The Politics of Poverty

I have a rule that I’ll only speak or write about politics if I’m willing to offend both sides of our political spectrum.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t feel the need to find balance in the discussion.  If you read on you’ll find that I state a clear ideological preference but, as it relates to the issue of poverty in America, both sides needed offended. 

While there is no shortage of topics that define the chasm between conservatives and liberals, none is more distinct than the issue of poverty.  This most recent divide found its roots in 1964 when President Johnson announced his ‘War on Poverty’ as part of the ‘Great Society’ programs.  It was a well-intentioned attack on the injustices of socio-economic inequalities in America.  Unfortunately, while we’ve succeeded in raising the standard-of-living for the poor, poverty and socio-economic inequality is worse fifty years later.   In the time since there have been several revisions to our “welfare state” as conservatives would take ground against the entitlement programs that seemed to be better at creating customers than lifting families out of poverty.  It’s been a cycle of indulgence by liberals and indifference by conservatives.   

This divide is not just found in our governmental institutions.  Recently I attended two Christian conferences on the issue of poverty.  Both conferences were focused on the issues of poverty alleviation and both had emphasis on how poverty is manifest in the U.S. What’s interesting is that while the topics were very similar the approaches were very different.  Both were led and attended by good people wanting to make a lasting impact on this issue.  I left one energized and I left the other disappointed. 

What was the difference?  Adam.  Okay, this will take some explaining, so hang on while we travel down the rabbit hole a little further. 

As I listen to both sides of the political and religious debate on poverty I see a very common thread that is revealed in the solutions.  One approach, the more liberal, sees man (Adam) as basically good and if he goes on to do bad things or make bad choices it’s outside of his nature.  The idea runs into problems when you see the greed, violence and economic injustices in our society.  How could something born so pure go on to do such selfish things?  To reconcile this tension liberals tend to blame environmental causes for what made something good make bad choices.  The diagnoses are bad influences, limited opportunity, poor education systems or racial injustice.  There is a lot of evidence to support the diagnosis.  However, the prescription for these problems is advocacy and entitlement programs that seem to create more dependency than freedom.  Today 51% of Americans receive some type of government subsidy.  

The other approach sees Adam as inherently selfish.  He’s born with the ability to make good choices but his nature is self-gratification first.  If Adam is to be, or do, better he must be responsible for his actions and pay the price for bad choices.  If Adam and Eve are shackin’, spend their money on cigarettes and drink too much beer, they’re going to be poor.  The conservative view point is high on personal responsibility and consequences for poor choices.  It promotes ethic and effort and if man is poor it’s because he’s “alarm challenged” and needs to “pull himself by his boot straps”.   There is no question that our economic system rewards accountability and white upper middle-class cultural compliance.  Its power sources ensure that these qualities rank highest.  Unfortunately, too many conservatives are comfortable leaving the able bodied adults on the economic sidelines due to poor effort while at the same time condemning their children to a life of poverty.  These children represent the lion share of the vulnerable poor and have no choice in the matter but are likely to repeat the generational cycle they’re born into. 

Where do I stand?  I’m a conservative.  In my politics and theology.  However, I’m a conservative that can no longer stand indifferent to the plight of the poor.  My black and white, Fox News, world has been disrupted by a sea of gray.  The world that I had figured out makes much less sense to me today as I spend time with people that were not raised by the same parents that raised me.   I can no longer stand on the sidelines throwing ideological criticisms at those that cared enough to get involved.  If I’m going to offer a more conservative view of the nature of man I have to be on the field.  I’ve forfeited opinions in exchange for relationships. 

When I entered this world eight years ago I thought God had a plan for me to show poor people how to raise their social standing. Jobs programs, educational opportunities, better choices, less sin.  I thought my “success” standing in contrast to their “failure” would help me look good and them behave better.  Eight years later I’ve discovered that people are basically the same, regardless of their income brackets.  We look different but we want similar things from this life.  Our selfish human nature prevents us from seeing the innate value that each other have but our mutual brokenness binds us together.  This brokenness isn’t disabling, it’s unifying.  This brokenness requires change.  A change strong enough to transform our nature and offend our politics.  

My Grand Experiment

In my 25 years of leading people I’ve learned that change is hard…really hard.  Even more difficult is changing traditions and social norms that are deeply rooted in culture and conscious.  As a student of organizational development, I’ve spent countless hours, studying, pondering and speculating what makes certain organizations “successful” while others die.  Leaving the definition of success for another time, I believe the key element of organizational, and individual, success is the ability to adapt to changing realities.  I’ve also learned that people, while resistant to change, are fairly open to experiments.  It seems like a safer way to test new methods and perceptions without having to abandon what is comfortable and familiar suddenly.  It invites the team to participate rather than to simply comply and opens the conversation for truthful exchanges versus polite head nodding.  Of course, experiments fail and institutions regularly fall back to proven methods for yesterday’s problems.  Despite that possibility, I’ve embarked on the grandest experiment of my life.  It’s an experiment involving the oldest institution known to man, founded by divine declaration, rooted in the most ancient of writings but made up of very ordinary people…people like me. 
  

You’ve probably guessed by now that I’m experimenting with the local church.  Before you check out, this is not an essay on how bad things are and how other groups have really screwed things up.   It’s not an indictment on individuals or methods and certainly not a personal vendetta.  My experiment is rooted in my love for the Church and the timeless truths she is entrusted to deliver.  Having said that I am an analyst and my experiment is rooted in observation. It’s these observations that move me to risk resources and relationships to acknowledge her brokenness in our culture.  Of course this isn’t every church, and success looks different.  However, the trends are undeniable the American church is in decline as millions of Christians have left the local church and even more refuse to engage for a list of reasons too long for this discussion. 

Before I go any further it’s important to note that my view is not intended to be comprehensive and I don’t claim exclusive insight to the Church’s struggles.  This is about the experiment I’m leading for my community and others that may look like mine.  Our church’s experiment starts with the noticing that most churches gather and grow around similarities.  Similar races, similar neighborhoods, similar social groups, similar income brackets.   The hard part for me is that the community I live in does not have those similarities.  The neighborhoods are different, education levels are different, cultures are different, incomes are different…you get the idea.    Faced with these realities it’s not uncommon for a church to select a group they want to “target” and build a model that fits that group.  It’s popular and it works, unfortunately it greatly favors communities with attractive demographics.  The unwritten model of church planting sometimes is to find a white affluent suburban community with household incomes over $100k and create a culture that is attractive to that demographic.   This model fills the elementary school auditoriums of those communities with aspiring church planters looking for critical mass.

Interestingly, our experiment also involves an elementary school.  A school abandoned several years ago in favor of a more favorable location.  We started our church in this elementary school building.  A church is not a building but our building is an important part of our church.  We don’t own it, the community does, so we want it to represent and be used by the community.  We’ve converted our elementary school into a Community Center.

         

 We have a building, we have a purpose so who do we invite?  You guessed it…our community.  That’s where this experiment starts to get really messy.  While we are comfortable defining our community by geographic boundaries it’s clear that our community defines itself by social boundaries.  Kids in the trailer park play together and kids at the Country Club play together…we have both in our community.  It’s at this point when some community churches start to redefine mission.  Here is the thought:  The families in the expensive neighborhoods have too much stuff and the families in the less expensive neighborhoods don’t have enough stuff.  We then experiment with the idea redistributing stuff from the haves to the have-nots.  This works if the issue is stuff.  We live in a material world so material solutions seem logical.  Our experiment has taught us that redistributing stuff is helpful in some ways but is divisive in others.  We don’t invite poor people to our church because they have material needs and we don’t invite wealthy people because they material abundance.  We want people to come to our church to join the mission and meet the guy that started this mission (by the way that isn’t me). 

So what does a church committed to this kind of social diversity look like?  We believe you don’t battle the cultural complexities of division with more complexity and methods.  We believe the solution is simplicity.  We work to not be impressive but always inviting.  Our plans are anchored in simple ideas that are powerful enough to transcend income divisions.   Sociologists tell us that diverse groups can work and grow together where there is meaning.  They tell us that a group has to find an outward purpose centered on core ideals that are inclusive enough to accept broad experiences but clear enough to easily communicate.  Our simple idea is that we exist to Love God and Love Others.  We believe this allows for a diverse group of voices and invites everyone to play, regardless of where they are on the spiritual or social continuum.  Those voices have to be represented in leadership (or power) so our leadership team is made up of roofers and school counselors, felons and lawyers, entrepreneurs and factory workers.  They lead from different social experiences but are anchored in our simple idea to Love God and Love Others.  It’s this glue that holds the whole experiment together.  Are we successful?  I think so.  We see success in the areas you predict but our most measured area is that of change.  Change by all of us to be more like the guy that started this idea and we know how difficult that change can really be.  

A Peculiar Kind of Sadness

It’s been a sad day for me.  As I struggle to finalize the sermon I’ll deliver to Village Community Church this week my mind continues to be captured by recent events.  Over the past ten days we’ve seen a racist gunman sit through an hour of bible study and then murder the people that had welcomed him into the study.  In the city I live we saw a police officer shot in the street by a 21 year old that wanted to commit suicide by cop.  These two incidents weigh heavily on my heart imagining the loss the families are suffering tonight.  Like all violence, it’s senseless and I struggle to not become desensitized to what seems to be normal reports of human hatred. 

Growing up I remember preachers using current events like these to remind us that “time was winding up” and that God’s judgment was “nigh”.  The implication was that human sin had reached its pinnacle and a line had been crossed.  Unfortunately, that line of morality seems to be continually moving and humans continue to step over it.  The truth is, this is not new.  Throughout history man has shown himself capable of horrific atrocities, all deserving of God’s final judgment.   Don’t get me wrong, things are bad.  We live in culture that has devalued life while at the same time making individual needs the center of the universe.   We’ve rewritten centuries of orthodoxy in favor of relevant truths that tickle our ears and satisfy personal opinion.  We’re smarter than ever and further from the truth.   

This leads me to the other source of my sadness.  Just yesterday the Supreme Court of the United States handed down a landmark decision that redefines marriage in our society.  The court, and public opinion, has ruled saying that this is an issue of equal rights.  If fairness and equality are our driving values then the court may have the standing to do what it has done.  If the rights of individuals supersede the created order then the court has acted properly.  If however, you possess a different view of God’s plan, one based on the scriptures, this is a decision that opposes our belief system.  A belief system that has now taken a back seat to a belief that individual choice trumps everything.  I’m offended by this decision and hold disagreement but not at all surprised.  This is the predictable progression of a culture set on centering all truth on individual rights.  It’s unfortunate but inevitable.  This makes me sad but it isn’t all that makes me sad.

What also makes me sad as I write is the response from Christians to this decision.   It’s not that I don’t understand the frustration and hold a similar view of scripture but I’m taken back by the vitriol and fear that this has caused.   It seems we’ve forgotten that the same scriptures that define marriage also define our response to a culture hostile to our belief system.   We seem to be concerned that God is perplexed by this court decision and wonder if He’s really in control.  We respond to His lack of movement on the issue with our own attempts to set the record straight using catchy phrases, snippets of scripture and social media campaigns.  Thank God he has us to straighten this whole mess out for Him. 

I can hear my critics now.  “Kevin we can’t just stand by and…”, “It’s our right to speak up…”, “The next thing you know they’ll be taking away the tax deductibility of our offerings.”  Don’t get me wrong, I believe we do have to stand for something.  I do believe we should speak up.  I appreciate the deduction from Uncle Sam but it's not why I give.   What I also believe is that we should stand up for is the true religion (worship) that the Apostle James asks of us when he said:

 If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless. Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. (James 1:26-27 NIV)

James was speaking to fellow Jews that had been displaced from their homeland, presumably because of their new found Christian belief.  In other words, their belief system cost them their Jewish rights and for this they were being persecuted.  James warns them that “friendship with the world is hatred toward God”  (4:4) so while he underlines our need to live by God’s standard he also defines true worship as watching our words, helping the helpless and not being negatively influenced by culture.  This prohibition against cultural influence is certainly moral but it’s also political.  Remember these are Christians that had given up their partisan and cultural standings as Jews to follow this new thing called “The Way”.  This “Way” also costs me.  It asks me to stand in opposition to cultural norms, not with strong words, but with quiet kindness.  Trusting that God is in control and that He’ll reconcile all things.  I’m involved but it is still His plan.  And while I’m short on ideas on how to make “those” people see things my way, I’ll continue to love them through my personal views that are sometimes obstructed by the log in my own eye.   I believe I'll preach on love this week.  

Generational Change

Generational Change

In business and technology we use the term Disruptive Innovation to describe a product or innovation that replaces or improves a previous market or technology.  It happens so quickly and often in today’s world that many are taken for granite but still measurable.  Some more obvious examples would be how mobile phones disrupted the communication marketplace or how the internet disrupted our shopping habits.   Sometimes these disruptions come in the form of people, Steve Jobs disrupted our perception of how people interface with technology and Ray Kroc disrupted America’s dining.  The examples are endless but they all have one thing in common, change.  These innovations and innovators bring new products, perceptions and ideas so powerful that the old way is permanently changed. 

We know that change happens in varied degrees, but the longer the old habit or reality has been in place the more forceful the disruption needs to be.  Disrupters have to be powerful because old technologies, old ideas, old habits, old dysfunctions die hard.  We see this resistance to change in the lives of people too.  The “normal” we know typically becomes the de facto-normal of our future.   Of course, this could be a good thing if we’ve experienced a healthy “normal”.  We know that parents that eat healthy raise children with healthier eating habits, parents that go to college have kids that are more likely to go to college and parents that save money have children that are more likely to save.  Unfortunately, not all “normal” is good.  Research tells us that children that grow up in homes with addiction are 2-4 times more likely to have an addiction, adult children of divorce are more likely to divorce and 70% of children with an incarcerated parent will at some point serve prison time.  Setting aside the debate on causation versus correlation, we can agree that the children are more likely to repeat patterns and habits of their custodial parents.  It’s a grim reality that needs disruption. 

Joshua’s Place exists to help break the cycles that cause instability.  In our work we see instability come in many forms and many are passed from one generation to another.  Not all struggles are generational but when they are it takes even greater disruption to change the future.  As a faith based organization, focused on the eternal, we’re not satisfied with short term solutions but rather bringing truth that has lasting impact both in this life and eternally.  Our model is to “Give a fish, teach to fish and fish alongside”.  We call it prepositional ministry, ministry done “with” not “to” or “for”.   We anchor ourselves in the scriptures that show us the power of generational change and how God moves in families to change futures.  These ancient truths tell us the stories of change but also equip us with the truths needed to bring change to individuals, families and the community we serve. 

In our eight years of work we’ve seen the impact of Generational Disrupters.  People that walked in our doors struggling with chaos, addiction, broken relationships and spiritual emptiness.  These same people, through the power of God’s truth, his indwelling Spirit and healthy relationships, have gone on to forever change the trajectory of their family.  These are the folks brave enough to think differently, trust bigger and change course for themselves and their children. 

To help these disrupters we offer development courses on parenting, financial literacy and self-discovery.  We have a community of grateful believers in Celebrate Recovery that are committed to overcoming the hurts, hang ups and habits in life that create bondage.  We work with children to improve reading literacy and offer extended camps focused on healthy views of self, God, other and our community.  It’s not a menu of programs it’s a strategy of change.  Change built on the truths of scriptures and implemented by 250 volunteers and the, more than 500, families we support.  Some have called this approach innovative, a break from the tired systems of entitlement and self-victimization that’s now several generations deep in our culture.  We don’t believe it’s innovative, it’s a timeless approach with contemporary application. We do believe it requires the innovation, commitment and courage of Generational Disrupters that will stand in the gap for their family’s future.   It is these disrupters that we seek and support, knowing that changed individuals change families that change communities. 

Revival

I’m a Pentecostal believer.  That confession has just caused some to negatively prejudice everything I’m about to write.  It may have also assigned undeserved credibility to an entirely different group.  This division of opinion comes after centuries of awakenings and abuse in church history where the Pentecostal experience was, in whole or part, the center of seismic shifts of ecclesiastic direction.  

   

This divisive phenomena is not new.  In the first recording of the Church’s Pentecostal experience Peter had to defend the undeniable manifestations that confused the 120 people present.  He quoted the prophet Joel to help anchor the confusion as to the purpose of this “Latter Day Rain”.   He reminded the audience there that Jesus was a man accredited to them by God through the signs and wonders that followed Him (Acts 2).  In fact, Jesus himself instructed the twelve to utilize these miraculous gifts in conjunction with their inaugural missionary journey (Matthew 10).   And in his final days Jesus helped assuage their doubt by reminding them of the miraculous things that they had seen Him do and telling them that they would do even “greater things” (John 14). 

My study of church history (since it’s conception at Pentecost) has revealed regular outbreaks of these signs and wonders, healings and ecstatic manifestations.  The undeniable trend is that God breaks through in, what appears to be, sudden and unexpected ways to rekindle the mission and refocus the efforts.  Each outbreak is different in geography, scale and lasting impact and most are marked by some controversy.  However, it is clear  that God uses these times and tools to defibrillate the heart and life of His Church.   We call them revivals and I’m praying for one in my community. 

As I pray for revival I’m careful to not focus on the signs and wonders exclusively.  It’s my prayer that these things would give evidence but never be THE point.  It’s my prayer that God’s revival in my community would be marked with the miraculous and sustained by mission.  Too often these geographic outbreaks begin with extraordinary encouragement to existing believers but then sometimes struggle to not become introverted.  You see this as Pentecostal Pilgrims continue to opine the glory days of Brownsville, Kansas City, Toronto and even Azusa Street talking of revival in a past tense. 

I’m praying for a new revival for my town and church.  A fresh pouring of the Holy Spirit that is invited by a repentant and humble group of believers.  A revival brought not for our fame but for His.  A revival not only marked by signs and wonders but, more importantly, by change.  Change in individual lives that turn away from sin and toward grace.  Change in a church that sees itself as loving, missional and able.  Change in a community that sees God’s providence redeem the institutions of industry, government, education and religion.   I believe that true revival isn’t identified by emotion but is evidenced by new life. It’s my prayer that God would use whatever tool necessary to spark that revival in my life, the life of our church and our community.  Pray with me.  

Discover IDU

Every two seconds someone in America becomes a victim of Identity Theft.  Criminals steal secret information from victims and use that information to destroy their reputation, personal image and credit worthiness.  It’s an invasive crime since our identities stand at the very center of our person-hood. 

In my life, one of the more difficult faith principles to get my mind around is how I am made in God’s image.  As I try to imagine God being like me he seems very small.  As I try to imagine me being like God it seems too big.  Honestly, it’s overwhelming the more I understand my shortcomings standing in the shadow of God’s goodness. 

   

As I've dealt with my own image problem over the past two decades I've benefited from some very insightful mentors and practical tools.  I can still remember the feeling of freedom I felt realizing that I wasn't “backward” (a term popular in Appalachian families) but was simply introverted.  Realizing I wasn't “stupid” but was instead contemplative, allowed me to embrace my truer self and quit pretending to be something I wasn't. 

In my work over the past several years with struggling families I have noticed an undeniable trend.  Poor people, struggling people, people in vulnerable places too often believe some terrible things about themselves.  What’s worse is that they usually express those traits in hopeless terms, discounting their value or ability to change.  Without using terms like “generational curse” or “ancestral jinx” they describe their circumstances as if they are predestined to live in their current difficulty.  Poverty isn't always a result of poor choices but there are changes that must be made to break generational poverty.   These changes start with a belief and self-awareness about the “uniqueness of you”.  I’m not talking about the self-esteem movement that tells us we can “be anything we want to be” but about understanding better our unique identity and our purpose.   I believe generational change starts with individual disrupters.  Someone deciding to see themselves differently and stand in the gap for future generations.

 To help these disrupters we (Joshua’s Place) have created a development course called Discover IDU (Identity University).  The idea came when I realized I had been the benefactor of some great tools throughout my personal and spiritual development.  Meyer-Briggs, Strength Finders, Disc and many other tools used to help me know me better.  These tools help with self-awareness and create a foundation of change.   Individuals stuck in generational poverty usually don’t have access to these types of tools and rarely are given the opportunity to reflect on personal uniqueness. 

We will be utilizing The Birkman Assessment tool that expresses individual results in terms of Strengths and Needs and in relational terms.  Using this tool as our basis, we will then teach through the four key relationships we all have; the relationship with our self, others, our community and God.   We believe a foundation of self-awareness coupled with relevant teaching, in a trusted environment can help generational disrupters change their futures.   We also believe we can help them reclaim the God-given identity that has been robbed from them.   

If you’d like to know more about this you can email me at kpeyton@joshuasplace.cc.   

The Paradox of Joy (written August 15, 2009)

“Joy is not the absence of difficulty”. The Lord spoke this to me this weekend while I was thanking Him for the closeness that has come to be more normal in my walk lately. In the midst of that prayer of thanksgiving, my mind began to recount the personal struggles I have been through recently (and still battle currently). I won’t dive into the details here, but know that I have been forced to face the worst kind of fears a father could confront. So over the past several months my family and I have been through enough emotional suffering to last us a lifetime. As I was taking inventory of my “present suffering” it felt wrong to be thinking of joy. It just doesn’t seem logical to think that in the midst of such pain that joy would be possible…but it’s there. With the battle still raging it feels important to capture the unique paradox of joy and difficulty, suffering and hope. As I meditate on this I draw wisdom from other saints that new something of joy and suffering. I first think of King David who wrote in Psalm 23 (I know you’ve heard/read this a hundred times but really read it right now):

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, 3 he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. 4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.5 you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 6 Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

There are those that read this and fully know David’s reference to “…the valley of the shadow of death…”, you know loss and pain. I don’t know that I did until this past year but I have literally faced “the shadow of death” and in the midst of this valley, I have experienced the comfort of the Lord’s rod and staff (His strength and direction). This experience has left me with the hope and assurance that “…I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

Maybe it’s coincidental that these things (suffering and hope) are currently connected or maybe it’s just God’s provision for me as I face this difficulty. Maybe, but then I’m reminded of the Apostle Paul’s discussion on the topic in Romans 5 where Paul seems to be writing the formula for hope that begins with suffering.

Romans 5:3…We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

I’ve been guilty of reading this verse as if it were a formula, some type of spiritual equation. I can logically tie together how suffering leads to perseverance. It makes since if you deal with tough things you get stronger and are more able to persevere. I also get how that perseverance breeds character.   But what I could not understand, until recently, is how that hope is related to any of this. Why hope? I think the piece that ties the first three (suffering, perseverance and character) to the latter (hope) is trust (or faith). You see, the hope that I now have is firmly rooted in knowing the depths of God’s love and experiencing the power of His Spirit and feeling the depth of intimacy with Jesus in these low times. All of those things raise my faith in Him and allow me to fully realize the hope, or joy, that is promised Christians. This is a faith that is taught not caught, learned in the school of spiritual hard knocks.

Run from the preacher that tries to convince you that the goal of a Christ Follower is a life without struggle.  I haven’t come across many that would state it so plainly, but I have heard many messages that paint the ideal picture of a Christian is a life without difficulty. Their messages tend to be heavy on the call to prayer for blessings and then subtly hint that any adversity you’re facing may be your lack of faith. The truth is, that the current suffering you’re facing may be about faith, not the faith you’re lacking but the faith that God is building in you. It’s in that new found faith that you’ll also find joy.

Joy is not the absence of difficulty.