A Crisis

This is a blog I wrote for The Urban Gospel Mission. Read the original post here.

Education Reform and the Power of the Church

God loves children. He loves the downtrodden, the poor, and the oppressed. He deeply desires for them to know His love, as well as have access to the full lives He created all of us to live. And He makes it clear that His intention is for us to help make sure this happens. As His followers, we are to advocate and defend.

SHOCKING STATISTICS

In the United States, almost 15 million children (21% of all children) live in families with incomes below the federal poverty level – which is $22,350 a year for a family of four. And research shows that, on average, families need an income of about twice that level to cover basic expenses. Using this standard, 44% of children live in low-income families.

God’s call for us to love His children and defend the poor and the oppressed is as urgent as ever. And a major way we can love and defend these children is through advocating for public education reform.
 
Consider the following statistics:

• Nearly 23% of all young black men ages 16 to 24 who have dropped out of high school are in jail, prison, or a juvenile justice institution in America
• Male dropouts of all races were 47 times more likely to be incarcerated than their peers of a similar age who had graduated from a four-year college or university.
• More than half (54%) of the nation’s dropouts ages 16 to 24 were jobless on an average month during 2008.
• Nearly 37 of every 100 dropouts live in poor or near-poor families.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE IN THE SYSTEM

Our nation’s public education system is not just. In fact, in many cases it actively perpetuates injustice by keeping some children – mostly those from disenfranchised populations – in cycles of poverty and oppression.

Children of color and lower income families are much more likely to live in neighborhoods with low-performing public schools. Attending these schools makes it much more likely that these students will end up being behind grade level, dropping out of high school, committing a violent crime, going to prison, being a single parent, and ending up living in poverty in a very similar neighborhood to the one they grew up in – continuing the cycle of poverty and racial injustice they were born into.

Living in DC I have seen these statistics first hand. My husband teaches in one DC’s lowest-performing public schools. The school’s population is 99% African American, and only 27% of the students in the school are on grade level in math and reading. I’ve seen firsthand that there is a whole generation of kids disappearing before our eyes. A generation of kids who do not know about Christ, who are living in a culture of poverty and violence and who are being prevented from entering into the full life Christ has for them.

Academic inequity and failing public schools have an enormous impact on an individual’s quality of life. Advocating for public education reform is a clear way the Church can help prevent an enormous amount of the injustices God calls us to fight against. A more just education system – effective, high-performing schools, high curriculum standards, more quality teachers, and more after-school programs and parent support – helps prevent poverty, joblessness, homelessness, incarceration, single-parent homes, and much more.

It is a crisis, an emergency, and we cannot be content. This is why it is of the utmost importance that the Church advocate for education reform and involve ourselves in the public school system. These kids need us PRESENT, need our examples, our words, our time, our voice, our love. Showing them something different than what they know, the more full life God desires for them. We can show them something different, something they might never see otherwise.

Through working at The Expectations Project this past year, I have been filled with hope as I’ve seen how much can be done to seek justice for all God’s children. We can be advocates for these children. We can help work toward ensuring every school has the teachers and the curriculum and the supplies every child deserves. We can help ensure that every child is being given the same chance to succeed in school, that every family is being supported, that every opportunity is being given to every student – this is one of the most crucial ways a child will be able to escape the bubble they might otherwise have been trapped in their whole lives. Right now so many of our nation’s public schools prevent children from living up to their full, God-given potential, rather than helping them live into it.

THE CHURCH’S ROLE

We, the Church, must demand the change these kids need, and act to help make it happen. As I’ve worked in the city the past couple years, God has opened my eyes more and more to the POWER of the Church – God has given us His Spirit with the intention of us joining Him in His work of redemption, helping Him to put the world to rights! He taught us to pray for His Kingdom to come, on earth as it is in heaven! He asks us to live like He lived, crossing racial and socio-economic barriers to ensure all people are seen as equal before God, and have the chance to hear of the great love of Christ that truly does make us all equal before God.

Nationwide, there are over 322,000 churches and only 44,500 schools that meet the definition of “high poverty” schools. This means that our country has more than seven times as many churches as we do high poverty public schools! (Educating All God’s Children, 160)

With these numbers, there should be NO child living in poverty, no family unsupported, no failing school. There are more than enough churches and more than enough followers of Christ to ensure every child has heard the Good News of Christ, and to ensure every school is providing every child of God an equal opportunity.

This is why our mission at The Expectations Project is to partner with “faith-motivated individuals, leaders, congregations and organizations to develop local and national campaigns that help enact transformational change for low-income public schools.” We as the Church have the biblical imperative AND the resources to make sure justice is done for all children. If the Church unites together around the children of our nation, if the Church invests in broken communities and failing schools – it will be powerful. Throughout history, the Church has been able to motivate, mobilize and lead change in a way that no other group has. It is crucial that the Church now bring this vision of renewal the public education reform movement, unifying people around this crucial issue that has the power to prevent so many other injustices.

As my pastor, Aaron Graham, says, “The Church cannot simply lobby for a new social order, it must be that new social order.”

And it is, bit by bit. There are churches and individuals across the country investing in their schools and communities, seeking equality for all God’s children. More and more of the Church is catching Christ’s vision to redeem all things – individuals, institutions, cultures – and is living out this vision of redemption in our schools. In the words of CS Lewis, Aslan is indeed on the move.

You, Lord, hear the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry, defending the fatherless and the oppressed, so that mere earthly mortals will never again strike terror. (Psalm 10:17-18)

That ache

You know that ache you get in your heart sometimes - the good ache? The one that fills you with a sweet longing for beauty, for something more? In his autobiography, CS Lewis called this longing a desire for holiness. God created us with this desire - He created us to dwell in His presence, to see perfect beauty. We were created to be holy, as He is holy. And now in Christ, we can become holy in God's eyes - and bring more of His holiness into the world, helping make things a little more the way they should be. The way we were created to long for them to be.

I've come to realize that satisfying this deep longing for holiness does not lead to legalism, as we so often tend to think. False holiness does. But seeking this true holiness of God leads us to His true justice, helping us better see the world as it should be and equipping us with the lasting passion to help make it so.

We were all made for something more, and in this life we get reflections "as in a mirror" - little glimpses of glory and beauty. For me, it's standing at the top of a mountain and closing my eyes, hearing the Spirit of God breathe around me and feeling that in the whole expanse of the earth it is only Him and me, walking in the Garden.

I feel this ache also when I encounter Aslan in Narnia as I re-read the Pevensie's adventures. I feel this beautiful longing as I imagine that I, like Lucy, can see Aslan in the distance, beckoning me to follow, and know that He desires to use me in my own small way to fight for Narnia.

These pangs remind me there is MORE and fills me with passion to share the hope that this ache for holiness points me toward. What fills you with this ache for more? What reminds you of God’s beauty, His holiness?

Today, dwell in this ache for a moment and let it lead you to the One who created you for more. Let it push you to be holy as He is holy, ushering in more of His Kingdom. Let it remind you of His promise of what is to come.

Revelation 21:1-7

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children.

I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now...Come further up, come further in!” 
- CS Lewis, The Last Battle

And as He spoke, He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.
- CS Lewis, The Last Battle 

DC127

Here is a guest blog I wrote for the New Rhythm Project on foster care in DC and what my church is doing to be God's hands and feet for the children of our city:

DC127

 http://www.newrhythm.org/the-district-church-reaching-kids-in-foster-care/

Think first as a follower of Christ

As a Christian, my heart is heavy after the outcome of yesterday's vote on background checks for buying guns. I pray that we as the Church would think deeply about this issue. We should not think as a conservative or liberal, but as followers of Christ. I fear that, as @joshuadubois said on Twitter earlier today, "We have idolized guns so much that we can't look past their barrel to the face of a child. We have put 2nd Amendment over 2nd Commandment." It is not wrong to own a gun, but as followers of Christ we are called to do everything possible to love our neighbor - even if that means sometimes not holding the 2nd Amendment so tightly in our hands.


I also wanted to post this article and take a minute to celebrate America. One of the many great things about our country is that it is a democracy, and we have a say in who our representatives are! So if, like me, you are angry that many of our leaders did not accurately represent what their constituents wanted, YOU can do something about it! Write them, tweet them, call them, don't vote for them next time! As Rep. Giffords said, "if we cannot make our communities safer with the Congress we have now, we will use every means available to make sure we have a different Congress, one that puts communities’ interests ahead of the gun lobby’s."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/opinion/a-senate-in-the-gun-lobbys-grip.html?_r=0

the Redemption that gives me Hope

This time of Lent has been a time of restoration for me. It has been a time where God has reminded me of His power and my own finiteness. It is a time when He has reminded me of the miracles I've seen through His grace in action this past year and the continued promise of His redemption moving forward. Especially as I've looked forward to Easter, He has reminded me that He saves - And I’ve felt restored.

I think sometimes in our busy, very earthly lives it is easy to forget that God is ALIVE and moving and working to redeem lives and societies and institutions, every day. It's easy to forget that there is something bigger than our daily schedule, bigger than ourselves, to live for and be excited about. There is something more God wants us to see and seek:

Our Savior WANTS to do more than we could ever ask or imagine in this world. I've been reminded of that and filled with hope this Lenten season. He wants us as the Church to BELIEVE this, to pray for this, to make ourselves available for the unbelievable things He wants to do among us. I am grateful to the point of tears for the reality of His grace He has shown me this past year. He has taken my eyes off myself and renewed my faith in His glory, in His power - He has given me a glimpse of the things hoped for.....through my friendship with a woman here in inner city DC.

This past year my husband and I have had the opportunity to walk with this woman, who has become a dear friend, as she has come to know Christ and is learning to walk in the full life He has for her. We have seen her begin to break out of the destructive cycles that have trapped her since she was a young girl. We have seen her eyes opened to the life God desires for her, have gotten to celebrate with her as she was baptized, and have gotten to walk with her as she has chosen LIFE. I've seen God open her heart to words from myself and others and have seen the Spirit lead her to choose life for a baby she almost gave up. As I've walked with her this year I've seen her wholeheartedly seek to become more of the mother God created her to be for her struggling older son who now lives with her again. I've seen this hurting boy begin to ask questions about Christ and recently ask if he could be baptized - and a couple weeks after Easter, we will celebrate his new life in Christ through the waters of baptism.

So even as my heart has been broken this Lent especially for the many, many more kids in our city who are trapped in the same cycles my friend and her children have been trapped in, Christ has reminded me of His power to save as I look at the redeemed life of my friend. I've seen how He has not forgotten her kids, how my husband and I are godparents to a beautiful baby who brings such joy to his mother and all those around him.

This Easter I will rejoice as we celebrate Christ's resurrection. I will rejoice in His power, not my own strength, but in His power to redeem even the most broken situations and hurting people. And in a few weeks I will rejoice in this resurrection power together with my dear friend and our godson as we celebrate her oldest son's baptism - and I'll be filled with hope even as I think of the darkness that still exists, reminded of what our Savior can do.

God reminds me of all this even now as He has put a deepened burden and compassion on my heart this Lent for the many children of our city who are hurting. He has renewed my hope this past year in the reality that He will NEVER forget the vulnerable. He desires to change this broken, twisted inner-city culture of abusive relationships and violence and single mothers and poverty and neglected children. He has increased my faith, the substance of things hoped for, through seeing what He has done in the life of my friend and her children- and through what He is still doing today.

And He has increased my excitement as He has reminded me that He wants to use US, the Church, to be the ones to help supernaturally change our culture and spread His redemption.  As I've seen Him use my husband and me just by being in relationship with our friend and her kids, I've been filled with hope as I've realized He doesn't expect us to figure out the best strategy or come up with the most convincing words. It's not on me. It's not about me. His huge vision is so much bigger than me. I can just stand, just rest in Him - just love as He has called me to love.

This Truth has changed my life this past year and allowed me to go deeper in my intimacy with Him. What He asks of me, of all of us, is to BELIEVE. Believe in His vision of redemption, open ourselves up to the power of His Spirit, and love the people He puts in our path.  We can start changing our culture with just one person. Through investing in one child, we can help change the norm in our cities. He wants us to BELIEVE this and seek to further His redemption wherever we are - trusting in the power of the Spirit for whatever part He wants us to play.

I really believe what John Piper recently quoted from James 4:2: "God does things he would not have done if we hadn't prayed." God listens to us. He desires for us to intercede on behalf of the vulnerable. And he responds. He aches to further His redemption in this world. And He delights in using us to do it.

I believe God uses this time of Lent to teach us to walk more in step with Christ, seeing more of what He sees, identifying more with him in His pain, and learning to intercede before the Father in a deeper way. Because when Easter comes, I believe God wants us to be reminded of the HOPE of His Resurrection as it relates to these broken areas that are now etched deeply on our hearts.

So I don't believe it is an accident that as I’ve walked with my friend and her kids this past year, as my husband teaches a group of hurting inner city kids every day, and as I work with my church on developing an initiative focused on the foster care crisis in DC, that God would burdened my heart like never before this Lent for the vulnerable children of our city. There are 1400 kids currently in the DC foster care system, and an ADDITIONAL 1700+ others who are close to entering but are still in their homes...not because they are getting the standard of care they deserve, but because DC government doesn't have the capacity to take them out. There are not enough families to take them in. 

As the Church, I firmly believe we should be the first people our governments think of when it comes to helping the least of these. We should be leading by example, providing such excellent resources and care that the government comes to us first to help care for the most vulnerable in society. I firmly believe God has called the Church in DC to partner with our government and ensure all kids have the homes God desires for them. I have been filled with such hope as I’ve seen God open the doors for us to do this, and been reminded again of God's power to save and His desire to use to be a part of it.

I truly believe God wants to MOVE to change the situations of these children in DC, and that of vulnerable children across the world. As He has moved in my friend's life, I believe He wants to move in so many more, changing their futures and the futures of their kids, as He has done for my friend and her children.

I've been filled with hope as I’ve seen the Church in DC begin to come together around the issue of foster care and other issues close to God's heart. I believe God wants to affect the deeper, larger issue in our culture to prevent broken situations in the first place - and it has been so exciting to see the Church put aside differences and individuality and work together in Christ's name on these systemic issues affecting our culture.

I’ve truly seen God MOVE this past year in supernatural ways, and believe more is yet to come. So even as I've walk with Him in His brokenness this Lent, I've been filled with such hope looking at what He has done and looking forward to His Resurrection - and what will be.

the Word

I think one of the most beautiful passages in Scripture is John 1. Overwhelmed to tears as I read it again - the majesty and love and power of God in Christ is so real:


John 1:1-18
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

...Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.

Giving up illusions

I'm focusing this Lent on giving up the illusions that are not of God - even the dreams and visions that I love. Seeking to walk closer with Christ, bury those things, even those good things, that are not His will now - or ever - but looking forward to seeing what beauty emerges from the tomb:


"Burying our illusions with the body of God, we mourn our losses and lament over the graves of dead dreams and expectations, hopes and visions. We stand in painful, faithful disillusionment. But so we stand aware that we may be equally startled by what emerges from the tomb."

http://us5.campaign-archive1.com/?u=45b75085e6ab57e339ea89d67&id=30ed49c9fb&e=edebcd0bee

Lenten thoughts

I called up an awesome organization here in DC (Southeast White House) the other day, to  inquire if they had room to accept a 10 year old friend of mine (who needs a consistent male mentor) into their mentoring program. They informed me they had kids on their list who had been waiting TWO YEARS already for a mentor. TWO YEARS. Two years these kids have wanted someone investing in them, speaking into their lives, sharing the love of Christ with them - maybe even telling them the Good News of Christ for the first time. And they've had no one. I pray God uses us, His Church, to change this. And I believe He will. It gets me so excited to think about how the Church can lead the way in making sure there is not one child in our city who doesn't have someone speaking truth and showing the love of Christ in their lives.

As today begins the season of Lent, I pray Christ uses this time to take us deeper into himself. I pray through this time we would intentionally deny ourselves, identifying more with Him, with His sufferings, and with His heart for this world that He loves. I pray He would go before us in this time and that we would follow closely behind, understanding the power of His Resurrection in a whole new way as we see more of the brokenness of this world, the reality of what Christ has done for us, and His vision for redemption.

I pray we would be filled with HOPE even in this somber time as we prepare to celebrate His Resurrection in 40 days and the beautiful reality that we can live out Christ's Resurrection POWER in our cities.

Thankful for my Christ today and the chance to walk beside Him in this time.

I'm not sure we're that pro-life

Upon hearing all the discussions, comments, and protests that marked the recent anniversary of Roe v. Wade, I wanted to re-post this blog I wrote for The Expectations Project on what I think it looks like to truly be pro-life, as well as expound on a few more thoughts:

As the Church, I believe we should be fighting for the unborn. But when they are born, will we still fight for them?

Are we as the Church even doing all we can NOW to ensure all children truly have the full life God desires for them?

The Church needs to be fighting equally as hard for children after they are born as we are fighting for them in the womb. And currently, I'm not sure we are.

If we are going to advocate for more children to be brought into the world, let's make sure we are supporting the families that might have considered abortion, to help ensure they can care for their children. Let's make sure we are helping provide programs that will make sure these children are fed and clothed. Let's make sure their schools will look out for them and give them a fair chance at escaping poverty.

If we are not fighting for these things for children once they are in the world - things that will keep them alive and give them a quality life - are we really pro-LIFE?

http://www.theexpectationsproject.org/2012/12/what-does-it-look-like-to-truly-be-pro-life/

Then we shall see face to face...

So comforted by these words today. We are KNOWN fully, even if we do not yet KNOW fully.


"Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears...For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." (1 Cor. 13:8-9, 12)