services like Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, which is income assistance for those with disabilities, but it may also involve new services.

It’s difficult to address the poverty reduction issue—or any issue for that matter—without answering the question of the day: How do we pay for it? The answer includes simple common sense approaches. First, we can make smarter use of existing resources, making programs run more efficiently and effectively coordinating services. Second, we can prioritize some items for immediate targeted investments, reversing the current mandate for flat funding of the program, and begin careful long-term planning for future investments.

The Center for American Progress argues that the nation can invest $70 billion more a year on crucial national priorities ranging from education to infrastructure and including poverty reduction. This will, however, require raising revenues, but simply allowing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans to expire would produce $69 billionmore a year.

This balancing of priorities will sit squarely within the hands of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. If they make the right decisions, there could be some stepping stones toward creating a next-generation program that specifically aims to end poverty, multiplying the number of workers who can effectively contribute to our tax base and efforts to reinvigorate American competitiveness.

Joy Moses is a Senior Policy Analyst with the Poverty and Prosperity program at American Progress.

To speak with our experts on this topic, please contact:

Print: Anna Soellner (economic policy)
202.478.5322 or asoellner@americanprogress.org

Print: Anne Shoup (education policy)
202.481.7146 or ashoup@americanprogress.org

Print: Christina DiPasquale (foreign policy and security, energy)
202.481.8181 or cdipasquale@americanprogress.org

Print: Raúl Arce-Contreras (ethnic media, immigration)
202.478.5318 or rarcecontreras@americanprogress.org

Radio: Anne Shoup
202.481.7146 or ashoup@americanprogress.org

TV: Andrea Purse
202.741.6250 or apurse@americanprogress.org

Small Ohio UCC church dreams big for Mission:1
Written by Jeff Woodard
August 22, 2011

Daryl Dunn, Kathy Channell and Bob McLain of Bethany UCC in Lebanon, Ohio, unload boxes of donations for the Lebanon Community Center Food Pantry.

Still 11 weeks away from the kickoff of Mission:1, little Bethany UCC has sky-high hopes for the national church’s campaign against hunger.

The 67-member church in Lebanon, Ohio, with a huge heart has been practicing the tenets of Mission:1 for decades, says the Rev. Barb Hobe.

On Aug. 28, Hobe and friends plan to take their own Mission:1 promotion to the air.

“We’re inviting 111 people to form the number ‘1’ as a donated plane does fly-bys and takes photos,” says Hobe, who has kept her congregation on track for four years. “That's what Ron Mehl of Nexus UCC and I are organizing for our Southern Ohio Northern Kentucky Association (SONKA).”

Hobe and Mehl are prepared should fewer than 111 people show up. “We’ll have brown grocery bags of food for fillers,” says Hobe. “People can take a bag, hold it over their head or place it on the ground next to them as part of the formation of the ‘1’. "

“We’ll encourage people who don’t have the same opportunity as Bethany does to take a bag, fill it with non-perishables and give it to their local food pantry,” says Hobe.

The Mission:1 campaign centers on the UCC’s motto, “That they may all be 1,” Nov. 1-11, 2011 (11-1-11—11-11-11). During those 11 days, the UCC’s goal is to collect more than 1 million food and household items for local food banks and collect $111,111 in online donations for hunger-related causes. At the same time, it will encourage its 5,300 congregations to advocate for hunger-related causes worldwide via 11,111 letters to Congress.

According to SONKA records, Hobe says Bethany is one of the top three per-capita giving churches in the Association. For years, Bethany members have donated non-perishables to the Lebanon Community Center's Food Pantry.

“Once a month, heavy boxes of donations from local companies are unloaded, while other people fill boxes and bags with food, health and cleaning items, and paper products to give to people who qualify for services,” Hobe explains.

Half of the proceeds from a rented cell-phone tower (on land owned by the church) are given to the Food Pantry each year; the other half goes to the Interfaith Hospitality Network, which Bethany has worked with for more than 10 years.

In July, Bethany helped sponsor IHN's main fund-raiser. “When the church was invited to sponsor a back-to-school special for IHN children, $700 was given out of pocket for seven children to receive haircuts, new shoes, new outfits, backpacks and supplies to start school,” she says.

At Christmas, Bethany members donate non-perishables for baskets given to people who are referred from Lebanon Community Services. “The perishables are purchased from our Christmas Basket Fund,” says Hobe. “Last year 20 families were given several days' worth of food, complete with homemade cookies and a greeting card made by a member.”

Funding for the Christmas baskets comes from budgeting and the receipt of half of the proceeds from a Christmas raffle hosted by a local restaurant, Country Kitchen.  “For the past three years, Country Kitchen has held this raffle, and last year's check was almost $500,” says Hobe.

Hobe praised Walter Murray, the owner of Country Kitchen, for his constant compassion and open door.

“Whenever someone in need stops by the church and asks for food, I take them to Country Kitchen,” she says. “Walt donates half the price of the meals, and Bethany provides the other half, plus tip. The wholesome, homemade food is eaten after I have put up to $40 of gasoline into the person's car or truck.”

In addition, Bethany has risen to the challenge the past few years as a “5 for 5 Church,” which supports Our Church’s Wider Mission through its church budget as well as through OCWM's four special mission offerings received annually – One Great Hour of Sharing, Neighbors in Need, Strengthen the Church and the Christmas Fund.

Hobe feels strongly that Bethany embodies the spirit of Mission:1 and is a prime example of a past UCC branding campaign: “To believe is to care. To care is to do.”

“That’s what I see a lot of Mission:1 being,” she says. “We get out there and we do, because that’s what Jesus tells us to do. We’re just kind of doing Matthew 25.

“We worship an extravagant God who has poured an extravagant Spirit of generosity into our hearts. May it touch hearts to know that we are listening and responding to our still-speaking God all the time – and particularly with Mission:1.”

Tempering Our Temper [cross-post]

TEMPERING OUR TEMPER

A young girl came into the house with a tear in her pants. Her mother was exasperated, as this had happened too many times before. At her wits end, she said to her daughter, "Now you go into your room, take off those pants, and sew up that tear!" The poor child had never held needle and thread in her life.

So understandably, a little while later her mother saw the pants crumpled on the floor of her daughter's bedroom -- still torn. She looked around for her daughter. Spying the basement light on, she called down the stairs, "Are you down there running around with your pants off?"

A big voice boomed up, "No ma'am. I'm reading the gas meter."

Of course, what parent can't relate to her exasperation?

On the other hand, I DO have trouble understanding the guy in Los Angeles who was arrested for negligent discharge of a weapon after shooting his toilet bowl five times with a handgun (and yes, this is true). Why did he assault the commode? He apparently exploded when he couldn't extract a hair brush his daughter flushed down.

He might benefit from the advice of one of America's great presidents, Thomas Jefferson, who cautioned, "When angry, count to ten before you speak; if very angry, count to 100." I think it applies to discharging weapons, too.

Maybe another technique works better for you. One husband asked his wife, "When I get mad at you, you never fight back. How do you control your anger?"

She smiled at him. "I clean the toilet bowl." (Uh-oh, toilets again.)

"How does that help?"

"I use your toothbrush," she said sweetly.

It's not that anger is a bad thing in itself. A good bit of fire in the belly may be needed to right the world's wrongs. But this isn't about righteous indignation. It's about tempering our temper.

I've seen marriages destroyed, careers derailed and relationships of all kinds decimated by uncontrolled rage. It's no wonder all of the world's great religions have something to say about it. To name a few, the Buddha said, "You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger." In the Koran we find, "He is not strong and powerful who throws people down, but he is strong who withholds himself from anger." And in Christian scripture Jesus instructs, "If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also."

You get the idea.

I like the motto Mahatma Gandhi hung on his wall at Sevagram:

"When you are in the right,
You can afford to keep your temper;
When you are in the wrong,
You can't afford to lose it."

I'm sure I could never say it better.


-- Steve Goodier