Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Chap Clark, PhD (Univ. of Denver), has more than 25 years of experience in youth and family ministry. He is Associate Provost for Regional Campuses and Special Projects and Professor of Youth, Family, and Culture at Fuller Theological Seminary. Chap’s extensive books, articles, and videos focus primarily on relationships. Among his many books are Hurt and Hurt 2.0; Disconnected: Parenting Teens in a MySpace World (coauthored with his wife, Dee); and Deep Justice in a Broken World. Chap and Dee live in Gig Harbor, Washington.

Dr. Kara E. Powell is an educator, professor, youth minister, author, and speaker. She is the Executive director of the Fuller Youth Institute and a faculty member at Fuller Theological Seminary (see www.fulleryouthinstitute.org). Kara also serves as an Advisor to Youth Specialties and currently volunteers in student ministries at Lake Avenue church in Pasadena, CA.  She is the author of many books including Sticky Faith: Everyday Ideas to Build Lasting Faith in Your Kids (with Chap Clark) and Deep Justice Journeys. Kara lives in Pasadena with her husband, Dave, and their children, Nathan, Krista, and Jessica.

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It doesn't take a long list of statistics to convince you that our world is broken. Mission trips, service projects, and supporting children through relief organizations are just a few of the ways that many youth workers engage their students in serving the least, the last, and the lost. As good and helpful as these things may be on the surface, that's where they remain--at the surface. The problems run far deeper than an occasional paint job or fundraising project can solve. But it's not hopeless. Deep social justice is possible in your youth ministry.

Following their bestselling book, Deep Ministry in a Shallow World, Kara Powell and Chap Clark provide you with research and insights that will help your ministry get to the next level. In addition to helping you further understand the Deep Design method (introduced in their previous book), their practical Kingdom of God theology will help you go beyond simply trying to motivate your students to serve those in need, and invite your students (and maybe even your leaders) to wrestle with why those people are in need in the first place. You'll hear from well-known social justice leaders and youth workers who are making a difference in urban, suburban, and small town settings including:
• Jim Wallis (Sojourners)
• Tony Campolo (Eastern University)
• Lina Thompson (World Vision/Vision Youth)
• John Perkins (Christian Community Development Association)
• Shane Claiborne (The Simple Way)
• Larry Acosta (Urban Youth Workers Institute)
• Rudy Carrasco (Harambee Christian Family Center)
• Jeremy Del Rio (Community Solutions, Inc.)
• Noel Castellanos (Christian Community Development Association), and more

In addition to expanding your personal justice commitments, Deep Justice in a Broken World will help you reflect with your own leadership team, and will provide you with online resources to take you even deeper into the journey.

So go ahead, dig deeper into what it means to heal the broken world in which we live. Take your ministry deeper into social justice.

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Deep Justice in a Broken World

Zondervan

Contents

Section 1: Both/And Kingdom ThinkingChapter 1 What's Deep Justice and How Do I Know If I'm Doing It? Kara Powell..............................................8Chapter 2 What Steps Do I Need to Take to Right the Wrongs Around Me? Kara Powell.........................................24Chapter 3 How Can My Teaching Motivate Kids to Deeper Justice? Kara Powell................................................38Chapter 4 Which Jesus Takes Us to Deep Justice? Chap Clark................................................................64Chapter 5 Is the Gospel about Personal Salvation or Social Reform? Chap Clark.............................................82Chapter 6 How Do We Help Students Move from Doing Kingdom Things to Being Kingdom People? Kara Powell.....................98Section 2: Both/And Kingdom LivingChapter 7 When It Comes to Race, Why Can't We All Get Along? Noel Castellanos.............................................122Chapter 8 What Else Is There Besides Silence and Screaming as We Talk about Race? Noel Castellanos........................140Chapter 9 How Can Our Checkbooks Be Tools for Justice? Larry Acosta.......................................................160Chapter 10 How Can Our Youth Ministries Use Their Money So the Poor Gain Power? Larry Acosta..............................184Chapter 11 What's Just about the Rich Getting Richer and the Poor Getting Poorer? Jeremy Del Rio..........................202Chapter 12 Who Is My Neighbor? Jeremy Del Rio.............................................................................224Conclusion How Can We Work Together to Bring about Justice for All?........................................................242

Chapter One

Ice cream has the power to bring deep justice to our broken world.

Guess how much money you, I, the kids in our ministries, and every other American spend each year on mint chocolate chip, strawberry, jamoca almond fudge, rainbow sherbet, just plain vanilla, and all other ice cream flavors?

Go ahead. Take a guess.

$20 billion.

For those of you who like to see a lot of zeroes, that's $20,000,000,000.

Compare that $20 billion with other figures recently released by the United Nations. Providing clean water and basic sanitation for the entire world would cost $7 billion a year for the next ten years.

An additional $4 billion a year for the next ten years could finance basic health care that would prevent the deaths of 3 million infants each year.

So for $11 billion a year for the next decade, just over half of what Americans spend on ice cream, we could give the world clean water and basic sanitation and prevent the deaths of millions of babies. But since there is no Give-Up-Ice-Cream-for-World-Health movement, odds are good that we'll keep eating our mint chocolate chip and much of the world will lack water and health care.

Does that seem just to you?

On September 11, 2001, the terrorists who hijacked four U.S. planes claimed 2,792 lives. Our entire nation-and much of the world-was glued to radios, televisions, and the Internet, desperate to find out why and how so many had been killed.

Yet on that same day nearly three times as many people were killed by HIV/AIDS worldwide. And that same number of people died from HIV/AIDS on September 12, 2001. And on September 13. And that many people have died because of AIDS every day since then. Yet as AIDS rips apart children, families, villages, and entire nations, the world remains disengaged. Tragically, so do our churches and youth ministries.

Does that seem just to you?

Many of us slept on comfortable mattresses last night, and with a flick of a thermostat switch, we kept our homes at temperatures we considered ideal. Last night, approximately 600,000 homeless people sought shelter on U.S. streets. Making matters worse, an estimated 38 percent of those homeless persons were children.

Does that seem just to you?

Perhaps the most alarming statistic of all is that this injustice and poverty is happening in a world in which 2.1 billion of us, or 33 percent of the world's total population, claim to be followers of Christ, who taught in Matthew 25:40 that whatever we do for the "least of these brothers and sisters," we are actually doing for him.

Does that seem just to you?

It doesn't seem just to us either.

A growing number of youth ministries are alarmed by the brokenness of our world and are determined to restore justice.

Maybe you lead one of them.

Some of you are partnering with faith communities of different ethnic and economic backgrounds to create job centers, food co-ops, and college scholarship funds to counter the injustice in your town. Others of you are mobilizing kids and families to mentor under-resourced kids at your local school as well as serve as advocates at your school district for increased funding. Still others are raising up groups of kids who care about the AIDS pandemic-in the United States, in Africa, and in Asia (which is now being called the "new Africa" of AIDS).

The good news is that our hearts are in the right place. The bad news is that many of us are novices who might be doing more harm than good.

This book is for youth workers-rookies and veterans-who don't want to waste another minute doing mediocre service.

It's for youth workers of all colors and classes who hunger to learn from one another, as well as from the people who are most in need of justice.

It's for youth workers-urban, suburban, small-town, and rural-who want to see and be a part of God's deep justice.

WHAT IS DEEP JUSTICE, ANYWAY?

One of the authors of this book, Jeremy Del Rio, wanted to tell his five-year-old son why he was spending so much time on the phone and at his computer, working on his chapters. So Jeremy described social justice to Judah in two very simple words: righting wrongs.

I don't think I've ever heard a better definition.

Deep justice is about righting wrongs.

Righting wrongs is only possible when we understand the difference between service and social justice. Service is vital to the life of faith, a high calling modeled for us consistently by Jesus. But his call to love is also a call to look for more lasting solutions.

God's doesn't extend his call only to the church in the U.S. or the West. In fact, we would all be wise to remember God is already at work in those who have needs. We don't have to muster up our own solutions and "go get 'em" in the name of justice. Often the keys to overcoming poverty and oppression lie within those communities that are the most broken and brokenhearted. Our primary role as youth ministries is simply to come alongside those who are struggling and remove the obstacles that hinder those solutions.

Enter deep justice.

THE PARABLE OF THE CRACKED ROADS

Once upon a time, three youth ministries decided to address an unusual-and dire-problem permeating their city. Somehow, their streets and sidewalks had fallen prey to alarming cracks that crisscrossed the entire town. These cracks were two-to-four inches wide and several feet long,...