The earthquake devastated 23 churches in the Compassion network and caused more than $2 million in damages.

That evening, as we began our prayers, I explained to my son what an earthquake is, and that our sponsored child possibly lost his church. Given that churches are how aid and support are often distributed to the community, Josue may have lost many layers of provision in his life.

After thinking about the situation, my son said, “Well, they can ask God for a new church. Will God build him a new one?”

I paused, unsure exactly how to answer, and then it hit me.

“Yes, son, God will build them a new church. Do you know how?”

“No, how will God do that?”

“Well, God has given us money, along with many other families in America. God’s plan to help Josue is you and me.”

You Are God’s Plan for the Needy

God’s plan to help the hurting people of the world is to equip other people—us—to help them. As St. Teresa of Avila wrote centuries ago, “Christ has no body but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours.”

My son’s excited response brought me back from my musing:

“Daddy, I have my [pretend] cash register. It has lots of dollar bills. I can open it up, get them all out, and we can send them all to Josue.”

My son’s excited response perfectly captures the mindset God desires for us. But often, we end up on the other end of the spectrum.

Have you ever given out of guilt, or because you feel like you have to “tithe” to be a good Christian? Have you ever given because you heard an emotional appeal and felt awkwardly obligated to chip in?

We’ve all heard that God’s desire is for a “cheerful giver,” but growing up I was often stumped by how actually to become one. As an un-cheerful giver, I just didn’t give that much.

But over the past two years, I’ve met many radically generous families, and observed their joy. It doesn’t come by accident—it comes through a proper view of God, man and redemption.

What the Bible Says About Giving

Nearly every generous family I met pointed to the Bible’s teaching. I was surprised to learn that the Bible says more about money than it does about heaven and hell combined. Nearly half of Jesus’ parables related to money, and there are over 2,300 verses pertaining to money. Clearly, it’s an important topic. So, what does the Bible say?

In short, three things:

1. All of our wealth originates from and belongs to God (Deuteronomy 8:18, 1 Chronicles 29:11-14, Colossians 1:16).

2. In light of this, our wealth should be used for God’s purposes (Luke 12: 42-43, Matthew 25: 31-46).

3. God’s purpose is to restore the world to wholeness. This occurs spiritually through salvation in Jesus Christ, and physically through our service and giving to serve the poor, needy, and weak (Luke 4:18-19, 2 Corinthians 5:18, Matthew 28: 19-20, Jeremiah 22: 13-16, Proverbs 19:17).

Implicit in these three statements is the idea that our wealth is not our own. As my son learned, God has given it to us to accomplish something on earth.

Giving With the Gospel, not Guilt

It was a turning point in my financial life when I realized that my generosity should spring from the Gospel, not from guilt. I don’t give because I’m supposed to tithe, or because I want to avoid feeling bad, or because it’s kind of a thing Christians are supposed to do.

I give because God gave first. Since He enables us to get wealth in the first place, and because we are the recipients of His great grace in our lives, our natural and joyful response is to engage in radical generosity on behalf of the Christian church and the poor.

Pastor Tim Keller puts it this way:

To the degree you understand the Gospel of grace, you will live a radically generous life! If you truly have a spiritual inheritance, you are going to be promiscuously generous with your earthly inheritance.

The next morning, I sent a check for Josue and the people of Ecuador. And, for one of the first times in my giving life, I smiled with joy after sending the funds. My dollars, in some mysterious way, experienced redemption for a higher purpose. There they were, sitting in a bank account in the United States, accomplishing nothing. And now, they have become bricks, bread and the hope of Christ made known in a desperate situation.

Praise God for allowing us to be a part of accomplishing His purposes in the Earth.

It was a normal Monday night and I was gathered with a dozen young adults in my living room, eating grilled cheese (the food of champions) and ready to play a game and talk about God, when the subject of conversation changed.

It has happened like that several times in the last few months—a sudden shift from the usual conversations about work and school, weekend shenanigans and new music. I couldn’t help but hold my breath once again as the topic turned to tragedy: Recent automobile accidents that claimed the lives of friends. Tragic, nonsensical shootings. International wars. Planned Parenthood videos. Lots to fear, lots of which to be afraid.

The list was long. Intense. Depressing. Scary.

Over the last few months, time and again, I have observed that when I’m talking with Christians—young or old—and the subject of conversation shifts to tragedies and world events, there happens to be a common denominator to their reactions. Of course, it’s all sad. Of course they differ in explaining how God may or may not be involved, depending on their background and experience. But when it comes to what they do personally when they receive what seems like a tidal wave of unsettling, fearsome information over airwaves, social media and news sites, there seems to be a common theme:

“Shut it off.”

Fear can be overwhelming. The more we feel the world is out of control, the less we want to be a part of it. We’re devastated people could act that way toward one another. We’re confused as to how we can protect ourselves. We’re uncertain about the what-ifs. And so, we shut down.

“That’s why I don’t watch/listen to/read the news anymore.”

Maybe you have said it. Maybe you have done it. Maybe after discussing all this stuff going on in this crazy world, you are choosing to do it right now. Maybe it’s the reason you signed off cable and signed onto Netflix.

And it makes perfect sense, if you think about it. Fear traps, imprisons, paralyzes. Even for those who place their hope in Jesus Christ, thinking about big problems and possible tragedies can cause insomnia, stress and sadness. I don’t know about you, but when my heart breaks, I don’t like the way that feels. I sometimes think if I don’t know, think about or talk about disasters, epidemics, wars or bombings, I don’t have to experience that.

We often feel helpless about our own lives, let alone the world. Besides, even Christ-followers can’t do anything about these local, national and worldwide tragedies anyway—right?

Not according to Jesus.

While there are legitimate times to step away, and while chronic fear and anxiety are real issues that need to be faced and mitigated in our lives, pulling the curtains to block out the world doesn’t seem to be an option for anyone who claims to follow Christ. Jesus was with people so much that the Scriptures go out of their way to indicate He experienced gut-wrenching compassion for them in their state of life (Mark 6, Matthew 14).

On one occasion, when crowds of people began to gather around Jesus, He sat down on a mountainside with His crew—the 12 disciples—and purposely allowed the throngs of folks to overhear His teachings. He surprised everyone by first calling out blessings on unexpected groups of people: the poor, the mourners, the humble, the persecuted. The list went on. In that time, everyone believed those people to be punished by God, as indicated by their horrible circumstances. But Jesus claimed the opposite—that God was with them and they were where God was.

And after listing these groups of “blessed” people, Jesus started talking to the disciples directly about their responsibility, their role.

“You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father” (Matthew 5:14-16).

The disciples knew the strategic placement of cities of the day—built on top of hills, these cities allowed their inhabitants to protect themselves and see what was going on miles away. City lights also helped travelers orient themselves on the road. Seeing a city gave people relief and HOPE. The light of the city helped those in the city to see, as well as others to see the city and be guided by it.

Responsibility is powered by awareness. Awareness is possible through involvement. Involvement results in illumination.

But what would happen if everybody shut their windows, shut their curtains and put their lights under baskets?

We wind up aiding the darkness when we go too far to protect our light.

If God’s Spirit populates us like a city, we need to see what’s happening on the landscape. We need to be connected to the world—to those unruly situations, people and places that make us most afraid—so we can be reminded how much we need to rely on God and not on human attempts to be gods. By shutting off the world around us, how would we know who and what to pray for? If we actually believe prayer has a purpose and God can work in anyone, anywhere, we need to plead on the behalf of others.

Christ-followers should feel uncomfortable when we hear of people killing one another, of viruses spreading, of citizens living in the midst of rocket fire and war. When that discomfort turns into fear, we shut ourselves off from the news, cover our lamps, and take cover in our comfortable living rooms.

But when that discomfort turns into prayer and trust in a God who has plans to restore His broken world, we shut down the author of fear, the prince of darkness. We are propelled to fight against injustice and offer hope and help to those suffering from accidents, addictions and depression. We support aid organizations and go on mission trips to change situations and our priorities. Fear does not get the best of us—God does.

And we pray—not just say we will. But really pray.

The ability to sing the song of hope and to live each day in the confidence that God will write the final bars does not depend on what’s going on around us. Like the light of Christ that we’ve been given, that hope only dies—actually suffocates—when we attempt to cover it for ourselves.

Here’s a look at six items every dad would want that also support charitable initiatives in communities around the world.

Everlane T-Shirts

Price: $12

Your dad needs new T-shirts. You know this. He’s been wearing the same tees Miami Dolphins t-shirt since you were a kid. Give him some tees that will change his world with Everlane, one of the best t-shirt investments you can make. Not only are they affordable, well-made and sharply tailored, but they use sustainable materials and warehouses that pay their workers fairly. That’s pretty rare in the retail world.

Bombas Socks

Price: Gift boxes start at $68

Believe the podcast ad hype. Bombas are as good as you’ve heard, providing about as much comfort and durability as a sock can. And, look, socks might scream last-minute gift but come on, most of us spend at least half the day in socks, so why not make sure your dad’s feet spend that time well? And, yes, every pair of socks bought through Bombas also gets a pair sent to someone in need.

Yellow Leaf Hammocks

Price: $199

What dad wouldn’t want a new place to kick back and relax this Father’s Day? Yellow Leaf hammocks boast “insanely comfortable” designs, handmade by artisan craftspeople in Thailand. Not only are you giving your dad a super chill new place to catch a well-deserved afternoon nap, you’re also helping communities break the cycle of poverty. From Yellow Leaf: “Our artisan weavers and their families were previously trapped in extreme poverty and debt slavery. Now they are empowered to earn a stable, healthy income through dignified work (we call this a ‘prosperity wage’). This is the basis for a brighter future, built on a hand up, not a handout.”

Miir Water Bottle

Price: Starts around $25

Whether Dad needs a new water bottle, a better coffee mug or something for his at-home bar setup, Miir has some of the coolest drinkware around. It’s slick, sustainable and does the all-important job of keeping hot drinks hot and cold beverages cold. Best of all, Miir sets aside a chunk of their profits to help fund clean water initiatives around the world. Check out their (surprisingly transparent) website for more details on how Miir products fund good causes. What else could Dad ask for?

TOMS Sunglasses

Price: Starts at $50

TOMS has been in the sunglasses game for a while now, helping fund optometry initiatives around the world and basically doing for eyeware what they’ve done for shoes. That all sounds well and good, but the most immediate concern is your dad’s peepers, and you’re in luck. We recommend these aviators that will enhance any Dad vibe with some high-key Top Gun vibes.

One World Soccer Ball

Price: $30

It’s almost impossible to destroy a One World Soccer ball. That makes it a great gift for active dads who enjoy pick-up games at any location—a parking lot, the driveway or the beach—as well as for kids in communities around the world. The uniquely designed ball never goes flat, and it’s virtually impossible to pop, meaning kids everywhere can enjoy playing the beautiful game. For every ball purchased, one is given to an organization that works with youth in at-need communities around the globe.

We spoke talked with Harper, who is the founder and president of Freedom Road, about the deep connection between the gospel and justice, her book The Very Good Gospel and why it starts with understanding the message of Genesis.

I love the title Very Good Gospel. Can you tell me for our audience that may not be familiar with the concept, can you talk about the concept of the book and why you landed on that title in particular?

The book came out of 13 years of exploration of Genesis, particularly Genesis 1-3 and that came out of a journey I took in 2003 called the Pilgrimage for Reconciliation. And I was just really struck at the end of that journey. For the first two weeks we retraced the Cherokee Trail of Tears. Then, over the second half, we retraced the African experience in America from slavery through Civil Rights.

I have to say, my understanding of the good news of the Gospel was really wrapped up in the Four Spiritual laws. The reality is that when it came down to it my understanding at that point of the good news of the Gospel was God loves me, but I’m sinful and Jesus died for my sins and if I pray this prayer then I get to go to Heaven. It was also a very legal construct: It’s very linear in its thinking and very simple.

But I imagine myself sharing that understanding of the Gospel with my own ancestors who walked the Trail of Tears and who had been enslaved in the South and I asked myself at the end of that journey: “Would my understanding of the Gospel make them jump up and down and holler because it was so darn good?” and I realized I could not share that Gospel with them. It had nothing to say about the lives they were living or the oppression they were experiencing.

And I realized if my Gospel is muted in the face of the worst stuff that has ever happened on our land then maybe it’s not so good. Maybe the news is not so good or maybe it’s just not good enough.

All parts of creation were created in interconnected relationship and those relationships are what God declared very good at the end of the sixth day. That is what we were created for—that kind of connectedness to all things, including God.

But our understanding of the Gospel, especially in the 20th century, got reduced down to simply our relationship with God. And sin got reduced to our imperfection within ourselves. But what I came to understand is if the very goodness that God was talking about in the very beginning was located between things then sin is anything that breaks any of those relationships that God declared very good in the very beginning. It’s not about necessarily our being imperfect.

It’s interesting because when you look at the things in the Old Testament that angered God it wasn’t so much just what we think of as immorality in terms of failures of the flesh or weaknesses, it was being unkind to refugees or being inhospitable. It was like you said, what really made God angrier than anything, at least in the Old Testament context, seemed to be that breakdown of relationships between people.

It doesn’t actually stop there. I don’t know exactly how it happened, but in our modern, American church, our understanding of the Gospel really reduced Jesus down to being a moralist, but Jesus actually really wasn’t. His whole life was spent breaking down barriers between people and creating connections that were not supposed to be. Between men and women; affluent and poor people. Jesus actually coming down from Heaven to Earth is the building of a bridge. It’s the connecting of humanity to God.

And then with the cross, He becomes all of these things—the sick one, the one who was oppressed by the government, a prisoner and as a result he becomes separated from all things. I think the triumph of the resurrection is the triumph over that ultimate separation which is death and he comes back to life. Because if Jesus can beat death, Jesus can certainly beat economic disparity and oppression. Jesus can certainly beat sexism and patriarchy. In fact, we saw Him do it while Jesus was alive.

The practical implications of looking at the Gospel as primarily post-death are pretty profound. Do you think the church has been too focused on that and has a misunderstanding? Do you feel like it’s accurate that a lot of the church has misrepresented the Gospel as not something that is for the now but for later?

A person’s social perspective—their location, approach and position—mostly dictates what they can see. So I think that the perspective of those who handed us our understanding of the Gospel was actually very affluent—it was literally the perspective of governments and nations that oppressed others.

And that was, and is, the social perspective of the American church. And I think the reason why we are so disconnected from the Scripture is because every single word, letter, book and writer in the Scripture was a person whose perspective was on the underside of oppression. Every single person who wrote the Scriptures was oppressed.

I think that’s part of why the Body of Christ needs us all in order to interpret the Scripture well—to see what needs to be seen in Scripture. I think when we have looked at Scripture for the last century, in particular in the American church, we have seen the Scripture from the position of one who lives on top of systems and structures that actually are oppressing people.

This is why all of this stuff that happened by hands who claimed faith in Jesus and often used their version of the Bible to justify what they were doing, because they’re not seeing the Scripture through the eyes of the oppressed. They’re seeing the scripture through the eyes of the oppressors. So they pick and choose what they want to see, what justifies their actions.

They’ve taken Jesus out. They’ve literally lifted Him out of the context of the whole story.

So there’s a disconnection from the text itself and we know from scripture that the text is God.

The text is Jesus. John said of Jesus, “The Word came and lived among us and The Word was flesh.”

So much of it comes down to, as you were mentioning this, lack of perspective from only seeing your view. What are some practical steps for people who may have been raised in a position of privilege, and maybe not even be aware of their own lack of perspective, so that they can gain it?

It goes right back to Genesis 1 for me. At the beginning of the 6th day, that’s when God creates humanity in His image. In the Babylonian empire their understanding of the image of God was that it was only held by royalty. But the priests who were exiting 70 years of oppression do something that is absolutely revolutionary: They democratize power. Because what they say is all humanity is created in the image of God. And then they do something even more radical they say “and let them, all humanity, have dominion.”

So it’s really about maintaining the boundaries and wellness of the relationships that God has created in this new creation and so all humanity was given the call and created with the capacity to steward the world. But what we have been given in our world is a hierarchy, several hierarchies of human values and human dignity to exercise dominion. But those hierarchies are a lie. They are not from God. Because what God says is that all humanity was created to steward the world.

So I think the first step quite honestly is to learn to see the image of God and that call and that capacity to exercise dominion behind every set of eyes that you encounter in your life. You literally do what Paul said to do: Take every thought captive. And when you realize that you’re thinking of this person as just the Uber driver, just the homeless person who’s always on that corner or just your mentally ill cousin—whenever you feel that “just” part come up in your head, take that thought captive and if you can see them, look into their eyes and look for the image of God behind their eyes.

So it’s not actually enough, according to the research, for us to have a black friend or have a poor friend or to have a woman friend if you’re a bunch of men like to actually have a woman who’s a friend.

But it’s really the process of being immersed that actually challenges our unconscious biases because we’re confronted by them all the time when we’re immersed and we can’t just explain them away when we’re immersed.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in 2016. 

I wonder if sometimes these areas are things we think really don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. By saying it is not a big deal we are able to downplay the possibility that this is a discipleship issue. I wonder if what is innocuous to us is a way for us to say it would be too costly to my life to actually ponder the implications or ramifications of radical discipleship.

John Stott may not be a household name for many, but in Christian circles he was a very influential thinker and writer of the 20th century. Besides the many works he published in his long career, the very last book he penned was a challenge to the Church on some areas he believed to be neglected in our calling as disciples of Christ.

One of those areas was the lack of dialogue in the American evangelical churches around creation care. I have to say, I think I agree with him.

The minute someone begins to talk about climate change, Earth Day or any other “green” initiative, what image pops in your head? What image do you have of the person speaking? For me, a few years ago, that person would have been a left-wing, granola-eating liberal. (My apologies if I have offended any left-wing, granola-eating liberals reading this.)

If I am being honest, though, that is the stereotype I used to have in my head. But why? Isn’t that backwards? If the Earth is God’s creation and not some cosmic accident, shouldn’t God’s followers be at the forefront of environmental care initiatives?

Here is why I believe Earth Day should matter to the Church: The Earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it — the world, and all who live in it (Psalm 24:1). Earth Day should matter because the Earth is His. He is the creator of the creation, all of it, every inch, every animate and inanimate aspect of it.

It all matters, and all has value, not because we say so, not because we can make a dollar off of it, or it is useful to us, but because it is His and He said it is good. Earth Day should matter, not because of some cliché saying that it belongs to our kids and we are just borrowing from them. It doesn’t belong to my kids anymore than it belongs to me.

And because it is His, it isn’t just some field, it isn’t just some animal or it isn’t just some valley. It is His. You and me? We are just stewards. But that sells it short also. We are not just stewards. We are the creator’s stewards. We are His stewards.

And as amazing as that is, and as often as we muck that role up, we still have the chance to cooperate with God in conserving and nurturing creation. He has entered into a partnership with us to be caretakers of His creation. This is what Genesis 1 gets at. This is dominion. It is not domination. It is to till and to keep, to cultivate and preserve.

This is why Earth Day matters. Because we have a mandate from God, from the rightful owner, to compassionately care for what is His. Is Earth Day the only day that matters? I can’t help but think of Matthew Scully, who put it this way, “Justice is not some finite commodity, nor are kindness and love … a wrong is a wrong, and often the little ones, when they are shrugged off as nothing, spread and do the gravest harm to ourselves and others.”

We know the power of a small act of kindness. It can have ripple effects in our lives and the lives of others. Could small strides taken on Earth Day, from the Christian community, have ripple effects in our lives and the lives of others?

Could our understanding of the passage that “His eye is on the sparrow” not just be some happy illustration of his love for only us? It can also mean that His eye truly is on the sparrow and He watches over both of His creations with grace and love. Yes, we are of more worth than many sparrows, but that doesn’t belittle the fact that even a sparrow is not outside of the Father’s care.

What strides can we take?

Maybe the first step is to get outside. To explore. To ponder. To slow. To stop and listen to the sound of a bird. To stop and pause in front of a shrub this spring. We are often moving so fast that we miss the smaller world around us. But sometimes, if you stop long enough you will see how busy the bees are working to gather food, and yet to help pollinate the many plants around us.

As Francis Schaeffer wrote, “This is not pantheism, but rather a way of honoring the Creator. Thus, as a human, I recognize that I am more valuable than an ant, but the ant is a fellow creature, both of us made by the same God.” The goal here is not the deification of nature, but maybe admitting we have lost sight of whose creation this is, and our part in that creation.

Our second step could be to educate ourselves. How many water bottles are thrown into a landfill every single day? (60 million.) How many animals in America are slaughtered every day? (23.3 million.) There are a whole host of valuable questions to ask. And as hard as it is to hear it, to say, “I don’t want to know how the chicken nugget got to my plate. I just want to enjoy it,” is not a valid excuse.

Finally, take small steps by maybe skipping the water bottle. Use a reusable bottle. Skip the plastic straw at the restaurant. Replace your incandescent light bulbs with LED bulbs. As cliché as it sounds, plant a tree. See that act as something more. See it as an act of building for the coming kingdom. Find locally sourced animal meat, and even, eat less animal meat. To want to help the Earth and not address the destruction caused by the industrialized animal farming operations is like focusing on a small issue while a larger one looms. It is like an old Persian saying about someone who has lost his horse and yet is busy looking for horseshoes.

You can either choose to simply eat less animal meat, or in your budget, since buying locally sourced animal meat tends to be more expensive, keep the same budget and you naturally will consume less. Or perhaps, when you go out to eat, choose vegetarian.

Yes, these are just a few small steps. Yes, there are many other problems facing our world. But is it fair to ask that we can be involved in multiple issues? Can we see how both the refugee crisis and creation care are able to fall under what it means to be a disciple of Jesus? There is room for us to do both in a given day. And maybe, just maybe, the daily habit of small acts of kindness toward the creation can train or aim our hearts to larger acts of kindness.

Could we have fallen prey to our own selective discipleship? Am I able to admit that for a long time I have simply pretended to not know? As Leo Tolstoy wrote, “We are not ostriches, and cannot believe that if we refuse to look at what we do not wish to see, it will not exist.”

For those of us in the U.S., it may seem as though Haiti has been in and out of the news for decades, most notably in 2010 when a 7.0 magnitude earthquake killed nearly a quarter of a million people. Since then, political unrest, gang violence, and natural disasters have been near constant. Under the current circumstances, Haitians all over the country are suffering from food shortages and extreme threats of violence.

There are two common responses to this news: The first is apathy. People shrug their shoulders and say, “Well, what are you going to do?” before grabbing a latte on their way to work. The other is to take action — to jump in and help, just like I did in 2010.

Both responses can be harmful. But I didn’t know that back then.

Misconceptions That Harm

My husband and I moved to Haiti following a mission trip after the earthquake in 2010. Initially, our role was to help provide clean drinking water, but I soon began volunteering at a local orphanage. A three-month commitment became permanent, and for the next 12 years, we called Haiti home.

As a 23-year-old American, I had arrived holding my luggage and a number of powerful — and problematic — assumptions.

Despite having next to no experience in development work, I thought the Haitian people needed my help, and my perspective. But my perspective turned out to be wrong. During the time I spent volunteering at the orphanage, I, like so many others, innocently believed the children were truly orphans — that they didn’t have a living parent. I was also genuinely convinced that my effort to care for these children in a facility and coordinate mission teams from the States to help at the orphanage was the best way to support and serve the Haitian children. I wasn’t alone in these misconceptions — an outpouring of donations led to a 150% increase in the number of orphanages after the earthquake, and international adoptions skyrocketed.

Listening, Learning, and A Willingness to Change

After four years at the orphanage, I took note of a group of women who regularly attended our church service. The kids would surround them, and one day I asked who they were. I was told, “They’re the moms.”

This shocking revelation became a turning point for my work in Haiti.

Needing to examine my role and purpose there, I started by learning about the circumstances of children who live in orphanages. I realized that the vast majority, both in Haiti and worldwide, have living family members who want to be together with them. In supporting the orphanage, I was perpetuating the problem of families being separated.

Something had to change.

Listening to the Haitian believers already working towards development and family-strengthening efforts, I asked how we might partner together to prevent more parents from needing to rely on orphanages to care for their children. By supporting vulnerable families rather than orphanages, children could stay with their parents.

From these discussions, I became the co-founder of Konbit, a name that means “together.” And this is exactly how Konbit operates. Through the empowerment of local leaders and the community, we believe that change in Haiti will happen from the inside out. By removing barriers to school and offering after-school care, job training, emergency assistance and medical care, what started as an after-school program for 25 kids is now a robust partnership that serves between 300-400 families each year.

Informed Help Creates Local Impact

In the community where Konbit works, about an hour and a half outside of Port-au-Prince, gangs are making it nearly impossible to find food. People in Haiti are starving. But through Konbit’s grassroots network, Haitian believers are helping fellow Haitians. Some leaders are finding or buying food, then returning to the community and distributing it to local families. Others with access to food are preparing meals and serving them to families in need.

The situation in Haiti is very complex. And right now, the people of Haiti do need help. But they need it the way they say they need it, not in the way Americans believe it is best to give it.

By redirecting our giving away from orphanages and towards organizations working to strengthen families, we can ensure children and parents are fed during this crisis and that their basic needs are met. By engaging and empowering organizations already doing the work, families will be able to stay together both now and in the future. Supporting local organizations makes an enormous difference in the lives of struggling families.

If you have a heart to help, it’s tempting to believe there’s no place for you if you’re not on the ground. But that can’t be farther from the truth. Being a global partner from right where you are just might be the very best place to make a difference.

Stephanie Robinson is the Outreach Coordinator of the Faith to Action Initiative and also co-founder of a grassroots organization Konbit Haiti, which provides localized support for family preservation.

Indeed, gone are the days when simply taking up a collection for inner city, rural, or overseas missions would suffice. Instead, Christians of all ages are rolling up their sleeves and getting far more hands-on in matters of poverty. We take mission trips, we volunteer in homeless outreach ministries, some of us even do advocacy work in our spare time. We are involved.

Yet as a new generation of Christians heeds God’s call to serve “the least of these” in our society, let’s stop for a moment and reflect upon our approach to serving with those living in poverty.

To put it quite frankly, some of our perceptions towards the poor are somewhat outdated.

So before we rush in with righteous vigor to help the helpless, so to speak, we would do well to dispense of some archaic lenses through which we view poverty. All parties involved will be better off for it. Here are some ways not to approach those in poverty:

Get Rid of Your Savior Complex

Have you ever noticed that when people speak with children, they tend to change their tone and “talk down”?

We adopt that same tendency when encountering the impoverished of our world. Whether we have stopped to speak with a homeless man on the street, or are conversing with a local in a developing country, we adopt an airy sort of tone that—rather unintentionally, I’d say—sets up something of an intellectual hierarchy. The fancy word for this is paternalism.

When I first started living and working as an intern in the beleaguered but promising city of Camden, New Jersey, some leaders from our ministry held perhaps one of the most candid orientation sessions I’ve ever experienced. One of the directors, a Camden native, stood up and said in no uncertain terms, “You’re not going to change Camden in just two months. No one is going to carry you off on their shoulders at the end of the summer.”

He continued, his tone blunt and honest, “And don’t look at it as you’re ‘bringing God to the city.’ God has been here long before you arrived, and He will be here long after you leave.”

In our passion and energy, we can mistakenly assume something of a “savior complex” when serving with the poor. Note the intentionally-inserted word “with,” which implies that the relationship is not one-directional, but collaborative.

There is only room for one Savior, and His name is Jesus Christ. We are merely His servants.

Don’t Let Pity Be Your Motivation

The last thing that poor people need is your pity. Your friendship? Absolutely. Your prayers? Without a doubt. The problem is, when we approach someone with pity and then stay at that level, there is never any mutuality to the relationship. They remain a specimen, a project, if you will.

Look at Christ’s example of the Good Samaritan—his first response for the downtrodden man splayed across the roadway was indeed pity. That’s probably why he stopped in the first place. Yet the next phase of their interaction was far beyond pity. It was intimacy.

The Samaritan cleaned and bandaged his wounds, gave of his time and talents, and invested himself in the wellbeing of his newfound friend. Pity by itself allows us to keep people at arm’s length, never developing the reciprocity and meaningful exchange that characterize a real relationship.

Don’t Let Fear Hold You Back

I grew up in and around Philadelphia, and am no stranger to perceived “no-go” zones in our cities and in our world. For many, especially Christians, we have ensconced ourselves in the safety of the suburbs to avoid the rampant dangers and violence of—gasp!—the inner city. Many don’t engage with the poor because, quite simply, they fear the poor.

Eleven o’clock news sound bytes such as “fatal shooting” and “robbery at gunpoint” grip the collective mindset and paint those living in poverty with an oppressively broad brush.

I am glad to say that this perception is beginning to die out, albeit slowly. When I tell people I work in Camden, the requisite eyebrow raise and muted response of, “Camden, eh?” is becoming less frequent.

The millennial generation appears to making strides, and the old guard’s fearful ways of engagement is becoming a thing of the past. Though we are risking gentrifying long-term residents out of exponentially priced housing, at least the fence that fear put up is starting to come down, slowly but surely.

Find the Right Approach

There are ways to remedy this situation, to effectively shed the perceptions that we might impose upon the poor.

The good news is that it doesn’t involve a three-point plan, or anything of that sort. It’s something of a heart condition, an internal shift that changes the way we look at ourselves first, and then others.

The best summation of this change of heart might be from Brian Fikkert, author of When Helping Hurts. Sitting in his session at the 2013 Justice Conference, Fikkert asserted with much vigor that serving with the poor is about partnership, about sharing, mutuality and equity.

He said, “It’s about us grabbing each other by the hand and saying, ‘Hey brother, I’m a beggar too!’” Indeed, in this heavenly banquet that Christ has prepared, we have all been given the same invitation, and we will all one day sit side by side in His presence.

We can overcome pervasive pity, condescension and fear when it comes to serving with the poor. It will only happen though when we realize that we all approach the throne equally before God.

Todd Deatherage, the co-founder of the Telos Group, has a long history of advocating for peace and equality between Israel and Palestine. Deatherage has spent decades working in public policy positions educating officials on the Israel-Palestine conflict, including service as the Chief of Staff to a U.S. Senator and in the U.S. State Department where he worked in the Secretary of State’s Office of Policy Planning.

Deatherage spoke with RELEVANT about what the current reality looks live for Israeli and Palestinian civilians, what a likely end scenario looks like, and what role American Christians play in the midst of this conflict.

Telos Group has staff on the ground over in Israel and the Gaza region. What are you hearing from them about the conflict and what’s happening right now?

Todd Deatherage: On the one hand, sort of everyone we know is safe and no one is okay. There’s just such trauma. There was trauma on the other side of this, and what happened on October 7th and what has happened since then has awakened and reminded everyone of historical trauma.

Then, everything since then has also been a recollection back to historic tragedies and traumas. It’s a very, very brutal time, and it’s far from over. Twelve hundred Jewish Israelis died on October 7, and a couple hundred were kidnapped. And now, we’re close to 24,000 people who’ve died in the Gaza Strip now, and that number rises every day, including children. It’s a really brutal time.

Bringing it back to the U.S., with everything going on so much longer than people probably expected it to, we’re starting to see more statements from leaders, we’re seeing protests on college campuses. What are your thoughts about what we’re seeing here in the U.S. with the division and the side picking that’s happening?

It’s really forced people into these hard binaries that had always existed. This is a part of the world that a lot of people care about because it’s the Holy Land. For Jews, Christians and Muslims, this is very central to their faith stories, to their religious identities, to all these other things we’ve cared about it. The way that we’ve cared about it from the outside, though, in the last 100 years of this conflict, has often been to just import it. We choose our side, and so we create activism around the conflict that is a reflection of the conflict itself. So if I’m pro-Israel, I’m anti-Palestinian by default. If I’m pro-Palestinian, I’m anti-Israeli by default. That kind of activism has definitely only contributed to the conflict.

Well, you’ve seen that in spades right now. You’ve seen deep division on college campuses. I have a daughter who’s a high school teacher. In her own school, they really are struggling to know how to address this and deal with it. You’re seeing it in communities throughout the world. That is just a reflection of where we are on this.

But on the other hand, a lot of folks are also struggling to really try to understand this outside that binary. They’re trying to look for the humanity of everyone here in unique ways. That’s been a really interesting development too, I think. This is a space we’ve tried to carve out for 15 years now. Telos was 15 years old this week. In fact, Greg Khalil and I started this work back in January 2009, really trying to carve out this new space. I have to be for the flourishing of all, if there’s anything that’s going to work there. And we rooted that in a deep set of friendships and relationships.

We’ve rooted ourselves in those relationships and always knowing that any reality there had to account for everybody’s being there and their legitimacy there, but they’re flourishing there and their equality there, not to be there under systems of control and occupation and blockade and all of that, but to be there with equality. That vision that we’ve always encouraged and supported with the people there have in that way and tried to build here at home in the U.S., it just turned into a shared grief right now.

But we’re finding that a lot of people share that. We’ve just had so many people come to us in the middle of all this, looking for that space that we’ve been trying to carve out and now trying to hold. LifeWay released some poll numbers back in December, surveying how Christians were thinking about all this. It was incredibly encouraging. It was an enormous amount of nuance in there.

Eight percent of American Christians who responded to this LiveWay survey were definitely understanding that both people had a story that had to be honored and recognized. More than 80% of them supported a two-state solution, which is such an old and tired idea that doesn’t really have any credibility there anymore, but it gets to this idea that some way of dividing, sharing the land, living in a new political arrangement in which everybody’s equal was in the imagination of a lot of American Christians.

I think this moment is revealing that people are really gravitating to the extremes, mostly out of deep pain because they have these personal connections to it and they see it in these ways. But also a lot of people are trying to sort it out in a way that appreciates the humanity of everybody there. And that’s at least that’s something to build onto right now.

It seems like all we’re hearing is protests or people getting dropped by their managers because they tweeted a thing. You know, like it’s just, it seems like everybody’s picking very hard sides right now.

And you have the dangerous rise in anti-Semitism and demonizing people in Gaza as if they’re not even human beings. That’s all out there right now and it’s so ugly and people are afraid to speak often because of these things, right? But yet there is a whole other way. We have to keep arguing for it.

I keep having to explain to friends who kind of see some headlines, but don’t really know what’s going on, that this isn’t a Palestinian war. This isn’t a war of Israel versus Palestine. This is Hamas, and Hamas is a terrorist organization. But that’s not clicking for a lot of people. 

Right, because Hamas is a is a religious and ideological nationalist movement that has was birthed in the 1980s out of the sort of influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. And their vision is a Palestinian state that is observant of their understanding of Islam and Islamic law and that sort of thing. They gained their real purchase as an opposition to the peace agreement.

The dominant Palestinian political movement, the Fatah Party through the PLO, the Palestine Liberation Organization, committed itself to this peace process with Israel to try to create a two-state solution. That was where the vast majority of Palestinians were and all the polling that was happening at the time and Israelis too. Hamas became the resistance to that.

There was a resistance on the Jewish Israeli side, too, that didn’t want that in the end. But the combination of the assassination of a Israeli prime minister by Jewish opposition, Hamas terrorist attacks and the continued growth of settlements — all these things kind of threw that off the rails. But that’s how Hamas really came into its own. Ultimately, they took control of this Palestinian enclave or territory that was under Israeli control called the Gaza Strip. They have controlled it since 2007 under a full Israeli-Egyptian military air, land and sea blockade in terms of what goes in and out.

And so people have been shut off from the world in this place. It’s been the kind of place where extremism is going to breed. It’s a breeding ground for that because people, for the last 17 years, have had no ability to move in inside and out of the Gaza Strip. They have very limited access to what even can come in and go out in terms of goods and materials and things like that. Living in these kinds of conditions, it’s a horrible situation, but they have controlled it pretty brutally, too. The people who live there have lived under this brutal control.

So, it was Hamas who perpetrated this act on October 7, not all the Palestinian people, and that’s definitely got to be understood. They’re also not a state actor. That’s the important part of this too. Gaza is not a nation state. They had no sovereignty. They had no international recognition in that way. They don’t have an army. So they have militants and they have have armed groups, but they don’t operate in the same way as a nation state. It’s not two nation states at war. That has to be understood too.

What we’re seeing right now is this massive response. It felt very much like a 9/11 moment in the immediate aftermath of October 7. But it took us several weeks to respond by going into Afghanistan. It took us a year and a half to go into Iraq, but the Israelis were in Gaza that weekend.

It was not clear at the time, and still not clear today, that they had a real strategy — this mission of we’re gonna topple Hamas, we’re gonna eliminate Hamas. What has been happening is this disproportionate, indiscriminate attack on all of the Gaza Strip. You’ve got 80% of the population now displaced. Over 1.8 million people are out of their homes, and many of their homes have now been destroyed. About half the homes in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged in bombing campaigns. Twenty-four thousand people have been killed up to this point. Many of them are civilians and the estimates are up to 10,000 of them are children.

And so what that is doing is not in any way defeating Hamas. It’s actually building Hamas in my view, not just in Gaza, but in the Middle East.

Why don’t the Palestinian residents who are not Hamas-affiliated push back on Hamas themselves? Or are you seeing people thinking, “Israel has now done so much damage to innocent Palestinians, we’re gonna fight with Hamas”?

It’s hard to know what is actually going on because there’s very little there’s very little media presence inside to know the story of what’s happening there in its fullness. But there are there’s definitely still resistance from Hamas fighters to Israel. Israel has soldiers on the ground and they’re doing these massive bombardments and they’ve moved people around.

The overwhelming majority of people are in no way like resisting or fighting against Israelis. They’re just trying to survive. One of the most important military powers in the Middle East is conducting this campaign against this terrorist organization and against a civilian population. That’s the key part of it. It’s an overwhelmingly civilian population that is bearing the brunt of all this.

But what happens in these situations is that people become drawn to extremism as a result of these kinds of things. I mean, when you have massive civilian death, the response to that is often you create new people with such hatred for what just happened that they end up going on these paths of revenge. And so it’s hard for me to see that this is in any way doing anything but but ensuring that you can’t kill a bad idea. The Hamas ideology is a really noxious idea, but you can’t kill all the people who have a bad idea and eliminate an idea. The more you try to do that, the more innocent people you kill in that process, the more you’re gonna ensure that idea gets perfect. The way you counter a really bad idea is with a better one. If you give people a hope for a better future, many people will gravitate toward it. There will be some who won’t. There will always be the resistors who won’t, but you marginalize them. You push them to the edge if you give people hope. And what people in Gaza have not had for a really long time is any sense of hope. What we have to remember is that the people in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinians who live there, are now displaced and refugees.

Gaza’s a postage stamp size piece of real estate. It’s a very densely populated area with 2.2 million Palestinians. And what you have to know is that 70% of those folks were refugees or they’re descendants of refugees from 1948 when Israel was created. They lived in what was Israel and they got displaced into this area around Gaza City and it became this Palestinian enclave that we call the Gaza Strip at that time. So their whole history is of displacement and they’re being displaced again. They’ve lived in this kind of hopeless condition for not just 17 years, but for more than 70 years without a real vision for a better future, at least since the collapse of the Oslo peace process.

That’s the way you counter a bad idea. You do everything you can to get a better future, create a better reality for everybody. I’d say the people in the south of Israel have lived for many years also without any prospect for a better reality. So the government’s response to the rockets that have been fired out of Gaza for 20 years now onto the south of Israel has just been to what they call “mow the grass,” to bomb Gaza every so often, to push back, but to never really try to deal with the situation in Gaza.

So those people have also been lacking a vision and many of those people have been drawn to kind of a more extremist view of who their neighbors are. There are real exceptions to that, like some people you’ve met, but that’s how extremism grows is when people lose all sense of hope for any possibility of a better future.

A lot of Americans don’t realize the extent that the U.S. government and U.S. taxpayers are funding the Israeli military. What are your thoughts about how our government has responded so far?

Well, I think from the very beginning, President Biden was deeply moved in a very personal way by the horror of October 7. He jumped into that with an immediate embrace of Israel with [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, and he really hasn’t really wavered from that position in spite of the fact that we’re over 100 days into this, and again, we have 24,000 Palestinians who have been killed and a massive destruction. He has made the decision to fully own this war. And so America, in the eyes of much of the world, is very much a partner in what Israel is doing in Gaza right now.

The policies that he’s created, the position he’s created, I don’t see as distinct in any way from what a Trump presidency would have been. I can’t imagine how Trump would have responded differently to this. So that’s the decision the president’s made. Now there have been some real attempts at other levels underneath the president to try to walk some of that back as the bombardment continued, as the death toll has mounted, as the potential for this thing to spread regionally, which is still real and still possible and still happening on some level, as that has all really raised so many concerns about peace and security in the world. Others have tried to walk some of that back, have tried to take that bear hug that the United States gave Israel and use it as leverage to get Israel to pull back some. There’s been very little evidence that has had any impact so far.

So at this point, we own this war and we own whatever the ultimate consequences of this are, we are fully seen as being a part of it. So, if your position is that Israel’s right to do all that it’s doing, then we’re very much their supporter in that. But if your position is that this is a disproportionate response and it’s an unhelpful one, then there’s a whole critique of how the U.S. has played its role. The U.S. alone stands out in the world as the country that has prevented all the other international pressure that’s been calling for some kind of negotiated ceasefire and hostage release, even though we have worked with diplomatically with the Qataris and others to get some of the earlier hostages released. The U.S. should get credit for our involvement early on.

But the point of that is, yeah, we own this and we’re Israel’s largest benefactor. They receive more military aid from the United States. We give more military assistance to Israel than any other country in the world — $3.8 billion a year, and we’re trying to give them another 14 billion right now. And the only reason we haven’t is because the Congress is so dysfunctional that they can’t figure out how to do it right now. But there’s broadborder bipartisan support.

So at some point, we’ll give them another 14 billion and probably more on top of that, because that 14 billion dollar number was identified last year as money they needed in real time for the war. There’s now going to be more needs. I’m sure we’ll be providing that as well.

We have a huge role in this, and Americans need to understand our role in this and our complicity in this. If they’re not comfortable with what’s happening in our name, we need to be talking to our elected representatives to say what we think about that, because this is being done in our name. And we need to at least understand that and decide if we agree with it or not. We have been saying, from the very beginning, that violence is how we got into this; violence is not how we get out of it.

This is what got us here. What Hamas did on October 7 in no way made Palestine more free. Everything Israel has done since then, I don’t think has made Israel or any of us more secure and more safe. That’s how these things continue. It’s not how we get out of these things. We’ve been calling for negotiations to end the bombardment and also to get the hostages released. Those are the key things that I think could help us find footing to do something different. But this pathway of holding hostages and massive bombardment and displacement of all these people and all the deaths, there’s no end game in that makes any sense to me.

What is the best case outcome and the worst case outcome that you see?

I don’t even want to talk about the worst case outcome, because there’s a lot of geopolitics. There’s a lot of proxy wars that are happening. I mean, a lot of this is really about our own desire to assert ourselves in that part of the world, and Iranian ambitions and our desire to counter that, and the Russians and the Chinese realizing there’s some power vacuums there that they could step into. And so all of that was the precursor. There’s long historic issues as to what was bubbling up with all of this.

But the immediate precursor was our trying to negotiate a peace deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel as a way to counter Iranian bad behavior and ambitions in the region and to counter Chinese influence. The Chinese had just been signing some deals with our countries. We were playing geopolitics on the Middle Eastern chessboard and it all blew up. Well, those things are those dynamics are still there. You’re still seeing these Iranian-funded resistance movements that have a lot of support from Iran and have collaboration with Iran. Hezbollah south of Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, all these things are live and those things are still very worrisome. There’s some direct U.S. action going on right now between the U.S. and the Houthis in Yemen. All of this could go into much more regional conflict. If it gets to Jerusalem, this becomes a whole bigger thing.

There’s a lot of really worst case scenarios. And I think the Biden administration has some appreciation for that, but what they are not fully appreciating is that the best way to avoid this to be an even greater regional conflagration is to stop what’s happening in Gaza right now, to work on ceasefire, negotiate release of hostages — all these things need to be done as a way to keep this from spinning out because it definitely could do that.

It’s hard to say that what a best case scenario is right now, because there’s this idea that things have been going in a really bad direction for a really long time there. People would often say this is going to blow up and that it’s got to get worse before it gets better. There is a version of it that gets worse and then it gets worse even more. That’s easily where this could go. What we’ve got to do is not let that happen. We have to really redouble all our efforts internationally. All the involvement has to be directed toward supporting all those voices on the ground, supporting all the kind of work on the ground, supporting all the international work that would create a more fair, just, safe, equitable, secure system for everybody there.

We’ve long argued for dignity, security and freedom for Israelis and Palestinians in equal measure. Whatever that political arrangement is that achieves the end of different systems of control that marginalizes extremist ideologies, that minimizes violence in all its forms, not just the direct violence of terrorism and military violence, but the violence of occupation, the violence of these ideologies that create supremacist systems of who’s more favored than the other. There’s these visions that exist on both sides of the land without anybody from the opposite side being able to be present there, at least in the kind of equality.

So we have to really commit ourselves to the work of peacemaking. We’ve got to really commit ourselves to working with those folks that are going to create that reality. We’ve got to make a big commitment to the work of the healing of the traumas. I mean, there’s just so much historic trauma that’s always been there. It’s almost like you’re in this giant, open-air PTSD ward as you walk around.

I mean, everybody has that in their family and in their story, both on the Israeli and the Palestinian side. Well, now they have it even more. We really have to remember these sort of basic concepts, that trauma that’s not transformed is transferred. We’re seeing massive transference of trauma right now. So we have to be looking at ways to bring healing to these people and to allow them to bring healing in their own communities and create a different, more equitable table where people can choose how to live in that reality where nobody lives as a second class citizen.

I came home to find their worldly belongings—a couple of dirty sheets, a filthy pink pillow and assorted clothing—piled in a puddle outside my front door.

They previously lived crammed together in one of the tiny, windowless rooms that line our alleyway. Apparently our landlord (the same tough old lady owns a bunch of the housing around here) decided that their drunken arguments were too much to put up with. So mother, father and four kids (ranging from ages one to 12) were thrown out on the street. They were gone before I even realized it. Their bleak existence just became bleaker.

But here’s the dilemma: There’s no doubt that the mother’s relentless drinking and fighting contributed to the situation they now find themselves in. She was hard to like and even harder to help. She neglected her kids in order to sit drinking and playing cards with the neighbors. She would scream at her daughters when they forgot to cook the rice or wash the clothes, while she sat around doing nothing.

So, why should I help her?

Have you ever noticed that there’s something in our human nature that seeks to divide people on the margins, into the “deserving poor” and the “undeserving poor”? We easily deem “undeserving” those living in poverty who don’t seem like they’re working hard enough, those who may be alcoholics or drug users. While we put children and those we deem have simply fallen on hard times into the category of “deserving” our compassion and help. But asking whether people are “deserving” or “undeserving” of help is the wrong question. And when you ask the wrong question, you’ll get the wrong answer every single time.

Interestingly, Jesus dealt with this problem. In His time, disability and poverty were viewed as the result of sin. Much of the world today believes this way. It’s called Karma—the idea that your sins in previous lives directly impact this life. But Jesus rejected that analysis. When the disciples came across a blind man, they wanted Jesus to tell them whose sin caused his predicament. Instead, Jesus chose to pivot to the more important truth:

“‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned,’ said Jesus, ‘but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life’” (John 9:1-3).

Jesus makes it clear that God’s work in transforming lives is more about God’s love than whether the beneficiaries are deserving or not. No one is worthy. That’s why we need God’s grace. In Matthew 25, Jesus does not categorize people based on whether they were “sinners.” Nor did He judge them by whether they had already had multiple chances. His call was simply to reach out to those whose needs are unmet and love them: “I was hungry. I was thirsty. I was unclothed. I was in prison. I was sick.”

I’ve learned to keep three principles in mind as I engage with those who might be viewed as “undeserving” in my own life and ministry. And I think they can help you, too:

Extend the Same Grace You Have for Yourself

“Do unto others as you would like them to do unto you” is beautifully applicable in this situation. After all, we all have sinned and fallen short of God’s standards for our lives. If we measured how much each of us deserve grace, forgiveness and love, you and I would both fall short.

I am not advocating ignoring sin or enabling anyone in destructive behaviors. I am passionate about transformation. But I recognize that: “There, but by the grace of God go I.” I don’t know what demons my neighbor is seeking to escape. I don’t know what trauma or abuse she has suffered at the hands of others. I don’t know her enough to judge her. Only God does. So my role is simply to love and serve, and pray for change.

Seek to Understand, Rather Than to Judge

We’re quick to label those we view as undeserving, using terms like “Welfare Queen,” and “layabouts.” And in doing so, we judge them unworthy of our love and effort. I don’t believe this attitude reflects the love of Jesus. Instead, seek to understand what happens at an individual level to a person who is demoralized, engaging in destructive behaviors, or seeking to meet their needs in unhealthy ways.

Secondly, seek to understand the systemic reasons for poverty and how people end up being marginalized and shut out of the system (and thus demoralized and engaging in destructive behavior). For those of us from privileged backgrounds, seek to understand your privilege, so you can then understand poverty better. Recognize it is much easier for someone with resources to get help with an addiction or hide the problem. This is a blind-spot for most people from affluent and educated backgrounds, but it’s absolutely crucial that we engage in this kind of hard thinking, or we will end up doing more damage.

Ask the Right Questions

The question is not whether this person is “deserving” or “undeserving.” Instead, the question is “How can I best extend God’s love to this person today?” or “What action will be the most loving and transformational in this person’s life?” These questions invite us to step away from judgment and toward transformation. These questions allow us to respond with the kind of grace Jesus first offered to us.

One night a couple of weeks ago, I heard the sound of sobbing outside my front  door. I switched on the lights and opened the door to find my alcoholic neighbor lying shivering on the ground, weeping and moaning. She’d had too much to drink and was nursing a swollen eye. She’d had another argument with her husband and was settling down to sleep it off outside. I knelt down beside her, trying to avoid the filth she was lying in, and I listened to her talk about her problems for a while.  She was at rock bottom and she knew it. But she couldn’t see a way out. My calling in that moment, and in every interaction with her, is simply to extend love and grace, and try to help her find a better pathway.

I know Jesus can heal her and set her free. I know when God looks at her, He sees a beloved daughter who desperately needs love, grace, forgiveness and transformation. She may not be what most folks would think of as “deserving.” And neither am I. And that makes us the perfect candidates for grace.

This article originally appeared on craiggreenfield.com. Used with permission.

The event, as described in 2 Kings 12:17, centers around a battle in Gath: “About this time, Hazael, king of Aram, went up and attacked Gath and captured it. Then he turned back to Jerusalem.”

Researchers from four Israeli universities — Tel Aviv University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Bar-Ilan University and Ariel University — developed a method that proves the bricks archaeologists discovered at the site were destroyed in a fire that was set by King Hazael’s army. The team’s method involved measuring Earth’s magnetic field, which is “recorded” in the burnt bricks.

“Our findings are very important for deciphering the intensity of the fire and scope of destruction at Gath, the largest and most powerful city in the Land of Israel at the time, as well as understanding the building methods prevailing in that era,” professor Aren Maeir of Bar-Ilan University said.

Professor Yoav Vaknin of Tel Aviv University said burnt bricks from ancient times display different magnetic fields depending on how they were cooled and used.

“When a brick is fired in a kiln before construction, it records the direction of the earth’s magnetic field at that specific time and place,” Vakin explained. “In Israel, this means north and downward. But when builders take bricks from a kiln and build a wall, they lay them in random orientations, thus randomizing the recorded signals. On the other hand, when a wall is burned in-situ, as might happen when it is destroyed by an enemy, the magnetic fields of all bricks are locked in the same orientation.”

“Our findings signify that the bricks burned and cooled down in-situ, right where they were found, namely in a conflagration in the structure itself, which collapsed within a few hours,” Vaknin said. “Had the bricks been fired in a kiln and then laid in the wall, their magnetic orientations would have been random. Moreover, had the structure collapsed over time, not in a single fire event, the collapsed debris would have displayed random magnetic orientations.”

The team concluded that their new method “scientifically corroborates” the biblical event.

The battle at Gath — now modern-day Tell es-Safi, Israel — has long been disputed by scholars. Skeptics of the biblical story theorized that “the building had not burned down but rather collapsed over decades, and that the fired bricks found in the structure had been fired in a kiln prior to construction,” a news release said.

I know. It’s not fun to think about those things, right? We just want to sit back and enjoy the time with our families, but we need to do more. We’ve been called to do more.

It’s 2023. It’s hard to believe that at this point in time with all the technological and human advances people and creation is still being exploited in the worst ways for profit, but it’s true. As Christians, we should be taking a stand and using our dollars to support companies and organizations that are out there doing great things.

Here are some options for you to consider as you dig into your Christmas gift giving this year:

Option 1: Shop Vintage

Did you know that Goodwill has an auction site where they sell all their best stuff? Shopgoodwill.com has some seriously amazing things. Things like costume jewelry from the ’50s, old wooden radios, vintage typewriters and a knight’s helmet that opens up and holds shot glasses and a decanter (sorry folks, already nabbed that one).

Get creative with your gift-giving. It’s fun to scour the site and find unique gifts. Plus, your purchases go to help support the amazing programs Goodwill has to offer.

You can also take time to go antiquing at your local shops. Take a day away from the hectic malls and have fun digging through history instead!

In shopping vintage, you’re keeping things out of landfills and not contributing to the consumerist nature of “new products.” Shopping secondhand is about as ethical as you can get!

Option 2: Shop Local

Check around your area to find items that are made locally. Support businesses in your home community! There are a lot of hard-working people scraping a living doing something they love in order to get you quality products.

Check out local bazaars and craft sales, they’re everywhere at Christmas time. Walk down the street in your hometown/nearest city. Ask your friends and family who they know operating small businesses that you can support.

Option 3: Use an Ethical Shopping Guide

You can still shop online! Organizations offer online resources for you to use an ethical shopping guide to determine where you can and should buy from.

You can check out Re:New which helps support refugee women here in the U.S. with jobs and uses recycled materials. Maybe the fella in your life is looking for new shoes? Oliberté is a fair trade shoe brand supporting workers rights in Sub-Saharan Africa (and the shoes are super cute). Why not encourage imagination in the children on your list this year with Imagine Childhood. They have fun, creative gifts that are fair trade. How about the foodie in your life? AlterEco works directly with small-scale farmers for sustainable and fair trade food production (anyone else craving salted caramel truffles?).

There are so many good options out there, so there’s no need to waste your time, energy and money on unethical corporations that are exploiting both people and creation.

Option 4: Donate

Adopt a refugee family. Buy toys or needed clothing for children in need in your community. Donate a goat to a family in need overseas. Come together with your entire family and collect money to provide clean water in the Central African Republic. There are so many great options out there to help others.

Maybe we should take a step back from consumerism this Christmas to help those who need it most. Or maybe you can do a mix and match. A few presents for the people you love and a few presents for those in need.

Buying Christmas gifts ethically doesn’t have to be an added headache. It can be exceptionally rewarding! Not only are you getting great items for the people you love, but you’re also supporting great organizations and companies—it’s an all-around win!

Just remember this Christmas season that each dollar you spend is a vote for the kind of world you want. How are you going to vote?

According to a new Oxfam report, the world’s richest 1 percent generated as much carbon emissions as the poorest two-thirds in 2019.

“The super-rich are plundering and polluting the planet to the point of destruction, leaving humanity choking on extreme heat, floods and drought,” said Amitabh Behar, Oxfam International’s interim executive director.

Additionally, carbon emissions of the world’s richest 1 percent surpassed the total amount generated by all car and road transport. thanks to their yachts, mansions and global investments, a dozen of the world’s billionaires generated just as much greenhouse gas emissions as 2 million average households. That includes big names like Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

“Billionaires generate obscene amounts of carbon pollution with their yachts and private jets—but this is dwarfed by the pollution caused by their investments,” said Alex Maitland, Oxfam International’s inequality policy adviser.

Experts plan to use Oxfam’s report to call for world leaders to “end the era of extreme wealth,” according to Behar. Policy stakeholders are gearing up for this year’s U.N. climate conference, and advocates will use this data to explain why the uber-wealthy should be taxed on their carbon emissions.

According to the Oxfam report, which advocates for a new set of taxes on corporations and billionaires, a 60 percent tax on the incomes of the richest 1 percent would cut emissions by more than the total emissions of the UK and raise $6.4 trillion a year to pay for the transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

The city typically sees thousands of pilgrims and tourists during the Christmas season, attracted by its rich historical and religious significance. However, this year, the festive atmosphere has been overshadowed by the escalating conflict.

The decision to cancel the Christmas festivities was made by Bethlehem’s municipal authorities, who explained the normal plans had been canceled “in honor of the martyrs and in solidarity with our people in Gaza.”

‘The reason is the general situation in Palestine; people are not really into any celebration,” authorities said to The Telegraph. “They are sad, angry and upset. Our people in Gaza are being massacred and killed in cold blood. Therefore, it is not appropriate at all to have such festivities while there is a massacre happening in Gaza and attacks in the West Bank.

“This year, the situation in Bethlehem is unprecedented and the mood and vibes are extremely sad,” they continued. “That is exactly what the world should see and realize that these are not normal circumstances.”

Church leaders in Bethlehem have also expressed their concern over the impact of the conflict on the Christmas celebrations. They emphasized that the message of peace and hope, central to the Christmas story, is particularly poignant in these challenging times.

The cancellation includes the traditional lighting of the Christmas tree in Manger Square, the festive parades and other public celebrations that usually mark the holiday season in Bethlehem. Religious services will still be held, but with restrictions and safety measures in place.

Guy Montag, a firefighter, meets a young girl who opens his eyes to the reality that there might be more than force-fed entertainment on the television screens around their home. Montag eventually meets up with an outcast group of scholars who have memorized great literary works. And when the world is ready for books again—they will be ready to recreate these great works.

While today’s culture is not filled with book burnings (although there seem to be an increased number of book bannings), we must ask ourselves a hauntingly related question: Are we closing our minds to ideas that challenge what we have always believed? Our immediate answer is probably “No, not at all.” We would do well to pause as take stock in what we have read lately. When is the last time you read something that challenged your beliefs, assumptions or deeply held convictions? What follows is a list of four books that have been challenging to me. But before we launch into the list, there’s one disclaimer: There is a school of thought that believes that we should avoid all things “heretical.” This kind of thinking creates an echo-chamber of sorts, where we only read things we agree with. Some call this “confirmation bias”—where we read only thing that confirm our already pre-conceived ideas.

The reality is that we need to expose ourselves to a diversity of opinion, even if we do not agree with the perspective. In this case, we need to learn from what the person is presenting. Why do they hold this position? How might this position make sense? In what ways do I agree? This kind of process is more fruitful than just rejecting what someone’s position as “wrong” and reject them, and their position, out of hand. Jesus asked questions and engaged in dialogue with people—and that is what I hope the books listed below do for you, as they have for me as well. So, instead of metaphorically burning these books, let’s be open to learning from them, especially if they are on the other side of theological spectrum.

When we engage and converse with others on the opposite side of the theological spectrum, we tend to develop a stronger, more robust faith. We may still hold to the same belief after many conversations and readings—but now we know why we believe what we believe—and can articulate it in a respectful, intelligent manner. And if we end up changing a theological idea, we realize the world did not come collapsing down. God is not afraid of our questions (and even our doubts). He is not afraid of the pursuit of a more robust faith.

With that said, here are four books to consider.

Questions to All Your Answers: The Journey from Folk Religion to Examined Faith

Here, Roger E. Olson examines ten sayings common to the Christian vocabulary, ones which are catchy, common and often go unexamined. For example, I cannot count the time I have heard a believer say, “Judge not.” Olson tackles this saying in chapter nine, subtitled “So how can we preach to sinners?”

This book was personally challenging because there were sayings I was guilty of uncritically proliferating, perhaps the most common one being, “God is in control.” At face value, this saying makes all the sense in the world and seems biblically authentic. The question is this: Do we really know what we mean when we say this? If God is in control, how do we explain the issue of evil and why the world is in such a mess?

In chapter two, “God is in Control: So Why is the World such a Mess?” Olson offers a different perspective of God’s providence, “God is in charge even though He doesn’t control everything” (52). Olson uses the example of a professor in a classroom. The professor may be in charge, but not in control. A professor cannot control what the students will do, how they will respond or the reviews they leave on ratemyprofessor.com.

The challenging part of this book is that it causes the reader to step back and question what they really believe—and why. It uncovers our presuppositions and that can be scary and vulnerable, leaving us to wonder what else we have not thought through.

The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church

In our country, it seems that nationalism and faith are connected, an unwritten assumption that the American Dream and the Kingdom of God go hand in hand—as if faith and nationalism were just different sides of the same coin.

Greg Boyd’s book, The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church, challenges these assumptions, forcing us to ask hard questions about why we believe about the intersection of country and God. Was our nation truly based upon Christian principles? What kind of “Christian” principles? Were they “evangelical” principles, like the ones we know today?

Several years ago, I was asked to preach a sermon on politics and faith—not an easy task. In preparation I tried to read both sides of the faith and politics divide. I read Greg Boyd, John Howard Yoder, Shane Claiborne, to name just a few. The reason was that I wanted to present a balanced approach. Of all the books I read, The Myth of a Christian Nation was the most engaging, challenging and thought-provoking.

Boyd is clearly pushing back against the idea of God’s kingdom of America. For many, this idea will be challenging because many churches associate America with God’s blessing—but what if this idea was not “gospel fact?” What if this idea has taken our focus off the kingdom of heaven? Would it shake our faith? What if the kingdom is greater than one expression? Is America really the best expression of the life and teachings of Jesus—or are they beyond any specific political expression? No matter where you might fall on the spectrum of faith and nationalism, this book will challenge why we believe what we believe—and after all, shouldn’t we welcome those challenges?

Faith Unraveled: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask Questions

Stories draw all ages together, break down barriers and help us understand who someone is, where they came from and their journey. And that is exactly what Rachel Held Evans did in her book Faith Unraveled (previously entitled Evolving in Monkey Town). Evans vulnerably told her story of growing up in the same town of the Scopes Monkey Trial, which made national headlines in 1925 and for the first time nationally brought serious doubt to the certain held tenets of the Christian faith.

Some 80 years later, Rachel experienced her own doubt of the fundamentalist faith she was brought up in. She described how her doubt started when watching the documentary, Behind the Veil, which highlighted the oppression of women and human rights by the Taliban. One event in particular started Evans on a journey to ask more questions, no longer accepting the status quo of trite sayings. She shared the story of Zarmina, a woman accused of killing her husband, who was executed in a stadium with 30,000 spectators to make an example of her.

Evans wrote:

Each time I got angrier and angrier with God. God was the one who claimed to have formed Zarmina in her mother’s womb. It was God who ordained that she be born in a third-world country under an oppressive regime. God had all the power and resources at his disposal to stop this from happening, and yet he did nothing. Worse of all, twenty years of Christian education assured me that because Zarmina was a Muslim, she would suffer unending torment in hell for the rest of eternity. How the Taliban punished Zarmina in this life was nothing compared with how God would punish her in the next. (90–91)

Evans raised a lot of very good, faith challenging questions, ones that if we desire to have a robust faith, we must wrestle with. It is not always necessary to agree with any author’s conclusions—but it is vital to a healthy Christian faith that we ponder these troubling, complex and sometimes seemingly contradictory issues.

How do we wrestle with the fact of the mistreatment of women not only in our country but across the world? How do you justify a God who allows evil or to use the theological term—theodicy and the problem of evil? Again, these questions are vital to wrestle with, because when done in a healthy manner, we will develop a more robust, informed faith.

Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future

When a friend encouraged me to read Friedrich Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, I had no idea it would take me nearly a month to finish! It was one of the slowest reads I have ever had—not because it was dull, but because I was exposed to so many new ideas. Not only did I have to process those ideas, I also had to look up the definition of multiple words on almost every page!

Friedrich Nietzsche was a 19^th century classicist and historian known for his radical views that challenged the very foundation of our Western intellectual tradition. Perhaps most famous for his claim that “God is dead,” Nietzsche argued that traditional ways of understanding foundational concepts like knowledge and truth were outdated and misguided. With his rejection of a “God’s-eye” perspective as the basis of value, Nietzsche worked to understand how we can make sense of life in the wake of such a monumental loss. His philosophy has gone on to have a huge impact on subsequent thinkers, from autocrats and artists to scholars and revolutionaries.

In Beyond Good and Evil, we learn that since the universe is in a constant state of flux, so is our language and the concepts built from it, including those things we might call “good” or “evil.” The idea of getting beyond fixed ideas of good and evil is to rid ourselves of the idea that the world is to be understood according to only two options. Rather, words and language change, meanings change, and since there is no absolute way of determining which values are true (according to Nietzsche)—that is, since “God is dead”—it makes no sense to evaluate things in terms of absolutes. To do that, the meaning of things needs to be set on a fixed point, but everything in existence is constantly changing.

This book is very challenging because it really confronts our deepest belief—that God created the universe and everything in it. Interestingly, Nietzsche was honest about his conclusions: Without God, there is no ultimate or universal reason for life. While as Christians, we would not accept that conclusion, nor the premise that God is always changing like our language and words, the book challenges us to think deeply about why that is. Do we simply say, “Well, God says so in the Bible …” often proof-texting our way to a preconceived position?

This book challenges us to think deeply and profoundly about what we believe about God, the reason for life and our own personal existence in this world. While this may sound like a heady philosophical discussion (read: not relevant), nothing could be further from the truth. These are the exact questions people struggle with regarding the existence of God and our place in the history of the world.

Obviously, these are only a few of the books out there that will challenge and shape our thinking. You may know of others to add to this list. I would suggest that reading books like these rather than tearing down faith, should do the exact opposite—sharpen our thinking and developing a more robust, informed faith. And isn’t that what God calls to?

There are now 52 “micro-seasons” in which new fashions are released.

That’s a new season every single week of the year.

Fast-fashion stores like Forever21 and Shein get shipments of new clothing and styles every day.

That means that by the time you wear the clothes you just purchased, it’s already on its way out of style.

And that’s the point because they want you coming back.

The average number of times a person wears an article of clothing is five times. You wear the item five times before it’s (essentially) designed to fall apart . The low costs of factory production labor and poor quality model allows stores to produce at a high volume, stay in front of trends and keep a demand on cheap, unsustainable clothing.

The cost of this model, to our planet and to the people exploited to work in factories for fast fashion companies across the world, is significant.

And we as Christians should be horrified.

Environmental Cost

Fashion is the second largest polluter in the world, right behind Big Oil. Our fashion carbon footprint is immense.

From cotton production to dyeing to textile manufacturing to the actual washing of clothing, the water usage required in all of this is significant. Then there are the herbicides and pesticides and other chemicals used in the growing of cotton crops. Beyond that, the chemicals used in the dyeing and treatment of textiles is often unregulated and dumped directly into rivers and streams killing aquatic life and poisoning local communities. Often in areas distant to the Western World.

After the production, you have the transportation of clothing to contend with. Twenty-two billion new articles of clothing are bought yearly in the U.S. alone, much of which is shipped by rail, boat and truck from countries in Asia. That’s a lot of fuel being used by things like big container ships, which produce as much pollutants as 50 million cars per year and is mostly unregulated by any sort of environmental protection agency.

When you’re done wearing your clothes, it often ends up in the dump. Which is an environmental nightmare of carbon dioxide, ammonia, sulfides and methane gases, contributing greatly to climate change and the pollution of the water table. In fact, the average American throws away 68 pounds of textiles a year.

The fashion industry as it stands poses a real problem, and it’s not just an environmental one.

Human Cost

There are approximately 40 million garment workers in the world right now, and roughly 85 percent of that population is female. While we have many laws protecting our rights as laborers here in the U.S., a vast majority of those working in the garment industry are not protected by those same rights.

Much of our clothing is made in sweatshops  — which means there are labor violations according to international standards. When you look at the fast fashion industry, the likelihood of the clothing being made in inhumane conditions is high, if not guaranteed.

Working conditions are not only exploitative to time and energy, but are often unsafe and unhealthy. Think back to the Rana Plaza incident in 2013. The death toll soared above 1,000 people with more than double that in injuries. The structural issues in that building are not uncommon.

These workers are also exposed to countless other problems. The chemicals, toxins and dyes that are daily handled by many at the very least can cause major skin irritation and at the worst can cause lifetime of breathing problems, cancer and-or early death. Women face not only labor abuses, but also encounter sexual harassment, abuse and rape at alarming rates.

That’s the real cost of a $5 clearance top.

We’ve completely separated ourselves from the people and process that goes into what we’re purchasing. And we’re keeping this flagrant human rights nightmare of an industry in business. We must keep in mind, if our clothing doesn’t come at a financial cost, it comes at a human cost.

The Problem Behind the Problem

The intangible cost on the human psyche is real, because when it comes down to it, fast fashion is a heart problem in our culture of excess.

We’re caught in this wicked web of modern-day, “Keeping up with the Joneses.” We see something that looks good on someone else and suddenly we have to have it. Or we’re shamed into purchasing something cheap solely to “fit in.”

It’s just not right and we can’t be complicit to a fundamentally worldly concept (John 17:14-15).

The Solution

Stop buying into the fast fashion. It’s killing our world and the people in it. It’s not easy but there are several ways you can do this:

1. Shop secondhand.

It is one of the best things you can do. Check out ThredUp or your local thrift store.

2. If you feel you must buy new clothing, research your options.

Don’t shop at the Forever 21s and H&Ms of the world. Invest in clothing that will last, and buy it from reputable companies who treat the environment and their people well.

3. Consider downgrading what you already have into a capsule wardrobe with a few staple items you can mix and match.

It’s hard. Believe me, I know it’s hard. But keep in the back of your mind how much you don’t need it —  whatever that “it” may be.

Once you have these habits become a part of your life, being a good steward of this planet and its resources will come more naturally.

You don’t have to do this alone, either. Form a community and keep each other accountable. Together we can do so much. Together we can create a movement. Together we can change the world. We just need to start. So why not now?

A new Gallup poll found that young adults — ages 19 to 29 — were the most likely age group to say they experience loneliness, with 27 percent expressing they feel “very or fairly lonely” and 30 percent sharing they feel “a little lonely.”

Earlier this year, Dr. Vivek Murthy, the U.S. surgeon general, found that loneliness is as deadly as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. He declared loneliness a public health epidemic, and one that needs to be addressed as quickly as possible.

“We now know that loneliness is a common feeling that many people experience,” Murthy said. “It’s like hunger or thirst. It’s a feeling the body sends us when something we need for survival is missing. Millions of people in America are struggling in the shadows, and that’s not right.”

To that end, here are four books that can help you on the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Blood Brothers: The Dramatic Story of a Palestinian Christian Working for Peace in Israel

by Elias Chacour

In this touching autobiography, Elias Chacour recounts his family’s ancient connection to Galilee. An Arab citizen of Israel, he writes movingly of his work to improve the lives of his people while seeking the common good for all who live in the Holy Land. Chacour’s story focuses on faith and social justice, pushing readers to think biblically about the conflict and seek out peace and reconciliation. His story is also a powerful reminder that the ongoing conflict is not just a political issue, but also a human one.

The Skeptic’s Guide to the Israel-Palestine Conflict

by Dale Hanson Bourke 

News about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict often seems to have an agenda. In a conflict that wraps up politics, religion, nationality and identity, it’s difficult to find the truth admist all the bias. But digging in to all sides of a story is the only way to figure out truth from propaganda. Bourke’s book will helps sift through all the noise to encounter and understand people and perspectives on both sides.

The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East

by Sandy Tolan

Combining history with a true story of hope and reconciliation, Tolan brings the conflict down to its most human level, exploring the complicated issues that divide Israelis and Palestinians and the shared history and future that unites them. At first glance, it may seem as if there’s no possible end or resolution to this war. But as Tolan describes, there is a way forward that results in peace and unity for all.

by Michael Oren

Historian and author Michael Oren recounts the Six-Day War that occurred in June 1967, linking how every crisis and escalation that has taken place since — from the Yom Kippur War of 1973 to the current Isreal-Gaza war, is a direct consequence of those six days of fighting.

Understanding this war, Oren argues, is key to understanding the conflicts occurring today. History is not singular, it is often connected in more ways than one. And understanding a brief bu important war from decades ago will help you understand what lies ahead for Israel and Palestine.

Todd Deatherage, the co-founder of the Telos Group, has spent decades working in public policy positions educating officials on the Israel-Palestine conflict, including service as the Chief of Staff to a U.S. Senator and in the U.S. State Department where he worked in the Secretary of State’s Office of Policy Planning.

Deatherage spoke with RELEVANT about what’s led to the most recent conflict, what an end goal might look like, and what American Christians can do to promote peace over conflict.

RELEVANT: What exactly is happening right now in Israel and Palestine?

This past Saturday, Israel suffered a surprise and brutal attack almost entirely on civilians — men, women, and children — living near the border of the Gaza Strip. The coordinated assault was organized by the Palestinian group Hamas, which is designated a terrorist organization by much of the world. Over 1,000 Israelis were killed in what has been described as the bloodiest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Also, a number of Israelis were taken hostage and are being held somewhere in Gaza. 

Israel is currently responding with a massive aerial bombing campaign in Gaza, one of the most densely populated places in the world, with people who’ve known nothing but war and isolation from the outside world for years and have nowhere to flee. Already, hundreds have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced. In addition, Israel has expanded the 16-year blockade of the Strip by cutting off electricity and by stopping food, fuel and water supplies from entering into Gaza.

What led to these events that have transpired over the last few days?

Where to begin a story like this is always part of the challenge. And to be honest, providing the proper context is both critically important but also a very delicate matter, especially this soon after such an attack and while the war is ongoing. Emotions are high, and efforts to recount history and provide context are often challenging to do in ways that are seen as fair and honest in the wake of such tragedies. But to attempt to answer your question, let me say that the Gaza Strip is an ancient place that became largely an enclave for Palestinian refugees who fled or were forced out of their homes and villages amid the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. Since then, the people there have lived first under Egyptian military control until 1967 and then under Israeli military occupation until 2005. For the last 16 years, the Gaza Strip has been ruled internally by Hamas while having its air, land and sea borders blockaded by Israel in coordination with Egypt, helping to create one of the most severe humanitarian crises in the world. For more than 20 years, Palestinian militant groups have fired rockets out of Gaza, terrorizing the civilian populations in the south of Israel, and Israel has responded with aerial bombardments and occasional ground troop missions that have killed thousands of Palestinians.

The recent attack caught many off guard, although political, security, and humanitarian officials have long warned of mounting crisis and despair with the blockaded Gaza Strip. Israelis are very united in their grief and in their response to this attack, but many have hard questions about what led to it. It’s too early for a full assessment but some are already pointing to political turmoil within Israel created by a very controversial ideological government and rising tensions in the other Palestinian territory known as the West Bank as among the likely factors. Others are also tying in the geopolitics of the region with regard to Iranian support for Hamas and its likely desire to undermine a peace agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Controversies around sacred space in Jerusalem are also a likely contributing factor. And some have long argued that a policy of keeping two million Palestinians on lockdown has done more to empower extremists than undermine them.  But whatever the causes, and there may well be multiple, the years of isolation, deprivation and despair faced by the people of Gaza have to be understood as part of the equation. 

What is an outcome Christians should be hoping for? 

We should hope for an end to the violence. There is no violent solution to this conflict. We must see the limits of violence in all its forms to achieve good and lasting outcomes, to see that violence begets violence. And we should apply this understanding to the different kinds of violence from direct attacks like the terror of Hamas and the indiscriminate rocket fire that has long emanated from Gaza, and to include structural violence like long-term military occupation and blockade.

We should hope for a growing recognition that all are made in the image of God and that human life is sacred. We should learn from the Hebrew Prophets of old and the great sages of our modern era, like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., that peace and justice are intertwined.

We should hope for a future in which Israelis and Palestinians enjoy security, freedom and honored dignity in equal measure. Any system or plan that suggests one people can achieve these things at the expense of the other will not bring true or lasting peace. The idea of mutual flourishing is rooted in the shalom of God and offers a much greater possibility for peace between Israelis and Palestinians than the false notion that unjustifiable acts can be countered with unjustifiable acts in an endless cycle and somehow, eventually the end result will be peace and justice. 

We should also remember that hope is not a feeling or an emotion or just a belief that everything’s going to be alright. Hope is not passive. It’s what you do. And as Christians we have an eschatological hope that the God we love is about the business of making all things right and is calling us to participate as his ambassadors of reconciliation in a world beset by violence and fracture. We must cultivate an eschatological imagination as we both cast and live into this vision as agents of hope and healing. This is what it means to be a peacemaker. 

Is there anything we can do to help Israelis and Palestinians in this situation?

We can expand our hearts to hold both Palestinians and Israelis together. Making space for the humanity of Palestinians doesn’t mean you condone the ideology of Hamas or the brutality of these recent attacks. Making space for Israelis doesn’t mean you condone the policies of the current government or the decades of occupation and control of Palestinians. 

We can use this as an opportunity to listen and learn more about the fullness of the reality there.  And in particular, listen to the voices of Palestinian Christians who often feel forgotten by Christians in the West. 

We can embrace peacemaking as central to our discipleship journey.  One way to think about peacemaking is to see it as the active pursuit of justice in the world–often involving risk to our reputations and relationships and even our lives– with an orientation toward healing and repair. We courageously pursue the kind of justice that radically loves and never gives up on the redemptive power of love. 

The world as God intended it, and the world that God is redeeming and will one day make whole, is marked by justice and peace and is one in which neighbors flourish. We’ve too often bought the lie that the peace, justice and security we all want can be achieved through violence. But living as countercultural agents of God’s kingdom in the now-but-not-yet reality of our lives calls us to push back against these zero sum, “me and mine,” “eye for an eye” approaches, and work for not just our own flourishing but that of our neighbors, even our enemies.  

For our March/April 2014 cover story, we spoke with Deatherage and other leaders about the ongoing conflict in Israel and Palestine. To read that story and find out more information, click here. 

At the peak of day while women were busy with their domestic duties, which included fetching water from the well–the prominent location of resource—Jesus is found chatting with a woman who is in the middle of a love triangle.

Based on Hebrew culture it was not permissible for Jesus to engage women in such a way, particularly with no man to stand proxy. Yet, Jesus sits by her side unearthing this woman’s past and—before she knows it—pointing her towards a new future.

The scene moves quickly—within six verses we learn the woman has been involved in many sexual relationships; the most recent was with a man who was not her husband. In antiquity, the law stated adultery was punishable by public stoning. From what we see in the story of the woman caught in adultery this was not an offense that was treated lightly. But Jesus does not take the woman to task for both her cultural crime and spiritual sin. Within His right as both a Rabbi and the Son of God, Jesus does not condemn the woman to the punishment she deserved by cultural standards.

Instead, He reforms her by pointing her to the true source of hope. Jesus shows her that the very thing she had been searching for in her extramarital relationships was contained in Him, the author of Life. Jesus gave her a new life.

I’m most struck by this story because at its crux is mercy: the unending goodness of a loving God to absolve us of the punishment we deserve. Mercy that leaves us better than it found us. In this way the story is beautiful and humbling: I’m reminded that however far I drift from the spiritual standard set for me in Christ, mercy awaits me.

But I’m also struck by how differently our culture—the American justice system to be specific—operates from this biblical truth. Sadly, as rich as the story might be, it only takes life off the pages of the bible insofar as something we read in church on Sunday to internalize in a fleeting moment.

How we label people

There is much to learn about justice reform from Jesus’ exchange with the woman at the well. The first lesson is that those cycled through the criminal justice system need to be seen as more than criminals.

By the very nature of calling those who have made bad choices “criminals” we have stripped them of an identity outside the confines of their wrongdoing. Labels are important because they shape our perception of how we see each other and ourselves. When we call someone a criminal all we see is the act of his or her crime. Our minds then begin to categorize those individuals as bad or “other.” As such we are less likely to engage them with empathy, compassion and, most importantly, mercy.

In the same way, the label of criminal is oppressive because it keeps individuals from overcoming their momentarily lapses of good judgment. To call someone a criminal is to tell them their being is so intimately connected to their actions that they must be identified in such a way. What would it look like if we were all labeled by what we did rather than who we actually are?

When we go back to the story of Jesus with the woman at the well, we find no trace of Him labeling her. He did not call her an adulterer or a promiscuous woman. Jesus looks deep into her and identifies the pain that led to her actions.

Looking at the heart

For true justice reform, we have to be willing to look to the hearts of those who are dangerously teetering on the wrong side of the law. Systems must be put into place to help them navigate to a better version of themselves—save that there are also real systemic injustices also needing to be addressed, which has led to unfair prison sentencing. Bad decisions should not warrant imprisonment and marginalization.

Michelle Alexander, author of the New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, points to the startling statistic that the United States contains 5 percent of the world’s population yet 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. The U.S. justice system has been built on a precedent that assumes perpetual guilt. Worse, the structure of our prison system is doing nothing to help former inmates reintegrate into society. There is very little evidence to suggest longer prison sentences rectify bad societal behavior.

Where we see growing incidents of solitary confinement—according to the Equal Justice Initiative about 75,000 people are held in confinement—we also see growing cases of anxiety and deep depression. This level of treatment weakens the opportunity for someone who has been imprisoned to work through any issues that may have led up to the crime. We do not treat prisoners as humans needing support to turn their lives around, but we treat them as animals who are different from us, and they become the invisible people. They are forgotten about, lost, overlooked and highly scrutinized should they make it to the outside of the prison walls.

Of course we cannot assume everyone who commits a crime will, with support, empathy and care, turn their lives around. Some people need to be locked away because they pose a threat to society, but this is not a generalization. Most prisoners would greatly benefit from structured rehabilitation services to set them on the right path because most prisoners are facing prison sentences far exceeding the nature of the crime. Take for example that a drug offense in the U.S. carries a 5-10 year sentence.

Mercy

For reform, we must rethink the approach to the justice system. The undercurrent of the system must be impassioned with mercy, the very mercy God has for each of His children. Only mercy will allow us to provide our most vulnerable citizens with the grace to change. And only mercy will help us to see them as individuals beyond their actions. Only mercy will help us create an environment of openness and forgiveness. All things are needed if we truly want to help people change.

In August, the Justice Department announced it would end its use of privatized prisons. This is certainly a step in the right direction of creating a balanced justice system—one that does not allow big business to capitalize off of people’s lapses in judgment.

But there is still a long way to go. If, in the United States, we are to be one nation under we God, we must model the very God who faced a woman and her crime, pointed her to living water, set her free and said sin no more.

This post originally ran in 2016.

With a bright blue suit as his armor and seemingly unshakable faith as his shield, the man locked himself in a cage with three lions to prove that “nothing can happen to a man of God.”

The act included the “pastor” extending a friendly hand (literally) into one of the lion’s mouths and stroking the growling lions in their enclosure in “Nigeria.”

Videos of the man in the enclosure spread like wildfire, and it wasn’t long before Kenyan parliament member Ronald Karauri offered to fund an all-expenses-paid trip for “the pastor” to the Maasai Mara National Reserve to reenact the stunt with wild lions.

we keep using quotes because this tale took an unexpected turn when the BBC revealed the “modern-day Daniel” was, in fact, a zookeeper, and not a pastor. And the stunt didn’t happen in Nigeria, but Somalia.

As it turns out, Mohamed Abdirahman Mohamed has been a zookeeper in Mogadishu, Somalia for over eight years, with a knack for theatrics and a history of close encounters with lions, as revealed by other videos dating as far back as March of this year.

Ron James, director of media relations for the UFO research group MUFON, has shared that US government officials are concerned aliens might actually be demons in disguise. James said that the government-sanctioned Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program faced opposition from “a very large contingent of people” within the Pentagon who believe the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena reported by US military sources were potentially piloted by creatures from Hell.

James went on to share that Luis Elizondo, the head of AATIP, struggled to get proper funding because of this group of individuals. Elizondo allegedly said it “was not just a little voice in The Pentagon…but a huge group of people thought the phenomenon that was being witnessed was demons.”

Despite religious leaders, including Pope Francis, acknowledging that there is likely life on other planets, this group of officials are wary. In fact, Jones mentioned his conversation with Christian U.S. Congressman Tim Burchett.

“I sat down and interviewed him,” Jones said. “His feeling was that if you look in the Bible and you look at Ezekiel building the wheel there’s a lot of people that think that that was a spaceship.”

Jones clarified on Julian Dorsey’s podcast he does not think aliens are demons, but simply beings from a different universe.

That was not the only time I had feelings of inadequacy regarding my body, but that was about the time I started seriously hitting the gym. I couldn’t go on being a little shrimp and still call myself a man!

My friend Paul C. Maxwell wrote an amazing article called “The Epidemic of Male Body Hatred,” in which he explored the phenomenon in depth:

“If I could look like that guy who played Thor, I would be happy.”

It’s a common belief among men of our age. Put more honestly: “If I can’t appear confident, sexy, intimidating, competent and super-human, I’m worthless.”

We compare ourselves to others in the gym. We come away from movies wanting to exercise for eight hours. We would rather jump in front of a truck than take our shirts off at the pool. We feel pathetic and small. We look at ourselves in almost every mirror we pass. When alone, we flex—not because we like what we see, but because we don’t. We have spent hundreds of dollars on pre-workout, weight-loss and weight-gain supplements. We research the best way to bulk, shred, diet and binge.

He points out that there is a big difference between being healthy and being shredded. Even as Christians we often excuse this excessive gym addiction as our way of “staying in shape” and “pushing myself.” For many of us, myself included, these endless hours at the gym come more from a place of insecurity and self-loathing than a genuine desire for health.

Because in the back of our minds, we know that there are plenty of exceptionally healthy people who don’t look like the cover models of Men’s Fitness. And conversely, not all those cover models may be healthy people, despite how chiseled their physiques are.

I have a friend who used to be a ballerina in New York City. She told me that when she began, her director handed her a packet of diet pills and a box of cigarettes and said, “Get started.”

Because health is not the goal, looking good is.

And this is the attitude I often embrace when I walk through the gym.

Many of us perceive our body and our looks as the one aspect of ourselves that is easiest to address and control. We’d rather spend three hours on the dumbbells than spending time in silence, addressing the roots of our insecurity. We’d rather avoid asking why we see ourselves as unworthy of love as long as our bodies are “undesirable.”

In Fight Club, the narrator looks at a Calvin Klein ad and asks, “Is that what a man is supposed to look like?”

Being confident in certain parts of your body is not confidence at all. If you were to be in a car accident and all your muscles were to evaporate, would you still be satisfied with yourself? Is your confidence rooted in your physical attributes or is it rooted more deeply in who you are as a person?

We all hide behind something. Sometimes we hide behind humor, intelligence, or artistic skill, and for us gym rats, it happens to be our bodies. It’s easy to hide behind this one especially because you can cover it up with the “health” excuse, but as I said above, this is beyond the realm of staying healthy.

So how do we stop our hiding and address our own issues with ourselves? We begin in the Gospel.

The incarnation is the theological term for God, the creator of all that exists, becoming human. The Creator entering what He created. The Eternal Spirit putting on flesh.

Our bodies are called good no matter what shape they are in, not because of the amount of effort we pour into them, but because God Himself donned one. Whether chubby or bone-thin, your body is good.

The very fact that Jesus incarnated a body and walked around in it for 33 years shows that bodies in themselves are not bad or evil or shameful. On top of that, the prophet Isaiah actually tells us that physically, Jesus was not that attractive. We have done ourselves a disservice by portraying Jesus as an attractive figure.

The Greeks at the time portrayed their gods with sculpted deltoids and rippling quadriceps, but the Bible tells quite a different story about God. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him. (Isaiah 53:2)

The world looks for a strong and powerful king, but Jesus showed us one who was ugly, weak and defeated. Not only was He physically unattractive, but He sunk to the lowest depths of shame when He was crucified naked and displayed for the public to look upon. He was physically unattractive, but He knew who He was and therefore didn’t need to compensate by puffing up His chest or wearing purple robes.

The issue isn’t that we have bodies and want them to look good; the problem comes when we try to root our confidence and self-esteem in them. We often ignore the health of our soul and spirit and try to compensate with hours in the gym.

Last night, I was cleaning out my childhood room and found an old shoebox full of letters. As I read through pages and pages of rich affection, I remembered what it felt like to be loved unconditionally. I remembered what it felt like not to feel that I have to look a certain way to impress someone in order to be loved. And it felt good.

I’ve realized that people who are most confident are not the strongest, but those who are OK with their weakness. I think the cure to overcoming our body hatred and insecurity is to remember that we are loved as we are. Health is good, as is working toward fitness goals, but not if we come to them to find love and acceptance.

In contrast to the world’s message of finding approval through looks, spend time in silence and meditate on the fact that Jesus promised to be with us regardless of how we look. Dwell on the fact that we are loved despite our weaknesses—physical or otherwise. The Apostle Paul even urges us to boast in our weakness. How contrary to the world’s message of strength is that?

May the fact that you’re loved as you are define you more than your muscles or curves as we learn how to relax and stop striving. The heart of our Father is this: to accept ourselves as we are, accept love from others and embrace the ongoing love of the Father who prefers weakness to strength.

A version of this article originally appeared on ethanrenoe.com. Used with permission.

The Megiddo Mosaic was discovered back in 2005 at a Roman-era village near the site of the prophesied Armageddon in northern Israel. It is believed to be from the world’s earliest Christian prayer hall.

Now, Israeli officials are considering loaning the mosaic to the Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC. The Israeli Antiquities Authority, which is responsible for the mosaic, said it will make a decision about the loan in the coming weeks.

“There’s an entire process that academics and archaeologists are involved with,” said IAA director Eli Eskozido.

He also added that moving the mosaic was necessary in order to protect it from upcoming construction at the nearby prison.

However, the museum has been met with recent controversy, as archaeologists have criticized it for its collecting practices and for promoting an “evangelical Christian political agenda.”

Some archaeologists and academics have objected to the loan, saying that the mosaic would be better displayed in its original location. They also worry that the museum would use the mosaic to promote its own religious beliefs.

“My worry is that this mosaic will lose its actual historical context and be given an ideological context that continues to help the museum tell its story,” said Cavan Concannon, a religion professor at the University of Southern California.

Other academics worry that removing the mosaic from its context will alter its meaning.

“Once you take any artifact outside of its archaeological context, it loses something, it loses a sense of the space and the environment in which it was first excavated,” said Candida Moss, a University of Birmingham theology professor.

“Please continue to pray with us for the protection and freedom of Alix and her daughter,” the ministry wrote in a statement on Monday. “As our hearts break for this situation, we also continue to pray for the country and people of Haiti and for freedom from the suffering they endure daily.”

Dorsainvil has been visiting the country since 2010, shortly after a devastating earthquake struck. She officially joined El Roi Haiti as a nurse in 2020. Her marriage to the ministry’s founder, Sandro Dorsainvil, in 2021 further solidified her dedication to the cause.

The incident occurred on July 27 when armed men stormed El Roi Haiti’s campus near Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, and forcibly took Dorsainvil from her clinic, where she was caring for patients. Witnesses described the scene, with one patient recounting how a gunman ordered her to relax at gunpoint. The immediate aftermath prompted the U.S. State Department to issue a travel advisory, warning Americans not to travel to Haiti and urging U.S. citizens and non-emergency government employees to leave the country as soon as possible.

Members of the community have shared the gunmen are asking for a $1 million ransom, however neither the U.S. Department of State nor El Roi Haiti have publicly shared any details of the investigation, citing the sensitive nature of the situation.

“Obviously, the safety and security of American citizens overseas is our highest priority,” said Matthew Miller, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department. “We are in regular contact with the Haitian authorities and will continue to work with them and our U.S. government interagency partners. But because it’s an ongoing law enforcement investigation, there’s not any more detail I can offer.”

The ministry has shared they will continue to work toward bringing Dorsainvil and her daughter home.

“We have committed this situation to God, knowing that He is good,” the ministry said, “so until Alix and her daughter are safely returned to us, we will do as it says in Psalm 27:14, ‘Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.'”

Beginning in 2024, U.S. travelers will be required to obtain pre-approval via the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) before embarking on any European adventures.

Vacationers will need to submit an ETIAS application along with an $8 fee. The application process entails providing essential travel documentation, including a passport, as well as personal information, education level, current occupation, anticipated trip details and disclosure of any criminal convictions.

While most applications are swiftly processed within a few days, some may take longer to yield a decision. To avoid any last-minute hitches, the European Union advises visitors to apply “well in advance” of their travel dates. The EU promises a response within four days, but certain circumstances may warrant an extension of 14 to 30 days.

Once approved, the ETIAS authorization remains valid for up to three years or until the visitor’s passport expires, granting them the freedom to enter the territory of 30 European countries multiple times within short-term stays of up to 90 days in any 180-day period.

However, it’s important to note that possessing an ETIAS authorization doesn’t guarantee entry. Upon arrival, travelers will still need to present their passport and relevant documents for verification by border guards to ensure they meet the entry conditions.

The travel requirement is expected to go into effect January 2024, although it could be pushed back due to unforeseen delays.

Spearheaded by Ulf Hermjakob, a senior research scientist at the University of Southern California’s Information Sciences Institute, and Joel Mathew, a research engineer at ISI, this initiative utilizes cutting-edge technology to translate the Bible into languages lacking a written version of Scripture.

Bible translation has traditionally been a laborious and time-consuming process, and can often take over a decade to complete. Out of the world’s 7,100 languages, only about 700 possess a complete copy of the Bible. While more than 3,500 languages have at least one book of the Bible, over 6,000 languages lack a comprehensive version.

“People don’t realize that there are about 7,100 languages in the world,” Hermjakob explained. “Google Translate covers about 100 of them. Our focus for this Bible translation is on very low-resource languages that don’t even fall within the top 500.”

Mathew, whose parents were involved in Bible translation in his home country of India, believes that technology could improve all areas of the process.

“There were a lot of areas where I felt software technology could really speed up, improve, support and help them,” Mathew said. “It’s one of my passions to see the Bible translated in all languages.”

The Greek Room project aims to develop tools that enhance the efficiency of Bible translation. While certain aspects of translation are objective and leave little room for debate, other parts require human intervention due to their subjective nature. Mathew highlights the challenge of translating concepts that do not easily align with local languages.

“There is a community living in the mountains, and they live in huts without doors, so there’s no concept of a door in their culture,” Mathew explained. “In the Bible, there is a verse that says, ‘Behold I stand at the door and knock.’ The question is, how do you translate that for people so that it is meaningful to them?”

In response to such hurdles, the Greek Room project allows translators to dedicate more time to subjective aspects. Mathew clarifies their approach: “We try to then explain it as not specifically knocking at the door, but instead describe a scene where someone is standing at the entrance of your house and asking to be invited to come in.”

Driven by their shared passion for Bible translation, Hermjakob and Mathew aspire to make the Greek Room an open-source platform accessible to translators worldwide.

“We want to make it so that other Bible translation efforts can use what we have built in for their own research as well, so one thing we decided early on is that we want to make our data and code public,” Hermjakob said.

My husband and I live in Guatemala and host short-term mission teams throughout the year. I am originally from California and he was born and raised in Guatemala. For me, short-term mission trips were kind of like camp. Every summer I had the chance to go somewhere new and “help people.” For my husband, hosting short-term mission teams in Guatemala was part of what he and his family did. There were blessings that came from it, but it was mostly a lot of work.

We have both seen the good, the bad and the ugly of short-term missions. And we continue to feel this tension with the short-term mission teams that we host. Do they do more harm than good? Do they perpetuate the cycle of poverty? Do they contribute to feelings of superiority? Or inferiority? Our work with families and communities in Guatemala, as well as churches and schools from the U.S. has forced us to ask these questions daily.

We have learned that perhaps how we go might matter more that what we do. Here are a few things you may not have heard about being more effective on short-term mission trips:

You’re Not a Hero.

First of all, before you go and when you get there, your team must commit to getting rid of the hero complex. Developing countries do not need short-term heroes. They need long-term partners. And if your group just wants to be a hero for a week, then you may be doing more harm than good.

Poverty Can Look Different Than You Expect.

If at the end of your trip you say, “I am so thankful for what I have, because they have so little.” You have missed the whole point.

You’re poor, too. But maybe you’re hiding behind all your stuff. There is material poverty, physical poverty, spiritual poverty and systemic poverty. We all have to acknowledge our own brokenness and deep need for God before we can expect to serve others.

Historical Context May Be Just As Important as Immediate Context.

Have you studied the history of the country or neighborhoods where you’re going? Do you understand the role that the U.S. has played there? Do you know what the role of the Church and missions has been? Do you know the current needs and issues of the people? Having background knowledge of where you’re going will help you know how you can best fit and help in your immediate context.

Don’t Do a Job People Can Do for Themselves.

Last time I checked, people in developing countries can paint a wall, so why are you doing it for them? If painting a wall or school is really a need in the place where you’re working then invite students from that school or people from the village to do it with you.

Doing things with people, not for people should be the motto. Always.

Learning Takes Place in the Context of Reciprocal Relationships.

Be willing to share about your family, your pain and your needs. Sometimes people in developing countries think everyone in the U.S. is rich, white and happy. We know this is not true, and we have the chance to share honestly and vulnerably. Prioritize building relationships over completing projects.

You are an ambassador from your country. Thanks to globalization, YouTube and Facebook, most developing countries will have certain ideas about the U.S. before you arrive. Be willing to ask questions and share about yourself and American culture, as well.

Along the same lines, before you take a picture, ask yourself, “Would I mind if a foreigner took a picture of my daughter/son/sister/brother in this situation?” If the answer is yes, then don’t take it. Come back with stories and names of people, not just an entire album of “cute” nameless kids.

There is Something Special About Going.

All of this isn’t meant to discourage missions work. On the contrary, the act of going is important. Jesus left His home, the comfort of the Father to go, to be among the people. Your willingness to leave your home, your comfort and GO is an example of that, too.

So go, be among the people. Live with them. Learn from them. Eat what they eat. Observe what they do. Don’t spend your time in McDonalds.

Don’t Raise $1,000 for a Week, and Then Give Nothing Else the Whole Year.

We all know money is not everything. But when used wisely it can make a huge difference in the lives of people. You probably wrote letters and had car washes in order to raise money to go, right? Well, what keeps you from still doing that? We work hard for a one-week trip, but then what? What if your church or youth group or school worked on matching every dollar you spent on your one-week trip to send down to the place you served over the course of the year?

You Don’t Have to Fly in an Airplane to Serve the Poor.

Why not focus on seeking justice in your neighborhood? Ask yourself, “If Jesus was here who would He be talking to?” The kid with disabilities who sits in the back at youth group? The Spanish-speaking man who cleans your office? The woman who collects cans in the local park? Ask God to give you eyes to see what He does. It might change your life.

Please don’t stop taking short-term missing trips, but do consider helping your team understand that how we do short-term mission trips may, in fact, matter more than what we do.

An earlier version of this article appeared in 2014.

While many Christians in America would like to compartmentalize the protection of the environment within the political spectrum or simply opt out of protecting the environment completely, it is an issue of biblical stewardship and obedience to God, not of political preference and it needs to be addressed by American Christians and the global Church.

It is common among evangelicals to believe man was created in God’s image and that upon creation, man was given dominion over the Earth. It seems odd then, that many Christians categorize protecting and caring for the environment as an optional command from God rather than a given command and attribute of mankind. Man is to represent God upon the Earth, caring and protecting those of His dominion as God loves and protects His people. The dominion speaks to the care, love and protection God has given; that of life itself and the livelihood to sustain it. It seems clear then that this command is not optional at all.

The biblical command to protect the environment comes from Genesis 1:26-28 stating:

Then God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping things that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image; in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the Earth.

The command to subdue the Earth and have dominion over everything within the Earth calls mankind to oversee, to manage and to maintain the Earth in a way that honors God. After all, the Earth is God’s creation, He has rightful ownership of it and all that is within it. Humans, then, do not have the right to destroy what is not theirs. This command informs humanity’s role within creation and begins the call to honor God with all we do, all we have and all we are.

Christians must remember the responsibility they bear by being God’s representatives upon the Earth. The Church is called to make disciples of all nations, to speak of God and make Him known to all. While God is able to overcome every obstacle man or Satan may use to disrupt His plans, it is the blessed obligation of his followers to be faithful to His work and participate in advancing His Kingdom.

It is necessary for Christians today to understand that their responsibility to protect the environment comes from God’s command and it is not dependent upon one’s individual political affiliations. Christians need to understand their first allegiance is it to be to God before country; choosing to follow God’s command over the dogma of any man-made system or government. Christians today are called to protect the environment, to take responsibility of their given dominion and be faithful stewards of God’s gift. The Earth we live in supplies the life we need to continue worshiping God, sustaining life and making disciples of all nations. Protecting the environment needs to become a priority for the American Church and needs to shape the global Christian’s worldview.

The needs of the world are great, as sin has corroded the purity of man. The need to protect the environment is but one of the great needs the Church needs to address, but it is, unfortunately, a neglected command when weighed against the world’s other needs. While there are surely deep needs in this world, American Christians ought not to be swayed from biblical stewardship and command because of the pressures and platforms of their political parties. The things of this world will pass away, this very world will pass away, but mankind was not commanded to protect their political ideals but to protect the Earth God spent His love creating and saving.

Researchers working near Seville in Spain unearthed a mausoleum in 2019 that was home to a variety of well-preserved containers, including perfume bottles and ointments. The team recently opened a sealed vial of Roman perfume from around the time of Christ, a rock crystal ointment jar that had been sealed with a stopper to protect a solid substance within.

“To our knowledge,” wrote the authors of the paper, “this is possibly the first time a perfume from Roman times has been identified.”

Through careful analysis of the substance and techniques like X-ray diffraction, infrared spectroscopy, and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, the researchers discovered the scent used inside is similar to patchouli oil.

Patchouli is widely used in modern perfumery, but its usage during Roman times was previously unknown.

Due to the preservation of both the tomb and the containers inside, researchers have begun to discover more and more about the daily life of ancient Romans. The perfectly sealed nature of the container and the preservation of the perfume residues inside allowed the team to conduct a detailed study of its composition 2,000 years after it was bottled.

The jar was preserved in an egg-shaped lead case stored in a niche in the wall, containing bones, amber beads, and the ointment jar.

We all have our issues and weaknesses that can keep us in our same routines and prevent us from volunteering for something new. Here are a few things that hold us back from serving others:

We’re Waiting for the Perfect Conditions

I’ll volunteer when I have some extra time and when life eases up.

The problem is that you will always be busy. There will always be a fire to put out. To summarize Ecclesiastes 11:4-5, if you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done. (God is not only all-knowing and good, but incredibly practical.)

Often when we’re going through a rough time, the last thing we want to do is put ourselves out there even more. We’re already feeling vulnerable, or even downright fragile. At times, I’ve felt like building a bunker and hiding out until the excruciatingly slow-moving storm passes. But I’ve learned it’s actually a great time to focus on others. You may find a new sense of purpose that refocuses you, or meet someone who impacts you as much as you could ever impact them. God is the king of symbiotic relationships.

We Think We Don’t Have Enough to Offer

That girl spends her spring breaks in the African bush treating AIDS patients. What can I offer in comparison?

The answer is simple: a lot. Don’t be intimidated. Small choices—little steps—can lead to big change. If you asked the girl volunteering in Africa, she’d probably be able to track back a trail of small choices and decisions that led her there, one step at a time. She probably didn’t just suddenly go from never having volunteered to hopping on a plane to Africa.

Plus, we are called for different purposes—some more dramatic than others, but not necessarily more important. The mission field is not limited to far-off places—it includes your city, work and home. Wherever you are, God has something vital going on.

We Fear the Unknown

I won’t know anybody. What if they ask me to do something I’ve never tried before? What if I fail?

Fear of the unknown can prevent us from following God’s promptings to serve and fully accept all that He has for us. Be bold. Try. Remember, rather than call the equipped, God seems to like to equip the called. Give Him the chance.

We Don’t Know Which Cause to Choose

There are so many good causes. Which one?

Sometimes, a cause is close to our hearts because of what we or a loved one have experienced. At other times, it’s not so clear where we should invest our time. Test out different opportunities. You don’t have to commit to years of service. It’s OK to explore.

We Don’t Think We’re Needed

They probably have plenty of other volunteers.

There are so many people hurting throughout the world, with so many needs. Trust me, you are needed. Somewhere. Don’t leave it to someone else. My pastor likes to say that if you see something that needs addressed, You might be the person God is elbowing to do it.

We Tried Volunteering and It Didn’t Meet Our Expectations

Even when we overcome that initial inertia and make the effort to volunteer, it doesn’t always go as we hope. Obstacles can rear up like tire spikes in any area of our lives; so why expect helping others to be a smooth ride? (Especially when you’re trying to help others and be the hands and feet of Jesus.) To recognize and prepare for these common obstacles can be half of the battle to overcome them.

We Never Heard Back

I signed up. They said they’d get me plugged in, but then, I heard nothing.

Coordinating volunteers is a skill…a serious talent that’s often under-appreciated. Plus, the coordinator may wear several additional hats. If appropriate, consider sending an email or text as a reminder. List a few of your specific skills or interests so it’s easier to find the right fit. You know you; they don’t. Make it easier for them … Or maybe volunteer coordinator is the role for you.

We Felt Out of Place

I don’t really fit in here. I expected to feel a sense of belonging right off the bat.

Give it time. Not everyone is an extrovert. Not everyone opens up in the same way or with the same speed. Perhaps you have less in common than expected, but don’t limit God. What He has in mind is guaranteed to be better than the options you set before Him. Remember Ephesians 3:20: “Now, to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we could ask or imagine.” God’s plans are always bigger than ours. He’s the best adventure planner out there.

We Felt Unimportant

Hand out flyers? Smile and hold the door open? But I want to do something that matters.

You might’ve just handed someone a lifeline. Your smile might’ve given hope to a young girl contemplating suicide because she felt invisible. I’d say that’s hugely important. Whatever your position, do it well and learn whatever you can. Work your way to where you want to serve—where your past experiences will set you up to handle the responsibilities given to you in God’s perfect timing.

We Think We Can’t Make a Difference

I won’t even make a dent in the problem.

Concentrate instead on helping one person. One task at a time, then another. Psalm 119:105 states that God’s word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. If it’s at our feet, it won’t illuminate the whole road, but rather, one step at a time. Eventually, you’ll look back and see how far you’ve come.

I recently heard one of our campus pastors refer to volunteers as “activated believers.” I want to be one of those. Volunteering takes determination. Sometimes, it takes work just to get started. But it can also change who we are and how we live—for the better.

Of course, it’s good to have an opinion on political things that matter. But all it takes it one tweet, one article, one post for things to go to the extreme. Suddenly, instead of sharing a simple opinion, a war has erupted that forces everyone to pick a side and defend it with their life.

And in the midst of arguing our points and making our voices heard, we often forget who is ultimately in control here. We allow a spirit of division to creep into our lives and control every decision we make and every word we speak.

As Christians — people who are called to “make every effort to live in peace with everyone” (Hebrews 12:14) — we know it’s not the government who prescribes our values. We can obey the law and fulfill our civic duties without compromising our convictions. We can accept that a president will influence American income taxes and health care plans, but they don’t control our relationships or how we treat each other. That’s for us to decide.

We are the standard bearers of our communities.

We individually decide how to welcome and share the love of God with immigrants, LGBTQ people or interact with our neighbors from different ethnicities. We are responsible for looking to God’s examples of “loving the foreigner” among us (Deuteronomy 10:18) and showing no partiality or distinction between groups. (Romans 10:12)

Our leaders have no power over how we individually value women and girls.

It’s still up to parents to nurture their sons to be respectful of women, to raise their daughters to be courageous and confident. It’s still up to boys and men to decide whether they see their female counterparts as objects to be used or humans to be respected. It’s still the church’s responsibility to show how women, too, are made in God’s image.

Policies that prioritize the wealthy don’t give us permission to ignore the poor.

The Bible consistently instructs us that caring for the hungry, alienated and homeless is not just an activity we occasionally do, it’s an inherent part of our Christian identity. (Isaiah 58:10, James 1:27)

After all, the political sphere alone has never been able to completely fulfill all the needs of an entire nation. That’s why Christians are called to be life preservers to a world that’s lost at sea. That’s why we have nonprofits and faith groups and countless individuals who work tirelessly to address the gaps left by government. That’s why all of us—faith-based or not—need to come alongside these groups to offer them the finances, resources and encouragement they need to do the hard work of justice.

There is a time and place to constructively walk through the bitterness and even anger about the election. But if we shift all blame on a political leader or the government, we’re surrendering our own agency and turning our backs on the power God gave us to be agents of hope and healing in our communities. (Ephesians 3:14-21) We cannot allow our emotions to imprison us or to absolve us of actively participating in community. If anything, the election is a reminder that we still have more work to do.

Undoubtedly, there are failings in the electoral process and political leaders, but we cannot treat them as if they are the roots of the problem. The real issue is the health of our society. Relationships are fragmented, families are broken, communities are divided. And because humans are broken, the cultures and systems we create are broken, too.

​We need to release our expectations that the government will flawlessly solve all our problems and heal our brokenness. History has shown us how transformation has come from other sources: the influences of relationships, the gravity of collective organizing in and outside of the church and the resilience of the human spirit. We saw it with Christian abolitionists, the American Civil Rights Movement, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, the anti-apartheid movement and women’s liberation.

Politics isn’t the only force of change. The work of church and community is more powerful than any one political leader or federal government or even armed forces. After all, we are ultimately responsible for loving and nurturing human souls. The government will work toward liberty of its citizens. The church must work toward shalom.

In the game of politics, our head of state may have the final say — but in the game of life, God does.

While school breaks and extended leisurely summer vacations have long passed by a lot of us, I think we all still look at summer as a time for beach reads, leisurely weekends and cold drinks by the pool. If you’re interested in learning more about how actually to help the world’s poorest people, what better time than this summer to pick up a few books that could teach us all a thing or two?

I did some crowdsourcing with friends who work in international development, and we came up with this list of seven books to read if you want to learn how to care for the poor.

The First 1,000 Days: A Crucial Time for Mothers and Children – and the World: Roger Thurow

Thurow spent more than three years researching his latest book, and before that, more than three decades working around the world as a foreign correspondent and reporter for the Wall Street Journal. This guy brings solid journalist creds to his writing and research, and he dedicates this book to figuring out why exactly the first 1,000 days of a child’s life (basically from pregnancy to a child’s second birthday) is so critical to their long-term health and well-being. While a topic like this could quickly get in the weeds for public health wonks, Thurow’s writing style is narrative and light, keeping his reader engaged throughout the book.

Getting Better: Why Global Development is Succeeding: Charles Kenny

With bad news around us every day, it’s easy to fall into the trap of believing that nothing is getting better, and that the aid system is completely broken. While it’s true that—like any other system—there are ways aid work could be improved, Kenny’s background as an economist helps him take a good look at the numbers and give readers an in-depth understanding of what’s happening in the world of global development. According to UNICEF, since 1990, global development has helped to cut the rate of child deaths in half. This is good news. And Kenny shares more helpful intel like this in his book.

The Locust Effect: Why the End of Poverty Requires the End of Violence: Gary Haugen & Victor Boutros

Sometimes we’d like to think that there are “quick fixes” to ending poverty, but the reality is much more complex than that. In fact, finding solutions to global poverty is much like rocket science—complicated and multi-faceted. Haugen and Boutros follow this line of thinking in their book, outlining the importance of addressing one of the root causes of poverty—institutional violence—as one critical step toward ending poverty and bringing hope to the world.

Humanitarian Ethics: Hugo Slim

When you want to learn about something, it’s always best to go to the source. Slim has worked for multiple different aid organizations, including Save the Children, Oxfam, the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, and the British Red Cross. It’s safe to say he knows a thing or two about the challenging ethical situations aid workers find themselves in every single day. In this book, he attempts to provide aid workers with a pocket guide to ethical action. Even if the closest you’ll get to working “in the field” is following your friend on Instagram when they take a church missions trip, this book provides unique insights into the ethical dilemmas faced in this work—and how best to approach them.

Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: Moving from Affluence to Generosity: Ron Sider

Even though this best-selling book was first published nearly four decades ago, Sider still finds a way to make his arguments relevant in today’s world of the “haves” and “have nots.” In particular, he challenges the Church to get their hands dirty in the fight against poverty, even if it may cost us along the way.

When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor: Brian Fikkert & Steve Corbett

There is an American sentiment that looks at those in poverty and asks, “Why don’t they just ‘pick themselves up by their bootstraps’ and fix it?” Fikkert and Corbett do their best to take apart that argument, piece by piece, and illuminate those of us who still see poverty as the fault of those caught in its web. They take a look at approaches that have helped—as well as those that have hurt—communities in poverty, and they offer some hopeful approaches to poverty-reduction programming for the future.

Letters Left Unsent: “J.”

Humanitarian worker, author and widely read blogger “J” has chosen to keep his identity anonymous while he still works full-time as an aid worker in order to share the good, the bad, and the even sometimes ugly realities of humanitarian work. His current blog, AidSpeak, the archives of his former blog, Tales from the Hood, and his books, including his first non-fiction piece, Letters Left Unsent, should be required reading for any student of humanitarian aid.

Each year, villagers participate in a complete reenactment of Christ’s crucifixion. Volunteers wear thorny crowns of twigs, carry heavy wooden crosses on their backs for more than half a mile through the streets and up a hill. Other villagers dressed as Roman centurions then hammer 4-inch stainless steel nails through participants palms and feet before hanging them on the cross for about 10 minutes.

The real-life crucifixions resumed after a three-year pause due to the coronavirus pandemic. And while a dozen villagers registered, only eight men participated, including 62-year-old sign painter Ruben Enaje, who has participated in this tradition 34 times.

Enaje stated in a news conference shortly after his brief crucifixion that he prayed for the eradication of the COVID-19 virus and the end of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has contributed to gas and food prices soaring worldwide.

While the pain from the nailing was not as intense as anticipated, he said he always felt edgy before each crucifixion.

“To be honest, I always feel nervous because I could end up dead on the cross,” he told The Associated Press before Friday’s crucifixion. “When I’m laid down on the cross, my body begins to feel cold. When my hands are tied, I just close my eyes and tell myself, ‘I can do this. I can do this.'”

Church leaders in the Philippines have frowned on the crucifixions and self-flagellations, saying Filipinos can show their deep faith and religious devotion without hurting themselves and by doing charity work instead, such as donating blood.

Robert Reyes, a prominent Catholic priest and human rights activist in the country, said the bloody rites reflect the church’s failure to fully educate many Filipinos on Christian tenets, leaving them on their own to explore personal ways of seeking divine help for all sorts of maladies.

“The question is, where were we church people when they started doing this?” Reyes asked, saying the clergy should immerse itself in communities more and converse regularly with villagers. “If we judge them, we’ll just alienate them.”

Each year, more than 15,000 foreign and Filipino tourists and devotees gather to witness the crucifixions in Cutud and two other nearby villages.

“They like this because there is really nothing like this on earth,” said Johnson Gareth, a British tour organizer who brought 15 tourists from eight countries, to witness the crucifixions. “It’s less gruesome than people think. They think it’s going to be very macabre or very disgusting, but it’s not. It’s done in a very respectful way.”

Despite criticism from the Catholic church, the crucifixion tradition continues to draw crowds and participants year after year.

Well, that’s about to change.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo is making moves to ban rented e-scooters from the French capital after an overwhelming majority of residents backed the move in a non-binding referendum. With 89 percent of the 103,084 votes cast opposed to the freestanding scooters, Hidalgo said the people’s “very clear message now becomes our roadmap.”

E-scooters were first introduced to Paris in 2018 and proved to be a popular mode of transportation for tourists and some commuters. However, critics have argued that the scooters clutter up pavements and roads, while also raising safety concerns. According to a Reuters report, there were 459 accidents involving e-scooters or similar vehicles in Paris last year, including three fatalities.

Paris isn’t the first major city struggling with e-scooters. In London, rental scooters are operating on a trial basis until the fall of this year with Lime, Dott and Tier. After that, “operators will be selected on their ability to meet strict safety requirements and high operating standards,” according to local authorities.

Berlin-based Tier Mobility shared they were disappointed in Paris’ decision.

“Moving away from shared e-scooters also means that Paris is isolating itself from the rest of the world with major capitals like Washington, Madrid, Rome, London, Berlin or Vienna that are all implementing policies supporting e-scooters as ways to reduce unnecessary car usage.”

It remains to be seen if a compromise can be reached, but for now, it looks like Parisians will be waving goodbye to their rented e-scooters come September 1st.

On our journey we met with survivors, interviewed aftercare workers and talked with some of the world’s leading experts on trafficking and prostitution.

When we returned home, we took the film on a 96-city tour around North America. During that time, we met hundreds of amazing people who are fighting trafficking, but we also met thousands of people who knew very little about this massive form of modern day slavery. The audience breakdown was typically 70/30 female-to-male, raising the concern that despite prostitution’s being primarily driven by male demand, few men are willing to confront the issue of sexual exploitation.

While most churches were eager to talk about sex trafficking, one church responded to our screening query by saying, “We are not and will never be interested in this issue, thank you.”

When we don’t perceive a problem to be present to be in our neighborhood, it’s easy to ignore. And sometimes, we choose ignorance on purpose, shielding ourselves from the realities of complex, dark stories.

Human trafficking is one of the worst of these dark issues, because it consists of so many crimes wrapped into one—sometimes kidnapping, almost always rape, along with confinement, torture and coercion. We’ve met survivors whose victimization started as young as 12—one girl was forced to service men in the back seats of cars in parking garages. For four years, she had lived every moment under the watchful eye of a pimp, and she’d only been out of the industry for a year when we met her. Her care worker told us she was finally learning she could go to the bathroom without asking for permission. The invisible chains are often the hardest to shed.

In order for us to be effective in ending sexual exploitation, we must intentionally seek to understand it.

Here are three major misconceptions we’ve encountered as we talk with people about prostitution:

1. It’s a Choice

Prostitution is often portrayed as a choice, and movies like Pretty Woman create a skewed version of the desperate reality. Even the most conservative estimates indicate that more than half of those in prostitution entered under the age of 18. While there are some who started as adults and are not under the control of a pimp, upwards of 90 percent have a very different experience.

I think for many of us, there’s a tendency to want to box this issue into two clean, distinct categories: forced and not forced. But within the sex industry, there are varying levels of coercion. What if a young woman is initially trafficked in multiple countries, but then gets away from her traffickers and rents her own window in a red light district? Now she’s 21 and keeping most of the money, making her feel more free than she’s ever been before, but the foundations of her current life are full of cracks from the profound trauma and exploitation she experienced.

When we visited the red light district of Amsterdam, we walked by the windows filled with scantily clad girls, acting seductive and inviting. But when I stepped into the brothels with an outreach worker friend of mine to actually meet some of the women, they would drop the act and show their vulnerable side. The sex industry thrives on illusion.

2. It Isn’t Happening Here

Many people think human trafficking only happens overseas. “Never in my hometown” couldn’t be farther from the truth. And it’s not just large cities like LA and NYC—we’ve learned of human trafficking in cities as small as 10,000 people. At many of our film screenings, even in small towns, girls would come up to us afterward and tell their stories of sexual exploitation.

Trafficking happens in condo towers and suburban homes. It happened at the strip club beside the church where I went to youth group. In fact, the biggest trafficking bust in Canada happened on the same street where my husband and I lived when we first got married.

3. Legalizing Prostitution Makes it Safe

Organized crime tends to infiltrate legal prostitution zones and takes advantage of the huge profits that can be earned. Legalization increases demand for paid sex, and there is never enough “willing supply,” offering traffickers a lucrative business opportunity. While making prostitution fully legal gives the small majority (who were the best off to begin with) more opportunities to hire bodyguards and turn down clients who appear unsafe, the majority do not have the kind of bargaining power.

In all legal contexts, racial minorities are particularly vulnerable to violence and even death at the hands of their customers. One Brazilian woman we met in Switzerland wept as she told us she has to visit a gynaecologist on a regular basis to manage the internal damage johns had caused, despite the fact that she had been working in a legal brothel.

Learning the truth is the first step toward taking real action on behalf of those in desperate need. There are tons of resources available, including articles, books and documentaries about human trafficking.

Let’s equip ourselves for action.

It seems like a thin line exists between seeking the fulfillment of a genuine need and allowing it to become an unhealthy obsession. The introduction of social media into this danger zone only makes it more difficult. For instance, how do we know when we’re looking for affirmation (a genuine need) or validation (unhealthy obsession)?

Personally, I struggle with this when it comes to social media and public speaking. After reading Gary Chapman’s best-selling book, The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts, I discovered my love language is words of affirmation.

I regularly look for opportunities to get feedback or affirmation of my work. It’s the way I receive love. I’m a pastor, so as I prepare for a sermon, I will put together a group of friends to help me figure out what still needs tweaking and what stands strong within my talk. I put hours into a blog post or article, hoping to hear from people people who gained new perspective or experienced personal change through my words.

But my need for affirmation can turn—and in the past has turned—into an unhealthy search for validation. In seeking to get my need met, at times, I have given people far too much power to validate or invalidate me.

Like many other people, I will check to see if anyone liked that status or commented on that picture far too frequently. I will refresh and refresh, wondering: “Has anyone shared my blog post yet?” “Did I get more subscribers this week?” “Is my traffic up today?” “Please let this go viral.”

On Sunday afternoon, I’ll wonder: “How was that sermon? Did anyone respond? Did anyone share my clever statements on Facebook or Twitter?”

As I express my gifts in very public settings, I’m putting myself in the midst of this battle on a weekly, if not daily, basis. While I want to be affirmed for doing a good job, I can very easily allow my identity to be on the line for validation in the process. While you may not be a public speaker or pastor, you’re out there in this struggle with me in every post, tweet, selfie and snap you share.

This struggle to navigate the line between affirmation and validation is a scrap many of us know all too well. While I believe my struggle is not unique, I think many of us are losing our battle with the dark side of modern technology and experiencing tremendous anxiety as a result.

We’re living in amazing times. Many of us benefit from using social media. We get to connect with people we wouldn’t otherwise. We learn and get exposed to more of our world than the generations before us.

However, the dark side of social media is that likes, comments, shares, retweets, favorites, followers, friends and subscribers become a way to measure our value, rather than our profile’s performance. These “vanity metrics” end up deciding the value of not only our work, but of who we are.

I got tired of feeling like social media owned me. I got fed up with giving other people (some I’ve never met) the power to decide my value as a person.

This led me to take action:

Fast from website stats and social media.

Turning off your notifications or going on a fast from social media could a wise and healthy choice. Hitting the reset button on your use of good tools that have become bad news might be wise—painful, yet wise. Without thoughtfully engaging these tools, we become mastered by them rather than being master of them.

I recently deleted my Google Analytics and MailChimp apps from my iPhone and left them off for several weeks. I now have to work harder to check my stats. I took a 24-hour social media fast last weekend because I saw some unhealthy habits developing. Without access to the numbers, I found more joy in the actual work.

In the recent #MillennialMusical, created by Lin-Manuel Miranda and The Rock, one character gave up social media and found a fresh perspective. But when a good thing has become a bad thing—or even worse an idol—fasting can break the destructive pattern.

While fasting can break the pattern, most of us aren’t going offline forever, so we have to learn how to be healthy and engaged online.

Identify good sources of affirmation.

We must learn how to discern good and bad sources of affirmation. I’ve found that the difference is often found in exploring the source of affirmation. Asking questions helps clarify things here. How close are we to the sources we’re seeking? How much trust and history have we established with these people?

When I realize I’m looking for strangers to let me know if I’m OK, something is off. When the response of people we don’t know on our phone matters more than the people we are physically with, we need change.

Who are the people who matter most to us? We must create regular opportunities for affirmation from them. Remind them of your need for encouragement. When we’re tempted to go look elsewhere, we must remind ourselves of what the people who matter most think about you.

Recognize that no amount of likes or comments or retweets will ever be enough if that decides your value.

Growing up, The Sandlot and Cool Runnings were two of my favorite movies.

For the uninitiated, Cool Runnings is inspired by the true story of the first Jamaican bobsled team to compete in the Olympics during the 1988 Games in Calgary, Alberta. This fictionalized version is comical and emotional.

While there are countless lines I could quote from the movie, I think about one scene often. The scene is a conversation with the captain of the team, Derice Bannock and the team’s coach, Irv Blitzer.

In the scene, Darice asks Irv why he cheated when he was a bobsledder on the American team, costing himself a gold medal. Irv’s response rings in my ears today, “If you’re not enough without it, you’ll never be enough with it.”

Those words are so powerful. They challenge me. Whenever I think about this scene, I write my own sentence, “If I’m not enough without ________, I’ll never be enough with ________.” How would you complete those sentences? What do you place the most value in?

It’s one thing for social media to be a place where we get affirmed, that’s a normal human need. But when it becomes a place where we look for validation, I’m not sure we’ll ever get enough.

If we’re not enough without another like, retweet, comment or share, then we’re always going to be looking for “just a little more” at every stage of your life. 50 won’t be enough, I’ll want 100. 1000 won’t be enough, I’ll want 2000. We’ll never arrive at enough followers, friends or subscribers. “More” is a mirage; from far away, we think our thirst will be satisfied. But when we get close, our only option is to drink sand.

I believe that “Am I enough?” may be the most important question we ask ourselves today. If we’re enough without “it,” then we can actually achieve “it” and thrive. We can receive the things we seek without them destroying us.

With all of the options to get involved in the fight against poverty, sometimes it’s hard to know what’s best to do, let alone know whether or not what you’re doing is actually helping.

But fighting poverty can come in ordinary ways, in counter-intuitive ways, and in counter-cultural ways. Here are four ways you can fulfill your calling to care for the least of these that you may not have thought about before.

Change the Way You Talk About Poverty.

In the materialistic society we live in today, it’s easy to talk about poverty purely in terms of a lack of material things. But those who live on less than two dollars a day describe it differently. President of HOPE International Peter Greer says that, to them, poverty is an empty heart, a lack of hope, isolation, severed relationships and not knowing God. Poverty is a brokenness that penetrates every layer of life. Material deficiency is only one piece of the problem.

If we train ourselves to talk about poverty in terms of broken relationships—personal, societal and spiritual—instead of making it just about what things people don’t have, it changes the way we interact with the poor because it means we have all experienced poverty.

Once we find ourselves in the same place as the panhandler on the street, we abandon the “us-and-them” mentality. Maybe then we will make eye contact instead of looking away. Maybe then we will ask their name. Maybe then we will come to see that person for who they really are, and seek to better understand what they really need.

Respect the Dignity of the Poor.

When I was in college, I went on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic to volunteer at a women’s social work site in an impoverished village. I asked the site leader, Daisy, who was a local herself, if I could give the young girls some of my old clothes and jewelry that I brought from home. She said, “Yes, but make them pay five pesos. They all have five pesos to spare.”

Even though five Dominican pesos is only equivalent to 12 cents in the U.S., asking the girls for money sounded cruel to me. I asked her why.

She explained that volunteers come and go from the village year-round, and the girls are used to getting free stuff, but “they appreciate more what they pay for.”

When the girls came by later that day, I announced that I was selling clothes and jewelry for five pesos apiece. After much excited screaming and jumping, they sprinted down the dirt road back to their homes and returned with a few pesos to go shopping.

I watched as each girl proudly handed me her pesos and pointed to the bracelet or shirt she wanted to buy. No longer did the girls see my donations as my old stuff that I didn’t want anymore, but as a prize they were privileged to own. It was as if—if even for a moment—they had forgotten the extremity of their own material poverty.

No human being wants to feel like a charity case. Charging a small amount for a donation respects the dignity of the receiver.

Of course there is a time and a place to give things away for free, especially in crisis situations, but use good discernment to know when donations need to be given freely and when they are robbing the receivers of their dignity.

The question should not be “How can I meet their material needs?” but “How can I meet their needs as a full person while also protecting their dignity?”

Do Your Job Well.

You don’t have to work for an NGO to fight poverty in your work.

Our vocation is one of the primary ways we respond to Christ’s call to serve others and love our neighbors. This means many of us might already fight poverty in our daily work, however ordinary, without even realizing it.

If you’re a barista, you’re brewing coffee bought from farmers in third-world countries. If you work in telecommunications, you contribute to an industry that provides cell-phone access in impoverished nations. If you work on an oil field, you’re providing fuel that keeps someone warm at night. If you work in recruiting, you can connect someone to a job they desperately need.

One way to fight poverty is to prayerfully discern your calling and then do it well. Though it’s not always obvious how you’re helping the poor in your work, we should all think about our vocation as a means to serve others and love our neighbors, locally and globally.

Rethink Ethical Buying Habits.

Ethical shopping is one simple way to love your global neighbor in your day-to-day life. Most consumers who want to do good with their purchases opt for buying fairly traded products, but the fair trade certification doesn’t help third-world farmers and manufacturers as much as you might think. Research suggests it might even hurt them.

Take coffee for example. Surprisingly, most of the extra money you pay for fair trade doesn’t even get to the growers. One recent study in the Journal of Business Ethics found that less than 12 percent of the premium we pay for fair trade coffee actually reaches them.

And sometimes fair trade can hurt the people it intends to help. Research from Ecological Economics shows that Nicaraguan fair trade farmers were in a worse economic position after 10 years than non-fair trade farmers, largely due to the hefty entrance fees and compliance costs required to join the cooperative.

So instead of buying fair trade, what should you buy? Dr. Victor Claar, professor of economics at Henderson State University in Arkansas says you should just buy the coffee you like best. Why? Claar says, “Producers of the highest-quality coffees can charge a premium price because their coffee is that good.”

Instead of fair trade, he says free trade does more to lift nations out of poverty: “The fairest trade of all is trade that is genuinely free—free from the harm to the global poor that well-intentioned rich Northerners like us can sometimes bring.”

The next time you buy coffee or tea, you can skip the fair trade and still have confidence you are helping a farmer in need.

The news comes on the heel of rumors that Ye is planning to visit Australia to meet the family of his reported new partner, Melbourne native Bianca Censori. But after backlash from the Australian community, those plans may have to change.

“People like that who’ve applied for visas to get into Australia in the past have been rejected,” Clare stated. “I expect that if [Ye] does apply he would have to go through the same process and answer the same questions that they did.”

Australia has a history of denying visas to individuals on the far right based on the “good character” test. In 2018, Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes was denied a visa after a petition protesting his entry gained over 81,000 signatures. British conspiracy theorist David Icke also had his visa canceled in 2019.

And it’s not just Clare who’s speaking out against Ye’s potential visit. Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dvir Abramovich and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton have also called for West to be blocked from the country, with Dutton calling his behavior “appalling.”

“Allowing Kanye into Australia would also send the wrong signal about our nation and violate our core values of tolerance, diversity and respect,” Abramovich said.

Fow now, it looks like Ye’s Australian vacation plans may need to be put on hold.

Scientists and security experts have set the Doomsday Clock at 90 seconds to midnight, deeming this the closest humanity has ever been to self-annihilation, and it’s all thanks to the nuclear shadow over the Ukraine conflict and the growing climate crisis.

“We are living in a time of unprecedented danger,” said Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which oversees the Doomsday Clock. “Ninety seconds to midnight is the closest the clock has ever been set to midnight, and it’s a decision our experts do not take lightly.”

The clock, which is a metaphor for how close humanity is to self-annihilation, had been set at 100 seconds to midnight since January 2020. But this year, the hands of the clock have been moved forward by 10 seconds “due largely but not exclusively to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the increased risk of nuclear escalation,” according to members of the Bulletin.

“Russia’s thinly veiled threats to use nuclear weapons remind the world that escalation of the conflict — by accident, intention, or miscalculation — is a terrible risk,” they continued. “The possibility that the conflict could spin out of anyone’s control remains high.”

It’s not just the threat of nuclear war that’s got the scientists worried. The clock was also moved forward by the ongoing threats posed by the climate crisis, rapidly advancing technologies and biological threats such as Covid-19. You know, our new normal.

But let’s not worry just yet. There’s still time to make a change, and as the clock’s creators say, “We urge leaders to explore all of them to their fullest ability to turn back the clock.” Let’s hope they listen, otherwise we should probably start preparing for one heck of a Doomsday party.

It means that more than 20 million people around the world are desperate to be freed from human trafficking. It means that 795 million people across the globe do not have enough food to eat. It means we live in a world where more than 20 million people have been forced to seek refuge in foreign lands because of political unrest at home. There is an incredible need for the world to understand and act to restore the liberty of others.

Through my work as a missionary, I’ve been challenged to dive into the world of justice headfirst over and over again. Since then, I’ve seen a lot of joy and success in this area but there are also the disappointments and struggles people don’t tell you about. As the incredible novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie said, there are dangers in only hearing the “single story” so what is it that people don’t tell you about pursuing justice?

It takes time.

I live up to the stereotype that millennials are instant-gratification seekers. Like most Christians, I am well-versed in “mercy ministries.” I knew how to donate money, clothes, food or whatever the cause might be that week. I also knew to anticipate the warm and fuzzy feeling that came after helping someone with an immediate need. Seeing someone transition from hungry to full before my eyes would make me feel like I had made a difference. And I knew that the act would leave me immediately satisfied.

I anticipated a comparable satisfaction when I began working toward justice. It did not take long to understand that pursuing justice was an entirely different sort of initiative. I had to tame that inner desire for instant gratification and settle in for a longer struggle. Working for justice can take decades, and even then not see success. Injustice is systemic, and changing a system does not happen overnight.

While it can take significant time to see total success, there are accomplishments to be made on the journey. It is important to celebrate these gains, no matter how small, to avoid burnout.

Be ready to harden your heart.

This sounds counterintuitive, really, but strengthening that heart muscle is imperative when pursuing justice. The first few months of my work were spent researching different justice issues and I quickly became desensitized. Spending eight straight hours reading personal stories about human trafficking, coming to terms with the disgusting racial disparity in our nation and hearing the truth about reasons for migration are some of the ways I spent those first months on the job. I spent more than half that time being shocked, heartbroken and enraged.

And then I realized that I was accomplishing nothing. I was learning, yes, and appropriately grieving for our broken society. But if I let my emotions overwhelm me with every new piece of information about how dire the situation was then I would never be able to move beyond my feelings to work toward solutions. Deeply feeling every one of these tragedies would have taken me out of the fight just a couple of months in. A person cannot carry that much anguish around every day without collapsing under the weight.

Pursuing justice requires us to harden ourselves to the realities of this world, letting in only enough of the heartache so that we are inspired to act.

Mental peace may be difficult to access.

Since joining the fight for justice I have been largely unable to keep my thoughts from spinning like a hamster wheel. I have learned so much in a relatively short amount of time that I do believe my brain has reached capacity on what I can spend mental energy on. Many of us already involved in justice work focus on everything from climate change to gender-based violence and prison reform in my agency—with many, many pit stops along the way. This information can alter the way we see the world and make it more difficult to find peace within the daily choices we make.

While munching on a piece of chocolate, I cannot help but think about how the cocoa industry has completely tainted these delicious little morsels with labor trafficking. While shopping for affordable clothes, you can’t help to think about the price paid by garment factory workers working 20 hours a day.

When pursuing justice becomes a priority in your life and you learn how intersectional every issue is, you begin to see injustice everywhere you look. Justice work requires self-care, and finding opportunities to disengage may look different and be more difficult to come by than originally anticipated. Find community and invest in your personal relationships, spend time doing things that bring you joy. Do whatever it takes to restore your mind and energy.

You may have to sacrifice relationships.

Inevitably, justice is politicized. And although something like human decency should not be a partisan issue, I found out very quickly how wrong that seems to be. As you become entrenched in your pursuit of justice, there will without a doubt be someone (or many) that are not charmed by your cause. When you have essentially given your life to a cause, you do not take too kindly to harsh or mean-spirited criticism of your work and beliefs. Lines are drawn in your relationships simply because of a difference in opinions.

At times like these, remember who you are. Remember what brought you to the fight to begin with. Approach every interaction with compassion and love, even in the most difficult circumstances. And do not allow anyone to take away your power to do good.

No matter how challenging the endeavor has made things on occasion, pursuing justice has brought me closer to the heart of God than ever before. I can rest in knowing that pursuing justice is an opportunity to live out Scripture. “And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8) It may not be easy, quick, fun or comfortable, but it is essential. And no matter how difficult, the fight for what is right is always worth it.

Open Doors began compiling its World Watch List of the 50 countries where Christians face the most persecution for their faith back in 1990. Since then, the number of Christians facing persecution has risen, as well as the severity. 

Wybo Nicolai, a former Open Doors global field director and creator of the World Watch List, said that since 2010, the number of countries on the World Watch List with “high” levels of persecution has nearly doubled. The intensity of that persecution has also remained high, with 360 million Christians around the world reporting at least high levels of discrimination and persecution.

“What we noticed is not just an increase of persecution, but also an increase in the size and the strength of the body of Christ,” Nicolai said. “Yes, a lot of atrocities, a lot of drama; at the same time, a lot of church growth, as well.”

The list of 10 countries where Open Doors reports Christians currently face the most persecution are North Korea, Somalia, Yemen, Eritrea, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan and Sudan.

North Korea returned to the top spot after scoring its highest level of persecution ever under its “anti–reactionary thought” law. Last year, Afghanistan toppled North Korea for the first and only time since 2002. Now, Afghanistan is back at No. 9 on the list, as the Taliban has shifted its focus to searching out those with links to the country’s former government.

Sudan, at No. 13 last year, is the newest addition to the Top 10. Open Doors noted an “alarming” increase in violence against Christians by Islamic extremists in sub–Saharan Africa, with Nigeria experiencing the highest number of religiously motivated killings in the world.

It’s worth noting that the United States is not included on the list. Although the nation has become more secular over the past 30 years and many U.S. Christians have expressed concern about discrimination, Nicolai noted that there’s a “vast difference” between the experiences of Christians in the U.S. and the countries on the World Watch List.

In a report released on Monday—coinciding with the start of the World Economic Forum’s annual event in Davos, Switzerland—the organization said that taxing billionaires just five percent would generate enough money to lift two billion people out of poverty.

Additionally, 1.7 billion workers across the globe are now living in countries where inflation outpaces wage growth, while the world’s wealthiest one percent of people have captured two–thirds of all new wealth created since 2020—amounting to $42 trillion.

Oxfam is now calling for “a systemic and wide–ranging increase in taxation of the super–rich to claw back crisis gains driven by public money and profiteering.”

“Taxing the super–rich and big corporations is the door out of today’s overlapping crises,” Gabriela Bucher, executive director of Oxfam International, said in the organization’s press release. “It’s time we demolish the convenient myth that tax cuts for the richest result in their wealth somehow ‘trickling down’ to everyone else. Forty years of tax cuts for the super–rich have shown that a rising tide doesn’t lift all ships—just the superyachts.”

Taxes on the wealthiest used to be much higher, but currently only four cents in every tax dollar comes from taxes on wealth, according to the report, which slammed wealthy individuals’ income as “mostly unearned, derived from returns on their assets.”

“Yet it is taxed on average at 18 percent, just over half as much as the average top tax rate on wages and salaries,” Oxfam said.

The charity is hoping their report will raise awareness of the growing wealth gap, and has earned the backing of Bill Gates, who said he supported the idea of rich people paying more in taxes during a Reddit Q&A last week.

“I am surprised taxes have not been increased more,” he said. “For example, capital gains rates could be the same as ordinary income rates. I know things are tough for a lot of people.”

He added that it was common for those at the top to lose sight of what life is like for the majority of people, arguing that “being rich can easily make you out of touch.”

Gates sentiments aren’t particularly shocking, considering he announced last year he plans to give away “virtually all” of his wealth to his foundation, which is dedicated addressing issues like climate change and accessible healthcare.

As I look to the future, I plan to give virtually all of my wealth to the foundation. I will move down and eventually off of the list of the world’s richest people.

— Bill Gates (@BillGates) July 13, 2022

Gates isn’t the only high–profile billionaire to call for more taxes to be levied on society’s wealthiest. Disney heiress Abigail Disney, Salesforce cofounder Marc Benioff and legendary investor Ray Dalio are among of a growing number of ultrawealthy people who have publicly expressed support for tax hikes on the rich.

However, there are some high–net–worth players who aren’t on board with handing more of their cash over to the tax man.

Elon Musk has been a vocal opponent to levying more tax responsibilities on the world’s wealthiest. In 2021, he slammed proposals for a so–called billionaire tax, saying having to pay more taxes would disrupt his plans to “get humanity to Mars.”

Home depot co–founder Bernard Marcus and supermarket mogul John Catsimatidis, meanwhile, argued in an op–ed for the Wall Street Journal that “every additional dollar the government takes from us is a dollar less for this critical process of expanding America’s wealth and job–creating businesses.”

Oxfam is pushing for governments to do more to address the growing wealth gap.

“Decades of tax cuts for the richest and corporations have fueled inequality, with the poorest people in many countries paying higher tax rates than billionaires,” the organization argued. It’s now up to governments to decide whether to act on these calls for “billionaire–busting policies”—or continue to prioritize the interests of society’s wealthiest.

The average cost of living is up 8.1 percent in 2022, according to the Worldwide Cost of Living Index released by the Economist Intelligence Unit. There are a few different reasons for the increase, including the Russian war in Ukraine, the pandemic and other geopolitical shifts.

“We can clearly see the impact in this year‘s index, with the average price rise across the 172 cities in our survey being the strongest we‘ve seen in the 20 years for which we have digital data,” said Upasana Dutt, head of worldwide cost of living at EIU. “The rise in petrol prices in cities was particularly strong (as it was last year), but food, utilities and household goods are all getting more expensive for city–dwellers.”

That can make it difficult to find an affordable city to live and thrive in financially. The EIU gathered data on the affordability of major cities across the world, and it shows how much pricier some cities have gotten in a short amount of time. For the first time ever, a U.S. city topped the list, beating out last year’s winner Tel Aviv.

So, if you‘re looking to move somewhere that won’t break your bank, you may want to look somewhere other than these 10 cities:

1. New York and Singapore (tied for first)
3. Tel Aviv, Israel
4. Hong Kong and Los Angeles (tied for fourth)
6. Zurich, Switzerland
7. Geneva, Switzerland
8. San Francisco, California
9. Paris, France
10. Copenhagen, Denmark

Although the cost of living everywhere is on the rise, there are still plenty of ways to keep your finances in check, no matter where you live. With a few smart strategies and helpful tips, you can make sure that your wallet isn‘t feeling too much of a pinch.

Britain has become increasingly less religious in the last decade, and for the first time a minority of the population considers themselves part of the country’s official religion. 

The Office for National Statistics announced this week that roughly 46 percent of the population of England and Wales describe themselves as Christian, a 13 percent drop from a decade earlier. Both the Muslim and Hindu populations slightly increased, while the “nones” — those who identify with no religion — grew from one in four people to one in three. 

The shift has caused many secular campaigners to rethink the way religion is woven into British society. The nation has state-funded Church of England schools and even bishops who sit in Parliament. But according to Andrew Copson, chief executive of the charity Humanists U.K., the shift shows the U.K. is “almost certainly one of the least religious countries on Earth.”

Religious leaders in England shared with AP News that they are not surprised by the results, and see it as a challenge for the Church to overcome. 

“We have left behind the era when many people almost automatically identified as Christian, but other surveys consistently show how the same people still seek spiritual truth and wisdom and a set of values to live by,” said Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell.

Thousands of protestors have flooded the streets, calling for greater democracy and freedom from the government, and many have even called for the removal of China’s leader Xi Jinping. For the last three years, Jinping has overseen the country’s COVID response, which has included mass-testing, brute-force lockdowns, prolonged enforced quarantine and digital tracking. And it seems Chinese citizens have had enough. 

The protests were triggered last week in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang region. Videos from a deadly apartment fire, which killed at least 10 people and injured nine others, showed firefighters were delayed from reaching victims due to lockdown precaution measures. The city had been under lockdown for more than 100 days, with many residents unable to leave their homes at all. 

The following morning, Urumqi citizens marched to a government building while protesting for the end of the lockdown. The local government said it would lift the lockdown in stages, although it didn’t give a specific timetable.

Since then, citizens in China’s major cities have begun protesting the COVID restrictions and lockdowns. At least 16 protests have taken place nationwide. Many are holding up blank sheets of white paper – a symbolic protest against censorship – and chanting, “Need human rights, need freedom.”

Throughout lockdown, Chinese residents have struggled with meeting basic physical and emotional needs. In Shanghai, the nation’s financial capital, a two-month long lockdown earlier this year left many without access to food or medical care, and the isolation led to a decline in mental health. 

Public protest in China is incredibly rare, and the Chinese government has remained tight-lipped about their plans, if any, to address citizens’ concern. Authorities have been breaking up protests and controlling the media’s messages about the protests. The government has also held a tight grip on citizens, building a high-tech surveillance state and cracking down on public dissent. There’s even been numerous reports of the Chinese government spamming social media sites like Twitter with pornographic content to drown out any negative messages about the country’s protests. 

Maria Repnikova, an associate professor at Georgia State University who studies Chinese politics and media, spoke to CNN and explained that while protests do occur in China, they rarely happen on such a large scale.

“This is a different type of protest from the more localized protests we have seen recurring over the past two decades that tend to focus their claims and demands on local officials and on very targeted societal and economic issues,” she said. Instead, these protests include “the sharper expression of political grievances alongside with concerns about Covid-19 lockdowns.”

Many environmental and advocacy groups are quick to point out that the largest eco-offenders and oppressors in this world are generally large corporations. For instance, the waste and pollution produced by these corporations combined with their extravagant energy consumption makes my choice to recycle that plastic bottle or install a CFL light bulb seemingly insignificant. Often, these advocacy groups encourage me to focus on making big changes—pressuring corporations to clean up their act or lobbying the government to pass stricter trade laws. I’ve even been told that encouraging people to change their light bulbs is pointless because then they will assume they’ve done their environmental good deed and not push for larger changes.

In the name of building a better world, it seems counterproductive to discourage those willing to help. By only promoting actions that can effect large-scale change, these groups can unintentionally turn things like environmental stewardship into a “more eco-conscious than thou” sort of competition. It’s like scoffing at a kindergartner’s attempts at reading just because she isn’t yet reading Shakespeare. We all have to start somewhere, even when it comes to saving the planet. So I still encourage people to do whatever they can whenever they can. It has to be doable for it to become a sustainable practice. A person has to be willing to make small changes in his or her life before committing to advocate for the bigger issues. If someone doesn’t care enough to even change a light bulb, why do we suppose they would care about clean energy legislation? Big changes start with small changes.

But the truth of the matter is that even the small changes and personal commitments do make a difference. On one hand, it is a matter of scale. Get enough individuals doing the same thing, and their impact will be significant. When shipping giant UPS decided to get all 95,000 of their trucks to eliminate as many left turns as possible from their routes (since idling while waiting to turn wastes gas) they collectively saved 3 million gallons of gas and cut CO2 emissions by 31,000 metric tons in just the first year. And if every American home replaced just one light with a CFL bulb, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, about $700 million in annual energy costs, and prevent 9 billion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions per year, equivalent to the emissions of about 800,000 cars (energystar.gov). There is something about the collective “we” that multiplies our impact and effects great change. When one person starts living differently, and gets a friend on board, and then perhaps a small group or an entire church, she is making a difference that extends far beyond herself.

Our individual commitments make a difference on even a small scale. A decision to purchase a fairly traded item, for instance, is a choice to make a difference in at least one other person’s life. The coffee farmer in Rwanda who can now feed his family because he can sell his small crop directly to a fair trade co-op is benefitted because of one person’s choice to buy his coffee. Choosing to buy the T-shirt sewn by the woman rescued from the sex trade and rehabilitated with a fairly paying job allows her an opportunity to heal. Like Mother Teresa said, “If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.” That one person doesn’t mind that your actions didn’t magically solve all the world’s problems in an instant—she is just grateful for the impact you made in her life. There is a time and place for working to save the masses, but that in no way diminishes the importance of making a difference in one person’s life.

The actions of one person can have a significant impact in this world, but I wonder if such a question should even be our main concern. I am uneasy basing a decision to love and serve others on whether or not it will have a measurable impact. Jesus said if we love Him we will obey His commands.

Loving our neighbor, setting the oppressed free, bringing good news to the poor, spending ourselves on behalf of the hungry and seeking justice for all are not just suggested paths for how to have the greatest impact according to some utilitarian calculus; they are part of what it means to be faithful Christ-followers. We don’t weigh a decision of whether or not to be righteous on the global impact it will have, so why should our decision to love and serve be any different? Knowing we are helping others and changing the world is fantastic and encouraging, but we aren’t in it for the reward. We love others because as Christians we have no other choice.

Do my actions make a difference? Certainly. But even if I never knew what impact I had in this world, I would act the same way.

In what is the oldest known full sentence in Canaanite alphabetical script, the inscription says: “May this tusk root out the lice of the hair and the beard.” 

Archaeologists say they have even found microscopic evidence of head lice on the comb.

The comb was first excavated in 2016 at Tel Lachish, an archaeological site in southern Israel, but it was only late last year when a professor at Israel’s Hebrew University noticed the tiny words inscribed on it. Details of the find were published this week in an article in the Jerusalem Journal of Archaeology.

Hebrew University archaeologist Yosef Garfinkel, the lead researcher on the project, told The Associated Press that while many artifacts bearing Canaanite script have been found over the years, this is the first full sentence to be discovered.

“It is a very human text,” Garfinkel said. “It shows us that people didn’t really change, and lice didn’t really change.”

Canaanites spoke an ancient Semitic language — related to modern Hebrew, Arabic and Aramaic — and resided in the lands abutting the eastern Mediterranean. They are believed to have developed the first known alphabetic system of writing.

Finding a complete sentence would further indicate that Canaanites stood out among early civilizations in their use of the written word. “It shows that even in the most ancient phase there were full sentences,” Garfinkel added.

But that still leaves an important question: how do you tell if a brand deserves your business, in the first place? Here are a few steps to help you get started.

Familiarize Yourself with the Issues

In order to make informed decisions about whether or not a particular brand is “ethical,” you need to learn about the potential moral issues involved in making and selling clothing.

A good place to start would be by considering laborer rights, environmental impact, transparency and social impact. A few issues connected to laborer rights include safe factory conditions, fair overtime payment and the right to unionize. Regarding environmental impact, considerations include the sourcing of raw materials, carbon footprint and overall sustainability.

It’s also important to consider a brand’s transparency, as this is what keeps companies accountable by making outside monitoring of their environmental and human rights impact possible. Lastly, look at a brand’s social impact, examining what their advertising communicates or whether they’re known for treating their retail employees in fair, non-discriminatory ways.

This list by no means exhausts the issues involved in making clothing, but starting with these four broader topics—laborer rights, environmental impact, transparency and social impact—is a good first step toward understanding what ethical concerns you’ll want to consider when making a purchase.

Check Independent Brand-Ranking Organizations

Entities like rankabrand.org, free2work.org, GoodGuide and Ethical Consumer are all useful resources that conduct independent research on major brands. Most of them also break down their ranking process, so you can see how a brand scored on different issues.

This is especially helpful as you try to shop in tune with your own conscience—if you’re not committed to veganism but you are committed to workers’ safety, scores on individual facets of a brand’s practices will help you shop according to what’s important to you. Keep in mind that sometimes these organizations will rank the same brand very differently, so it’s wise to cross-reference whenever possible.

Read Company Policy

The material a company publishes about itself should always be read with more than a grain of salt, as plenty of manufacturing ethics violations have come from companies with terrific policies and poor enforcement. However, it can still be worthwhile to read about a company’s CSR (corporate social responsibility) initiatives in their own words, especially if they’re a younger company that has yet to be ranked by one of the organizations listed above.

One question to ask as you’re reading about a brand is whether or not ethical practices seem to be baked into the brand’s DNA, or whether they’re an afterthought. As consumers become increasingly aware of ethical concerns in the production of clothing, many companies have responded by trying to “greenwash” their business—meaning they invest more in trying to seem environmentally responsible through marketing than they do in actually changing their policies. Retailers that brag about one green line but are based on an unsustainable model—for example, making cheap clothing that falls apart and subsequently ends up in a landfill a few months after purchase—are an example of this.

If they don’t talk about their brand ethics at all, be wary. Most companies who are going out of their way to do things ethically are proud of it, so proceed with caution if that information isn’t available.

Dig Around to Learn About Company History

Do some searches to learn about the brand’s track record. Even if the blogs and news articles that mention a company’s wrongdoings are outdated, they should still give you pause. While some brands who messed up before genuinely clean up their act in the long run, poor enforcement of policy in the past is often a sign that ethical concerns aren’t paramount for the company—and may forecast similar infringements in the future.

In contrast, companies who have been doing things ethically for years are less likely to start cutting corners now, especially as conscientious consumers continue to grow in number and make up a larger percentage of potential customers.

Adjust Accordingly

Now that you know what you do about the brand in question, prepare to adjust your habits in response. This may mean expressing your concerns to the brand directly via their social media channels, telling others about what you’ve found out, redirecting your shopping dollars toward a more sustainable brand, making second-hand purchases a regular part of your life, shopping less frequently in general, or all of the above.

Whatever you do, remember that your purchases have power—and it’s up to you to use that power for good.

In a new NASA report, a team from the Goddard Space Flight Center said the annual Antarctic ozone hole has reached an average area size of 8.9 million square miles between Sept. 7 and Oct. 13, 2022. That’s slightly smaller than last year and continues an ongoing trend, which shows that the hole is shrinking.

“Over time, steady progress is being made, and the hole is getting smaller,” said Paul Newman, chief scientist for Earth sciences at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “We see some wavering as weather changes and other factors make the numbers wiggle slightly from day to day and week to week. But overall, we see it decreasing through the past two decades. The elimination of ozone-depleting substances through the Montreal Protocol is shrinking the hole.”

The Earth’s ozone layer shields life on our planet from harmful radiation from space. But back in the 1980s, humanity ripped a hole in that layer over the South Pole by using an excess amount of chemicals that destroyed the ozone. Since then, scientists around the globe have been working to enact policies that would shrink the hole and allow us to live healthier lives. You can see the change of the ozone layer in the NASA video below.