Let Go of Your Stuff

Below are some of the statistics that Sandy Wilson, pastor of Second Presbyterian Church, gives in his message, "Let Go of Your Stuff." The key text is Deuteronomy 14:22-15:23, which is one of the primary passages that helps us understand the Missio Dei (mission of God). In this passage he talks about the relationship between our money and the poor throughout our city and the world. One of the questions he seeks to answer is, "Am I my brother's keeper?" The audio can be found here. Notes can be found here.

· If you make $25,000/yr, you are in the top 10% of the world's wealthiest

· If you make $25,000/yr, you are just above the poverty line in this country

· If you make $50,000/yr, you are in the top 1% of the world's wealthiest

· Two million children (mostly girls) will be traded in sex traffic this year

· There are more slaves in the world today than there have been in all points of history combined

· Women work two-thirds of the labor hours in the world, and they get paid less than 10% of the wages. And they own less than 1% of the property.

· There are 33 million refugees throughout the world

· The gap between the rich and the poor is growing. In 1820 the ratio was 4 to 1. In other words, the wealthiest person was four times as wealthy as the poorest person. In 1913 that ratio increased to 11 to 1. In 1950 it rose to 35 to 1. And in this last decade it rose to 75 to 1. So now, the wealthiest person is 75 times as wealthy as the poorest person.

· The biggest gap is found in China. The U.S. is in second place.

· The joblessness rate in the U.S. is now 10%. In the urban core it is over 30%

· The average church member gives 2.6% of his/her income. During the Depression Americans gave 3.3%.

· Just 2% of our giving goes overseas.

This will break your heart

From USA Today

Santa Claus and his elves are seeing more heartbreaking letters this year as children cite their parents' economic troubles in their wish lists.

U.S. Postal Service workers who handle letters addressed to Santa at the North Pole say more letters ask for basics — coats, socks and shoes — rather than Barbie dolls, video games and computers.

"The need is greater this year than I've ever seen it," he says. "One little girl didn't want anything for herself. She wanted a winter coat for her mother."

Cesar, 7, wrote for himself and his baby sister.

"This year my moom don't have much money to spend on Christmas gifts so I'm writing to you," Cesar told Santa. "It would make us very happy if you and your elves would bring us toys and clothes."

There are more letters from unemployed parents asking for kids' gifts they can't afford, says Darlene Reid of New York City's main post office.

One mom sent a turn-off notice from the electric company, Fontana says. A single mother of a girl, 8, and a boy, 2, wrote that she recently lost her job. "I am unable to buy my children toys and clothes," she said. "Santa may you help me with my family?"

Tough times are shrinking the number of Secret Santas, Fontana says. Meanwhile, "the percentage of people who need help has increased," says Mark Reynolds at the Postal Service's Chicago district, and about half the letters won't get answered.

Melanney, 9, asked Santa for a coat and boots. "I have been a very good girl this year," she wrote.

Weekly Links

Matthew May helps us to ask the question, "Am I making the most of what I have to offer the world?" He writes, "The sad fact is that many people, if not most, would rather be doing something else with their life and instead spend their day in some way distracted in their work or feeling like they don't or can't bring their true and best self to work."

JR Vassar reflects on five years of living in NYC.

Hugh Halter describes Adullam's weekly worship gathering

Jonathan Dodson on introducing your church to others (on Sundays and on your website)

NY Times columnist David Brooks writes that the recent tragedy in Haiti is a poverty story rather than a natural disaster story. His first point is that we don't know how to use aid to reduce poverty.

Weekly Links

1. Gotta start out with this video. It's not everyday that something this awesome and unexpected happens.




2. When Helping Hurts - I heard Steve Corbett speak at CCDA and then purchased the book. Here is an article by the co-author, Brian Fikkert. I have to say that I had never heard anyone say these things, yet something resounded within me that these guys are speaking truth.

3. Another free ebook from Seth Godin - What Matters Now

4. Jim Belcher, author of Deep Church, responds to some of his critics. Almost finished with this book, and it is great.

5. Perry Noble's 7 questions that teams should be asking. This is very helpful if you are a part of a team.

6. Scot McKnight's brief review on Alan Roxburgh's new book makes me want to read it. Guess that's the point of book reviews, right. I think the three missional conversations that speak of are right on point.

Under the Overpass

After reading the Kindle sample chapter on my iPhone, I'm looking forward to getting this book. I had heard about it from a couple of friends. Interesting story. Beliefnet.com has an excerpt from that book. Here's an excerpt from their excerpt:

We both laughed, and I sat down to begin again. Just then three guys walked past, the lead guy carrying a pizza box.

“Hey bro!” I called. “You going to eat the rest of that pizza?”

The guy stopped, looked from Sam and me to his box of pizza, then said, “Nope.” Shaking his head, he walked over. “You want it?” he asked.

“Sure!” I said, and he handed it down to us.

We thanked him profusely. “No problem,” he said, walking away. “Enjoy.”

Opening the box we found half a pepperoni pizza. “Unbelievable!” Sam yelled.

“This is the good stuff!” I said, grabbing a piece. “Father, thank you for this food!”

We sat there, happily devouring the still-warm pizza. By the time we were down to the crumbs, we were ready for more conversation.

“‘Father, thank you for this food’ means something different out here, doesn’t it?” I said.

“Sure does,” said Sam. “I don’t know if I’ll ever say it so sincerely again after we get back.”

“I hope I don’t change,” I said.

Health Care Reform

The current health-care system renders the best health care to the wealthiest, depletes the savings of solidly middle-class Americans, and leaves 46 million with no health-care coverage at all. (Jim Wallis, Sojourners).

Thoughts?

Rich-poor gap keeps widening

This article was in the Commercial Appeal on Monday. Here's an excerpt:

A McClatchy Newspapers analysis of 2005 census figures, the latest available, found that nearly 16 million Americans are living in deep or severe poverty. A family of four with two children and an annual income of less than $9,903 -- half the federal poverty line -- was considered severely poor in 2005. So were individuals who made less than $5,080 a year.

The McClatchy analysis found that the number of severely poor Americans grew by 26 percent from 2000 to 2005. That's 56 percent faster than the overall poverty population grew in the same period. McClatchy's review also found statistically significant increases in the percentage of the population in severe poverty in 65 of 215 large U.S. counties, and similar increases in 28 states. The review also suggested that the rise in severely poor residents isn't confined to large urban counties but extends to suburban and rural areas.

About one in three severely poor people are under age 17, and nearly two out of three are female. Female-headed families with children account for a large share of the severely poor.

According to census data, nearly two of three people in severe poverty are white (10.3 million) and 6.9 million are non-Hispanic whites. Severely poor blacks (4.3 million) are more than three times as likely as non-Hispanic whites to be in deep poverty, while extremely poor Hispanics of any race (3.7 million) are more than twice as likely.

Millions More Starving by 2015

The world will have 100 million extra hungry people by 2015, say scientists.

Despite great improvements in food availability in the 1960s and 1970s, these trends are reversing in many developing countries, they say.

The United Nations' goal of halving hunger by 2015 looks unattainable without new technologies and greater financial investment, they add.

Ten pre-school children die every minute from malnutrition and this number has not changed since the early 1980s despite global promises.

What is Project Mustard Seed?

Jesus once said that the Kingdom of God was like a mustard seed (Matt. 13:31). He explained that a mustard seed was the smallest seed that one could find, yet, when it was fully grown, would become the largest of all plants. Jesus taught us to pray that God's will would be done here on earth as it is in heaven. This involves prayer, but it also involves work.

Project Mustard Seed isn't a church. It isn't even a true organization. It's more a set of values for us. We believe that at some point a church that lives out these values will be birthed. Our mission is to bring about spiritual and social change to our neighbors. This involves those neighbors here in Memphis, but also those throughout the world. Some may say that this mission is an unrealistic one. Perhaps it is, but if we're not hoping for this, then what are we really doing?

This morning Mandy and I watched Bono's speech at the February 2 prayer breakfast. By some of his statements, I don't think he considers himself much of a public speaker, but I thought he did an incredible job. He encouraged, celebrated, and challenged. Below are a few excerpts from the speech, along with the links for both the video and the transcript.


I’d like to talk about the laws of man, here in this city where those laws are written. And I’d like to talk about higher laws. It would be great to assume that the one serves the other; that the laws of man serve these higher laws… but of course, they don’t always. And I presume that, in a sense, is why you’re here.

Even though I was a believer.

Perhaps because I was a believer.

I was cynical… not about God, but about God’s politics. (There you are, Jim.)

Then, in 1997, a couple of eccentric, septuagenarian British Christians went and ruined my shtick—my reproachfulness. They did it by describing the Millennium, the year 2000, as a Jubilee year, as an opportunity to cancel the chronic debts of the world’s poorest people. They had the audacity to renew the Lord’s call—and were joined by Pope John Paul II, who, from an Irish half-Catholic’s point of view, may have had a more direct line to the Almighty.

‘Jubilee’—why ‘Jubilee’?

What was this year of Jubilee, this year of our Lords favor?

I’d always read the Scriptures, even the obscure stuff. There it was in Leviticus (25:35)…

‘If your brother becomes poor,’ the Scriptures say, ‘and cannot maintain himself… you shall maintain him… You shall not lend him your money at interest, not give him your food for profit.’

It is such an important idea, Jubilee, that Jesus begins his ministry with this. Jesus is a young man, he’s met with the rabbis, impressed everyone, people are talking. The elders say, he’s a clever guy, this Jesus, but he hasn’t done much… yet. He hasn’t spoken in public before…

When he does, is first words are from Isaiah: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,’ he says, ‘because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.’ And Jesus proclaims the year of the Lord’s favour, the year of Jubilee. (Luke 4:18)

What he was really talking about was an era of grace—and we’re still in it.

So fast-forward 2,000 years. That same thought, grace, was made incarnate—in a movement of all kinds of people. It wasn’t a bless-me club… it wasn’t a holy huddle. These religious guys were willing to get out in the streets, get their boots dirty, wave the placards, follow their convictions with actions… making it really hard for people like me to keep their distance. It was amazing. I almost started to like these church people.

When churches started demonstrating on debt, governments listened—and acted. When churches starting organising, petitioning, and even—that most unholy of acts today, God forbid, lobbying… on AIDS and global health, governments listened—and acted.

I’m here today in all humility to say: you changed minds; you changed policy; you changed the world.

Look, whatever thoughts you have about God, who He is or if He exists, most will agree that if there is a God, He has a special place for the poor. In fact, the poor are where God lives.

Check Judaism. Check Islam. Check pretty much anyone.

I mean, God may well be with us in our mansions on the hill… I hope so. He may well be with us as in all manner of controversial stuff… maybe, maybe not… But the one thing we can all agree, all faiths and ideologies, is that God is with the vulnerable and poor.

God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house… God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives… God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war… God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them. “If you remove the yolk from your midst, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness, and if you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness and your gloom with become like midday and the Lord will continually guide you and satisfy your desire in scorched places”

It’s not a coincidence that in the Scriptures, poverty is mentioned more than 2,100 times. It’s not an accident. That’s a lot of air time, 2,100 mentions. [You know, the only time Christ is judgmental is on the subject of the poor.] ‘As you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.’ (Matthew 25:40). As I say, good news to the poor.

But here’s the bad news. From charity to justice, the good news is yet to come. There’s is much more to do. There’s a gigantic chasm between the scale of the emergency and the scale of the response.

And finally, it’s not about charity after all, is it? It’s about justice.

Let me repeat that: It’s not about charity, it’s about justice.

And that’s too bad.

Because you’re good at charity. Americans, like the Irish, are good at it. We like to give, and we give a lot, even those who can’t afford it.

But justice is a higher standard. Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice; it makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties, it doubts our concern, it questions our commitment.

6,500 Africans are still dying every day of a preventable, treatable disease, for lack of drugs we can buy at any drug store. This is not about charity, this is about Justice and Equality.

Because there's no way we can look at what’s happening in Africa and, if we're honest, conclude that deep down, we really accept that Africans are equal to us. Anywhere else in the world, we wouldn’t accept it. Look at what happened in South East Asia with the Tsunami. 150, 000 lives lost to that misnomer of all misnomers, “mother nature”. In Africa, 150,000 lives are lost every month. A tsunami every month. And it’s a completely avoidable catastrophe.

It’s annoying but justice and equality are mates. Aren’t they? Justice always wants to hang out with equality. And equality is a real pain.

I want to suggest to you today that you see the flow of effective foreign assistance as tithing…. Which, to be truly meaningful, will mean an additional one percent of the federal budget tithed to the poor.

What is one percent?

One percent is not merely a number on a balance sheet.

One percent is the girl in Africa who gets to go to school, thanks to you. One percent is the AIDS patient who gets her medicine, thanks to you. One percent is the African entrepreneur who can start a small family business thanks to you. One percent is not redecorating presidential palaces or money flowing down a rat hole. This one percent is digging waterholes to provide clean water.

One percent is a new partnership with Africa, not paternalism towards Africa, where increased assistance flows toward improved governance and initiatives with proven track records and away from boondoggles and white elephants of every description.

America gives less than one percent now. Were asking for an extra one percent to change the world. to transform millions of lives—but not just that and I say this to the military men now – to transform the way that they see us.

Video

Transcript