"What's the best way to help?" This question is probably the question I hear the most, in different forms throughout my work with college students in mission/service programs. Many earnestly want to know - what can be done? What can I do? What can the church do?
But many also add on this methods-type question: what the best/most effective/meaningful way to help? I'm sensitive to this question for a few reasons. In college myself, I know I spent hours with friends and in classes discussing this very question. I wrote papers on the American Inner City - is it best to transform the city as it stands, or to disperse the people out to more prosperous communities? I discussed with close friends - what's the best use of our energies and potential future careers? Should we become policy makers? Teachers? Scholars? Neighbors to the poor?
Small Things With Great Love
Seven years of ministry later, though, I'm sensitive to this question because at this point in my life I find it inherently problematic. Who said Jesus wants us to do things the best way (as Mother Teresa says, we should do small things with great love rather than just seeking to do great things)? What does the best method even mean? After a few solid years in the field - both among eager young people and living and serving among some of the poorest, most disenfranchised Americans - I am less and less concerned with doing things the best way, and more concerned with simply doing things.
Now I don't mean doing things for the sake of doing things (and I still take how we serve VERY seriously) but now methods are mostly centered around questions like: What honors people? What communicates respect? Am I serving humbly? Rather than questions of efficiency or effectiveness. Now I want to choose to act rather than spend my energy talking or theorizing in a way that felt satisfying and also somewhat deceptively productive as a college student. (We're studying James this summer - I'm reminded of his caution to not just hear but do the word of God.) The more I walk with God and serve in the city I realize we need BOTH: we need both policy makers and teachers, good neighbors and good businessmen. One person's efforts or methods alone rarely solve any deep social problem.
Leading the team this summer, I hope to lead out of my experience. I want to draw students into both meaningful discussions and questions about "how can I or the church best help the poor" and, maybe more importantly, push them out the door to actually go DO it. I want them to invite the neighborhood kids over, have broken Spanish conversations with moms at the playground, and pray honest prayers about God transforming our neighborhood and situation.
Seeking Shalom
This past weekend we looked at Jeremiah 29, one of my favorite passages of the Bible, verse 7 (paraphrased) instructs the Israelites to "seek the shalom of the city they've been sent to (Babylon), for in its shalom, they will find their own." This verse serves as a theme for our summer and also InterVarsity Urban Programs at large - we hope that as students go out, actively seeking the shalom (wholeness, healing and peace) of their community, they'll see their personal shalom increase. I love the phrase "seek the shalom" as well - it isn't a clear "method" but more of a wandering and a concerted effort all at once - to seek through trial and error and heart-felt effort how to improve a community and increase the shalom in that place.
Stay tuned tomorrow for some real life examples of seeking Shalom.
Kate Denson is the director of the Washington DC Urban Program, and she's leading a team of students this summer as they live and serve in the Anacostia neighborhood of DC.
