Make it YOUR Problem

A few weeks ago I attended the Canadian Youth Worker's Conference at the Sharaton Wall Center in Vancouver. It was an event put together, in part, by Canadafire. The seminars were insightful/inspiring, and the bands were awesome. On Saturday night the general seesion was held in an old church across from the Sharaton. A lady named Joyce Heron from an organization called Jacob's Well spoke. Darian (who put the event together) was excited for me to hear Joyce. He felt that a lot of what I feel resonates with her work. Last week I did a little research into Jacob's Well- and I was really excited about what I saw.

I am a firm believer in helping those in our own backyards (you don't have to fly overseas to have your heartbreak for others). All over the mainland are pockets of extreme poverty juxtaposed with extreme wealth...

And I'm not okay with that.

I could go on and on, but I think/know that it's up to us to change it- or at very least, actually give a damn.



But where does the average person begin?

Jacob's Well is an organization located in East Van. Not only do they have a passion to work with the people living there, but they also have a passion for educating all our rich, indifferent asses (yes, compared to the rest of the world, we're ALL rich).

We have a passionate commitment to equip people to understand God’s bias toward the poor and marginalized. Scripture demonstrates that God desires that the marginalized receive justice and compassion. This particular bias however sometimes does not show up in the lives of people who claim to follow God. Our hope is that through teaching and modeling God’s heart for the poor others will begin to discover ways they can engage their lives with marginalized people around them.

Their next seminar is titled: "Life in the Margins"

And this is the description listed on the website:

We all have people who cross our paths who make us uncomfortable, who we don’t know how to relate to, who we are afraid of, or who we simply want to ignore. As Christians we know these aren’t the responses we’re “supposed” to have but we don’t know how to change them. There’s a lot of rhetoric about “mercy ministry” and outreach to the poor around us. However, justice cannot merely be a noble idea or be relegated to a department of the church. This workshop explores the theological mandate to be towards people who are socially marginalized. As well, students are equipped with basic pragmatics of relating to marginalized people.

So aside from running/walking to build hope for teen drug addicts (see previous post), what are you doing Friday Jan 25th (7:00pm-10:00pm) and Saturday Jan 26th (10:00am-4:00pm)?



(check out http://www.jacobswell.ca for furthur info)