Become God's People: Equip Ourselves for God's Mission
The second invitation to Become God’s People is to Equip Ourselves for God’s Mission. How we define “God’s people” again shapes our response. A narrow view of God’s people results in some form of those who are “in” and those who are “out” with the creator of the view always being “in.” The most inclusive view of God’s people includes all of those who live on earth so that “God’s people” and “Earth’s people” are synonyms. The vision for this mission is that every human being on the planet will be doing helping actions and avoiding hurtful and harmful actions. Instead of the “ins” and the “outs” we see that we are all participants in both helping and harmful actions. Adolph Hitler, no doubt, helped a few but harmed many. Mother Teresa helped many but, no doubt, harmed a few. What keeps God’s mission from becoming reality is the accumulated impact of harmful actions that offset the accumulated impact of helpful actions. Each of us is one of over six billion separate struggles or jihads where helping actions have the potential to replace harmful actions. In addition we are all parts of groups either by birth are by choice where helpful and harmful actions struggle against each other. In many of these groups and in our own lives ideology is the major source of harm. When ideology is more important than helping actions, harmful actions are not far behind. Whether it is the master race ideology of Hitler or the authoritative certainty of the Christian second universe ideology, the harmful actions speak for themselves. What we need to practice are all of those things that increase our sensitivity and activity to helping others. We can also be greatly helped by sharing our thoughts and meanings with others who are open to the global vision of God’s people.
Re: Become God's People: Equip Ourselves for God's Mission
This week's Newsweek cover story is about America's boys....they are not necessarily doing well (surpassed by girls).....and many child advocates and researchers are trying to figure it out.
And today's Sarasota newspaper features an article about mentoring and how important and how successful mentoring is for our youth....and for our boys! These mentors are God's helpers to be sure.
