A Vigil for the U.S.-Mexico Border
Sunday, June 1
3 to 5 p.m. PST
Border Field State Park
San Diego, California and Tijuana, Baja California

Religious and Spiritual Leaders Stand in Support
As faith leaders in the San Diego/Tijuana region, we face a prophetic moment. The United States government is spending tens of millions of dollars to erect additional layers of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border. These new border walls are destructive both to the environment and to human relations in our region.

Through the ages our saints and scribes have penned words that encourage us to care for the created world and welcome the stranger. As issues concerning migration and the border continue to be the subjects of public controversy, we are called to move beyond partisan politics and sound bites. We are called to seek a new way of being human that nurtures the natural world and manifests equity and justice for all peoples.

So we stand in support of community organizations calling for an immediate halt to supplemental border fencing near the coast in San Diego. We pray that officials of the United States government will consider the negative environmental and human impact that additional construction will have. We call on these same officials to sit down with local leaders to explore better, more hopeful ways of addressing the complex issues of migration, environmental sustainability and border security that we face in the San Diego/Tijuana region.

Details about this Sunday’s Event
All people of good will are invited to a Vigil this Sunday, June 1 from 3 to 5 p.m. at Border Field State Park, where the U.S.-Mexico border meets the Pacific Ocean.

We will gather at “Friendship Park,” a celebrated meeting place where people have gathered for generations to visit through the border fence. If you’ve never been to this spectacular park, now is the time to check it out — the Department of Homeland Security is planning to build a triple fence straight through it!

Dress warmly, wear comfortable walking shoes and prepare yourselves for an ocean front view like no other in the world. Directions to Border Field State Park can be found at: http://www.bordermeetup.org/pages/directions.html

Helpful Articles in Regards to this Issue:
Jesus: The Illegal Alien
Jesus Was An Immigrant

Note: This invitation was co written by Jason Evans, Mike Angell, Dr. Jamie Gates, Rosemary Johnston and John Fanestil.

Our apologies for the site was down for a few days. We’re doing some house cleaning and conspiring on some new stuff to interest you in more kingdom mischief here in San Diego. Stay tuned!

This summer, the Evans clan is hitting the road for 4 weeks! We will head east until we hit the Atlantic, head north and then head back across the country towards the Pacific. This road trip involves a few different agendas. Click on the logo below to find out more.

“Prayer is not a private activity; indeed prayer is the most political activity in which a Christian can engage. ‘To fold your hands in prayer is to begin an uprising against the world’ (Karl Barth).” – From Kim Fabricius’ Ten Propositions on Prayer from Faith and Theology.

In bringing up social and political issues in churches I have attended, I have often been frustrated that the church’s action on these concerns never moves beyond prayer. For example, I have been to churches that pray for the hungry but do not feed hungry people. Some of my friends also share this frustration. Yet, since stumbling on this quote from Kim Fabricius, I have been questioning many of my own (and other people’s) assumptions about prayer.

At first, the quote above felt like an attempt to justify passivity or at least downplay the significance of action, service and being in solidarity with people. However, in thinking about prayer as the “most political activity” that I can ever do, the power seems to lie in transformation and communion.

I have, and still often, see and use prayer as a formula. If I put in enough work – with my requests and thanksgiving, it will all be processed and calculated to result in the fulfillment of my wish. My wish-listing frequently leaves no room for God’s possibility. I appeal for change, but only change that I have already planned.

Entering in prayer with petitions for change is entering into risk. It is a direct challenge of my preconceived notions of success and how change should happen. I feel it as God turning me away form the path of victory that I have mapped out; my intended goal and the route to it are subject to change. And in this risk, God is inseparable from the moment, from the possibility of change, and from the goal. My perfect 10-step-strategy to end hunger in San Diego and my prayers for this ultimate plan now taste so stale and bitter. My cheap (or naïve) optimism of activism and rote prayer falls away and I have to be open to risk that I will be transformed in this too. My wish-list prayers and my once brilliant plans for activism are revealed to be a formulation of my own ego; a reinforcement of who I am comfortable being. Yet, prayer drags me into a certain terror and joy. Henri Nouwen writes, “I believe that true prayer makes us into what we imagine. To pray to God leads to becoming like God.” This is terrifying because the example we have for becoming like God leads to a cross. And this is joyful because Jesus also demonstrates our connection with God.

Our transformation comes via communion with God and with people. Prayer is not an excuse to distance myself from a difficult situation, the people, and suffering. Instead, it is the act of taking the situation into myself; not for me to solve, but to empathize and join in the affliction, to begin to be a part of the relief for those afflicted. It is a communion with both the subject of what is prayed and God as the focusing of the praying. Prayer is risky, but in it we are never alone.

The dichotomy that I have been making between prayer and action is another way in which I have limited the political possibilities of prayer. A blurring of the borders of prayer, action and worship provides me a better guide in communing with God and people. With each aspect present and informing the other, I hope to approach service and solidarity with reflection, joy and openness for change. This is not to be a rejection of purely contemplative prayer; rather I hope to recognize that prayer does not need to end there.

And as Kim Fabricius ends his Ten Propositions on Prayer, “Ultimately, the question of prayer is the question of God: What kind of God do I believe in?” My formulaic and wish list prayers are sad indicators of how I view myself and my limited view of God. Just as my reluctance to acknowledge prayer as political is a reflection of my disregard for God’s transformation of and communion with me and the world.

Our good friend, Mike Angell, has posted a superb blog post regarding how our understanding of Jesus and who he is informs how we interpret issues dealing with migration and the border here in San Diego:

Beyond that Jesus calls his followers toward an immigrant identity. “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God” tends to be heard figuratively, but the connotation is that the follower of Jesus is constantly seeking a homeland that is not her own. Christians are all united in their common identity as immigrants to the Kingdom of God, the promised future country in which the poor are uplifted, the hungry fed, the sinful forgiven, the outsiders included. As followers of Christ we are called to be immigrants seeking the Kingdom of God.

Go read the rest and comment.

I am a student at Fuller Seminary, and I have had the privilege of studying with Dr. Glen Stassen who has done a lot of work on peacemaking. Peacemaking, of course, involves finding ways to resolve the inevitable disputes and conflicts that arise among people. One day I asked him what the key was to resolving conflicts and making peace. Without hesitation he declared, “a robust doctrine of sin!” This surprised me and so I asked him what he meant. Here is what he said.

In order to come together with our enemies or with someone we feel has wronged us, we need to recognize that evil and sin do not divide us. We should not see the conflict in terms of good versus evil or light versus darkness. This is the way Islamic terrorists (and sadly, some Christians) have viewed conflicts. It is not so.

The Apostle Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans that, “We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Ro. 3:23). And if we read more in Romans, we learn of just how pervasive and serious this sin is. It is a horrible disease that infects every aspect of our lives and all human associations (Ro. 3:9-18). We must not only acknowledge that we are sinners, but take it to heart. Peace making involves putting this “doctrine” of sin into action.

When we become Christians, the Holy Spirit indwells us, and we join with Jesus Christ in mystical union. But we are not, for this life, freed from sin. We remain subject to the self-centeredness, deception, and corruption of sin. Although we are Christians, we remain capable of evil, even the most repugnant evil, in what we approve, say, and do. But what sets us Christians apart is that, as we come to understand more fully the perfection of Christ, we come to understand more fully our radical difference from that perfection - namely our sin. Paradoxically, a deeper more intimate knowledge of Jesus Christ and connection with him leads to greater humility and openness to the possibility of being wrong.

Thus, as Dr. Stassen says, the recognition that sin pervades both ourselves and our enemies allows us to come together with them on equal terms, to listen, to think critically, and to be open to give and take, because we recognize that “wrongness” and “evil” dwell on both sides of the dispute. In this way, knowing Jesus, the Prince of Peace, can help us to become the peacemakers we are called to be. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God” (Mat. 5:9).

Unfortunately, most of us, when we are offended or hurt, do not “act in the way of Jesus,” but “react in the way of self-interest.” At least this is what I seem to do most of the time, and I don’t think I am much different from others. We do what most other people would do. We feel victimized; we play the martyr; we demand our rights; we seek revenge; we want to get even. Being a Christian is not easy; it is contrary to nature. It requires hard and effortful practice in the power of the Holy Spirit. It is natural to hit back, but it is “christlike” to seek peace and reconciliation, especially admitting that we might be wrong. But this is what Jesus calls us to do.

Thanks to those of you who are signed up for the cooking class on Wed. night.  I still have a few spots open if anyone else is interested, and you are more than welcome to bring a friend.  We will be meeting from 6:30-8pm at our home in South Park.

We will be learning how to cook beans from scratch, the benefits of eating grains and the proper way to cook them, and how to prepare a balanced meal.  We will discuss how to cook for the health of our families and the health of the world.  Come hungry, we will finish off the evening with dinner.

Please email me back to RSVP or 610.808.9986.

- Brooke

Today starts a new season for Brooke and I. We are now the student mentors for Urban Term students through the Center for Justice and Reconciliation at Point Loma Nazarene University. Around 20 students from PLNU will be moving into City Heights (an incredibly diverse, mostly low-income neighborhood here in the city) for the next 8 weeks. They will be taking classes each weekday morning together and serving internship positions with local non-profits each weekday afternoon. Brooke and I will be meeting with each of them individually a few times and as a group each week for a weekly meal. We’ve met a handful of the students so far and we are really excited to get to know all of them and walk through this eye-opening summer experience they will undergo.

As well, this weekend, we are hosting 25 students from Bluffton University in Ohio. On Saturday, I will be taking the students to Tijuana and visiting Dorcas House and Casa del Migrante. On Sunday, they will visit a variety of churches and discuss their experiences at lunch. The weekend is mostly devoted to looking at issues of globalization in our two urban areas in this region (TJ and SD) and in the Church. Our experience has been that this weekend experience is a challenge for students that have never been out of rural/suburban Ohio before. So, pray for these students as we immerse them in our culture for two days.

But why this starts a new season for us is that these programs commence a new project that we are taking on with the Ecclesia Collective. We are now in the process of developing an internship program. This program would take 3 to 4 young people that would live in the loft, above our home, spending 10 to 12 months as a part of the Hawthorn House community. Interns would spend time with our community, share meals and rhythms with us, work in our garden with us and we would (preferably) connect with a neighborhood non-profit agency or locally owned business for part time work. Brooke and I will meet with the interns every week for guided time to discuss spiritual formation, social engagement and community life among other things. The internships will not start until this coming fall at the earliest. If you are interested, get in touch.

We’ve tossed out several Bible story books in our home. In a Western world painted with pictures of Middle Eastern “terrorists” the last thing we want is for our children to forget that Jesus looked a lot more like bin Laden than their white dad. We realized this one evening when reading out of one these books that had been given to us as a gift. Our daughter quipped to her brother, “Maybe you’ll look like Jesus when you grow up!” Jesus did have blond hair in the cartoon, just like her brother. I quickly pulled out a news magazine with photos from Iraq. “I’m pretty sure Jesus looked a lot more like that guy than this cartoon drawing.” Their faces were puzzled. The book was in the trash by the time the kids were in bed.

In great part, my wife and I have practiced “church” the way we have due to our children. When I resigned from professional ministry, my wife was pregnant with our first child, our daughter. Around that same time, I had the privilege of interviewing author and pastor Chris Seay of Ecclesia in Houston, TX. He said something that I thought was quite profound. Out of all the interviews I’ve conducted, his words have stuck with me more than most:

We tend to subdivide the Body in a way that has no natural relationships or interaction because we’re built on felt-need models. Instead, single people need to learn from married people; young marrieds without kids should learn from married people with kids; and married people with kids should learn from married people with grown kids.
(read the article)

I don’t know if Seay would have drawn the conclusion I did from that statement. But when he said that it was as if the light was turned on for me. I realized that my Christian experience had primarily been “subdivided” just as Seay explained. As a leader of young people, I often saw the complete disconnect between parents and their children in regards to the child’s spiritual development. That was my responsibility.
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