We need prophets not saviours; leaders not new messiahs.

More wise words from Jim Wallis from his blog  GOD'S POLITICS

Today, Sojourners is launching a new project called Emerging Voices, and it’s one of the most exciting things I have been involved with for a long time. It aims to mentor, develop, and promote the most dynamic up-and-coming communicators — speakers, preachers, and teachers — who so clearly are called to lead and publicly articulate the biblical call to social justice.

The vision for this project is exciting and something to be celebrated. It also calls to mind a critical observation: Our world often wants saviors, not prophets; new messiahs, not leaders.

We want heroes with superhuman strength who save the day, not mere mortals who speak the truths we typically don’t want to hear. Even the modern-day giants of social justice — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Dorothy Day, and Mahatma Gandhi, for example — were at best prophets, but never saviors.

It’s easy to slip into the mentality that one person, one voice will rise up in a generation, and that he or she will change the world as we know it. Perhaps we even think, “Maybe I will change the world.”

King spoke of this temptation as the “drum major instinct.” This is the basic desire of humans to lead the charge, and ultimately, reap the recognition — or, at the very least, to place our confidence in a single human being.

Two months before his assassination, King warned his listeners at his home church of Ebenezer Baptist:

“When the church is true to its nature, it says ‘Whosoever will, let him come.’  And it is not supposed to satisfy the perverted use of the drum major instinct.  It’s the one place where everyone should be the same, standing before a common master and savior.”

However, King understood that even if he were able to overcome, or at least suppress, this instinct within himself, others would still submit their wounds and place their dreams upon him. Envisioning his funeral, he said that if he were to be remembered as a drum major, then he would like to be remembered as a drum major for justice, for peace, and for righteousness.

The role of savior has already been filled, and the cross Jesus bore is the ultimate rejection of this human drum major instinct. That’s where Christians must always start.

Nevertheless, we still need prophets, leaders, and voices who point us in the direction of this hope. The whole 11th chapter of Hebrews is essentially a long list of “shout outs”  to the men and women of the Hebrew scriptures who persevered in their faith despite not, in their lifetimes, receiving what was promised to them. Individually, these men and women are saintly celebrities, but together they form a “great cloud of witnesses,” which still inspires believers to run the race of faith and seek the finish line of the Kingdom.

After 40 years in public ministry, I am feeling an urgent and personal call to help raise up and support the next generation of faithful leaders — a new cloud of witnesses — who are boldly and creatively heralding the biblical call to social justice. More and more of my time is spent mentoring these emerging leaders.

Placing our hopes in a single drum major has never been a faithful response, and it is also increasingly ineffective. The world is changing. Notably, in the United States somewhere between the years 2040 and 2050 we will no longer have a racial or ethnic majority. We need a multitude of fresh and culturally relevant voices that can address the challenge of faith and the common good within our diverse and complex society and, in particular, issue a prophetic call to the churches and to our society. In the Emerging Voices project, we have formed a very hopeful and impressive circle of young leaders and we have already had a retreat together, which proved to be an extraordinary time.

I strongly encourage you to take a look at these communicators on our brand new website, www.emergingvoicesproject.org. Look at their faces, hear their stories, read what they have written. Consider inviting them to speak at your church, school, or public forum; join the conversation on their blogs; and glean insight from their books.

Ultimately, Emerging Voices aims to be unlike any other speaker platform that already exists. It’s intentionally diverse, particularly along the dimensions of race, ethnicity, and gender; it’s collaborative as it seeks to build a community among its participants; it’s equipping as we want to help the participants to develop their unique calling and skills; and finally, and most importantly, it’s elevating a common vision of biblical justice, not through a single voice, but through many.

I believe the Emerging Voices project is crucial for the future of the church and the world. Spending time with these emerging voices was deeply encouraging — both to me and to them — and gave me a powerful sense of the leadership they are already accomplishing. We all walked away with a real sense of hope and excitement about continuing our journey together.
Jim Wallis is the author of Rediscovering Values: A Guide for Economic and Moral Recovery, and CEO of Sojourners. Follow Jim on Twitter @JimWallis.

Prayer training in Mukono

Given the numerous problems faced by people everywhere in society and spiritual challenges which tend to drive people into evil worship, the Diocese has established the "FAITH EMPOWERMENT PRAYER MINISTRY". The main work of this ministry is to guide people to being committed witness for the Lord, who are deeply rooted in the scriptures. The Ministry also equips Christians with skills of interceding for people with various concerns and also trains them on how to encounter various threats in the Christian life.

Rev. Canon James Christopher Batte -Faith Empowerment; Prayer. Diocese of Mukono, Uganda

Seeing God in the Church

We are constantly moving from an area of darkness and futility in our minds and we are learning about being like Christ (apprenticeship) not simply just being a deposit of knowledge. You need lots of people feeding you to help you on this life journey, whether you are a minister or elder.

God’s kingdom is God’s journey with the creation. It is

very much the point of the books of Moses. Jaweh is

king of the created order. Israel was always waiting for

the right leader or king. The Old Testament writers

point us in this direction. In the book of Judges there is

a cycle of sin, rejection of God’s word, then release

from their captives for a time.. cycle went on for 400

years.. end of the book is about dark times. In those

days there was no king in Israel and everyone did what

was right in their own eyes. Ruth tells the story of

Naome.. things are bad for her…but in an incredible

way, God restores her life primarily by providing offspring.

The Book concludes with incredible celebration

and a geneology, leading up to David. So despite the

darkest of times, God was still working. God makes a

covenant with David saying there will never be a time

when his house will not be king.

Today we are also in tough times. What will happen to

the kirk? Is God really the King?. The Old Testament

stories all tell us that God is moving even when we may

not think he is. However, often when God comes to us,

he pauses and says wait just a bit longer...what seems

like darkness, what seems like silence! Remember that

his timing is different from ours.

We knew he was at work with David and it was great

with him but afterwards things did not go so well. What

happened to God’s promises? What did Daniel say to

us? He tells is that Nebuchadnezzar was not really the

king. Similarly today, in the middle of the Kirk appearing

to be broken apart God is working. The prophecy of

Daniel is that, even though kingdoms will come and go,

God is still working and the blessing of God’s kingdom in

its fullness will come and will be amazing. In the book of

Luke restoration of the kingdom is in Jesus. Jesus inaugurates

the kingdom of God on earth and during our

time we await his second coming. The kingdom is something

that we are still longing to see in its fullness. We

see more of it now that Jesus has come but we are still

on a journey.

The church and the kingdom are not equivalent. The

church is part of it but the kingdom includes much more,

such as the created order, time and eternity (Colossians

chapter 1).

The Church should never point to itself, its forms or its

polity. It must always point to Jesus Christ.

Foretaste.. look and see that the Lord is God. It is like

looking at new bread. It looks nice, smelling is better, but

tasting is best. Don’t just know! Let it nourish you! What

if our churches were places which were so close to God?

Surely people coming into them would be able to foretaste

the kingdom of God.

The church then has to be a sign and foretaste of the

kingdom so that people join us on this pilgrim journey. A

sign points the way. The church is a pointer to Jesus .

How do we do it? How do we represent the kingdom?

With earthly kingdoms, rulers even today use images of

themselves everywhere and they did the same thing in

early times too. Why? So that people would be reminded

of the king. For God’s kingdom, however, we are told In

Genesis 1.27, that male and female were created in his

image so humanity bears the image of God. But it became

a flawed image because of sin. And today, sin has messed

us up so the image is not easily seen. So what do we do

about that?

God sent the ultimate human in Jesus himself. He is the

image of the invisible God (Colossians). We are created to

be like Christ. Now the image is being restored again

through Jesus Christ. We are all little images. The image

of God must to be so clear that when people walk into

church they see God. That is how critical this is!

Can they see it? Surely, they can’t if we are huddled

behind closed doors. Can they hear if all they hear is of the

church and its controversies. Can they taste and see…not

if they are fed platitudes and cliches rather than the bread

of life!

There are three ways we can achieve this:

1. Community :

Read the Sermon on the Mount and what it says about

community. The establishment of a community which

looks like and behaves like God. It is very easy to come to

church and hide. Adam and Eve did not have to hide from

each other. Yes they were naked but they had no shame.

There was nothing to hide from each other.. There was

honesty and integrity. Now because of sin we often hide

and some of us are hiding in the Lord’s work. But, we must

remember that in Christ we are new creations. We may

be still learning not to hide and we learn this through

community. It is not that we don’t sin but we have forgiveness

and learn. We develop a sensitivity to those

outside the church. We look at them as fellow pilgrims

just that they have not entered the journey yet. It is

nothing to do with being in or out of the club! So with

them, we talk to them about our sin but not with shame

but with an honesty and integrity. Christ has taken away

our shame. I have been forgiven and I have been restored.

When we develop this sense of community we experience

a freedom from the drive to be affirmed by others. In our

weakness, we often want to be affirmed by others and so

we hide our struggles. But this is completely unnecessary

in the kingdom of God.

Jason Curtis Presentation Two at day conference for SEECAT

Food for the journey

'My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work'. said Jesus.'

'If you want more of God, you'll find him in the act of service. Discovering more of God is not so much about asking him to bless our desires, but aligning our longings with his desires. It's really about finding out what he's doing and then having the courage to join in. Only this kind of faith is ever truly satisfying and sustaining.' (Steve Chalke/ Jackie Pullinger)