TDC + ONE = TWO
In case you haven’t heard via phone/email/Facebook/Twitter, I got the job at ONE! I’ve been working there for a week and a half now, and I absolutely love it. It’s a challenge—and it’s pretty exhausting, too—to work two jobs (30 hours a week at ONE and 20-25 hours at The District Church), but I love both; and am grateful for your prayers last week for the interview.
As a quick summary, the campaign that I’ve been hired for is coordinating a nationwide event on April 10, called “Lazarus Sunday” (so-called because one of the passages in the lectionary for that day is the raising of Lazarus in John 11). We want to use this occasion, in conjunction with the (RED)/HBO documentary “The Lazarus Effect”—which looks at the positive impact of anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) on people living with HIV/AIDS, and which you can watch here—to raise awareness and push for advocacy asks through churches, and thus build relationships with churches to engage in the rest of ONE’s work on fighting extreme poverty and preventable diseases.
I’m excited to be working on such a worthwhile project; I love the people I get to work with; and I’m looking forward to seeing more churches engaged in fighting HIV/AIDS. I’ll include more updates on how this goes in future emails, too.
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Getting this job definitely helps with raising support, as it’ll take me up to about $23,000 of the $30,000 that I forecasted I’d need for this year; but it means I still have a few grand of support left to raise for this year. If you know anyone you think would be interested in supporting a certain musician-activist-pastor, let me know!
Prayers please …
- For the family and friends of Lucki Pannell. She was a senior at Cardozo High School, where several from our church—including myself—volunteer with Young Life; in fact, she also attended Young Life. This past Saturday, she was killed in a shooting two streets away from where I live. Please pray also for the peace of our neighborhood and the life of our community.
- For the boys I’ve been getting to know at Young Life, whose lives are so different from mine, and yet whom I know God has called me to invest in.
- For The District Church, as we continue to grow, build relationships within the church and in our neighborhood, seek opportunities to serve and love the people around us, and seek the transformation of our city.
- For myself, as I try to be disciplined with my time, balancing a couple of jobs, trying to give my best to both, and also to take some rest and not burn out! Prayers for the success of the ONE campaign I’m working on would also be appreciated!
Grace and peace to you and your loved ones,
Jus.
Previously on “Justin @The District Church”
- Washington, DC: Chapter 2(October 11, 2010)
- Beginning November (and the Leadership Residency)(November 1, 2010)
- Why The District Church?(November 18, 2010)
- My First Sermon(December 15, 2010)
- What a difference a year makes(December 29, 2010)
- If I Keep Going At This Rate(January 18, 2011)
- A Message and a Job Interview (January 31, 2011)
TO GIVE, PLEASE FILL THIS OUT AND SEND BACK TO justin@districtchurch.org.
I/we would like to offer monthly support by donating on the 1st____ 16th____ of the month:*
$500____ $250____ $100____ $50____ $25____ Other______
These contributions will be mailed ___ transferred online___ automatically drafted online ___.
I/we would like to give a special gift of $_________________
Name:____________________ Phone:________________
Address:______________________
City:______________ State:____ Zip/Postcode:_________
E-mail:__________________________________________
Checks can be made payable to "The District Church," with "Leadership Residency" in the memo and sent to: The District Church, PO Box 3116, Washington, DC 20010.
* The initial commitment would be for one year, though you’re welcome to lengthen or shorten your commitment; just include this information in your response.
** The most convenient option for you to give would be online via the church website. Please make sure to select "Leadership Residency” when it asks you to “Choose a Fund.”
All gifts are fully tax-deductible.
MLK
From his "Drum Major Instinct" sermon, delivered February 4, 1968, only a few months before his assassination, words to keep me humble and grounded and ever thankful that God invites us to play a part in his story:
Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know Einstein's theory of relativity to serve. You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love. And you can be that servant.
I know a man—and I just want to talk about him a minute, and maybe you will discover who I'm talking about as I go down the way because he was a great one. And he just went about serving. He was born in an obscure village, the child of a poor peasant woman. And then he grew up in still another obscure village, where he worked as a carpenter until he was thirty years old. Then for three years, he just got on his feet, and he was an itinerant preacher. And he went about doing some things. He didn't have much. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family. He never owned a house. He never went to college. He never visited a big city. He never went two hundred miles from where he was born. He did none of the usual things that the world would associate with greatness. He had no credentials but himself.
He was only thirty-three when the tide of public opinion turned against him. They called him a rabble-rouser. They called him a troublemaker. They said he was an agitator. He practiced civil disobedience; he broke injunctions. And so he was turned over to his enemies and went through the mockery of a trial. And the irony of it all is that his friends turned him over to them. One of his closest friends denied him. Another of his friends turned him over to his enemies. And while he was dying, the people who killed him gambled for his clothing, the only possession that he had in the world. When he was dead he was buried in a borrowed tomb, through the pity of a friend.
Nineteen centuries have come and gone and today he stands as the most influential figure that ever entered human history. All of the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned put together have not affected the life of man on this earth as much as that one solitary life.
I’ll fight to the very end
From yesterday's Verse & Voice, courtesy of Sojourners:
While women weep, as they do now, I'll fight; while children go hungry, as they do now, I'll fight; while men go to prison, in and out, in and out, as they do, I'll fight; while there is one drunkard left, while there is a poor girl upon the streets, while there remains one dark soul without the light of God, I'll fight -- I'll fight to the very end!
- William Booth, founder of The Salvation Army
Standing with DREAMers
This morning I sat in the Senate Gallery in the U.S. Capitol with about a hundred immigrant youths to show my support for and solidarity with these DREAMers. And sitting with them, hands clasped, heads bowed, lips praying, the reality of their situation hit home to me. These young people, brought to the United States as minors, had known no other home than America and wanted nothing more than to serve and contribute openly for the good of the country. And this morning, that occasion, was more than just a vote for them, more than just the raising or dropping of an index finger to signify approval or disapproval. This morning’s vote was about the very lives and livelihoods of the approximately 800,000 undocumented young people who would benefit from the DREAM Act.
This morning was what I needed: a reminder that the work that we do in seeking to live out the gospel’s demands of justice, of speaking up for the marginalized and voiceless, and of welcoming the stranger, really does matter.
Moving forward, the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Theodore Parker echo in my head: “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”
I have faith that justice will be served for these young people, that they will be afforded the chance to contribute and live lives out of the shadows. I have faith because justice is at the very heart of God, because the defense of those who are marginalized and oppressed is always the right thing to do. I have faith because American progress, though often slow and tortuous, continues to rumble forward, and comprehensive immigration reform--including the DREAM Act--that demolishes and defeats xenophobic rhetoric and anti-immigrant fear mongering will have its day.
And it will come soon. Not as soon as we would like, perhaps. But soon.
[Praying with the DREAMers after the vote.]
Two presidents on American priorities
President Franklin D. Roosevelt:
The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.
Second Inaugural Address; January 20, 1937
President Dwight D. Eisenhower:
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. […] Is there no other way the world may live?
“The Chance for Peace,” speech given to the American Society of Newspaper Editors; April 16, 1953