"where faith inspires action"

Rachel and I have spent the past two days sitting in meetings here in Nashville, TN. For folks who don't know, OnFire is affiliated with the Methodist Federation for Social Action (for more info on the MFSA check out the link on the right!). Twice a year we hang out with folks who have been working for faith in action, God's justice in the church and in the world, for longer than we've been alive.

Yesterday, the MFSA released a new tag line: Where Faith Inspires Action. I love it. That's exactly what we want to be. Now for the hard part: let's do it.

There have been several headlines in the past few weeks that tell me we need more faith-inspired-action. Confirmation of Justice Department memos supporting the use of water-boarding and electroshock on men's testicles is a good jumping off point. A Presidential veto of a bill to increase spending for children without health care would be another. Poverty is yet another. Folks, many of these things have become common place to us, not acceptable maybe, but inevitable or too big for us to address. But as Christians, we should be outraged.

So what do we do? Good question. We need to be creative about our witness. Let's face it, people expect us to protest in organized, legal ways. They expect us to put bumper stickers on our cars, stickers on our laptops, and clever phrases on our t-shirts. Those things are great, but we need to think about acting independent of what is expected of us, even when the outcome may be uncomfortable for us, our churches, or the communities in which we live. Because that's the point. Poverty isn't comfortable. Torture isn't comfortable. Sick children are not comfortable.

If you have some ideas for creative, risky, NONVIOLENT (sorry, but of all the things the gospel message inspires me to do, violence is not one of them!) possibilities, feel free to post them here. If you don't, let's chat, either on the blog here or by email at UMOnFire@gmail.com. Up to now, we've spoken primarily about faith on this blog. Good, it's where we should all start. Now, comes the action. Hang on, I think we're all in for a wild ride!

~brian