Training for Understanding and Action (by Sarah Campbell)
I'll be attending Sojourners' Pentecost conference this weekend. Why am I excited? What am I expecting? I'm looking forward to honesty about the challenges we face when we are serious about overcoming poverty.
One of my greatest struggles around large issues like poverty is that I either feel like I'm not informed well enough or that I'm not doing enough. On one hand, I talk in circles about an issue without creating change. Or, I find myself working so hard for an issue that I lose my ability to engage in meaningful conversation with others who are not so gung-ho. Both understanding and action are important.
So I'm looking forward to learning concrete ways that I can live out a radical, inclusive economy of God's kingdom. I'm looking forward to the joyful accountability that comes from an earnest, Spirit-led desire to be in communion with God, God's people, and God's creation.
I hope that this weekend I will engage in meaningful dialogue with others who can help me grow through reflection and can challenge me to deepen my commitments to creating justice.
Sarah Campbell is finishing her time as a volunteer in the Discipleship Year service corps in Washington, D.C., where she has been learning to break her cultural addictions through simplicity and intentional community. She is planning to study in a dual-degree program for a Masters of Divinity and a Masters of Social Work.
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"One of my greatest struggles around large issues like poverty is that I either feel like I'm not informed well enough or that I'm not doing enough. On one hand, I talk in circles about an issue without creating change. Or, I find myself working so hard for an issue that I lose my ability to engage in meaningful conversation with others who are not so gung-ho. Both understanding and action are important."
Sarah, thanks for being honest with yourself here.
This may seem like a stretch here but if you haven't read it - I would suggest you read an article from this month's C.T. mag on Jay Smith. What the article does more so than simply shining a light on what Jay and his fellow disciples at Speaker's Corner is doing through debating Muslims, it actually inspires the reader (at least for me it did) to examine more closely what you're doing to build bridges to carry the gospel to those in remote places, either mentally or physically.
I hope that you not only learn much from the seminar, yet gain great encouragement from the fellowship with others that are at the same place you are at with your walk. I wish that I could've attended this year. Peace
Posted by: d.e.sharp | June 12, 2008 3:50 PM
I just returned from my first attendance at Pentecost, Training for Change. Like Sarah I struggle with the issue of poverty in terms of knowing what the exodus out of poverty leads to. I know that poverty is something that people are to exit out of but to what?
In Hip Hop, which I am called to be a prophetic voice in, a calling out of poverty is the reoccurring message of many rappers. However, a distinction exists between the earlier voices of Hip Hop and today's hip hop voices. The former made known of the living conditions of the poor (Melle Mel and the Furious Five, Public Enemy) while the latter have indulged in materialism and hedonism ( Lil Wayne, 50cents,) as evidence of being saved out of poverty.
Yet, as one who shares in preaching a message of overcoming poverty, I can not do either of what the past and present voices in hip hop have done. I cannot merely make known that poverty exist nor preach materialism as a way out of poverty. I also have to take personal action amongst others who are doing the same while pointing to materialism as not a way out of poverty but expose it for what it has ironically done to many Americans--leaving them impoverished.
You ask how can materialism leave people impoverished? Before understanding this dynamic one has to re-understand poverty to be more than lack of material need. Poverty means lack of many other things. I have not yet figured what poverty also entails today and so I too am part of in re-understanding poverty. However, one thing that poverty does not lack is God and the Gospel(Psalm 140:12; Is 25:4;Luke 4:16-21,6:20-21) which is why I am left in befuddlement as to why the poor will attempt to replace God and the Good news of his ways with cars, mansions, jewelry, and other possible idols.
The two days I spend at Pentecost 2008,has help me to resurrect my own story which is a footnote to why I want to be a part of eradicating poverty, and to be a part of the new story that sees poverty, in all of its forms,a story known as the Gospel of and about Jesus Christ. This post can be seen in my own Blog at www.cdero.wordpress.com
Posted by: Cdero | June 15, 2008 8:00 PM
March on my friend - march boldy on...
Posted by: d.e.sharp | June 16, 2008 8:14 AM
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