Compassion By Design

Do you really read the pre-printed messages in greeting cards? Does it make it any less meaningful when you think about how that the same message is mailed to tens of thousands of people, sometimes only modified by adding a signature? Personally, I am really more interested in the family letter, and the little personal note—and of course the fact that they remembered to send a card.

If we wanted to count on one hand the important messages that we must communicate in our effort to reach the emerging generation and post-modern’s, then Christmas, and the incarnation would have to go on the short list. The heart cry of the emerging generations, is don’t tell me—words are irrelevant—I want to SEE Jesus. I don’t trust a gospel that isn’t tied to action and connected to a reality that I can see, touch and smell. They want to experience truth, not just listen to it. It’s a “be the message generation.”

Isn’t that the message of Christmas? God didn’t write us a note, and have his signature machine imprint his name at the bottom. He didn’t even write us a family letter—he sent his son as a personalized message. Nothing impersonal, inexpensive or detached about this greeting card. If there is one message that we need to learn to communicate to the emerging generation, it is the message of the incarnation—God come in the form of man to demonstrate his character.

How do we bring this message home? How can we communicate the truth of the God/Man so that people see that no matter what preconception they may have about the church, God is not just a talker. How do we share the mystery of this truth in a way that allows people to see that the life of Christ in us, is about daily meaning and not just sectarian rhetoric.

While I have seen many of the best Christmas pageant and extravaganzas, I am not sure that camels and choirs with angel wings really get it. For the initiated, we can enjoy the glory of God revealed to shepherds and the details of the story—but for those on the outside, it can become just another seasonal story fading into the white noise of Christmas.

The God-man– now that is an outrageous story. This is not the shallow substitute of a snowman possessed by a lost father, or zombies who are alive but not really, or even disembodied souls who can’t leave earth until a psychic helps to solve their problem. This is the creator setting aside his power to join us, to become one of us, to walk with us and to touch and be touched.

We have to get this message right. One way is to participate in the demonstration of his character through service. Our acts of service show his love in a profound way, especially when delivered in a personal and relational way. That was also the MO of Jesus’—demonstration along with proclamation. Before the season comes again, we have a whole year to become Christmas cards, to learn to better embody the message in our service, listening and caring. And that is a message that many WILL hear.

Just last week the Appeals Court ruled on Prison Fellowship case involving the Iowa Prison Ministry Program. This case has lots of implications for faith based providers who are interested in public resources for faith based community service. It is one in a series of legal decisions that are more clearly defining the lines for faith based providers. The following is an analysis provided by Stanley Carlson-Theis of the Center for Public Justice and the Coalition to Preserve Religious Freedom. Stanley was part of the formation team for the White House Faith Based Office and is a scholar committed to this issue. I will discuss some of the practical implications for faith based providers in an upcoming blog.

The federal appeals court (8th Circuit) made its ruling last week on the Interchange Freedom Initiative (Prison Fellowship Ministries) appeal of last year’s lower federal court ruling. The lower court had said the IFI program operated in the Newton, Iowa, prison was unconstitutional because it amounted to government indoctrination in religion, said the program had to stop, and ordered IFI to pay back the $1.5 million it had received from the state to that point. The appeals court agreed that the program as operated could not constitutionally be directly funded by Iowa. It suggested that the program ought to be retooled in order to pass muster as a privately paid pre-release recidivism program. But IFI does not have to pay back the $1.5 million earned before the lower court ruling, although it does have to pay back state funds received after the lower court made its decision.

Faith-based organizations should be reassured by the decision about repayment. The appeals court said that IFI had no compelling reason to think the state was drawing it into an unconstitutional program by awarding it several contracts to provide services the state urgently sought on behalf of its prisoners. Allowing a judge to assess a draconian penalty in such circumstances was unjust to the faith-based provider and put at risk every faith-based organization that agrees to work with the government. But faith-based organizations must pay careful attention before jumping into collaboration with the government, because they bear their own responsibility to be sure that a program will be operated consistent with constitutional guidelines.

The appeals court decision is an emphatic reminder about those constitutional guidelines. When the funding is direct (a contract or grant awarded to the faith-based organization), the faith-based organization must be careful to ensure that none of the government money is spent for religious activities and items. There must be a clear division of spending, a clear division of staff hours and responsibilities, transparent accounting that demonstrates that the government money was spent only on authorized (non-religious) items and work. It is not enough to say that the government got more secular value out of the services than it paid for.

On the other hand, when the funding is indirect, then religion (e.g., counseling with a spiritual dimension) can be part of the government-funded services—but for the set-up to fit this model, the beneficiaries have to be able to choose a secular alternative to the religious program. It is not enough to say that they can avoid the religious program by not choosing it. Faith-based providers wanting the freedom to include religion that indirect funding systems allow have to be certain that the government will ensure that beneficiaries have alternatives, including a secular choice.

Faith-based organizations that operate privately funded programs inside prison also should take note. This court case was not about privately funded prison programs, but the several judges did suggest that care is needed. Prisoners shouldn’t face the choice of either no rehabilitation help or else swallowing someone else’s religion. And the private groups should be careful that they aren’t inadvertently taking over the government’s job of decision-making and discipline, or else the courts will hold them to the government’s standards of how to treat prisoners. The government is not allowed to make decisions based on religion.

The appeals court reminded the lower-court judge, and Americans United for Separation of Church and State—the ones who sued—that a faith-based organization cannot be excluded from providing government-funded services merely because religion is reflected throughout the organization, i.e., because it is “pervasively sectarian.” What’s important is not how religious the organization is, but rather whether it will follow the rule that when the government funding is direct, that money cannot be spent on religious activities.

IFI and Prison Fellowship Ministries have asked two important questions that neither the lower court nor the appeals court answered: (1) While it is right to say that prisoners should be able to choose between various rehabilitation alternatives, is it right to penalize a provider of good services when that provider is the only one who came forward to offer the services? Isn’t it better for the prisoners to have something rather than nothing, even if that something is only suitable for some of the prisoners? (2) If the constitutional flaw in this case was not that the state paid IFI for its program but rather that the state did not at the same time offer prisoners another choice of rehabilitative services, shouldn’t the court have told the state to get busy setting up that alternative, rather than focus on shutting down IFI’s program?

For further commentary and the appeals court’s decision, go to:

Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy >

InnerChange Freedom Initiative >

To subscribe to the Center for Public Justice newsletter, email cprf@cpjustice.org

We have several upcoming trainings that you should be aware of. They all provide cutting edge instruction that will help your church plant, compassion ministry or church committed to community engagement move forward. This is training that is designed for faith based community service that is both sustainable and high impact.

Free Conference Calls about Needs Assessment– Join David Mills for an overview of how needs assessment can help you plant a healthier new church, build new credibility and missional heart with a church in revitalization or move your church into strong community connection. These calls include a detailed overview document and are available monthly. click here

Needs Assessment Intensive– February 5th and 6th in Historic Northern VA, get intensive training, additional needs assessment tools and get prepared to lead or train others in needs assessment. This training is for those who want hands on training to lead their new church or church committed to community, or faith based non profit into greater community impact. The fellowship and shared learning make this intensive an important opportunity for those who want to increase community impact. The venue is located just 7 miles from the Historic Mannassas Battlefield, 30 miles from Mt. Vernon, and just minutes from the new Air and Space Smithsonian as well as other DC locations. The venue is located so that you can add some tourism to your trip without the expense of staying inside the beltway.

Quick Start Ready to Serve is a one day training on January 15th in Greensboro, NC that will lead you through the right steps to start and grow a community based ministry. Appropriate for churches and faith based ministries, the training is based on the best available approaches to starting strong and sustaining high impact, mission oriented community service. The Trainer is David Mills. click here to learn more.

Design for Service . This teleconference training will take you through the Design for Funding workbook form the comfort of your own phone– allowing you to describe your services in a way that funders and donors can support. During this series of calls, you will learn to describe your services in the standard formats that funders want to see, and also create communication and critical thinking tools that will improve your services and help you to recruit more volunteers and effective board members. This is a series of calls that begin January 14th. click here

Join us!

It was such a hopeless start. Baby born to a yet unmarried couple in a stable, giving birth while traveling to satisfy bureaucratic requirements for residence, and then having to flee to another country to avoid a government sanctioned death squad. From the outside, a morally challenged refugee family with a newborn. But to those in the know, a King whose birth drew angelic visitation, personal visits and treasures from the east and the prophetic whispers of relatives and shepherds alike.

I am awed by the incarnation—what we celebrate at Christmas. The entrance of God into human form, born into the lowest of circumstances—son of a woman who became pregnant outside of marriage, living in a dirt poor town, in a country under the iron thumb of a dictator.

What moves me so much is the willingness of God to be “with” us, to join us in our pitiful condition, to take our very form. Then to live among us, work a job, pay taxes, deal with parents, customers and co-workers on a daily basis.

It was,
Omnipotence that became vulnerable
Omniscience that had to learn math and human language,
Omnipresence that had to walk in sandals along sewage strewn roads.
The prime mover pounding nails with a hammer, smoothing wood with a chisel.
All this to be with us.

While a holiday has many expressions, my heart is humbled by this knowledge, how about you?

Many of those who visit this blog, have experienced this reality personally, and we should take time during this season to remember. Some have not, and I encourage you to invite him to join you this Christmas. You can do that with a simple request.

Many who do know him, live out the incarnation everyday. You are a model of this deep spiritual truth, when you move your family to grow a new community of faith in a strange city, when you patiently tutor a child in reading, when you chop potatoes and carrots and then dip soup, when you help neighbors every month to get their Angel Food, when you take time to share encouragement with a homeless family, or whatever selfless acts of service you do somewhere where the public lights do not shine.

If you are one of those who work tirelessly to meet the needs of others, setting aside your own plans and interests to feed, clothe, care and encourage others, you are living out this miracle of Christmas. You are that hidden faithfulness being born in a converted cave—holy character wrapped in shredded cloth. You are being him to others, because he was not only born in a middle eastern city on a historical date, but because he has also been born in you.

May your service deepen your knowledge of him and may others come to know him who moves you to serve.

Merry Christmas.