It’s been a week since attending the Justice Conference and prior to that I was away with my family vacationing at our in-laws in FL. As I have been catching up on all things we call “reentry,” I’ve been rereading my session/workshop notes and reflecting on what I heard/saw.

Prior to the “general conference,” there were a series of pre-conference workshops. There were 5 hours and 8 options per hour. Yeah, selecting which 5 of the 40 to attend was challenging. My friend Bassim and I decided we would divide and conquer and try to debrief each other over meals and the ride home. While there were some excellent options for the first hour, one leapt off the page for me – Paul Metzger’s “Sustaining a Justice Movement: How did John M.Perkins, Mother Teresa, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer Do It?”

John Perkins and Paul Metzger

Some incredible names in that title and I have really appreciated what I have read of Dr. Metzger like Consuming Jesus: Beyond Race and Class Divisions in a Consumer Church and the chunks of The Word of Christ and the World of Culture: Sacred and Secular Through the Theology of Karl Barth during my independent study of Barth at Biblical. So would this workshop deliver? And could it delver to me at 9am having arrived late and running on a few hours sleep? Yep, turned out to be one of the best parts of the weekend.

The Nature of Calling
Indeed we can learn so much from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Mother Theresa and John Perkins. We should look to their admirable qualities and habits to imitate but not in a mindless “copy and paste” sense but rather as models for growing in our Christian faith and practice as we seek our unique identity in our Creator. As Dr. Metzger was teaching, I couldn’t help but consider the nature of calling as it pertained not only to these heroic figures mentioned but also to [Read more…]