make mission tangible

This blog has gotten away from me again. If you’ll check back, you’ll note that that has happened several times now. I write, and I write, and I write and then, at some point, I give the blog away and allow it to become a forum. It’s hard to find a balance sometimes. I’m so passionate about so many issues that it’s easy to use this as a public forum instead of a place to simply journal about life. I’m sure I’ll lose the balance again, but for now, I’m going to at least try to get back on track.

One of the issues I’ve been really thinking through lately is the idea of authenticating my faith. I suppose, from the very beginning, that this has been a struggle. Cane killed Abel (or was it the other way around?) for what he saw as a de-authentication of Cane’s faith. The children of Israel looked to Moses to authenticate their faith, rather than going up on the mountain and meeting with God themselves. Even Paul spoke of some of the early Christians as drinking spiritual milk, rather than eating spiritual meat. And, in today’s day and age, we gripe about uninspiring sermons, boring and tired worship, and the lack of social service/justice opportunities provided in our local churches. Even today we’re looking for our church leaders to authenticate our faith, rather than owning our faith and getting out there and authenticating it ourselves.

This week I set out to change that in my own life. I’ve shared on here before that I’m tired of Make Poverty History campaigns that seem to challenge you to do nothing more than buy and wear a trendy bracelet, or Live 8 concerts that seem to challenge you to do nothing more than…well…go to a concert. I want to do more than just talk about fighting injustice. Yes, human trafficking is bad, now what are you going to do about it? I want to actually be in the fight. So today I met with a police officer in our community that I’ve done some work with before. I wanted to speak with her about two specific issues that deal very much with social justice in our neighbourhood. One had to do with some con artists that show up each year. This particular issue seems to have worked itself out in that some of the laws have changed that now allow the police to go in and kick these guys out which, incidentally, explains why I’ve not see those guys in a while. The other issue revolved around the “saunas” and so-called “massage parlours” that exist around our neighbourhood. My concern is not that sex is being sold in these places, but simply that women may be being trafficked in to do it. I spoke with the officer about it for a while. She assured me that her team make regular appearances in the places in our community, and that they assure the women that if they want to get out, they can get out then and there. I hope that’s true. In her opinion, the women in the places I was referring to are not trafficked in. I’m not sure that I believe that and intend to keep pushing it. There were a few other places, however, where she said the women had been trafficked in and were immediately shut down.

I did get a chance to talk with her about a whole host of other issues though, and made it very clear that we want to help. The amazing thing was that she voiced her cynicism and also made it clear that there would be a building full of cynical officers back at the precinct. I smiled and said, “And that’s why this will work. Because I’m cynical too! And that’s why I’m approaching you about this.” I went on to share my cynicism in a religion that is all talk and centres its life around a Sunday morning meeting. And in a religion that talks about injustice, but never gets around to actually doing anything about it. I told her that I was on a personal mission to authenticate my faith by getting involved which ended up leading to a discussion of Christianity and the message of Christ. It was an encouraging conversation. By the end of it we had brainstormed several ideas, and she was going back to the precinct to speak with her Sergeant about it all. (Incidentally, she had also agreed to teach a beginners Karate workshop at my Youth Councils in October.) Thirty minutes after she left, I had already received an email from her with ideas she and her Sergeant were working on.

I have not accomplished anything yet. But there is this glimmer of hope that maybe I’m finally onto something here. When I left my childhood denomination, I was looking for something more than I saw around me on a Sunday morning. I felt like I was doing Christian theatre, showing up on Sundays and entertaining Christians. I came to the Salvation Army because I believed that it was a church of action. I have learned, since that big move to Pittsburgh a little over eight years ago, that there are people riding pine in any denomination and that, if you want your religion to be authentic, only you can make that happen. Otherwise you’re simply riding the coat tails of other people’s authenticity.