Change and Growth

As it has been almost an entire year since I last posted I wanted to share two words that have been bubbling around my mind in the past few weeks. There are a lot of exciting changes that are in the process of happening in my household and as I prepare for them it has caused me to reflect on where I came from and how far I have come.

I am a huge advocate for social change. I believe in helping individuals change while simultaneously working to create collective change. I also love to see my progress. I like to see tangible ways that change is happening. I like to see results and I like to see them ASAP.

Change, I am finding, is a lot like growth. It happens steadily, slowly, overtime and can't be forced or rushed. My garden has been a huge reminder of why change is like growth.

Around this time last year we were creating the raised beds at our house and planting our garden. As someone who loves the harvest season I was anxiously awaiting that fruitful day. Last year we had a nice harvest, but it never felt like completely enough. I wanted more. I was impatient.

This year, however, I was overjoyed to see the wait was worth it. Where last year we had zero berries this year we have already harvested around 50 strawberries and we are about to have some blackberries, raspberries, and blueberries! It took them a while to grow, but now that the wait is over it was so worth it.

Last year it felt like we would never have any berries. This year we're constantly going out and picking more. Change is like that too. Don't be discouraged when things don't fall right in your lap. Don't expect everything to work out perfectly when you first try it. Instead take time, enjoy the smells around you, be in the present, and work towards that change. If you don't see results right away take time to just enjoy the process.

Sit down, grab a nice cup of coffee or dandy blend and enjoy the journey.
Most good things take time.

Grace & Peace, Tanner

Listen to the quiet voice that calls you

Ever since I was in Middle School I have had a bleeding heart for social justice. I can remember back during my time in the abhorrent years of middle school finding solace in acts of service with my youth group. Even my first sermon I ever gave focused on justice for the "least of these." Often times the places I enjoyed serving most in one manner or another revolved around food. It is crazy to look back and see the small steps that would lead me to where I am today.

During my undergrad years I continued to develop a passion for social justice, but struggled to find the right area to focus on. I explored many different ones and all the while had an idea of where I should be...that I constantly pushed aside. I saw advertisements for community gardens and read into the environmental reasons why someone should be vegetarian, all the while telling myself that I didn't have time to garden and I couldn't be vegetarian with the food options I had. I gave these excuses while simultaneously overbooking myself with other forms of service. It wasn't that I couldn't partake in that kind of social justice; it was that I had prioritized other types. I was still learning. I am still learning.

Flash forward to 2016. I had been out of college for a year and in the midst of my first year of marriage. Brianna and I learned about a community garden and finally--after years of thinking about the perks of joining one--we got two plots at a garden across the street from the apartment we lived in. This was a great way for individuals all throughout the community to have space to garden, to build community, and to have ways they can donate their extra produce. All of the excess produce was encouraged to be donated to the local Hot Meals Programs and Food Pantries. It wasn't long into the season that we transitioned into the new garden coordinators. We didn't want to just be a part of the garden, but we wanted to help it grow and make sure it would keep running.

It was this same year that I left the church I was working for and accepted a job as a Community Nutrition Professional for The Ohio State University Extension. My passion for creating access to healthy, affordable food for all led me to this position. I had no experience with Extension before, but I felt my time at the church was coming to an end and I needed to be focusing my energy on food. It took me years to come to this conclusion and finally settle my social justice focus on food, but I finally found it.

Now I am working towards promoting, educating, and helping provide food access to all individuals in my county. I do this through my job as an educator, but also as the chair of our county's Local Food Council and as a member of our Creating Healthy Communities coalition. I still coordinate our community garden, but since we bought our house we have developed a garden in our backyard too. This garden has allowed us to get to know our neighbors more as many have come over to see what we are doing and talk with us about our plants. I have gone from just having a side hobby of gardening to making it a sustainable lifestyle that I hope others can see and want to join. We have a rain barrel system we set up to collect water for our gardens, we compost our food scraps, and we have even become vegetarian. The lifestyle that I dreamed about and said I wanted I finally have. How did I get this lifestyle? I decided to pursue it and that's exactly what I did. I learned how to build things myself to save money and I sought out help when needed. I want others to see that the lifestyle we have is not only sustainable, but also easy to replicate.

 I view social justice as a wide-range of topics that works best when people have their focus to funnel issues through. Choosing food justice isn't just about addressing hunger--although that is a huge issue. Food justice deals with sustainability, the environment, gender equality, racial equality, and so much more. Many of the issues that I had become passionate about can be partially addressed with our food system. This is one part of the solution. We need people working in all sectors of influence to truly make a different in the fight for social justice.

I share this part of my story as a way to invite others to find their focus. It may take time so don't be discouraged if you try something out and it doesn't seem to be your fit. I thought I was supposed to be a youth minister for most of my life. Now I know, for me, that was a stepping stone to a different calling. I am thankful for my time at the church because it led me to where I am now. Keep looking for your calling. Keep searching. The next time you feel the urge in your soul, that continuing draw, follow it. Stop saying, "Maybe another day...I'm too committed to other things." Instead, step back and focus on that calling. Ask yourself, "is this a fleeting thought or is this more?"

Where are your priorities? What is calling your heart? What is the still, quiet voice saying to you?

Go to it.

Love

Hope.

Peace.

Love.

Week three of the Advent season is all about love. What a fitting theme for such a time as this. There are so many issues and catastrophes around us today, but we can never have enough love. We can never be reminded of love enough. We need more love in this world and in our lives.

And yet I feel as if that word gets tossed around so flippantly. People us it as a means for control. People put stipulations on it. People make it conditional. They lose it's meaning.

But the Love of YHWH is unconditional and it never fails.

When we're caught in the web of the most often asked question: how do we love properly without condoning certain practices? My response is: if you have to ask then are you actually loving? 

Yes we can't condone every action out there. Yes there are dehumanizing things that individuals do. Is love condoning something? Or is love simply loving them regardless? Loving them as a human, as an individual, for who they are not who they could become.

When I think of love I think of the Old Testament reading for this week which comes from Isaiah 61:

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
Because the Lord has anointed me;
He has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
To bind up the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And release to the prisoners, 
To proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, 
And the day of vengeance of our God;
To comfort all who mourn;
To provide for those who mourn in Zion--
To give them a garland instead of ashes,
The oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.
They will be called oaks of righteousness, 
The planting of the Lord,
To display his glory.

They shall build up the ancient ruins,
They shall raise up the former devastations;
They shall repair the ruined cities, 
The devastations of many generations.
Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, 
Foreigners shall till your land and dress your vines;

But you shall be called priests of the Lord,
You shall be named ministers of our God;
You shall enjoy the wealth of the nations, 
And in their riches you shall glory.

Because their shame was double,
And dishonor was proclaimed as their lot,
Therefore they shall possess a double portion;
Everlasting Joy shall be theirs.
For I the Lord love justice,
I hate robbery and wrongdoing;
I will faithfully give them their recompense,
and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.

Their descendants shall be known among the nations,
And their offspring among the peoples;
All who see them shall acknowledge that 
They are a people whom the Lord has blessed.

I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,
My whole being shall exult in my God;
For he has clothed me with the garments of salvation,
He has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
As a bridegroom decks himself with a garland,
And as a bride adorns herself with jewels.
For as the earth brings forth its shoots,
And as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up,
So the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise
To spring up before all nations.

(Isaiah 61:1-11, NRSV, Italicize and Bold added for emphasis).

Be the Change in Your Community.

Since the very first "Bible Lesson" that I wrote myself I have found that I am passionate about the verse Matthew 25:40 and in a larger spectrum I am most drawn to passages of Scripture that proclaim good news to the poor, oppressed, marginalized, etc. It is this very reason that I am drawn to books such as When Helping Hurts by Brian Fikkert and Steve Corbett, The Hole in the Gospel by Richard Stearns, and A Year of Biblical Womanhood by Rachel Held Evans to name a few. This is also why I am so often drawn to liberation theology and firmly believe that as those who claim to follow the Resurrected Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, we have a duty to love and serve the marginalized, poor, least of these, etc. It is not merely something good we might do, nor a legalistic set of rules, but it is how we live out this lifestyle of the Kingdom. There is so much disunity, dysfunction, and brokenness on this side of the Kingdom and so that alone shows the need for the Body of Christ to bring change in the world.

I bring up all of this because I have found that there are certain causes that people say everyone needs to contribute and be main advocates for. I have often been told that if I truly believed in Matthew 25:40--which I hope I do since I have it tattooed on my wrist--then I needed to put most of my focus on advocating and speaking up for this one certain group. You fill in the blank. Sometimes I wonder if helping the least of these has been used to guilt people into supporting certain causes or advocate for certain groups.

I am not saying that those people are wrong or that those certain groups do not need help and advocacy, but what I want to argue is that not everyone is called to every single group. Some people may feel led to work with promoting a pro-life from birth to death mentality, some may feel led to work with the homeless, some may feel led to work with those marginalized in the LGBTQ community, some may feel led to adopt, some may feel led to foster, and some may feel led to work with providing education to third world countries. All of these are groups and settings that we should support and be in favor of, however, I would say that people should choose where they are being led to put their focus.

In our overbooked, over-scheduled life we cannot take part in every cause and we cannot fully devote ourselves to every marginalized group. I believe that we should always be standing with the marginalized in whatever context we are living/working and that we should focus on ministering to those specifically in our context. It is also important to know where, with the help of the Spirit, we can be most effective with the skills and gifts that God has equipped us with. Instead of trying to tackle every social issue out there, we need to pick the ones we have been equipped to work with and encourage those who are called to other issues to pursue those.

As the Body of Christ we need to follow the pattern of Jesus when He said,

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

    because he has anointed me

        to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

    and recovery of sight to the blind,

        to let the oppressed go free,

 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” 

(Luke 4:18-19 NRSV) 

We should be striving to share the good news of liberation from oppression that Jesus provides. We should be striving for a holistic understanding of transformation that cares about each person's physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. We need to proclaim this good news to those who are marginalized in our context. We need to use the gifts that we have been given to impact our communities. 

So who are you called to minister and serve? Who needs liberation in your community? What has God given you a passion for? Homelessness? Human Trafficking? Gender Inequality? LGBTQ issues? Abortion? AIDS/HIV? Orphans? Lack of education? World Hunger? Thirst? Whatever it may be, what it is that breaks your heart...go after it. 

Let's stop getting overwhelmed by all the issues in the world and thinking there is not a change we can make. Let's instead act on what we can, live out our passions, focus on the change we can make in our own communities, and advocate for the issues we have been given a passion for, while empowering others to advocate for the issues they feel led to stop.

If we work together, as the Body of Christ, with all of our different passions and gifts, we can truly make a difference and help usher in the Kingdom.