"Seek the Prosperity of the City"--My Wealth and Urban Poverty

It turned my shopping trip into a guilt trip.

I was just trying to do some back-to-college shopping at the local Walmart. Pens, pencils, binders, notebooks, Cheetos...you know, the basics. A couple pairs of jeans, laundry detergent, and a shirt reading "You bored me to death" with a flatline EKG were also added to my cart. Top it off with some new headphones and a bottle of mouthrinse, and I was ready to check out.

But I couldn't shake the feeling.

I was doing some reading in my room this weekend. Reading and blogging, actually. There was (and still is--sorry, Mom) crap lying all over my room. Work clothes that I have to wash for Monday morning. CD cases with mismatched CDs sitting in them and on them. Three or four Bibles, some Jones soda bottles, and "Batman Begins"  round out the mess on the carpet. Normally, that all wouldn't bother me.

But I couldn't shake the feeling.

I just got home from church a few hours ago. We meet in a small building that could use some work. I read from the Bible and put down a few lines of notes on some paper. Then we gathered downstairs for a potluck meal of American and Thai food (I've learned not to ask what's in the Thai food, but to just eat it. What you don't know can't hurt you, they say). Just a normal Sunday in the Midwest.

But I can't shake the feeling.

Alright, now enough with the dramatic writing style, meant to leave you guessing at the feeling I'm talking about. I'll go ahead and share the feeling with you. Maybe it'll ruin your life like it has mine.

It's guilt.

Ever since I finished Dr. Platt's book "Radical", nothing has been seen in the same light. The thoughts of Christian brothers and sisters living on almost nothing is haunting. The knowledge of people living in urban areas like Detroit suburbs and project housing in Nashville just won't go away. This new perspective on poverty is blowing my mind--and I can't shake it. Thanks, Dr. Platt.

How can I just go to Walmart and start pulling stuff off the shelves when other people aren't going to eat today? I'm passing boxes of cookies and snacks, bread and water, shoving Oreos and Mountain Dew in my cart as kids in Uganda are dying because they haven't eaten in a week. I'm snatching two pairs of jeans from the clothing rack and shuffling through all the sizes to find just the right fit, when John Doe on the backside of Chicago hasn't had a change of clothes since he moved to the city in '98.

There's something wrong about that.

Or I can come back to my room and log online. I can find out about any country in the world or read any statistic about Africa or see pictures of any persecuted Christian in Sudan. Meanwhile, I'd rather be surfing Facebook instead of studying the Bible--one of the three in my room--when the guy across the road can't afford food for the week, and the guy across the world has never heard of the Bible. I've got clothes strewn across the carpeted floor, with a nice big bed to sleep on. The refugees in Laos or Thailand have half a set of clothes, while trying to sleep in the worm-infested dirt floor of the jungle.

There's something wrong about that.

Or I can be perfectly happy in my church. We can sit and argue about whether or not to use a guitar in the worship service, while the underground church is pleased to be able to whisper quiet songs without being discovered and martyred. We get so concerned over the particular clothes we wear to church--because we've either worn that shirt last week, or those jeans aren't church "appropriate," or the colors we finally decide on are clashing. But maybe we've forgotten that the Christians in the South American jungles of Columbia and Venezuela might be wearing shorts and an old shirt, because that's all they have. While I'm sifting through my closet trying to find "something to wear," they are sneaking past groups of child soldiers so that God can meet with the two or three gathered to worship Him. And we're concerned with what shoes to wear.

There's something wrong about that.

Disclaimer time. I'm not saying that our abundance is wrong, sinful, or even bad. It is just as ludicrous to suggest that wealth is bad, as it is to suggest that wealth is always a blessing. But I'm trying to do exactly what Dr. Platt has done in his book--make you think. To just suggest to you that maybe God isn't pleased to see us neglect our brothers and sisters across the world who could use our help. To merely bring to mind that maybe God isn't amused when we keep our wealth to ourselves, when there's a man in the urban setting that desperately needs a jacket and some bread. To simply propose that maybe God isn't laughing when we spend our paycheck on ourselves, when kids in the Congo are dying of preventable diseases.

Prayer? Absolutely critical. But action? Just as critical.

That's why I'm excited about Dr. Jeff Cook's class "Intro to Urban Ministry." I'm excited to see how God begins to develop an already passionate heart for the inner-city poverty that we often forget exists. Dr. Cook's "poverty weekend" experience is an out-of-class extension of learning that, I believe, will drive home everything I've said here, and everything we will learn in the classroom. All the lectures and all the blogging in the world cannot compare to a real-life experience of homelessness, suffering, and poverty. And I'm excited about it.

Maybe that makes me crazy. Maybe following Jesus is a little bit crazy. But in the end, that's what it is all about. It's about serving our Christian "family" around the world. Yet it's also about meeting the physical needs of those that know nothing of Jesus. In the meeting of those imminent needs, we then have the opportunity to introduce the urban community to their Savior.

Because we need to take Jesus to the inner-city and around the world.