Faith-Rooted Organizing - For When the World Breaks Your Heart
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- Опубликовано: 6 сен 2024
- Alexia Salvatierra, author, "Faith-Rooted Organizing: Mobilizing the Church in Service to the World" - Gordon College Convocation - Friday September 19, 2014
I have had the privilege to hear Alexia speak at the Christian Community Development Conference each time I have attended. Each time I am humbled.
"The church doesn't have a compassion problem, it has a vision problem." For me, this message brought to mind countless mission trips to do things that didn't need to be done instead of listening to what the people actually needed. I also loved that she talked about how seeing the individual and seeing the crowd result in different solutions. Giving a fish is different than teaching to fish, and different than questioning why people are hungry and don't have the knowledge to fish.
Indeed...seeing the crowd does allow for a holistic approach to creating solutions. In regards to what you experienced on your mission trip, I see that happening in local communities surrounding affluent churches as well because so many churches are disconnected from their communities for that reason.
This message is so powerful. I love her banner verse and how she spoke on how Jesus sees before He is moved to compassion. It parallels with her convictions of seeing and planning that she emphasizes in her book. I LOVED her story of Desmond Tutu. Such a powerful statement on love and compassion.
Wow. Powerful message. The church should be more concerned about poverty and oppression. Those are the issues that concerned Christ. There are so many of us that are struggling and can't find refuge in the church.
The common thread of humanity exist through the manifestation of Jesus Christ because through our knowing the gospel we see that Christ represents every vulnerable person whom is faced with challenges in this world. His essence illuminates the very positioning of those who face oppression and tyranny. Jesus is a man that every man should strive to become in their expressed ways of life and being. Although we in America have democracy, we still face the same systems that acted upon Christ in his crucifixion. Ms Salvatierra broke the glass ceiling in being direct in stating "we don't take on the full range of love" in this she created the stance of affirming how the church has yet to actualize the present potential of Christ.
love is all that you can imagine.
Her message is challenging the church to awaken
to their call to become more involved in an unjust world. To unite and strategically pursue the common
good. The church needs to become actively
involved. I like the examples that she
uses. My favorite was the medicine that
she was able to obtain to save the babies life.
Also, hearing her background about not coming from a family of believers
and becoming part of the Jesus movement.
It speaks volume to her personal experiences and not on just what she
was taught as a child.
That is so true. As people we are disconnected to our fellow man at times.
From the beginning in acknowledging that compassion is different than pity made me immediately think about my own experiences, and whether people had pity on my or was showing compassion (and vice versa). And as it relates to compassion, I agree that if we receive compassion, then we have to give it as well. It is recognizing that before giving compassion Jesus had to see as Alexia stated, and it is in that seeing (with Jesus' eyes) that separates compassion and pity. Marrying our faith with compassion answers the question that was posed: How do we make the systems work that’s congruent with our faith? True head & heart compassion coupled with authentic faith is the intersection for evangelism and social justice.
Alexia, honestly I think some are more compassionate than others because of their history. It's easy for me to be compassionate towards single mothers, homeless people, those that have lost their mothers, etc. because those are things that I have experienced. I think some aren't able to be compassionate simply because they don't get it and don't understand. That shouldn't be the case, but it is.
Compassion is what we think in our heads but we do not think about that through our hearts and minds. We lack about the privileges that one has and does not think of others who do not have the same opportunity as us. I believe that Jesus did not go emphasize on only the poverty and poor but rather with compassion was a factor that could relate to the general public. But how can one measure the other’s compassion and love? We only try to focus on the negativity of others than the positivity.
Is extreme poverty always the direct result of oppression, or is it a combination of several things. . . like neglect and macroeconomic forces. This speaker is influenced by the Marxism of her childhood. So was liberation theology.