On the eve of World Population Day, July 11, the state of the world is worth considering. While the information below is indeed sobering, Jesus is the answer for the world’s peoples, regardless of wealth, culture, tradition, or origin.
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst” (John 6:35–51 NASB).
Poverty
“No one knows yet what the full scale of this global economic crisis will look like. We do know that women and children in developing countries will bear the brunt of the impact. What started as a financial crisis in rich countries is now deepening into a global economic crisis that is hitting developing countries hard. It is already affecting progress toward reducing poverty.”
Although poverty has been dramatically reduced in many parts of the world, a quarter of the world’s people remain in severe poverty. Half the world’s people live on less than $2 a day. Over one billion people live on less than $1 per day. The richest 20 percent of the world population now receives 150 times the income of the poorest 20 percent.
The richest one-fifth of the world:
• Consume 45 percent of all meat and fish, the poorest fifth 5 percent.
• Consume 58 percent of total energy, the poorest fifth less than 4 percent.
• Have 74 percent of all telephone lines, the poorest fifth 1.5 percent.
• Consume 84 percent of all paper, the poorest fifth 1.1 percent.
• Own 87 percent of the world’s vehicle fleet, the poorest fifth less than 1 percent.
Women and Poverty
With nearly 7 billion people in the world, 49 percent of whom are female, there is no doubt that women living in poverty will be denied the opportunities that women in the US take for granted. Women are still the poorest of the world’s poor, representing 70 percent of the 1.3 billion people who live in absolute poverty. When nearly 900 million women have incomes of less than $1 a day, the association between gender inequality and poverty remains a harrowing reality.
Women work two-thirds of the world’s working hours, produce half of the world’s food, and yet earn only 10 percent of the world’s income and own less than 1 percent of the world’s property.
Education
Today, there are still 125 million children who never attend school. Another 150 million children of primary age start school, but drop out before they can read or write. One in four adults in the developing world—872 million people—is illiterate, and the numbers are growing. A child in Mozambique can expect to go to school for two to three years while a five-year-old European or North American child can expect to spend 17 years in formal education.
Girls account for two-thirds of the children not in school. In many schools in the developing world, the treatment of girls is tantamount to a system of apartheid.
Debt Crisis
It is estimated that the Third World pays the developed North nine times more in debt repayments than they receive in aid. Africa alone spends four times more on repaying its debts than it spends on health care.
Food & Hunger
826 million people remained undernourished in 1996-98. Hunger continues to plague an estimated 793 million people around the world, including 31 million in the US. Hunger kills. Every day, 24,000 people die from hunger and other preventable causes. Nearly 160 million children are malnourished worldwide.
Health
More than 800 million people lack access to basic healthcare, and 1.3 billion lack access to safe drinking water. Seventeen million people die each year from curable diseases, including diarrhea, malaria and tuberculosis. Five million of these people die due to water contamination.
We are not alone in this world. We share space with more than 6 billion souls, every one of them loved by God and in need of His love shown in the most basic and practical terms.
If you are ready to consider your response more fully, two excellent resources are Trolls and Truth and Plunge2Poverty by Jimmy Dorrell.
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Eating a hot dog at a Birmingham Barons game, followed by watching some spectacular fireworks, is what you’ll likely find me doing this Independence Day. Just in case you don’t remember what this day is about, we celebrate it every July 4, commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Life wasn’t all that peaceful at the time of the signing. Our nation was under the rule of England’s King George III and there was growing unrest because of the taxes that had to be paid to England. Growing concern over “taxation without representation” led 12 of the 13 colonies to send delegates to form the First Continental Congress in 1774 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
When British troops advanced into Massachusetts in April 1775, Paul Revere sounded the warning of “The British are coming, the British are coming” as he rode his horse through the late night streets toward Lexington. This was the beginning of the American war for independence.
When all efforts for a peaceful agreement failed, a committee was formed to write a declaration of independence. On June 28, 1776, Thomas Jefferson presented a draft of the declaration to the Congress, on July 2 twelve colonies voted for independence, and on July 4 the final revised Declaration of Independence was approved, with a flourishing signature by John Hancock that the King could not miss.
Every year we celebrate this radical decision that birthed our nation and introduced us to freedoms unknown by any other nation until this time. We enjoy freedom of faith, freedom of arms, freedom of speech, and the list goes on.
Don’t forget that you also have another kind of freedom, just as radical, even more radical, than the freedoms we enjoy in the US. As the Apostle Paul wrote to the Galatians: “In [this] freedom Christ has made us free [and completely liberated us]; stand fast then, and do not be hampered and held ensnared and submit again to a yoke of slavery [which you have once put off]” (Galatians 5:1 AMP).
We have paid a high price for the freedoms we enjoy as citizens of our nation. This is what we would expect. Freedom comes with a price. But the radical nature of our freedom in Christ is that God paid the price. Our freedom is revolutionary because we have been freed to live the Great Commandment, to love others as ourselves, and this is the most radical of all freedoms.
As I eat my hotdog and watch the fireworks, I will be thankful for the gift of freedom I enjoy as an American citizen, but even more so for the freedom I have in Christ. I will pray that my life be marked by the same self-giving that led Christ to give himself for me.
July 2 is the Salvation Army Founder’s Day, the anniversary of the first tent meeting at which William Booth preached on the Quaker Burial Ground in Whitechapel, London. We hear daily of those who have spent their lives taking rather than giving—Bernie Madoff, Andrew Fastow, Michael Milken, Dennis Kozlowski, Jeff Skilling, Charles Keating, Jr., Bernard Ebbers—to name a few, so it’s good to have a day to remind us of those with Great Commandment lives. This is the radical nature of the gospel, that we give ourselves away and in return we gain everything God has to give. William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, is an example of the Christian pioneers mentioned in Hebrews 12, and his life reminds us of our accountability to live out the radical nature of the gospel, bringing Christ to the world.
Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God.
—Hebrews 12:1–2, The Message
William Booth was born in Nottingham in 1829. While working as an apprentice in a pawnbroker’s shop he became aware of the humiliation experienced by the poor. During his teenage years he became a Christian and spent much of his spare time trying to persuade other people to become Christians too.
After his marriage to Catherine Mumford in 1855 he spent several years as a Methodist minister, traveling all around the country, preaching, and sharing God’s word to all who would listen. Yet he felt that God wanted more from him, that he should be doing more to reach ordinary people. He returned to London with his family, having resigned his position as a Methodist minister.
One day in 1865 he found himself in the East End of London, preaching to crowds of people in the streets. Outside the Blind Beggar pub some missioners heard him speaking and were so impressed by his powerful preaching that they asked him to lead a series of meetings they were holding in a large tent. The date for the first meeting was set for July 2, 1865. To the poor and wretched of London’s East End, Booth brought the good news of Jesus Christ and his love for all men. Booth soon realized he had found his destiny. He formed his own movement, which he called “The Christian Mission.”
The work was hard and Booth would ’stumble home night after night haggard with fatigue, often his clothes were torn and bloody bandages swathed his head where a stone had struck’, wrote his wife. Evening meetings were held in an old warehouse where urchins threw stones and fireworks through the window. It was not until 1878 when The Christian Mission changed its name to The Salvation Army that things began to happen. The impetus changed. The idea of an Army fighting sin caught the imagination of the people and the Army began to grow rapidly. Booth’s fiery sermons and sharp imagery drove the message home and more and more people found themselves willing to leave their past behind and start a new life as a soldier in The Salvation Army. By the time of Booth’s death in 1912 the Army was at work in 58 countries.
When I took a mission team to Australia some years ago, I found that the most respected Christian group was the Salvation Army. They had gone to the hardest places to bring help and hope to those who were forgotten, oppressed, and lost. Thousands of Salvation Army witnesses were living the words of William Booth from long ago.
While women weep, as they do now, I’ll fight; while little children go hungry, as they do now, I’ll fight; while men go to prison, in and out, in and out, as they do now, I’ll fight; while there is a drunkard left, while there is a poor lost girl upon the streets, while there remains one dark soul without the light of God, I’ll fight-I’ll fight to the very end!
Every believer can choose Great Commandment living. I recommend two great books that will encourage you to be the pioneers for the next generation of Christ followers: Trolls and Truth: 14 Realities About Today’s Church that We Don’t Want to See by Jimmy Dorrell and Beyond Me: Living a You- First Life in a Me-First World by Kathi Macias.
How do you decide if someone is bad or good? It’s not always easy to keep a list of good deeds versus bad. This is the question some of my family and I discussed after seeing the new movie Slumdog Millionaire. Salim, the older brother of Jamal, is a study of human response to abject poverty.
Slumdog Millionaire not only confronts us with abject poverty and the toll it takes on human behavior, but also with the reality of our wealth against the needs of the world. The difficulties most of us are facing in this struggling economy are seen in a different light after we’ve followed children running through the slums of Mumbai, watched women washing in the river, and experienced the toilets of the poor.
From the time I read The City of Joy, a story that takes place in the slums of Calcutta, Mumbai, written by Dominique Lapierre, and then saw the movie, I knew I had to go to India, and so I went. I traveled across this nation of over a billion people for only a few days, but the poverty I saw released a flood of tears that I could not stop. Only when I went with Christ followers who live and serve in the slums of Delhi did I trust that hope is reaching out in some of the most grievous places in the world.
Books can paint a picture that carries us to faraway places; and as believers, God uses words to move us toward His plan for our lives. If the message of Q & A, the book on which Slumdog Millionaire is based, had not been “it is written,” but rather, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,” how different the lives of Salim and Jamal could have been. What are you writing today that may lead someone to discover the only final word in life is the Word. How will you take that person to the place where God would have him or her go, to accomplish what God has planned for them to do? In Christ, “it is written,” indeed.
Karma, a little three-year-old girl, was quietly eating her small slice of dessert pizza at CiCi’s Pizza restaurant while I visited with one of her six brothers and sisters. It didn’t take her long to remove the lid from the Parmesan cheese jar and pour a large pile of the cheese on top of her dessert pizza. By the time I saw what she was doing, she was eating it with all the gusto her tiny body could employ!
There was a time that I would have been at least a little concerned, but my only response was to laugh with pleasure. She didn’t need my guidance to know what she liked to eat, and I had no intention of interfering.
Karma was a heavenly reminder that I don’t have to control life. I can relax and take pleasure in the chaos of living and working. God is in control. This is what I intend to take with me into the world of publishing this next week. Even though the forecasts for 2009 are dire, I want to see what God will do and laugh with pleasure at His handiwork.
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1. Be still.
2. Express thanks.
3. Accept Christ into your life for today.
4. Find out God’s plan.
5. Hear God speak through Scripture about your part in His plan.
6. Remember your duty to witness for God in example, character, home, work, and spare time.1
By the flickering light of a peanut-oil lamp, early each morning Eric Liddell and a roommate studied the Bible and prayed for an hour. No doubt, Liddell’s unreserved commitment to God equipped him to be the guiding light for prisoners from nearly 20 nations who spent two years in a Japanese interment camp in China during World War II. Liddell’s plan worked, even in the worst of conditions. His friendship to Christ strengthened him to encourage his fellow prisoners until his death a few days before the end of the war in 1945.
Have you taken time to start thinking about your personal discipleship in 2009? When I led a workshop last week on prayer, I was surprised to see the room fill to overflowing. The desire to grow closer to God was evident in the questions and the response to what I had to say.
There is no better time than now to put your plan in place for discipleship in 2009. What is your plan for becoming like Christ in 2009? How will you be strengthened to be Christ in example, character, home, work, and spare time in 2009?
Excerpted from: Eric Liddell, The Disciplines of the Christian Life (New York: Ballantine Books, 1985), 17-18.
A few nights ago, I made a ministry visit to a local topless bar. The dressing room was smoky and busy as women prepared for their times on stage. In an economy that baffles even the wealthiest and most brilliant minds in our world, it isn’t hard to understand the desperation often heard in the life stories of the dancers. At some point many of these women looked at their small children and decided their only option was to give themselves over to the basest instincts of man.
As a publisher, I often wonder how words can cross the threshold of a dressing room to bring light into a world of darkness. What kind of writing makes sense to women who live in a culture isolated in many ways from you and me? These women who call us “The Church Ladies” have a worldview shaped by nights and days spent pleasing men whose interest has little to do with love or respect and managers willing to use women’s bodies for financial gain. How can our words gain entry into hearts where barriers of self-protection are firmly in place?
During the eight years I’ve been going to this club, I’ve been surprised at the delight women express when we give them a book. Perhaps a book is the safest encounter with the God we represent. While not every book we publish effectively enters into the lives of these women, I believe we can write in ways that build spiritual bridges to the hardest places in our world.
Even so, a book can only go where we are willing to take it. So what have you read, or what have you written, that needs to go next door, down the street, or across the city? If you don’t take it, who will? Whose life will be changed because you went?
Andrea
The Frankfurt Book Fair claims to be the largest book fair in the world. I believe it after walking every floor of a fair that fills more than six pavilions, most of which are three stories tall and the size of football stadiums.
I went to see the world of publishing so we at New Hope can be better equipped to fulfill our mission. My first experience at this global publishing event confirmed two commitments that Christian publishers, authors, agents, sales reps, and retailers must hold fast.
- We must be successful in the task God has assigned us. A lost world needs access to content that lifts the name of Jesus. The Frankfurt Book Fair provided an unforgettable picture of the smallness of the evangelical section in the world of publishing. An entire floor of a pavilion housed the publishers of the Muslim world. Another floor housed the secular humanism of Europe and Scandinavia. If we are not completely committed to success and to making Christian content available to the world, many may never know God loves them. I have never doubted that New Hope’s mission is important, but now I am evermore convinced we are involved in kingdom work.
- Our content has to be transformational. Whether it is a humorous book, a Bible study, a devotional, or fiction, it has to reveal Truth, who God is, and what He has done in Jesus Christ. I visited with publishers in countries with little or no Christian witness. I am thankful for a publishing focus that allows New Hope to lift up Christ as well as encourage readers to a radical commitment to Christ.
Many of you are preparing boxes for Operation Christmas Child. The promotional video explains that children not only receive a box of gifts, but also a small book in their language that tells them of God’s love. Even a Christmas box filled with gifts is incomplete without the message of Jesus. Everywhere a Christian message is placed in someone’s hands, the transformational value of Christian publishing is realized.
Christ himself wrote it—not with ink, but with God’s living Spirit; not chiseled into stone, but carved into human lives—and we publish it.
—2 Corinthians 3:3 (The Message)
Andrea
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Jonathan Howe
New Hope Publishers
