All People Matter

As a person who generally does not make habit of reading the forwards to books, I’m extremely glad that I actually read the one at the front of Kisses from Katie by Katie Davis. This entire book has grabbed my attention and my heart. I’m sure I will share other parts of this book as I continue reading, but for today I just can’t stop thinking about the very first paragraph of the forward by Beth Clark:

“People who want to make a difference in the world usually do it, in one way or another. And I’ve noticed something about people who make a difference in the world: They hold the unshakable conviction that individuals are extremely important, that every life matters. They get excited over one smile. They are willing to feed one stomach, educate one mind, and treat one wound. They aren’t determined to revolutionize the world all at once; they’re satisfied with small changes. Over time, though, the small changes add up. Sometimes they even transform cities and nations, and yes, the world.”

What so captured my attention about this paragraph is how well it lines up with First Trinity‘s Core Value that “all people matter” and directly connected it to the idea of “transforming our world” in our mission statement. We also see through this that a transformation of our world is actually possible when we focus on doing so–as both our mission statements and the forward to this book suggest–one life at a time.

Author Katie Davis, a 22-year old American mother to thirteen (yes, you read that right, THIRTEEN) adopted Ugandan children and founder of Amazima Ministries in Uganda, is one of those world-changers… and she does it one life at a time.

Later on in her book she shares some humbling statistics of people living in poverty around the world:

143 million orphaned children + 11 million who starve to death or die from preventable diseases + 8.5 million who work as child slaves or prostitutes + 2.3 million children who live with HIV

= 164.8 million needy children in the world.

As Katie says in her book, “At first glance that looks like a big number…” I agree. It seems like an impossible number, a number to big to wrap our minds around, and a number that surely I can’t do anything about!

However, 2.1 BILLION people on this earth claim to be Christians. “The truth is that if only 8 percent of the Christians would care for ONE child, there would not be any statistics left.”

EIGHT PERCENT! That’s all it would take.

Do you truly believe that all people matter? Who’s life can you change today? Maybe it’s a smile and kind word to the cashier that seems to be having a bad day. Maybe it’s a hug for a grieving friend or a hot meal for someone hungry. Or maybe it’s sponsoring a child in Haiti or Uganda or even the US to go to school and be fed or rescuing a child out of sex trafficking. One life at a time, we can transform our world, through the power of God’s Living Word along with the gifts and talents, passions and desires, resources and time he’s given us. Will you join me?

Let’s change the world and love as Jesus did, living with the conviction that

every

life

matters!

“I have learned that I will not change the world. Jesus will do that. I can, however, change the world for one person. So I keep stopping and loving one person at a time. Because this is my call as a Christian.” ~ Katie Davis

A while ago I started reading the book Sticky Faith. I’ve picked it up again now that we’re through the busy holiday season and continue to love what I read. This book is based on the results of a 4-year longitudinal study (which, for those of you who may not be as passionate about psychology, sociology, and research like I am, means meaning they followed the same people over the course of 4 years to get their data). They interviewed, surveyed and used various other methods of research to gather data from youth group members during their senior year of high school and then the three years after that with the goal of figuring out what makes faith “stick” (or not stick) in their lives.

You can expect more posts about this as I read through the book, but today I wanted to point to a blog post on the Sticky Faith Blog. The author of this post was responding to a previous post discussing young adults leaving the church. Some of the comments made by him and others sound a bit harsh at first, but I believe there is some truth in the statements as well for the Body of Christ as whole. One particular comment that caught my attention was this:

… if you’re a church member or leader, please take a hard look at the ways that you might have allowed your community to become unwelcoming and maybe irrelevant to younger folks. Maybe it’s not so much that young folks have abandoned the church, but that the church has abandoned them.

As for First Trinity, my experience is that this is a place that is very welcoming and relevant to all types of people from all different age groups. This comes through even in the story statements that sort of “define” this place:

All People Matter
Rooted and Relevant
Celebrating Life Together

With that though, there is always room for growth. I want to constantly be on the lookout for ways we can help these three statements be even more true in this place for even more people. I’m not sure of the answers, but I’m excited to continue to read more of this book, do some research of our own in our context and see what things we can do to help faith “stick” in the lives of youth, young adults… and really all of us. I challenge you to do the same!