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Youth refuse to fulfill quotas…

April 7, 2011 in Africa, Church, Evangelism, Faith, HIV/Aids, Justice, LWF, Poverty, Poverty/Affluence, Spirituality, Youth, Youth Ministry, Youth participation

…but want to participate in the life of the global communion. This is one of the many challenging statements that were given today by young leaders participating in the LWF African Leadership Consultation in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Young people also highlighted the continuing plight of unemployment for many young people. They strongly advised the present church leadership to prioritize the issue if they don’ want to risk an estrangement of young people in their churches.

The young leaders also spoke to the way they see leadership. It should be free of any kind of corruption, free of “leadership conflicts, power struggles, external forces, repression of staff members (conflict managements), nepotism, tribalism … etc.”

Please read the full text of the thought-provoking and challenging message here or as pdf. Read the rest of this entry →

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Oxfam with hymns – How is Christian help different?

November 24, 2010 in Church, Ecumenism, Faith, Justice, Life, Poverty, Poverty/Affluence

If a person helps another person, does it matter that the helper is a Christian? And does somebody who is a Christian help differently from a Non-Christian?
While these question maybe look quite strange applied to individuals, they make a lot of sense if we discuss them in connection to organizations. There are many situations in which people are in dire need. Catastrophes like in Haiti or Pakistan come to mind. In many places with persistent poverty help is also needed. Luckily, there are also organizations who provide help often beyond the capacities of the governments. They include churches, Christian agencies and secular NGOs. Does the way they help differ? Read the rest of this entry →

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Women, HIV, and Daily Bread

July 21, 2010 in Faith, HIV/Aids, Justice, Life, LWF, Poverty/Affluence, Pre-Assembly, Youth

Walking through the halls of the Liederhalle its easy to forget that there we are not the only global gathering of men and women committed to social justice. On Sunday, as many of us were arriving here in Stuttgart, the International AIDS Conference was holding its opening ceremony in Vienna. While our theme is “Give us today our daily bread,” the theme of the International AIDS Conference is “Rights Here, Right Now.” Both of these themes ask for us to consider this very moment, our  moment.

In his Small Catechism, Martin Luther describes daily bread as:

Everything that belongs to the support and wants of the body, such as meat, drink, clothing, shoes, house, homestead, field, cattle, money, goods, a pious spouse, pious children, pious servants, pious and faithful magistrates, good government, good weather, peace, health, discipline, honor, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.

We can see that Luther’s understanding of daily bread has a depth and breadth that resounds still today. Daily bread is meat and drink. Daily bread sees to our practical needs with shoes on our feet, clothes on our back, and a sunny sky. Daily bread is a loving family and social life, filled with pious children and good friends. Daily bread is hard; it means being disciplined and living with honor.

But, in thinking about our theme and the theme of the International AIDS Conference what strikes me most about Luther’s explanation of the fourth petition of the Lord’s Prayer is that pious and faithful magistrates, good government, good weather, peace, and health are all grouped together.

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on worship, 820 billion dollars, and not betraying my dreams

July 14, 2010 in Church, North America, Poverty, Poverty/Affluence

by Mary Button, USA

Every morning here at the youth pre-assembly starts with morning worship and every ends with evening worship. These services are led by young people from a different region of the LWF. The most exciting part of worship is having the opportunity to sing songs in all the different languages spoken by the young people here. During this morning’s worship we sang in Portuguese and Spanish and at this evening’s service we sang in Polish, Slovak, Portuguese, Czech, Latin, German, and English. After morning worship we go into our Bible study groups. After evening worship we drink refreshing mocktails prepared for us by the local Saxon youth. Our bible studies in the morning are as perfect a way to start the day as ending the day sipping pistachio milkshakes in the courtyard.

Sitting together in the mornings we read scripture and connect the passages to our theme “Give us today our daily bread.” Monday we read how God provided the Israelites with manna in the desert. On Tuesday we read the parable of the mustard seed and today we read the parable of the rich fool. On Monday Bishop Kameeta added to our understanding of our Bible study when he asked, “What was so special about the manna God delivered to the Israelites? They could take it and keep moving.” In this way, Bishop Kameeta urged us to persevere, to keep faith, and to always keep moving. By starting the day connecting scripture to our theme, we ground ourselves in scripture. This morning my group’s discussion on the parable of the rich fool stayed with me as I went into my workshop session: “Doing theology contextually.” One of the questions we asked during our Bible study was: “Which characteristics of the ‘rich fool’ can we find in our society and our community today?” Of all of the questions we asked today this particular question took up most of our time. All of us were able to name people in our contexts that we identified as rich fools. In this time of financial crisis, we spent a good deal of time discussing the unequal balance of power at work in this global crisis. We were able to discuss at length something that Martin Junge, the incoming General Secretary of the LWF, shared during the conversation we were able to have with him last night: while the banks were given an $820 billion bailout, it would only take $25 billion to secure access to HIV medications to all Africans living with HIV.

Obviously, this stayed with us and is one of the many facts that we are sharing with each other and gathering up to bring with us to Stuttgart. I was thinking about our morning Bible study conversation this morning when, over coffee, in our theology workshop Martin, from France, talked about French president Nicolas Sarkozy. Martin shared with us that Sarkozy was a student radical in the 1960s, yet today could hardly be described as a radical. Martin reminded of us something else that Martin Junge told us, “you are not only the future of the LWF, but the present.” Martin assured all of that we will continue to be the face of the LWF and that soon we will be the ones in positions of power within our communion. The imperative he said was “to not betray our dreams when we get in the right place.” As soon as the words left his mouth I jotted them down in my journal, so that I can take them with me to Stuttgart, back home to Atlanta, and wherever else my travels with the LWF take me.

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