The Just Church: Becoming a Risk-Taking, Justice-Seeking, Disciple-Making Congregation by Jim Martin

Author:Jim Martin
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: RELIGION / Christian Life / Spiritual Growth
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers
Published: 2012-09-21T04:00:00+00:00

An Encounter with Justice—for the Whole Church

Our goal in the Church Mobilization team at IJM is unapologetically ambitious. What we seek is nothing short of a spiritual awakening in the global body of Christ, igniting an unparalleled passion for biblical justice evidenced in the church’s reputation for humble and courageous service to victims of violent injustice. There have been pockets of the church that have taken up this call through history, but our desire is to see the whole church—the global church—come alive and discover God’s passion for justice and then take action. As you read this you may already be thinking of the people in your church or group who are most interested in issues of justice. (You may be reading this book because you are one of them!) But similarly, your goal must be ambitious—to bring the whole church into an encounter with the God of justice and the reality of injustice in our world

There are in many churches a group of “usual suspects” who, if a justice ministry formed, would be first in line to get involved. These responsive people are great resources to any church, but for several reasons it would be a mistake to hand the responsibility for justice ministry over to them and task them with creating and implementing such a ministry. While many of these folks will likely be central to the work that emerges, to sequester justice ministry to a small group within the church will inevitably limit its scope and impact both inside and outside the church. What we seek is the transformation of the whole church with respect to the call to biblical justice, not simply the development of a new ministry that would involve only some of the church’s people.

Think of how your church approaches worship ministry or evangelistic outreach. Chances are that while there is a core team of appropriately gifted people who lead, develop, envision, and fuel such ministries within your church, it is also true that just about everyone in the church feels personally responsible as a disciple to engage in both worship and evangelism. Everyone may not feel that these areas lie within their primary gifting, but they most likely feel these areas lie within the scope of their role as disciples. Similarly, we need to understand that the core attributes of God (love, grace, forgiveness, righteousness, generosity, justice) should be reflected in our daily lives regardless of our specific gifting or passions.

As churches, we must approach justice (the attribute of God) and justice ministry (the activity in which we engage) in the same way. It is abundantly clear from the Scriptures that our God is a God of justice and that what is required of us as disciples is also clear: namely, that we do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God (Micah 6:8). While each of us may not feel primarily gifted for the tasks involved in leading the ministry of justice, it ought to be part of our DNA as

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