Ministry To The Outcast
steve...@aol.com
those rejected by society:
Identification—I Cor. 9:19-23 Some within a congregation that will
take on the role of an outcast in order to reach them. Get rid of the
separation between the “server” and the “served”.
Offer to be Family—Mark 2:15-17; Luke 15. Total love of the “sinner”,
and an offer to partake in acceptance. This is the major felt need of
the outcast—social acceptability. To offer acceptance is not to have
the outcast feel that acceptance—this only comes with an acceptance of
forgiveness and inclusion in the community. This sense of family
cannot be created by a program, but one can use a program as a base-
point to increase this acceptance.
Listening—James 1:19 You cannot meet anyone’s needs until you know
what they are. Get past the first hurdles in order to discover their
real needs (e.g. no one needs money, money is a means to meet the real
need)
Benevolence—Trying to meet their needs, but doing so with dependence
on God. Those with resources, give what you have (Luke 12:33); those
without, pray for healing (Matt 10). To give what we have, may be to
offer what God alone has to give, instead of the petty resources we
have (Acts 3:1-8).
Deliverance—From Satan, from sin, from death. This is God’s area, and
if we are called to work with the outcast, we are God’s
representatives.
A. By prayer. (Mark 9:28-29; Luke 18:1-8). Through prayer,
deliverance from oppression can occur.
B. By teaching. (Matthew 28:19-20). Through the teaching of Jesus’
commands, teaching and life there will come understanding of God’s
justice and of gaining that justice.
C. By dwelling with (John 1:14; Acts 2:42-47). By living with the
outcast and showing them the life of Christ they will gain
understanding and the ability to live it out.
D. By suffering for. (John 12:24-27; Colossians 1:24) Through
suffering the suffering of Christ the people of God will be redeemed.
This is the wake up call, the realization of the atonement in the
lives of the people, the life of Christ in the flesh.
Forgiveness— Luke 15; Mark 2:1-12; John 20:23. This is also a sense of
acceptance, like mentioned above, under “family”. But this is
different, in that it occurs after regret for sin and repentance is
done. This is an acceptance that comes after a wiping away of the
debt of sin, and is fuller than a simple offering of acceptance.
Guiding to Commitment—Luke 14:26-27.
A. Commitment to God as the one true Lord (Matthew 6:24);
B. Commitment to living according to the righteousness of Jesus
(Matthew 7:24-27; John 14:15);
C. Commitment to Love (Mark 21:29-31);
D. Commitment to the family of God (Matthew 12:47-50);
E. Commitment to reaching out to the outcast (Matthew 28:19-20).
Todd Lehman
It is about a fellow in Harleem who does community organizing and who "escaped" the neighborhood he grew up in, got an education, and then decided to work with the community where he gre up. What intreaged me was the philosophy behind the way that he worked. I won't tell all, since the story is best listened to so that you get a first hand account. But I will say this much, his philosophy is that the poor need to learn middle class skills in order to make fundamental changes in their lives.
Steve, you have often written about middle class values being different from those who are poor. That is one reason that I bring this here to you. I am curious to know if what is happening in Harleem with this program really isn't applicable to what you are doing, or if there might be some wisdom to gain from it. I eagerly await your response.
The program is: 364: Going Big (only listen to the first part)
Here is the website introduction for it:
Stories about people who take grand, sweeping approaches to solving problems of all sorts.
Prologue.
Host Ira Glass introduces a story on the most ambitious and hopeful solution to urban poverty in the country—the Harlem Children’s Zone. The project’s goal is nothing less than changing the lives of thousands of children in Harlem, starting at birth and continuing until they go to college. (2 minutes)
Act One. Harlem Renaissance.
Paul Tough reports on the Harlem Children’s Zone, and its CEO and president, Geoffrey Canada. Among the project’s many facets is Baby College, an 8-week program where young parents and parents-to-be learn how to help their children get the education they need to be successful. Tough’s just-published book about Geoffrey Canada and the Harlem's Children Zone is called Whatever It Takes. You can see a slideshow of more photographs from the project here. (30 and 1⁄2 minutes)
You can listen to the story using the following link:
http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Archive.aspx#9
Shalom,
Todd Lehman
Zion Mennonite Church
steve...@aol.com
I listen to it via podcast, at my own speed. This week has been
crazy, so I didn't get around to the program until just now.
That is an amazing program. I was uncomfortable with it at first,
because it is cultural highjacking-- but as long as it is done with
the parent's permission, that's great.
I guess what we need to realize is that no social class values are
perfect, or even completely moral. The lower class, as stated in the
program, tends to see violence as a solution. The middle class, on
the other hand, tends to see money as a solution. Both of these are
stereotype statements and is not true for everyone, but we can see the
tendancy in both classes.
When we talk about transfering kids to the middle class, on the one
hand, we are making them more successful in our society. This is
great, because it gives them more opportunity to have resources to do
good. But this does not benefit society unless they have the ethical
training to use the resources for others and not for themselves.
When I talk about middle class and poverty cultures, I am really
speaking of adults whose worldview and cultural outlook are already
formed. Not everyone on the street has a lower class cultural
outlook, but most people do. This means that we cannot expect to take
a fully formed adult and ask them to change their worldview when it
doesn't pertain to discipleship. Rather, discipleship should look
differently in different cultural contexts.
If you change the cultural perspective of children from the get-go,
then you are no longer dealing with people who are culturally middle
class. And that's no problem.
But no matter what, we will still have to deal with the lower classes,
even if we reduce them. Even under this program, 95% were up to their
grade in reading. That means that 5% were not. And it would be
difficult to measure how many of them learn self control or
gentleness.
There will still be a percentage of people who will grow up poor and
who have the values of the lower classes. And the church needs to be
prepared to meet their needs, in a way that it is not now.
Steve K
Todd Lehman
I figured you would be interested. Thanks for a detailed reply.
Shalom,
Todd Lehman
Zion Mennonite Church
Steve K
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