Happy Fourth of July!  No matter what your politics. Whether today you are happy or annoyed by what is going on in our country. We who are citizens of the United States have a lot to be proud of. On July 4, 1776, a group of very courageous people, with the threat of execution for treason, crafted and signed a document that declared  the independence of  thirteen colonies in America from the reign of a British sovereign.

This Declaration of Independence, that too often we yawn through or simply take for granted, is a catalytic document which defined and energized a political movement. Words matter! We must read this document with a sense of awe and gratitude:

hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness….

From this document, a new nation was birthed, founded on principles of liberty and the rights of individuals not kings.  “We the people” is the phrase that begins the US Constitution. It clearly states a new way of governing and being governed: a democracy, a government built upon the consent of the governed.  This is a principle that has been advocated for,  fought for and defended through marches, and wars, and legislatures, and courts.

No country is perfect, and this country is still learning and will always be learning how to be a democracy for the common good of its citizens, its other residents, and for the good of the world. Today as every day, I am proud to be an American.

Happy Birthday to my country, our country: the United States of Amerca.  Happy Fourth of July!

You matter

When you love the work you do and the people you do it with, you matter.
When you are so gracious and generous and aware that you think of other people before yourself, you matter.
When you leave the world a better place than you found it, you matter.
When you continue to raise the bar on what you do and how you do it, you matter.
When you teach and forgive and teach more before you rush to judge and demean, you matter.
When you touch the people in your life through your actions (and your words), you matter.
When kids grow up wanting to be you, you matter.
When you see the world as it is, but insist on making it more like it could be, you matter.
When you inspire a Nobel prize winner or a slum dweller, you matter.
When the room brightens when you walk in, you matter.
And when the legacy you leave behind lasts for hours, days or a lifetime, you matter.

See Seth Godin’s blog at http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

I just attended a fundraiser for this orgainzation Imagine LA.  The concept is simple:  8000 homeless kids in greater LA + 8000 faith communities in greater LA =no kids sleeping on the streets. The strategy is hard work, but they are making good success in their pilot projects. This concept is very similar to what we are launching in Simi, what we so far have called  Circles of Support, (see  circle-of-support).

I am wonderfully amazed that people from a variety of faith communites and religious beliefs are coming together around the issue of homelessness. Even some more doctrinally rigorous evangelicals who often do not join hands unless theological issues are squared away, are coming together around this issue.  It seems that reaching out to the marginalized, which touches the Lord’s heart, draws people together.

if your city is involved in the One City, One Book program, encourage those who organize this to use The Soloist by Steve Lopez as a discussion book. It will be very helpful in promoting issues related to reducing and preventing homelessness.

Here is a great article on the proactive stance of faith communities to the homelessness issues. It describes Imagine LA…and has  a few quotes from me as well.christianity-today-imagine-la

A major part of my just completed PhD dissertation (Fuller Seminary, 2009) deals with the ways traditional denominations need to resist institutionalization in order to remain missionally engaged in culture. The Evangelical Covenant Church is one of a handful of denominations which is taking intentional steps to avoid an unintended, but often predictable, drift towards irrelevance.  This article appeared in The Covenant Quarterly and is a condensation of some of the work found in my dissertation.

This drift towards institutionalization is a problem that all institutions are subject to whether religious, educational, political or marketplace.  What begins as a wild idea becomes a fire like movement, but over time, unless there is intentional resistance by heretics who continue to throw catalytic agents into the mix, the wild movement becomes domesticated, tame and passe.

Fredrickson: Covenant/Mission Friends

My entry for the  Good News for your City series with JR Woodward is now up.  This is a great series, with people from a number of backgrounds speaking.

You can read what I wrote, and what others are writing here