Looking back to Jesus, I’ve noticed some new things.
Jesus tackled poverty on an informal relational basis. No feeding programmes, but the odd miracle to share lunch. No national revolution, but people empowered to live a full life, even if not a wealthy one. Failures dealt with and people affirmed back to action. Quality time and honour showed. All the things we would think about doing to help a friend going through a tough time. But perhaps not how we think about helping someone who sells the Big Issue? Jesus seems to be trying to defeat poverty one person at a time! It’s not how I’d think of trying to save the world - seems like quite a slow method. Looking at history, it has been! But what was that thing about ‘slow and steady’?
I just realised: Jesus’ teaching wasn’t just an expression of his philosophy and philosophy of ministry, it was something he did to help people; to give them courage, hope and wisdom to navigate life. Jesus perceived deeper needs than people felt themselves, and I don’t just mean spiritual needs. And of course, these areas took time and patience to change. People certainly didn’t ‘get’ his teaching first time.
All Jesus’ ministry fought poverty, not just the toolkit I’ve got fixed on. I didn’t notice a lot of it because he was doing it one person at a time, rather than in a systematic way. But all his life should be our precedent.
Jackie Pullinger’s story chimes in with this. The patient (effectively, parenting) work she did, living in community with her recovering addicts was essential to their long term change. Those that wouldn’t agree to it generally ended up using again. Her story also adds an element – that Jesus’ power continues to be available and relevant to the fight against poverty. And that Jesus may exert it in ways he did not in the Bible, and has not before.
Which brings us to a perhaps reassuringly unclinical answer to my original question. The Bible does offer precedents for helping people escape poverty. There are probably plenty more I still haven’t seen that remain to be discovered by faithful Jesus-followers partnering with him in this work. And the precedents really do recognise all the complexities of poverty, and different appropriate responses.
If we want to join Jesus in bringing his kingdom to our smashed-about world, we should think carefully, work relationally with people, and always be open to his supernatural power. Above all, we must keep in step with him, because that’s how he can lead us in the unexpected and unlike-how-we-would-do-it way we should go.
Showing posts with label The Magic Bullet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Magic Bullet. Show all posts
Saturday, 6 November 2010
Wednesday, 3 November 2010
Pt 5. Back to Jesus
So, what can I learn from these two amazing stories, of Jackie Pullinger and SAFE? They seem to embody those two opposite sides of the debate: “How do we help broken people change?” “With spiritual power!” “No, with careful use of the latest academic methods!” “No, what we need is power!...”
I’m kind of convinced by both positions, and flit back and forth between them, agreeing with whichever I happen to be thinking about at the time. (Both, it occurs to me, can be excuses for laziness or lack of faith) However, in sitting here chasing these ideas around my brain, I have a proposition that might get us somewhere: what Jesus seems to have done in Hong Kong and Southampton may shed more light on what he was doing back in the day.
SAFE’s approach is based on the observation that people experience difficulty in all different areas of life – relational, emotional, spiritual, physical, psychological, economic, socio-cultural, political... and that these all effect each other, but that each area needs different help to be relieved. You tackle relational poverty by spending time with people and including them in community. You tackle psychological poverty by helping people think more realistically and positively (particularly about themselves).
How do we interpret Jesus’ toolkit (preach, heal, hang out, bash demons) when it clearly ignores many of these areas of life? Let me try out some answers.
“Jesus’ toolkit was tailored to the specific needs of the society he lived in. And it happened to be that those needs could be dealt with instantly. People’s needs in 21st century Britain are more complex, and so we can expect their solutions to be similarly complex.” Um, maybe not. How can we be sure that 1st century needs were any less complex? I tend to think it was like the majority world today. ‘You know, simple poverty’. But depression, alcoholism and debt are as prevalent in Africa today as in the UK. And Jesus didn’t liberate Palestine from Roman occupation or turn over the means of production to poor farmers.
Another. “Jesus’ toolkit wasn’t for the purpose of tackling poverty now, but only saving people eternally. Engagement with needy people was important, but was only for the purpose of saving their soul.” I don’t really buy that, either. The unique (and central) Christian ideas of the Incarnation, the new heavens and the new earth, and the kingdom of God, all emphasise Jesus’ commitment to the current material world. Jesus made nobodies into leaders, sex workers into heroes of the faith. As with Jackie Pullinger’s drug addicts, saving people from poverty was necessarily a partner to saving people from sin.
So what is the answer then?
I’m kind of convinced by both positions, and flit back and forth between them, agreeing with whichever I happen to be thinking about at the time. (Both, it occurs to me, can be excuses for laziness or lack of faith) However, in sitting here chasing these ideas around my brain, I have a proposition that might get us somewhere: what Jesus seems to have done in Hong Kong and Southampton may shed more light on what he was doing back in the day.
SAFE’s approach is based on the observation that people experience difficulty in all different areas of life – relational, emotional, spiritual, physical, psychological, economic, socio-cultural, political... and that these all effect each other, but that each area needs different help to be relieved. You tackle relational poverty by spending time with people and including them in community. You tackle psychological poverty by helping people think more realistically and positively (particularly about themselves).
How do we interpret Jesus’ toolkit (preach, heal, hang out, bash demons) when it clearly ignores many of these areas of life? Let me try out some answers.
“Jesus’ toolkit was tailored to the specific needs of the society he lived in. And it happened to be that those needs could be dealt with instantly. People’s needs in 21st century Britain are more complex, and so we can expect their solutions to be similarly complex.” Um, maybe not. How can we be sure that 1st century needs were any less complex? I tend to think it was like the majority world today. ‘You know, simple poverty’. But depression, alcoholism and debt are as prevalent in Africa today as in the UK. And Jesus didn’t liberate Palestine from Roman occupation or turn over the means of production to poor farmers.
Another. “Jesus’ toolkit wasn’t for the purpose of tackling poverty now, but only saving people eternally. Engagement with needy people was important, but was only for the purpose of saving their soul.” I don’t really buy that, either. The unique (and central) Christian ideas of the Incarnation, the new heavens and the new earth, and the kingdom of God, all emphasise Jesus’ commitment to the current material world. Jesus made nobodies into leaders, sex workers into heroes of the faith. As with Jackie Pullinger’s drug addicts, saving people from poverty was necessarily a partner to saving people from sin.
So what is the answer then?
Saturday, 30 October 2010
Pt 4. A third story
Ten years ago, a church felt Jesus leading them to engage with marginalised and oppressed people in their city. They got in touch with other poverty-fighting organisations, did their research, identified a need for a homeless drop-in at the weekend. They started having homeless and other vulnerable people in to their church for Sunday lunch, and have pretty much done so ever since.
Some people have decided to follow Jesus. Some have volunteered in church catering for a while. Some have come on Alpha courses. Some have got accommodation and jobs. Some have exceeded everyone’s wildest dreams and ended up leading things in church. Some have died. Many have disappeared. And many still come along every week, every time they’re let out of prison, every time they waste their benefits on the gear, anytime they can to eat decent food and talk to another human being. The majority of people never seem to change at all. Change doesn’t seem possible.
This church aren’t doing anything badly. Their story just emphasises the extraordinary impact the others have had (along with their share of heartbreaks and setbacks, for damn sure). But because of Jesus, because I’ve seen him achieve change in my life, because these other stories have managed to effect change, I can’t be satisfied with ‘change doesn’t seem possible’. I want to write their story a better ending.
Some people have decided to follow Jesus. Some have volunteered in church catering for a while. Some have come on Alpha courses. Some have got accommodation and jobs. Some have exceeded everyone’s wildest dreams and ended up leading things in church. Some have died. Many have disappeared. And many still come along every week, every time they’re let out of prison, every time they waste their benefits on the gear, anytime they can to eat decent food and talk to another human being. The majority of people never seem to change at all. Change doesn’t seem possible.
This church aren’t doing anything badly. Their story just emphasises the extraordinary impact the others have had (along with their share of heartbreaks and setbacks, for damn sure). But because of Jesus, because I’ve seen him achieve change in my life, because these other stories have managed to effect change, I can’t be satisfied with ‘change doesn’t seem possible’. I want to write their story a better ending.
Wednesday, 27 October 2010
Pt 3. Precedents
So what decent precedents have I got? I guess you’ve got to look at other people who’ve wrestled with this question, worked with similar people and been led by Jesus into enabling real transformation.
In 1995, my Dad and a couple of friends from church ran a course with unemployed people in Southampton. It was helpful for people, and so they ran another one. And another. He left his job and started his own business to help enable the friends to do more courses. The more they worked with people, the more they discovered about the many things that were stopping people getting jobs – apparently it wasn’t just people being lazy. And so the Get That Job course developed from some interview practice, encouragement, and careers advice to include CBT, fun games, group support, life coaching and wisdom from the Bible to set the people free.
15 years on, Southampton university department of psychology concluded a 3-year quantitative study with the finding that SAFE and the Choices course produce ‘a statistically significant result’ in improving mental health. That’s no joke. Pretty much every single course participant saw the symptoms of medically diagnosed depression and anxiety disappear. People who’ve been labelled by doctors as ‘disabled’ – “you’ve got a chemical unbalance in your brain and you’ll always need to take these pills” – are simply not depressed anymore. They’re remaking their life how they once dreamed it might be.
Another one: I’ve nearly finished reading about Jackie Pullinger, who ended up working with Triad heroin addicts in Hong Kong in the 70s. She had a vision not just to help one or two, but clear up a whole area that was outside government control and therefore completely dominated by drugs, prostitution, poverty, and gang violence – the Walled City. Possibly an unrealistic ambition for a naive white girl from Surrey.
But the young gangster addicts she befriended began becoming Christians, getting filled with the Spirit, and experiencing no withdrawal pains when they prayed in tongues. And as they were helped to follow Jesus, living in community away from their old environment, they began to do crazy things like hand themselves in to the police for crimes they’d got away with, do housework, and help set others free like they had been. Gang bosses got set free, and the walled city began to change.
Today, after 30 years of setbacks, heartache, danger, blood sweat and tears, the Walled city is a beautiful garden.
In 1995, my Dad and a couple of friends from church ran a course with unemployed people in Southampton. It was helpful for people, and so they ran another one. And another. He left his job and started his own business to help enable the friends to do more courses. The more they worked with people, the more they discovered about the many things that were stopping people getting jobs – apparently it wasn’t just people being lazy. And so the Get That Job course developed from some interview practice, encouragement, and careers advice to include CBT, fun games, group support, life coaching and wisdom from the Bible to set the people free.
15 years on, Southampton university department of psychology concluded a 3-year quantitative study with the finding that SAFE and the Choices course produce ‘a statistically significant result’ in improving mental health. That’s no joke. Pretty much every single course participant saw the symptoms of medically diagnosed depression and anxiety disappear. People who’ve been labelled by doctors as ‘disabled’ – “you’ve got a chemical unbalance in your brain and you’ll always need to take these pills” – are simply not depressed anymore. They’re remaking their life how they once dreamed it might be.
Another one: I’ve nearly finished reading about Jackie Pullinger, who ended up working with Triad heroin addicts in Hong Kong in the 70s. She had a vision not just to help one or two, but clear up a whole area that was outside government control and therefore completely dominated by drugs, prostitution, poverty, and gang violence – the Walled City. Possibly an unrealistic ambition for a naive white girl from Surrey.
But the young gangster addicts she befriended began becoming Christians, getting filled with the Spirit, and experiencing no withdrawal pains when they prayed in tongues. And as they were helped to follow Jesus, living in community away from their old environment, they began to do crazy things like hand themselves in to the police for crimes they’d got away with, do housework, and help set others free like they had been. Gang bosses got set free, and the walled city began to change.
Today, after 30 years of setbacks, heartache, danger, blood sweat and tears, the Walled city is a beautiful garden.
Saturday, 23 October 2010
Pt 2. The Question
Now, this whole ‘magic bullet’ thing is a nice illustration/ analogy/ proverb/ thing, but it’s not incredibly rigorous. The abstract question behind that specific situation is actually more significant to me now. I got into working with people in poverty by copying Jesus, but I’m hitting some serious complexity.
A little way into the story, Jesus sent out his friends to do his thing, with quite a simple toolkit: hang out with people, share the good news about me, heal sick people, set people free from demons. Now although these are all still key tools in setting people free from poverty (trust me), I’m still left uncertain how to tackle other major forms of poverty we come up against in the UK: addictions, mental illness, emotional and psychological damage. For most people in poverty in the UK, these (often people suffer from all of them) completely control their life and keep them from any fulfilment or happiness. So tackling them is a serious priority for us.
The problem is, I’ve not found clear precedents in the Bible for how to go about this. With blind people, it’s daunting but obvious: God’s solution is for a Jesus-follower to ‘proclaim sight to the blind’ – heal them, now. Bang. Just like that. But what would Jesus do when he met the depressed abused alcoholic? Without a few examples of how God does it, it’s difficult to avoid just taking tactics from somewhere else.
I’ve slipped into a couple of camps, doing just this. I’ve copied religious crazy people (‘come on, you’re a Christian, why are you still feeling depressed?’), and scientific crazy people (psychologists have just ‘discovered’ that a caregiver having a good relationship with a patient makes them more likely to recover. Kindness helps people. You think?). It’s amazing how good all of us are at ignoring facts which don’t fit our point of view.
Trying to set people free through superstitious magic, and by using clever techniques, are both examples of us trying to make something happen by ourselves. Both are pretty impotent. I find it hard to honestly take credit for the change we are seeing in people at King’s Care. The only way I can understand it (it never fits my plans) is that we’re creating space for Jesus to do stuff.
There are so many people around us just totally stuck in misery, like quicksand, and sinking fast, that we owe it to them to stop fiddling around and call in someone who knows what they’re doing.
A little way into the story, Jesus sent out his friends to do his thing, with quite a simple toolkit: hang out with people, share the good news about me, heal sick people, set people free from demons. Now although these are all still key tools in setting people free from poverty (trust me), I’m still left uncertain how to tackle other major forms of poverty we come up against in the UK: addictions, mental illness, emotional and psychological damage. For most people in poverty in the UK, these (often people suffer from all of them) completely control their life and keep them from any fulfilment or happiness. So tackling them is a serious priority for us.
The problem is, I’ve not found clear precedents in the Bible for how to go about this. With blind people, it’s daunting but obvious: God’s solution is for a Jesus-follower to ‘proclaim sight to the blind’ – heal them, now. Bang. Just like that. But what would Jesus do when he met the depressed abused alcoholic? Without a few examples of how God does it, it’s difficult to avoid just taking tactics from somewhere else.
I’ve slipped into a couple of camps, doing just this. I’ve copied religious crazy people (‘come on, you’re a Christian, why are you still feeling depressed?’), and scientific crazy people (psychologists have just ‘discovered’ that a caregiver having a good relationship with a patient makes them more likely to recover. Kindness helps people. You think?). It’s amazing how good all of us are at ignoring facts which don’t fit our point of view.
Trying to set people free through superstitious magic, and by using clever techniques, are both examples of us trying to make something happen by ourselves. Both are pretty impotent. I find it hard to honestly take credit for the change we are seeing in people at King’s Care. The only way I can understand it (it never fits my plans) is that we’re creating space for Jesus to do stuff.
There are so many people around us just totally stuck in misery, like quicksand, and sinking fast, that we owe it to them to stop fiddling around and call in someone who knows what they’re doing.
Wednesday, 20 October 2010
Pt 1. The Magic Bullet
I once read that the best writing happens not when the writer is trying to get across something they’re already sure about, but when the writer writes in order to try and figure it out. I think this will be a bit of both. It'll be a few posts though.
Back in January, I went to a work meeting that ended in a great time of praying together. I suddenly felt really strongly for one of the other guys, for his confidence and his ability to relate to people, and prayed for him with a lot of oomph that God would crack stuff in him there & then (surely he meant to do what he provoked me to ask?). After the meeting the guy gave me a lift, and honestly, I felt like ‘nothing has happened. At all.’
I took this up with God as I walked the last bit home. I did that dangerous thing where you start making excuses for him, rather than waiting to listen what his actual answer is.
I said, “okay, fair enough God, maybe it’s not like a magic bullet, maybe it doesn’t work just like that.” And then God spoke up.
“Remind me, Tim, how does the ‘magic bullet’ work?”
For those of you unfortunates who didn’t get to study ‘medicine through time’ at GCSE, I offer this explanation. The ‘magic bullet’ is the nickname of penicillin, the drug which forms the basis of all antibiotics. Until penicillin was discovered (less than 100 years ago.. and by accident. I wonder..) there was nothing you could do to actually kill diseases. All you could do was make the conditions as good as possible for the body to fight the disease itself (drink lots of orange juice, get an early night, yadda yadda yadda...)
Here’s God’s point: even the ‘magic bullet’ takes time to work. So why shouldn’t he?
Back in January, I went to a work meeting that ended in a great time of praying together. I suddenly felt really strongly for one of the other guys, for his confidence and his ability to relate to people, and prayed for him with a lot of oomph that God would crack stuff in him there & then (surely he meant to do what he provoked me to ask?). After the meeting the guy gave me a lift, and honestly, I felt like ‘nothing has happened. At all.’
I took this up with God as I walked the last bit home. I did that dangerous thing where you start making excuses for him, rather than waiting to listen what his actual answer is.
I said, “okay, fair enough God, maybe it’s not like a magic bullet, maybe it doesn’t work just like that.” And then God spoke up.
“Remind me, Tim, how does the ‘magic bullet’ work?”
For those of you unfortunates who didn’t get to study ‘medicine through time’ at GCSE, I offer this explanation. The ‘magic bullet’ is the nickname of penicillin, the drug which forms the basis of all antibiotics. Until penicillin was discovered (less than 100 years ago.. and by accident. I wonder..) there was nothing you could do to actually kill diseases. All you could do was make the conditions as good as possible for the body to fight the disease itself (drink lots of orange juice, get an early night, yadda yadda yadda...)
Here’s God’s point: even the ‘magic bullet’ takes time to work. So why shouldn’t he?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
