A Visit to Advance Memphis - Pastor's Note, April 4, 2019

Greetings Friends, 

Last week six of us from Schweitzer took a short trip to Memphis, Tennessee to visit Advance Memphis (advancememphis.org), a ministry that reflects “the hope of the coming Kingdom of God through transformational relationships and economic development.”

We went to Advance to see a particular program called Launch. Launch is for “anyone with a dream.” It provides “tools, resources, and mentorship to empower our neighbors to develop a plan and start a business.” Since 2014 Launch has vetted 37 participants’ business ideas and 60% are now operating their own businesses. The Launch experience takes place in south Memphis where economic activity and vitality is below other parts of the city. 

Launch is making an economic and discipleship difference. Advance teaches that God has entrusted each of us with “Talents” (see the parable of the three servants in Matthew 25.14-30) that are to be employed in the landscape of or communities. 

As we sat in on a class, many of us who went could envision the good a course like Launch could have in Springfield and in our own lives. I’d invite you to pray with us about Launch, and next steps here in Springfield. 

Beyond our primary focus, we were able to take in the many ministries of Advance Memphis. They are similar in their community impact ministries, being just a few paces ahead of Schweitzer. What we saw challenged us and encouraged us. An interesting statement made to our team is that many churches will take up and read a book like “When Helping Hurts” and then disengage from ministries of mercy and justice because they do not want to do harm, but they never develop a plan for doing good. It is a joy to be a part of a community where learning leads to action, where we keep striving to Do No Harm, Do Good, and Stay in Love with God.

Additionally, in Memphis some of us visited the National Civil Rights Museum, built around The Lorraine Motel. The motel is the cite where Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed on April 4, 1968. The museum recounts the deep injustices that humanity can, did, and does deliver upon our fellow sisters and brothers. It also speaks of the hope and work for justice present in our history and needful today. 

There was a lot to see and take in two days, many things the Lord was asking us to pay attention to, in Memphis, in us, and in Springfield. As you make your travels near and far, and as you jot around this city what is the Lord drawing your eye to, that you are to pay attention to? What talent(s) has he placed within you, or within Schweitzer that needs to be put into the landscape of our communities? What is a next step in your life in Doing no Harm, Doing Good, and Staying in Love with God?

I am thankful for you and look forward to worshipping with you this weekend. 

Pastor Jason

~ originally sent as an e-note to Schweitzer UMC congregants on April 4, 2019

Kids and Money Talk

In mid-December I brought home paperwork that described the details about my salary and benefits. I decided to take a few minutes to show and explain the data to our kids and let them gain knowledge, understanding, and a degree of economic insight. I described the features: cash salary, housing allowance, expense reimbursement, pension - defined benefit and defined contribution, insurance - health, death and disability.

As I explained the data to Kyrie, my 8 year old daughter, Anna, my wife, remarked that it was probably over her head. Kyrie piped up, "it is not, I am interested in this." It wouldn't be long before we knew how interested! 

A couple of nights later we were having a family discussion. Kyrie was being very funny and I began to imitate her. After I mimicked her one too many times she scampered across the room, stood upon my knees and declared: "if you copy me one more time, I'm going to put you on disability." 

She was more than interested, she caught the concepts and applied them.

  

Poor Economics - Granular has a better ROI

I recently read the work Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty, by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo.
In their work Banerjee and Duflo provide research based reflections on global attempts to fight poverty. They take a look at education, health care, micro-lending, micro-saving, and policy/political reinvention - just about everything that's been a movement in poverty fighting in the last couple of decades. What they discovered, when you get past the ancedotal stories, is that it is incredibly difficult to alter poverty at a macro level.
Some of their best data reveals that granular sized endeavors, such as the simple act of reporting to a community how much money makes it to a local school, adds a measure of accountability that moves mountains.
The largest take-away from the book was the primary importance of hope and a future. Without the intangibles of hope and perspective of a better future, measures to fight poverty are relatively short-lived and sterile. With hope and a sense of a future that can be better than today people will save money, delay spending, take care of their health, invest in roads and infrastructure, take reasonable risks with capital, etc.
One area this researchers did not study was the impact of the church or spiritual communities to share  the intangibles of a hope and a future.

Missing the Mark - Theologians on Agriculture and Economics

I begin this post with a quotation that is par for the course in current theological writing.

Why has 'globalization' become a dirty word in many poor nations? A major reason is because it cloaks the fraudulence of the US and European Union, who preach a hypocritical rhetoric of 'free trade' to the poor while erecting barriers (in the form of quotas and tariffs - effectively taxes on trade) to imports from the poor.  When, say, Ghanaian farmers export raw cocoa beans into the European Union, they face a tariff of 3%.  They they tried to export processed chocolate, the tax would rise to 27%.  Moreover, between them, the US and European governments subsidize their farmers by a massive $350 billion a year (six times what they give in foreign 'aid'), which allows their agricultural surpluses to flood cheaply into poor countries, depress world prices and undermine local farming. (Howard Peskett & Vinoth Ramachandra, The Message of Mission.  IVP.  2003.  p.118.)

The authors have included this paragraph in a section in which they are calling for "social justice" taken up by people in the pews to press for greater transparency by world development agencies and local decision making around the world.  
While looking through scripture the message of God is clear; God does not look kindly on the poor being trodden underfoot.  But the authors of this text and many other like is are beyond naive when it comes to that which they write about. 
Lost in the paragraph above is rationality.  Included are a host of facts that are supposed to paint a horrific picture, when in reality, the facts themselves are not linked to a reasonable argument.  The use of details might as well compare the New York Yankees to the Yankee Candle Company or the song Yankee Doodle Dandy.  
"Free trade," the authors claim is "hypocritical rhetoric" because of the barriers that have been erected towards imports from poor countries.  Here we need Seth Myers from Saturday Night Live to ask his famous - "Really?"  The assertion is incredulous.  
Next the authors argue about import fees and the disparity Ghanaian farmers face if they try and export a finished product over the raw material.  They fail to lament that every country has some level of tax on imports entering their countries, according to export.gov, most fall within the range of 7 - 20 %.  Every country seeks to "protect" their own at some level.  
Following the comment about Ghanian coffee farmers they pose data about US and European governments subsidizing farmers to the tune of $350 billion a year.  This argument lacks validity because Ghanian cocoa growers do not face any competitive growers in the US.  The grain producers in the US are not going to switch to cocoa.  And according to the USDA web site their entire budget for 2010 was $158 billion dollars.  I don't know what the EU is doing.  Do you think it amounts to $200 billion?  Of the $158 Billion, only about 15 Billion goes to direct payments to farmers.  The biggest share of the 158, about 90 Billion, is channeled through the food stamps, school lunch programs and the like.  Another big share to goes to rural development, think USDA housing.   
The US Department of State, the arm of aide to foreign countries had a budget of 58 Billion.
I am not trying to advocate for or against these expenditures.  I'm just baffled by the failure of theologians, ethicists, social pontificators to check reality.  
The theologians desire to be bring the word of God into the present arena, but their reasoning which is wide of the mark is stunning.  They have bought the view of "American capitalism despoiling the world" with very little checks to the trustworthiness to the statements, or to the ideology of those who make claims unmoored from reality.
When it comes to theologians writing about economics, agriculture, world trade - they would do far greater works of justice and mercy if they would call for world neighbors to treat one another neighborly.  They would have something to write about if they called for real free trade, so that the bounteous creativity of people from around the world could be enjoyed by all around the world.  Real free trade I would enjoy would include Kentucky's finest soft drink, Ale-8-One, being available around the globe   Instead of living out the scarcity mindset of the children of Israel following Moses, they need to be like Joshua and Caleb, the land (the earth) is full and flowing with the goodness of God.
I'm afraid the majority of books, thinkers, and public commentators who deal with theses issues, theologically and otherwise, present the views of the 10, and not the 2.  Pray that God would send us more Joshua's and Caleb's.