Bread Blog

Daffodils, Cheesecake and the Emerging Church

What is the relationship between daffodils and cheesecake? They both served as centerpieces at a recent conference about the Emerging Church, sponsored by the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque.  Both are also very powerful symbols of a very rich weekend of reflections and sharing. 

The cheesecake (and the chocolate cake) that were offered for dessert after the Saturday evening meal seemed a little too rich to eat all at once.  This was the case with the flow of ideas and discussions.

The daffodils, a common symbol of spring, represented the sense of rebirth, convergence, and emergence that emanated from the discussions. 

At the risk of leaving out important pieces of information, I will attempt to briefly address the spirit of the discussions.  The obvious question: What is it that the church in all its various manifestations and denominations is "emerging" from?  I can answer this in one word: institutionalism. 

But it goes even beyond that.  Presenters like Alexie Torres-Fleming,  Shane Claiborne and Karen Sloan suggested that our motivation must change from being simply "fans" of Jesus to truly become "followers" of Jesus.  This means that the values that were most dear to Jesus, such as walking with the poor and simplicity, must become the center of our own faith experience.

One of the presenters noted an inscription on a banner that said "How can we worship a homeless man on Sunday and ignore one on Monday?"

Presenter Phyllis Tickle quoted the Archbishop of Canterbury, who said that church had become a place to go more than a people to be.

But as Father Richard Rohr, Rev. Brian McLaren and the other presenters warned us, it's not about creating a new institution, but about promoting a conversion within our own existing structures.  We see our discontent as the very reason we engage the church not disengage.

Shane Claiborne put it in a different and more humorous way: The way I see it is like Noah's Ark.  It stinks inside.  But if you get out, you drown.
 
The discussion, in fact, is about whether we should even call it "emerging church" or "emergent church."  A common suggestions is to call the movement "emerging Christianity"

The passion for change is reaching across the spectrum of Christian denominations, from the liturgical (Roman Catholic-Anglican/Episocpalian) to the reformation denominations (Lutheran, United Methodist, Presbyterian, etc..) to Charismatic, Evangelical and other traditions.  All were represented at the conference. 

In addition to the rich variety of traditions, the event attracted scores of younger persons (under 40), who are drawn to this emerging way of looking at spiritual growth that promotes linking contemplation (a deep personal relationship with the creator) with solidarity with those who are disenfranchised; social justice and holistic mission; and the creation of authentic community. 

To get a greater sense of the movement, I recommend that you read the October-December issue of Radical Grace, where the presenters offered their reflections.  The Emergent Village blog also deals extensively with the subject of Emerging Church and Emerging Christianity

Bread for the World's Role

So, in the larger scheme of things, how does this apply to our work at Bread for the World?  We are still trying to figure out where our movement fits in this transition. 

But I do have one clear example.  A Bread for the World member from a community in central New Mexico mentioned to me that it would be difficult to set up an Offering of Letters at his church because of opposition from the higher-ups. 

But in our discussion, we agreed that for now, letter-writing would not have to be confined to the institution, but that members could meet in community to write letters. By doing this, they would at least have some members of the church writing letters instead of not being able to use their advocacy gifts on behalf of the poor. And hopefully, the small letter-writing activity could become a stepping stone to eventually bring it to the full church.

Additionally, Bread for the World is in the process of reviewing its grassroots organizing strategies, and the values and recent trends related to the Emerging Church/Emerging Christianity are sure to become part of the conversation.

Have Faith (like a child). End Hunger.

By Cindy of The APB (Anti-Poverty Blog)

Two things mainly define me these days: I’m an anti-poverty activist and a mom of two preschool kids.  I’m sometimes asked how I do serious work while raising small children full-time.  While it definitely makes things tricky, kids provide motivation for being visible in faith and activism.  We talk about sharing and caring, but preschoolers learn best by observing. So, my tiny charges accompany me to my U.S. Representative’s office, march in CROP walks, and know the food pantry director by name.  I let them see what I do and seek out charity events where they can participate, too.  I don’t expect them to become lobbyists.  Yet I try to nurture generous hearts and hope they won’t take so long to realize that their voices can change the world. 

Still, moments are rare and precious when I see the message getting through.  They appear unexpectedly like the night I was upset about extreme dawdling at bedtime.  Just as I was about to yell, they marched up with proud smiles and presented me with a sign they’d made all by themselves with their own special spelling: “BRED FORE THE WRLD HELP PORE.”  With teary eyes, I thanked them and I thanked God for giving me little helpers to do His work.

Hope Grounded in Action

This post is by Bread activist Elaine VanCleave from Birmingham, AL.

“Hope has two beautiful daughters: their names are anger and courage. Anger that things are the way they are. Courage to make them the way they ought to be.” - St. Augustine

This ancient quote from Christian theologian and philosopher Augustine of Hippo emerged as the overriding theme as I attended global poverty events over the course of two days last week in New York City.

On Sept 22 and 25, the General Assembly of the United Nations conducted two high level meetings to discuss Africa’s Development Needs and, more generally, the Millennium Development Goals.  During the week, NGO’s, philanthropists, business, faith and civil society leaders, scientists, campaigners, and activists met in dozens of complementary events to coincide with this annual meeting of world leaders.  From the Clinton Global Initiative that drew over 1,000 high profile participants, including both presidential candidates, to the outdoor celebrity launch of Will.i.am’s In My Name YouTube project, the Millennium Development Goals, hunger, extreme poverty, and global disease took center stage.

For the previous 51 weeks of the past year, however, extreme poverty, hunger, and global disease remained silent killers with very little press and public attention.  It was UNICEF’s James Grant who, in the 1980’s, first used the image of jumbo jets filled with children crashing repeatedly throughout the day to illustrate how complacently we accept the quiet deaths of, what was then, 40,000 children per day of hunger and related preventable diseases.  In the last 20+ years, that astounding figure has dropped but we still live in a world where a child dies every 3 seconds from hunger and poverty-related causes.

Faced with such a grim statistic as 1 child death every 3 seconds, one could easily feel angry, hopeless, and, in turn, helpless.

Closing Prayer at DNC

Donald Miller, Christian author and speaker, offered the closing benediction at the Democratic National Convention on Monday evening.  He writes about the experience on his website:

I was honored to deliver the closing prayer at the DNC on Monday night. Evangelical voices have been scarce within this party, perhaps since the Carter administration. But as strides are being made on key issues of sanctity of life and social justice, as well as peaceful solutions to world conflicts, more and more evangelicals are taking a closer look at options certain members of the Democratic Party are beginning to deliver. There is a long way to go, but sending a message to Washington that no single party has the Christian community in their pocket, thus causing each party to carefully consider the issues most important to us, is, in my opinion, a positive evolution. I am glad that, for the most part, the dialogue has been constructive and positive. Will you join me in keeping the conversation thoughtful and not reactionary?

That said, I was honored to speak to, and especially pray with and for, the DNC.

Watch the prayer or read the full text here.

Let justice flow...

Christine Sine wrote a beautiful prayer about justice and posted it today on her blog - Godspace. 

(Adapted from Psalm 72:1-10, & Amos 5:24)

God let your justice and fairness flow like a river that never runs dry

Please help those of us who are rich to be honest and fair just like you, our God.

May we who have such abundance be honest and fair with all your people, especially the poor.

Let peace and justice rule every mountain and fairness flow as a river that never runs dry.

God let your justice and fairness flow like a river that never runs dry

May we your people defend the poor, rescue the homeless, and crush everyone who hurts them.

May we be as helpful as rain that refreshes the ground, to those who are treated unjustly.

Let the wholeness and fairness of your kingdom live forever like the sun and the moon.

God let your justice and fairness flow like a river that never runs dry

Because you our God rescue the homeless and have pity on those who hurt

May we who are rich stand up for the poor and let peace abound until the moon fades to nothing.

Let God’s kingdom of justice and fairness reach from sea to sea, across all the earth.

God let your justice and fairness flow like a river that never runs dry

Ending Hunger Takes Time by Norma Malfatti

When Bread for the World started producing Leaven, a newsletter for Covenant Churches, I was three years old. Almost 30 years have gone by since that first issue and, as I have come to realize after reading sixteen years of hunger facts, bulletin inserts, reflections, activity ideas and so much more, many things have changed. However many things remain the same regarding the plight of poor and hungry people in the world.

In 1980 people in developing countries used 85% of their income on food. Today that figure is about 80% - an improvement to be sure, but only a small one, and with the rising food prices and global hunger crisis, that number is rising every day.

During the mid-1980s 500 million people were food-insecure and one person died every second from hunger and hunger-related illnesses. Today nearly a billion people are food-insecure yet at the same time one person dies only every three seconds from hunger. Considering the increase in world population since the 80s, it is a major feat to have curbed the number of deaths due to hunger.

In 1985, an article talked about African women boiling grass to provide food for their families. Today, in Haiti, people are making mud-pies for dinner because there are no other options.

So, what really has improved for the hungry in Bread for the World’s 34 years? Are the tireless efforts of Bread’s staff, 2,500 member churches and 60,000+ members all for naught? Despite the bleak statistics of hunger today, we must not forget what Bread for the World’s focus is – both immediate assistance AND long term solutions.

Despite the world growing by a third since 1980 the mortality rate from hunger is, in fact, lower. Immediate assistance has helped to curtail that mortality rate due to hunger while the long-term solutions have been created and implemented. And when those solutions have been found, it takes years to see the results of that work. Take, for instance, the Global Poverty Act, Bread for the World’s Offering of Letters focus this year.

The Global Poverty Act was inspired by the first Millennium Development Goal of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger.  The Global Poverty Act, seeks to put current US foreign assistance programs into a comprehensive strategy involving trade policy, debt cancellation, and private sector efforts to ensure that existing US pro¬grams are more effective and efficient. The legislation calls for a strategy to determine the right mix of aid, trade and debt policies and investment. While the bill has already passed the House it has yet to pass the Senate. If the bill does not pass before the Senate breaks, the bill will die and the next Congress will need to start again if the new president doesn’t make it a priority of his administration.

If the bill is successful and it passes before the end of this Congress, and President Bush signs it, it would not be implemented until next year and even then it will take time to coordinate and strategize a cohesive and efficient foreign assistance program that includes every area of our government. Once the strategy is created and implemented, it still takes time to see the effects of the strategy. Teaching new and better agricultural techniques takes more than just a one day seminar; roads to market aren’t built overnight; health care is more than childhood vaccinations; and we won’t see the full benefits of children entering the educational system until they have graduated, sought employment, worked, had a family of their own to pass on their knowledge, etc, etc. That could take more than 20 years when talking about the children of today. It will take at least a generation to see significant improvements, something we are already seeing from the 1980s – lower mortality rates!

So, contrary to what we all want, ending hunger and poverty is not an overnight fix. Yes, immediate assistance of food and other aid is an overnight solution, but we must wait to see the full of long-term solutions, for effects of hunger and poverty to be reversed, for communities and families to climb out of poverty.

We must indeed have faith to end hunger.

____
Norma Malfatti is serving as an intern in Bread's Church Relations Department.  She wrote this reflection for The Beatitude Society's blog.

She is a Master’s of Divinity student at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg and is also finishing her Master of Arts in Public Affairs and Policy from the Nelson A. Rockefeller School of Public Affairs and Policy.  She has worked this past year with Lutheran Advocacy Ministry in Pennsylvania and spent this past January at the Lutheran World Federation/ELCA Ecumenical Experience in Geneva, Switzerland where her class focused on interfaith effort.

Recipe for Hope: Respond to the Hunger Crisis

You can make a difference in the global hunger crisis.

It's in the news nearly every day: Food prices are soaring worldwide. More low-income people in the United States are making trips to food banks, whose stocks are quickly depleting. In developing countries, for the world's poorest people—who spend up to 80 percent of their income to buy food—the situation is even more devastating. 

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But you have the power to be part of the solution.  JOIN THE CAMPAIGN

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For six weeks, from Mother's Day through Father's Day, Bread for the World will conduct an online campaign to help hunger activists raise awareness and take action. Each week, an email from Bread will offer the ingredients for:

• Recipe for Despair
  More information on the causes of this crisis; and a


• Recipe for Hope
  Specific actions you can take to help end it. You can also invite your friends to join the campaign.

It's easy to feel helpless when you watch people around the world suffering for lack of food. Be part of the Recipe for Hope, and be part of the solution.

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JOIN THE CAMPAIGN 

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Learn more about rising food prices and the hunger crisis.

Read Bread's press release on the Recipe for Hope and invite your friends to join on Facebook.

We'll also be updating the blog during the six-week campaign with the actions we'll be urging folks to take - thank you in advance for joining!  It's quick and free to sign up, and it matters - right now.

Share Your Story and Get Published!

Here is a unique opportunity for anyone who has an amazing, humorous, or otherwise inspiring story to tell about a satisfying act of service. Author Gail Perry Johnston—with new publisher, Cupola Press—is requesting submissions for a book called, The Social Cause Diet: Finding A Service That Feeds Your Soul. In addition to all the direct service stories that are likely to fill this book, it would be great to share you own story of how advocating to make our laws more fair and compassionate to people in need has enriched your life.

The Social Cause Diet will feature everyday people who give of their time and efforts within the context of an established social service. Many people are willing to give of themselves but they do not know where to begin or realize that their interests and abilities match those of an existing organization. The range of stories collected in The Social Cause Diet will reveal that there are achievable, accessible, and satisfying ways for everyone to give.

Go to SocialCauseDiet.com for more information and to see how to submit your story.

Everything Must Change

Best-selling Emergent Christian author Brian McLaren stopped by our DC office recently to discuss his new book Everything Must Change.

In the book, he asks two central questions: what are the world’s top crises and what does the life and teaching of Jesus tell us about those crises? Not surprisingly, hunger, malnutrition, and poverty are at the top of the list. In the book, Brian lays out an incredible theory about how these global crises intersect and shows how the message of Jesus is ultimately the guide to helping us “change everything.”

Brian is hosting some incredible interactive events across the country with the release of this book. Check them out at www.deepshift.org.

You can also hear his interview on the most recent edition of breadcast.

And, there’s still time to enter our contest to win a limited edition Bread for the World iPod Nano! Give us your feedback on the podcast today by emailing breadcast@bread.org. The winner will be announced on the next edition of breadcast.

How to Lose a Trip to D.C. in 10 Days

Quick answer: By not applying to be a Hunger Justice Leader!

 

Longer-ish answer: Good morning, gentle readers.  This is your friendly reminder that coming up in a week and a half (***MARCH 15***), the deadline - for applying to come to Washington, DC this summer for an exciting, expenses paid gathering and training - will come and go.  And we don't want you to miss it! 

If you're between the ages of 18 and 35, this will be a great opportunity, if selected, to deepen and enhance your commitment to activism and hunger issues, all while connecting, engaging and worshiping with your peers and premier experts on said issues and policies and such.

And while 10 days is a good amount of time, the application does need a personal statement and a recommendation, so start to... APPLY TODAY!

(P.S. Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey not included.)