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Why_We_Do:_Community

Social justice, justice, compassion, and mercy ministries  have become a focus, and even a buzzy phenomenon, among Christians in the last 10 years. Many (if not most or all) college students want to serve tangibly in some way, want to make a difference in the world, and are incredibly aware of the imbalances and inequalities in our country and around the world.

But where do you start? When there is so much to do, and so many issues to get involved with, how do you know which one to give yourself to?

For us that began with paying attention to local needs, partnering with local organizations and churches, and learning about the neighborhood dynamics of our city. There are many stories and stats to share, but I think one line sums up the approach we have dedicated ourselves to. 

John Perkins, in the book Welcoming Justice, says that "if you care about a place, you'll care about the kids in that place." And so we have chosen to involve ourselves deeply in neighborhoods and the kids in those neighborhoods.

Most of our partnerships are youth related, and more specifically focused on education. Our Quincy Street community, our partnerships with Episcopal City Tutoring, Adoption and Foster Care Mentoring, and several other youth based organizations and causes are examples of ways that we are living out that commitment to love the kids "in this place."

I could write a dissertation on why this is such a core value and why we have chosen to invest in youth, but I think this image is more powerful. A few blocks from Northeastern University is a K-8 school called Orchard Gardens. I have some experience with the school from my days with Bird Street Community Center. Three years ago it was one of the worst run schools in the city and nearly closed down. However, the city chose instead to revamp the leadership and faculty. Then they closed down a school in the Dudley St/Quincy St neighborhood and decided to bus all those students to the Orchard. The school has many issues but with a majority of the students speaking another language first, literacy is a huge challenge. Many kids will graduate and go to high school not to being able to read at grade level. And it lies in the shadow of a fantastic university. This story can be repeated all over the city.**

One of the great inequalities that exists in Boston lies in the enormous amount of resources that lie in the universities while at the same time the city's public school system is closing down schools and failing its kids. As my friend Nathan says, "brothers this should not be so!"

So our community involvement fights against this inequality while at the same time it provides an avenue for our students to see God's Kingdom play out in a tangible and real way, and it helps fire their holy imaginations for God's justice and mercy, and to experience how they can use their time, talents, and resources to further God's purposes in the world.

Again, there are a million causes to be involved in, but there is where we have committed ourselves, and this is why we do community.  


**From Nathan: 55,000 students in BPS and 300,000 college students in the metro area (ration of ~6:1) and the 2010 graduation rate for BPS students to finish highschool in 4 years was about 62%.

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stuff_that_happened_this_weekend

we held our fourth ReadRetreatServe event with sojourn on saturday. 25 students, staff, and volunteers joined together for an immersion experience with one of our neighborhood initiative partnerships. i am particularly excited about some of the conversations coming out of the weekend as there is a new wave of students involved with sojourn who, before yesterday, weren't familiar at all with this aspect of who we are and what we do. 

we spent the morning reading and talking about God's justice and his heart for the oppressed at St. Mary's (where our UMASS students tutor high school kids). we heard some stories of folks who have intentionally moved to the upham's corner/quincy street/dudley street sub-neighborhood of dorchester to live this out. we ended the day with an interactive tour of the neighborhood and some practical next steps for students to take. i thought the day turned out great and each element brought a particular aspect of the conversation to life for our students. i am stoked to see what happens next! check out the slide show: 

oh, and then today amy and i participated in foxborough's old fashioned ten miler (amy as an employee of marathon physical therapy and me as a runner). if you've been following me for a while you will remember that i ran in a trail race circuit in durango. a couple of thoughts...one, those were trail races and at high elevation so i actually thought they were all harder than this run even though it was a couple miles longer than i've ever run before...two, there were a LOT more people in this race than any i ran in CO...three, i actually surprised myself considering my running has been very spotty in january and february with the snow (i was hoping for a 10 minute mile pace and i actually beat 9!). ps. if you check out the results you will notice that the winner was from dorchester! 

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reflections on sarah's post...

...i have definite pacifist leanings.  i'll admit that upfront.  i don't know that i am fully committed to the position yet, but i do know that i can't, in good conscience, support the idea of redemptive violence (despite my love affair with mafia movies, vigilante movies, jack bauer, etc).  

nonetheless, i found the following experience to be informative, troubling, and thought-provoking.  two kids in my after school program were play wrestling while we were outside on the playground yesterday (friday).  what started as fourth grade playfulness (between two pretty good buddies) quickly turned in to a real fight with punching and kicking and hurt feelings.  it was quickly broken up and i found myself sitting on a bench with both of them on either side of me.

i explained to them how there is no fighting allowed at bird street, that they would be spending a certain amount of time out with me, and that they needed to apologize and promise to keep their hands off each other for the rest of our outside time.  "yes, mr. steve," they said.  when their time was up and apologies had been offered and accepted i sent them off for the final moments of outside play.  immediately one of them (the shorter, stockier one) ran over to the other (taller) kid and punched him right in the gut.  

"what are you doing?" i exclaimed.  "my dad told me to hit people who picked on me," the kid  said.  "really," i thought, feeling i might have picked up the hint of a kid trying to pull one over on me.  

when his dad came to pick him up we had a good conversation, but the father's bottom line was: "yes, we're teaching him to hit back," and his big line: "he's not going to be any one's punching bag."  the dad went on to explain that his son has always been undersized and has been picked on a lot, much of it physically by kids bigger than him.  his dad finally had enough and began putting him in self-defense classes and teaching him how to fight back and encouraging him to do so.  he also told me that, "in this community you have to be strong...if you show weakness you'll get eaten alive."

hmmm...

what do i do with this?  on the one hand i agree with the dad...i don't want this kid to go through school suffering beat down after beat down.  i also know what he means about being assertive...what was considered a "life" skill in the world i grew up in is really a "survival" skill here.

but on the other hand i totally disagree with this father.  how is teaching a kid fighting skills really going to change anything?  the Gandhian quote applies here: "an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind."

which leads me to the definition of justice...i think a lot of times justice is thought of about in this way: get rid of injustice, get rid of violence, get rid of oppressive situations, etc, or get back at the one oppressing you.  it's all about eliminating unjust conditions or simply trying to get some measure of restitution.  i think it's more than that...it's not about avoiding bad things, it's about creating opportunities to be good.  i hope that for this student, bird street, at least, can be a place where he can be good...where he doesn't have to worry about hitting back or standing up for himself, because, at least in that space, he is safe and respected and taken care of.  that is a more compelling vision of justice, in my opinion, than just standing up for oneself or revenge.

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what a day! today was a huge community event called "Taste of Durango." several blocks on main street get shut down and all these retaraunts from town come out and set up shop and sell their excellent wares. aside from a fun, huge community event the tase of durango (or TOD if you are an insider) benefits the Manna House (the soup kitchen we've been volunteering at). last year this event raised almost $15,000 for Manna...and this year probably more.

the day went really well...most of CTK-Durango's members were involved in one way or another. in particular, we are all really proud of ruth because, as the manna program director, a lot of the responsibility for pulling this event off fell on her. she spent months planning for it, recruited and coordinated 200 volunteers, and then oversaw the whole operation today. she did an amazing job!

the rest of us checked people in, sold tokens, and patrolled the streets in green shirts. the security task force (which you will see below) ensured the safety of the good citizens of our town...and we also ate a lot of great food.

i am really proud of our church for all of the ways we were involved in helping out with this event...this is exactly the kind of thing we want to do...bringing the church to our community instead of asking them to come to us.

also, as a manna board member (somehow this week i became the chairman of the planning committee) it was so awesome to see our church represent so well.

manna is on the web too http://mannasoupkitchen.org/

ps...two of our guys (shaggy and ron) were not able to make it to church today because they were "evicted" from their campsite...an interesting juxtaposition...while we need events like TOD to make the manna house happen there is still so much else to be done.

the security task force: