Live Like You Give a Damn!: Join the Changemaking Celebration

Foreword

Tom Sine is filled with energy. He writes with energy. He transmits energy to his readers. The reason for his energy is that he has seen a lively linkage between the deep promises of the gospel and the concrete practices of people who move out toward new futures with imagination, energy, and stamina. The connection of promise and practice, in Sine’s horizon, effectively bypasses the current paralysis of the church, which is too much trapped in fearful despair and preoccupation with survival. His book is a practice-grounded summons to do otherwise.

Sine has a gift for new suggestive phrasing that helps us see afresh. Try these:

Changemaking celebration.

The gift of disorientation.

Dreaming and scheming.

The future you want to inhabit.

The mustard seed empire of Jesus.

The age of imagination.

These phrases (and many more like them) are filled with quite concrete exposition, characterized by new energy and new possibility that are being performed in many places. Sine’s geography is expansive and ecumenical as he cites many specific embodiments of the work of imagination: Goshen, Bellingham, Alberta, Melbourne, and Pleasant Valley in Haiti. In all of these places Sine identifies folks who are engaged (I would say) in gospel obedience, but who do so without too much focus on the gospel and with no worry about obedience. Rather, they are caught up in the wonder of experiment, empowerment, and entrepreneurial investment out of which astonishing local things happen.

The bet that Sine makes is that the future is enacted by the emerging cadre of millennials who are not locked into or held back by or committed to old formulations, old institutional structures, or old treasured procedures. These are folks who will try anything, some of which may work in powerful ways to bring about healthy change, to create new neighborhoods and new healing transformations. They are alert to political reality and to the economic crunches produced by current economic arrangements; they know it can be otherwise.

This quite remarkable book in fact refuses our recurring questions about the future of the church. Sine does not make much of it, but I judge that his work is grounded in a theology of the Holy Spirit (to be sure, the Spirit of Christ!), the Spirit as wind, energy, force that will not linger over old patterns and boundaries. The book is a witness to Spirit-given energy and guidance, as the Spirit keeps the church young. In sum, his numerous case studies remind me of the narrative of the young church in the book of Acts in which the church is on the move in ways that transform and that cannot be stopped even by the frightened, bewildered imperial authorities. It is also an invitation to the not-young to join in such risky conduct, a joining that we variously find difficult and want to resist. The provocative title of the book suggests that in reality we have given too much of a damn for old structures and procedures. When we relinquish, new energy and imagination and courage are given for alternatives. I am glad to commend this exposition that exhibits quite concretely ways to revision, reimagine, and reperform the gospel. More than that, it invites us out of the narrative of old ways, out of our comfort zones, to new modes of life that may seem at first to be inconvenient in the extreme but that very soon may turn out to be joyous fulfillment in coming down where we ought to be. Such fresh, imaginative engagement will surely yield a well done from the Lord of the church who makes all things new.

Walter Brueggemann

Columbia Theological Seminary

January 25, 2016

Acknowledgments

So many friends and associates journeyed alongside me in the completion of this book. I am particularly grateful for Christine’s support and our good collaborators at Mustard Seed Associates. These include: Forrest Inslee, Katie Metzger, Stefan Schmidt and Andy Wade. I am very appreciative for Lisa San Martin’s keen editorial assistance.

A team of readers were of great value in helping me to clarifying what I was attempting to communicate as well as identifying my slip ups—including Tom Balke, Heidi Unruh, Chris Smith, John Pattison, Josh Packard, David Bronkema, Andy Brubacher Kaethler, J. D. Walt, Gary Heard, Trevor Thomas, Rosa Lee Hardin, Kevin Jones, John Talbot, Brian Howe, Jon Plummer, Liz Colver, Gregg Okesson. Larry Lake, who taught creative non-fiction writing at Messiah College, was a Godsend. He guided me as I struggled to incorporate some creative non-fiction in my narrative.

Sincere thanks to the team at Cascade Books. It feels like I am working with a very large and engaging family, including Charlie Collier, my editor, who was very clear and helpful in his guidance. Jacob Martin’s assistance was invaluable in polishing the manuscript for publication. Suzy Logan helped me, under James Stock’s careful guidance, to get our marketing platform carefully constructed.

I am particularly appreciative for Keith Anderson, President, and Derek McNeil, Academic Dean, at the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology for making it possible to launch this book at the Inhabit Conference in 2016. I am grateful to all those who not only read this book but also sent us their stories of ways God is using their mustard seeds in innovative ways to be a difference and make a difference in these turbulent times.

I dedicate this work to three groups of people. First, the book is dedicated to the growing number of those in Gens Y and Z who are investing their lives in making a real difference in the lives of their neighbors near and far—as well as those who want to join them. I not only dedicate this book to them, I want to do everything I can to help these young changemakers launch and challenge others to join them.

Second, this book is also dedicated to parents committed to raising compassionate kids in this age of entitlement. For example, a friend of mine has just ordered a copy of Jan Johnson’s classic book Growing Compassionate Kids because he wants his daughter to learn to focus more on the needs of others. I met a family who takes their two young teens to Thailand every summer to teach teens English as a second language. Of course in the process they not only get to know other teens and another culture, their parents report they are being changed as well as learning how to collaborate with others to bring change. Still other parents are committed to seeing their kids grow not only into caring for others but also into caring for those in their own families. So they assign everyone in the family a list of chores and make sure everyone follows through. They report that they are seeing their offspring becoming more fulfilled by learning to both care for those in their own family and neighborhood and launch their own lives in ways that they can become more involved in changemaking celebration in their communities.

Third, this book is dedicated to educators and youth workers committed to growing compassionate, creative, and changemaking young adults. The Mennonite Colleges in Canada and the U.S. were among the first Christian colleges in North America to require students to have a cross-cultural experience as a requirement for graduation. For example, Canadian Mennonite University in Manitoba sponsors an unusual program for their students called Outtatown Discipleship School. Essentially, this is an experiential program where groups of students go to Guatemala, Burkina Faso, and an urban community in Winnipeg to better get to know God, themselves, and the beauty, pain, and diversity of God’s world.

Nathan, one of the instructors, encourages students to use this is an opportunity to see the world differently . . . to see it through the eyes of Jesus. Bethany, who was a part of a student group that went to Guatemala, discovered that God’s love is not passive or timid . . . it is a powerful active force! Not surprisingly, many of these grads go on to join this powerful active force through their careers in urban empowerment, environmental stewardship, or working with at-risk high-school students in their discretionary time. This book is dedicated to all those in Gen Next and all those who are seeking to join this changemaking celebration. It is also dedicated to all those parents, youth workers, and educators that are seeking to empower them to create their best communities, their best world, and in the process their best lives in these troubled times.

Introduction:The Clock Is Ticking!

Join the Changemaking Celebration

The clock is ticking for this tomato, stated Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu, a social entrepreneur from Nigeria, holding up a single red tomato. This was the opening line to a very imaginative social enterprise proposal called ColdHubs¹ that he presented during the Fledge Session at Impact Hub Seattle on July 6, 2015. He described an inventive new refrigerated food storage unit—essentially, a shipping container with solar-powered refrigeration—for produce in communities where no electricity is available. Then Nnaemeka demonstrated how these refrigerated storage units could be located in public markets throughout Nigeria, dramatically expanding the life of that tomato from two days to twenty-one days for a modest storage fee. This would mean a dramatic increase in the fresh food supply for consumers, greater income for farmers and vendors, and an enormous reduction in agricultural waste.

Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu plans to scale ColdHubs up to serve public markets all over Nigeria and then expand this social enterprise to other countries in Africa. His simple, scalable invention illustrates the power of social enterprise to impact millions of people.

The clock is ticking, and not only for produce but also for people and the planet. The clock is ticking for sixty million refugees from the Middle East who are seeking a safe haven for their families. The clock is ticking for tens of millions of young people who can’t find work, not only in the Middle East and Africa but also in Europe and in all corners of the globe. The clock is ticking for the earth, as we seem unable to stop dumping our garbage in the ocean and the atmosphere. As we race into the 2020s, the clock is ticking for all of us because the rate of change seems to be accelerating and we could all face daunting new challenges.

Announcing Some Very Good News

I have some very good news—and some really bad news. The good news first. God seems to be at work not only through people of faith but also through people of compassion who are bringing welcome change to our world in what some are calling an innovation revolution. In the last ten years there has been a veritable explosion of new forms of social innovations, like the Cold Hub, all over the planet.

The good news just gets better. Much of this new changemaking is being led by young innovators from Gen Y (those born between 1981 and 1997) and Gen Z (those born between 1998 and 2014). Since Gen Y and Gen Z are the first digital generations, they seem to be more aware of the daunting social, economic, and environmental challenges facing our world. Most importantly, a surprising number of them are determined to do something about it. Even though research also shows that some in Gen Y and Gen Z do feel more entitled, I want to join, support, and learn from those who want to use their lives to have an impact on the lives of others.

I think what we are witnessing, however, is a changemaking celebration more than an innovation revolution. I suspect you will also celebrate the sense of satisfaction and significance changemakers often seem to experience as they create and discover in ways that make a real difference in the lives of others. I believe the Spirit of God may well be using the lives of these young social innovators, who are largely outside the church, to entice and challenge those of us in the churches to become much more a part of this remarkable new movement that is making such a difference in the lives of our most vulnerable neighbors. Why would any follower of the servant Jesus want to settle for less and miss the best—discovering how God can more fully use our lives to make a little difference in our troubled world?

On our global tour we will visit an array of often younger social innovators who through groups like the Transitions Town network in Britain, Australia, and the US, are fashioning more sustainable, resilient, and flourishing local communities—and are having the time of their lives doing it. You will also meet this new generation of social entrepreneurs from all over the planet who are creating a range of new businesses with social and environmental missions that are making a difference in the lives of millions of our neighbors.

These generations also seem to resonate strongly with Pope Francis’s challenge to care much more for both the vulnerable and the environment. On February 15, 2015, Pope Francis very directly challenged leaders in the church to follow Jesus by embracing a gospel of compassion and action. He declared, The gospel of the marginalized is where our credibility is found and revealed.² This message urgently needs to be heard not only by leaders within the Catholic Church but also by the entire Western church as we race into the 2020s. As I share some daunting bad news, I think you will see why Pope Francis’s challenge to all of us in the church to become people of compassion and action couldn’t be more timely.

And Now for the Bad News: Does the Future Have a Church?

The clock is also ticking for the church in the West! While the church is enjoying rapid growth in China, a number of African nations, and other countries, this regrettably is not true for many churches in the United States, Canada, Australia, Britain, and other Western nations.

I have had the opportunity, over more than three decades, to be a consultant in futures research and innovative planning, working with and learning from leaders in mainline denominations like the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Mennonite Church, the United Methodist Church, and the American Baptist Church. I remember, in the early 1980s, showing leaders of a number of mainline denominations that not only were their denominations beginning to gray but their attendance was beginning to decline significantly as well. Now, however, leaders of mainline denomination are not only much more aware of often sharp decline lines but are scrambling to find ways to reverse the decline. Alan Roxburgh, in a thoughtful analysis of the efforts of denominational leaders to deal with the hemorrhaging they are facing, calls this the great unraveling of the Eurotribal denominations.³

These days I find it is often the leaders of evangelical denominations who are struggling with denial about the potential long-term impact of declining attendance and aging populations in many of their congregations as well. Diana Butler Bass observes in Christianity After Religion, Churches in the Southern Baptist Convention, the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church and the conservative Presbyterian Church in America are reporting losses that resemble declines their mainline counterparts suffered in the 1970s . . . Indeed, the first decade of the twenty-first century could rightly be called the Great Religious Recession.⁴

While some ethnic and immigrant churches in the West are experiencing more growth than most white churches, the ticking of the clock seems to be accelerating in mainline denominations in the West. In North America they are declining at a rate of 1 to 4 percent a year. Leaders in these denominations increasingly express concern about how declining numbers are also causing serious reductions in resources they are able to invest in local and global mission. In fact, I hear growing numbers of leaders in these organizations ask the urgently important question, Does the future have a church?

Lovett Weems, a leader in the United Methodist Church, offers us an arresting answer. In an article in Faith and Leadership, he uses the provocative phrase death tsunami to describe his view of the future of many mainline churches, including his own. Essentially, he argues that the current rate of decline is not constant. Since many of our mainline congregations are comprised of members of the Silent generation (those born between 1925 and 1945) and Boomer generation (those born between 1946 and 1964), the rate of decline will accelerate. Weems urges us to wake up to this huge tsunami wave that is headed our way while we still have time to act. He predicts that this trend is likely to accelerate most rapidly after 2020.⁵

To compound this growing crisis, we are losing the under forty at a rate we have never seen before. I am sure that many readers are aware of the Pew Research Report titled Millennials Increasingly Are Driving the Growth of the ‘Nones.’ The nones are those who identify as being not affiliated with any religious group. Whereas only 11 percent of the Silent Generation describe themselves as unaffiliated, for the millennials the figure is more than three times as high, at 35 percent.⁶ Some of the major concerns expressed by millennials who have left our churches include a lack of authenticity, a lack of involvement in working for social and environmental change, and the preoccupation with institutional maintenance.

A second group of people increasingly leaving our churches are the Dones. According to Josh Packard and Ashleigh Hope, authors of Church Refugees, these Christians, who are multigenerational, are leaving churches in the US because, like many millennials, they are looking for ways to invest in working for change in the lives of their neighbors.⁷ In the concluding chapter, I address these concerns more directly, exploring ways to draw upon both the compassion and creativity of Gen Next to innovate not only new forms of changemaking but also new forms of faithful communities for times like these.

To make matters even worse, levels of participation in both mainline and evangelical churches in the West have also been declining for well over a decade. As we race into the 2020s, I predict we are likely to see not only an accelerating decline in numbers but also a dramatic decline in the investment of time and money in projects to empower our most vulnerable neighbors.

A number of mainline churches still sponsor seminars on social justice and environmental stewardship. Many evangelical congregations continue to sponsor an annual missions conference that reflects their global concerns. However, in working with a spectrum of mainline and evangelical churches in North America I have found that although many congregations contribute to the local food bank or rescue mission, they rarely sponsor a single ministry in their own communities that would enable their neighbors or communities to become more self-reliant.

The problem with food banks is that while they do help people meet their immediate food needs, they do little to enable them to move beyond a lifestyle of dependency. When aging churches close down, support for the food banks also disappears. Of course, as I will show you in subsequent chapters, there are congregations involved in a range of alternatives to the charity model of care. For example, Bridge of Hope⁸ enables local congregation all over the US to develop a team of eight to twelve people who receive training in how to mentor a single parent and her children to empower them to become more self-sufficient. Janice and her son, Tony, met with their support team at their Chicago church every month for a year to share a meal and a conversation. The team enabled Janice to find a good job and a safe place near the church to live. I urge all of our churches to become involved in this kind of serious empowerment.

Don’t we all need to wake up to the stunning new reality that business as usual will no longer serve? Is it possible that large numbers of churches have settled for simply being chaplains to the dominant culture? Is it possible that they have settled for simply helping nurture us in a fairly private faith while enabling us to limp through our week? Is it possible that we could be missing out on God’s best—discovering how God could use our mustard seeds to join those who are creating their best neighborhoods, their best world, and, in the process, their best lives?

Walter Brueggemann, in his recent book Sabbath as Resistance, offers readers a clear alternative to the dominant culture of now. He argues that the dominant culture of now is preoccupied with a driven acquisitiveness, consumerism, and self-involved lifestyles. He reminds us that Jesus calls us away from mammon, the culture of now, to a new Sabbath way of being by redefining what is important, what is of value, so that we have time for both devotion to God and care for our neighbors. Brueggemann states, Sabbath is an arena in which we learn to recognize that we live by gift and not by possession . . .⁹

What Is God Stirring Up?

The dance on the Berlin Wall is the Dance of God. The songs sung in the streets of Soweto at the release of Nelson Mandela are the songs of God. And the prayers for the peace of Jerusalem are the prayers of God.¹⁰ This summary of promise I called people to in my book, Wild Hope, expresses the kind of hope God was stirring up in the early 1990s. Now, as we race into the second decade of the twenty-first century, the good news is that the Creator God is still at work stirring up new possibilities. I believe one of the ways God is at work today is in stirring up people, largely outside the church, to challenge all of us to invest our lives and resources more fully in joining those who are working for change in the lives of our most vulnerable neighbors.

Remember that in Matthew 25 Jesus admonishes us that as we care for the urgent physical needs of our neighbors we are expressing our love for Christ. Of course, the ministry of the church also includes calling people to become followers of the radical way of Jesus and planting communities of faith. However, I will argue that to be authentic followers of Jesus we need to start by embracing a more authentic whole-life faith, which entails investing more of our time in being more present to both God and to neighbors—if we want those outside the church to take us seriously. However, we also need to plant new churches that are much more invested in compassionate changemaking, instead of focusing so much of our resources on the needs of those of us under the tent.

Walter Brueggemann observes that the great crisis in our world today is a crisis of the common good. He reminds us that concern for the common good reaches beyond private interest, which has become the driving force of the global economy. He also reminds us that concern for the common good is both the vocation of the children of Israel and those of us who follow Jesus.¹¹ Isn’t the call to work for the well-being of both humankind and God’s good creation central to what it means to be a follower of Jesus?

As we focus on our calling to work for the common good, I have been particularly challenged by the ways God seems to be stirring up the empathy, compassion, and imagination of people largely outside the tent to remind us that our neighbors and neighborhoods matter and real change is possible. As the authors of The New Parish put it, God is up to something in neighborhoods, on the ground, in real places. The church in all its diversity, needs to figure out how to join in.¹²

Why Am I Inviting You to Join This Changemaking Movement?

After I take you on a very quick tour of this changemaking celebration, I think you too will see some of the remarkable potential of these new forms of social innovation to make a lasting difference in the lives of our neighbors as we work with others for the common good. I will show you that the clock