The Prophet D. Webb, Kaleo and more...

Interesting weekend.....

So our weekend started off by having some BBQ ribs and such with Aaron and Sara(h) (friends from med. school - Aaron's wife is the med student so he and I can talk and not be medical) which was great fun! We watched Hotel Rwanda... and that got me to thinking about the subject that will make up the majority of this post.....

Saturday night I went with John Roberson (jroberson.blogspot.com) to see Derek Webb (incidentally I think I left my sunglasses at the church.... weak) and it was pretty sweet. Derek talked a lot about social justice and Blood Water Mission (http://www.bloodwatermission.org/). This weekend I was also introduced to a website for a local church (www.kaleohouston.com). It's an Acts29 church that Jonathan Hays pointed me to... and Erin and I met the pastor and his wife (Bill and Shannon) and had dinner with them today (www.kaleobill.com).

I need to mention that Bill is Jonathan Hays' doppleganger.... Erin and I actually thought they looked alike when we saw him, even before we knew that he was the guy we were looking for. But I doubt that he's ever seen Bubba Ho-Tep or Cannibal: The Musical, so Jonathan is still superior....

OK.... onto some thoughts I've been processing for awhile:

On Africa and ministry to the extreme impoverished nations -

I've been thinking a lot about the call to Africa/Asia and the like where people are dying in the thousands daily due to lack of things like clean water, basic hygiene needs etc. I guess the question that baffles me currently is how do we effectively engage that culture? I struggle with how we practically help those people..... giving to things like Blood Water Mission or other humanitarian endeavors is surely worthwhile.... but to what end? What is the nature of the change that we're effecting?

So here's my hypothesis and I plan to flesh this out more over the next couple of weeks:

But my working theory is currently: Win the West to rescue the impoverished.

I think my concern with ministry in Africa is that no matter what we do for the people, the governement will at some point have to empower the people to make lasting changes...... giving bread and water will keep you alive long enough for someone to create a tax on charitable foodstuffs.... I know that's pessimistic - so I guess you can color me a realist.....

I don't really see the governments changing (BTW - government is used as a synonym for ruling authority, tribal or whatever) in Africa towards the freedom and active concern for the people.

Money talks, and when money shouts governments listen - so my proposal is that active evangelism of the richest will lead to the freedom of the poorest..... In some ways I see some of the humanitarian efforts as a stop-gap measure and not anything that could induce long-lasting social change..... we need people in high places with large wallets to actively invest capital in these poor countries for the empowerment and freedom of the people...... we need believers who aren't hindered by their desire for more 'stuff' who are Gospel driven maniacs who are so enamored with Christ that they would give tons of cash/time to make real change happen.

I think Africa is a really unique social situation - their needs are bread and water, not DSL and more accessible parking. In alot of ways it's like the final frontier for a 'ground-up' Gospel community..... How long can a society last? I think the mortality rate bears witness that it won't last much longer w/0 extreme intervention...... Does forgiving a country's debt imply that their rulers will be just in providing for their people..... Survey says: 'no'.

So how do we engage the rulers? We have to find a voice that will speak to them. Who's voice do they hear? Dollar bills y'all. Who's got the dollars? The West.....

There it is folks: your key to revolution in three minutes or less......