When you consider the heart of Christian Community Development you must think through shalom in new ways. Shalom, defined as: the world as God intends it to be. In Christendom, we truly believe at the core of God’s character that He is love.
1 John 4:7-20: Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.
If people are going to see that God is love in our society today we may need to grasp that His love is expressed in how we treat one another (both in the church and those outside of it). Princeton scholar, Cornel West said in a recently released “rock-umentary” Call and Response: “Love is what justice looks like in public,” See the trailer at: www.callandresponse.com.
How we live justice out in public can look like a million and one different expressions. This can be a home for women coming out of jail/prison. See www.perpetualhelphome.com. It can be a coffee house with an internet café that focuses on high school students graduating and going on to college. See http://www.bcfs.net/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=461&srcid=268. Perhaps it is a medical clinic like Mission East Dallas, http://www.missioneastdallas.org. Or even, the International Justice Mission which addresses children being sold into slavery worldwide at: www.ijm.org. This is just a sample of several iterations of caring for the “least of these” (see Matthew 25).
This generation like no other wants to see that Christians do what Jesus did, say and act in public like God’s character which they supposedly represent. A demonstration of the power of the Gospel is the “skin on” Jesus for people to see that we are ambassadors of care for those who are victimized, marginalized, and looked down on in our society.
What does justice look like to you? Ask God to show the passionate heart call He has placed in you to serve people with your gifts, skills, talents and abilities! If you need more resources let us know – see some of our archived Glimpses of Glory concerning Human Trafficking, Addictions Ministries, Restorative Justice, etc.
God has made me an Advocate for the voiceless and Abolitionist of child exploitation at heart! What about you?
Tomi Grover
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