Thursday, February 23, 2006

Compassion and Justice in Christian Community

Thanks to Audible, I started listening to Jim Wallis' God's Politics as I work today.

The following quote caught me as the essence of the transformation I have made in my personal life in the last year.

Recovering the faith of the biblical prophets and Jesus is not just about politics, it also shapes the way we live our personal and comunal lives. How do we live a faith whose social manifestation is compassion and whose public expression is justice, and how do we raise our children by those values.That may be the most important battle of spiritual formation in our times. Our religious congregations are not meant to be social organizations that mereley reflect the wider cultures values but dynamic counter coultural communites whose purpose is to reshape both lives and societies.
Seeing my daughter grow up this year from a baby to a child (year 3.5 to 4.5) has made me realize a lot of things about the difference between what I claim to value and what I truly value. I am now transforming to be a person who lives out my understanding of James 1:27. That is the kind of community I want our home and our church to be for her. A place where purity comes as a result of living out the mission of Jesus.

I will comment more as I continue to listen.

For those who might have been following along the conversation, I have not finished listening to Anne Rice's Christ the Lord, but that is for in car listening and I have about 2 of the 8 hours left. I started God's Politics because I can listen to it less intensely as I am working.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Good for you. We need more parents who realize that who they are, is one of the biggest factors that shape who our children will be. The more my kids can verbalize what they think and see, the more I'm convicted my expample is monumental.