Metro Youth Network

(By Andres Villatoro) – Care about them as much as you care about yourselves and think the same way that Christ Jesus thought: Christ was truly God. But he did not try to remain equal with God. Instead he gave up everything and became a slave, when he became like one of us. Philippians 2.4-7

Some of my favorite people to read about in Salvation Army history are the Slum Sisters. These women were regular soldiers who had such a heart and compassion for the lost and for the poor that they purposefully moved into some of the worst neighborhoods and slums of cities like London and New York. With “a Bible in their pocket, and prayer on their tongue,” their job was to be useful in anyway possible in their neighborhood putting on old clothes (instead of their uniform) and going to about 30 homes everyday as well as going into bars, brothels, even drug houses. They would help with cleaning, cooking, and taking care of the sick and of children. They would go into horrible and dark slum dwellings to bring a little of the light of God in and often had the opportunity to pray with the people they were helping and lead them to salvation. These women were daily living out the word and the love of God. They were not considered Christian radicals who wanted to live alternative lives, but just Christians who were doing their duty. To them, the love and work of God came first, their personal interests second.

As Salvationists, we feel either an obligation or a desire to work with the poor and with anyone else who needs help because it is present in our corps or in our community all the time. I often have felt the need to personally go out to the poor to show my version of the love of God to them. A lot of the times though, I feel that what I do is not enough, or that I am somehow very disconnected and very uncomfortable with someone who has no home or no food. I end up discouraged feeling that I can never really make a difference, and I even get to the point of not wanting to go out and help anyone anymore. You may have felt like that at one point or another, as though you were not meeting your obligation as a Christian. I happened across an article about the Salvation Army that caught my attention.

“The Salvation Army’s ministry was never one of condescending charity, in which the rich and cultured went “slumming” with baskets of food and lessons on home management and hygiene. They ministered to the destitute out of solidarity, not superiority…with a handful of exceptions, the Army’s early leaders had been poor. They knew poverty, its terror and futility, and they knew how little the light of the Christian gospel had penetrated the vast, dismal acres of city slums in which they had passed their lives. They now felt called to return there with the Good News that God and The Salvation Army loved all people alike.”

I realized that I was going to the lost and to the poor with my pride. I realized that I was the “rich” and the “cultured” who was going out to the poor wanting to give them something I had that they didn’t. I wanted to give them charity, not love. Is this really the way we should be looking at Christian service though? The Salvation Army did not begin like this. As brothers and sisters they helped each other out. It was their neighbors, their friends and their families that were the poor and needy. Today, it is hard to imagine that our own family would be ones who are in need. However, as Christians, it is in this way that we must minister to other people. As if they were our own brothers and sisters, not feeling like we are better than them or anyone else because the truth is we are not. We must look at them with the compassion and love of Christ, who ate with tax collectors and sinners. Christ was one of the people and though he was God, he did not “try to remain equal with God.” Philippians 2.6.

We can learn from people like the slum sisters who, out of compassion for people, dressed in rags and became the people they wanted to minister to. This is what effective ministry looks like. We need to keep the mindset that we are no different than the people that we are helping. We are all made in the image of God. You help not out of charity but out of brotherly and sisterly love. So go to your communities and your neighborhoods and “care about them as much as you care about yourselves” (Philippians 2.4). Come to them not with the mindset of superiority, but with solidarity, having a connection and helping them out of agreement and love. If Christ became like one of us then let us become like one of them.

(By Colonel Denny Phillips) – A story is told — probably apocryphal — that a man walking in Times Square was approached by an indigent soul begging money. The man was not a New Yorker, and he was inclined to help, but he wasn’t carrying any cash on him, so he placed his hand on the man’s shoulder and looked him square in the eyes as he said, “I’m very sorry, brother, but I truly do not have anything to give you right now.” The beggar paused, feeling the warmth of the man’s hand on his shoulder and sensing the dignity of the passionate look in his eyes as he spoke. Placing his soiled hand on the manicured one now resting on his shoulder, he returned the intense look straight into the eyes of this passer-by who had stepped away from the crush of the Times Square crowd to spend a few seconds…to speak to and actually touch this man in ragged clothes…this man that thousands of others deemed untouchable, and said to him, “You’ve already given me something far more important than money, for you called me your brother, and I’ll never forget you.” With that, the beggar straightened his shoulders and brushed his coat as he strutted away feeling validated by another human being.

Social justice means more than providing for the poor. In The Salvation Army, we deliver human services in the name of Christ, but we must also do so in the spirit of Christ. We must engage the poor with love and respect, kindness and dignity, see beyond the crust of soiled clothes and dirty skin. Overlook awkward, even hostile behavior. Would any of us behave any better if we were homeless, hungry, cold and lonely?

Beware, for behind the unshaven face, the dirt engrained skin and the ragged clothes, Jesus may be checking us out. Did He not as much as say so? Oh yes, when His disciples badgered Him about “What is the kingdom like?”, “Who gets into the Kingdom”, Jesus finally answered and said, “Come, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you, for I was hungry, and you gave me food to eat; I was thirsty, and you brought me water to drink; naked, and you clothed me; in prison and you visited me; sick, and you took care of me.” Then He concluded His startling answer with, “Inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.”

General John Gowans summed it up well:

You came disguised, but still, I know it’s You.
Today your eyes be black, tomorrow blue.
Your skin is sometimes yellow, sometimes brown;
At times you wear a loin cloth, today a tattered gown.
Your bony hand is held before your face,
But I’d know you, my Lord, in any case,
Grinning at me through leprous eaten jaws.
The broken limbs….the bloated belly…yours.
You bring these changes, Lord
And yet I know
That every soul in need
Is really YOU.

Social justice begins in the heart. Love thy neighbor.

(By Mike Steinsland) – So today in class I had a really interesting, and altogether, boggling experience (I use the word boggling because, like the game, I’m currently in a mess). You see, there’s a man in my class from the Congo, and we all had to make presentations today, and his really spoke to me. While he was growing up in the Congo he lived through two civil wars, and had a lot that he wouldn’t talk about. He would just say that he saw very terrible things. My initial reaction was, “But it’s ok, because now you are safe, God has rescued you.” It soon happened, as it usually does, that I saw that that was a foolish thing for me to think. He met with several Christian refugees from the Congo, and asked them this question, “Do you think God loves the people of the Congo?” This of course led him to the question, “Do you think God is fair?” This is where it gets a little hard for me to stomach. They all said yes to both questions, and their reason why was the same as mine: God brought them out of the Congo, away from all that violence. The problem with such an answer is that it neglects the first question. How can God love the Congo, when only a few of its people get to escape? What about everyone else?

I don’t admit to becoming emotionally involved in things much, but this was it. I felt stirred, and I didn’t know what to think about it anymore. I kept asking myself over and over again, “How can God be fair in the eyes of the people still in the Congo, who where killed for no reason? How can I even ask this man about it when his family has been killed inside of a church?” Luckily for me, my teacher is a very smart man of amazing faith and was able to help. He said we were asking the wrong question. It’s a good question to ask, but it’s not the one we really want the answer for. The question we are attempting to ask is, “Is God responsible?” Is God responsible for what happened in the Congo, or what is happening in Uganda? Is God responsible for families becoming homeless? These are the questions we are trying to ask, but instead of asking if He is responsible, we sort of take the easy way out.

The point is that we shouldn’t ask if God is fair because, just like in the story of Adam and Eve, we had a choice, and God knew what was going to happen and still let us make that choice. You could say God’s full time job is correcting the wrongs that people do. If we could look at all of existence, and I’m going to try to not seem like a know-it-all, we would understand how fully awful and treacherous the human race truly is. Through Jesus Christ our sins were forgiven though, which makes us clean right? Well, we sort of have to try to stay clean. I mean, you don’t take a shower and then go play in a mud-pit, or maybe you do. The fact is no matter how clean you were before playing in that mud-pit you are filthy afterward and need to be cleaned again. That’s what a relationship with God is like, except in the process we help others get clean too, hopefully.

So here’s my closing statement. Though, don’t let this stop you from thinking about these questions, because they are beautiful ways of seeing how great God is. God knows how things are going to end, and it frustrates us and so we complain. I’m beginning to realize the question isn’t a matter of whether God is fair, and how deep the question of God being responsible really goes. If God is not responsible, which I hope by now you know he isn’t, then the question isn’t about God being responsible at all, it’s shaking a finger, an awfully big one, at the entire human race. We are responsible, we are responsible because God gave us a choice and right now that choice is to help the homeless or not to, to help the people of the Congo or not, to stop the genocide in Darfur or not. I’m not an incredibly intelligent person, but I understand to a limited extent what purpose this gives me as a Christian and what the actions of loving my neighbor should look like. Am I stopping injustice, or am I letting the sin of this world corrupt me into apathy? Am I responsible? By listening to God and obeying his word, we can make an impact and change the world for his glory.