Why "I" Need A Multi-everything Ministry
My head has been a jumbled mess for the last couple of days. Since Thursday night, I've been watching CNN pretty much all the time... and I've been speaking with many caring friends and neighbors who have asked whether my family was okay. And though I'm thankful that my family and relatives were relatively unaffected (they live in Kobe, which is towards the southern part of Honshu, the main island), it has bothered me how I could celebrate at the same time that thousands of others were mourning the loss of their families, friends, and/ or hometowns.
It continued to bother me when I juxtaposed my current CNN infatuation with my reaction to the disaster in Haiti in 2010, or the earthquake in Chile that occurred several months after that. I cared enough to watch the news, but after lifting some prayers up, I moved onto whatever else I was thinking about... I moved on because there was no emotional connection. Those events mattered to me in the same sense that it matters when I see traffic collisions on the freeway... it's because I care whether people were hurt or not. But once the gridlock is over, so are my concerns about those affected. It doesn't mean that the ramifications are over for those involved though... it just doesn't matter to me anymore because there's no interpersonal connection to it.
I'm sure that many Japanese-American and Asian-American churches are going to highlight Japan during Sunday services, and many may mobilize mission trips to Japan this summer. And that is great and much needed, as we're going to continue hearing about the magnitude of the devastation in the coming days/ weeks. The question that lingers in my mind is where my own impassioned concern was for those people affected in Haiti and Chile just last year?
Why do I merely care about what directly affects me... and as a Christian, shouldn't I care about, or try to care about, everything and everyone that matters to God?
That fact is why I need a multi-everything ministry. I want/ need to care when I watch the news and hear about what is happening in the Middle East or (insert latest global current event in this space). Growing up in a relatively affluent Japanese American church shielded me and my faith from issues of global poverty; God used my mission trips to Mexico later on to open my eyes to how God loves the poor. And my growing understanding of that concern opened my eyes to issues of local poverty and spurred my passion for volunteering with organizations in Skid Row along with learning about the importance of advocacy for public schools and other issues that matter to those in poverty.
That is why I need a multi-everything ministry. I need those suffering in poverty to open my eyes to how they are needing and experiencing God's love; I need people dealing with immigration to open my eyes to God's love for the foreigner and the "alien"... and to inform my theology on those issues. The same applies for my relatively late to the table passion for sexual and marriage equality. Those issues matter to me because they matter to God.
Coming up with theological presuppositions are easy when they exclude the other; I need a multi-everything ministry to minimize who I consider "the other."
God is a lot bigger than any one nationality, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, sexual preference, or any other man made division of God's creation (see Galatians 3:28) ... I've just grown to the point in my own faith journey that I need to worship God in a setting where those divisions are minimized or at least acknowledged. That's why I need a multi-everything ministry!
It continued to bother me when I juxtaposed my current CNN infatuation with my reaction to the disaster in Haiti in 2010, or the earthquake in Chile that occurred several months after that. I cared enough to watch the news, but after lifting some prayers up, I moved onto whatever else I was thinking about... I moved on because there was no emotional connection. Those events mattered to me in the same sense that it matters when I see traffic collisions on the freeway... it's because I care whether people were hurt or not. But once the gridlock is over, so are my concerns about those affected. It doesn't mean that the ramifications are over for those involved though... it just doesn't matter to me anymore because there's no interpersonal connection to it.
I'm sure that many Japanese-American and Asian-American churches are going to highlight Japan during Sunday services, and many may mobilize mission trips to Japan this summer. And that is great and much needed, as we're going to continue hearing about the magnitude of the devastation in the coming days/ weeks. The question that lingers in my mind is where my own impassioned concern was for those people affected in Haiti and Chile just last year?
Why do I merely care about what directly affects me... and as a Christian, shouldn't I care about, or try to care about, everything and everyone that matters to God?
That fact is why I need a multi-everything ministry. I want/ need to care when I watch the news and hear about what is happening in the Middle East or (insert latest global current event in this space). Growing up in a relatively affluent Japanese American church shielded me and my faith from issues of global poverty; God used my mission trips to Mexico later on to open my eyes to how God loves the poor. And my growing understanding of that concern opened my eyes to issues of local poverty and spurred my passion for volunteering with organizations in Skid Row along with learning about the importance of advocacy for public schools and other issues that matter to those in poverty.
That is why I need a multi-everything ministry. I need those suffering in poverty to open my eyes to how they are needing and experiencing God's love; I need people dealing with immigration to open my eyes to God's love for the foreigner and the "alien"... and to inform my theology on those issues. The same applies for my relatively late to the table passion for sexual and marriage equality. Those issues matter to me because they matter to God.
Coming up with theological presuppositions are easy when they exclude the other; I need a multi-everything ministry to minimize who I consider "the other."
God is a lot bigger than any one nationality, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, sexual preference, or any other man made division of God's creation (see Galatians 3:28) ... I've just grown to the point in my own faith journey that I need to worship God in a setting where those divisions are minimized or at least acknowledged. That's why I need a multi-everything ministry!
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