We hear talk about “Not wearing religion on their sleeve”, which more of ten than not, disturbs me. I am interested politically BECAUSE of what I have experienced about the Mission of the Church. Politicians who seek to implement the gospel in their work lives must feel a kinship and a connection between what they do for a living and what their faith tells them, and to articulate that this is so. But to simply say “Christ changed my heart” and then cozy up to the big companies with their big contributions, and think that this is a just arrangement, and to “seek out sellable reasons for going to war” , this is a smear on the concept of “religious”, and ultimately, on the “Christ” that we claim to have been the source of a “change of heart”.

I went to seminary for my MDiv back in 1978-81 and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary before the tide turned in the Southern Baptist Convention leadership, and the 1980 elections happened while I was there, and I remember the dejection that was felt by so many on my dorm hall that Reagan had won and that several things were most certyainly going to change, and that programs of social uplift were going to be discontinued or starved out of existence, and that the US Military was going to become high priority.

I had been previously introduced to Clarence Jordan, and to the Church of the Saviour, whose journeys took them through confrontations with the racist south as they sought to build a Christian community in rural Americus, Georgia in the late 40’s and through the 50’s and 60’s, and through journeys that sought to address the problems of the Washington DC area known as Adams Morgan, and whose communities operated and existed on a “Journey Inward, Journey Outward” model, which recognized that fulflling the calls that came to God’s people necessitated the nurture of an Inward Journey AND an Outward Journey; a duality that was always to be kept in balance and one dependent on the other for its life and growth. Outward mission , some point of intersection of the World and One’s gifts, occur at the point of CALLING; God CALLS us into being by equipping us with GIFTS for a particular task, and that we MUST depend upon one another for not only the CALLING FORTH of those gifts, but also for the RESPONSE TO CALL to implement those GIFTS. And so The Church of the Saviour came to be known for its amazingly close knit, accountable discipleship nurturing, knowing one another’s journeys and struggles, exploring together the implications of the emerging CALL that God was sounding amongst them. The reach of their ministries, often working directly with people to find and help manage affordable housing, help them find jobs, and help provide Health Care, emerged as ministries, and today, several “Churches” exist as “descendents” under that original vision. The Church of the Saviour is like a denomination unto itself. Among them are groups who seek peaceful solutions, both personal and national; and who study the impact of money, both personal and national and international. Their School of Christian Living, now The Servant Leadership School, has inspired several similar approaches across the country.

And so this journey has brought together these models, technology, and a constant seeking to utilize these things in helping the Church to use them to help the Church tell it’s story. The Cluetrain Manifesto says “The markets are conversations”, and the Dean campaign said “It’s about us;; the people, and the conversation about democracy”, and the Church can adopt this recognition of “Conversation” as vital to its life and its “sharing of our story”.

Our “story” should be “on our sleeve”. Barak Obama so impressed me because he not only spoke of a vision for America which made it possible for him to get where he was, but also that he said , “We worship an awesome God in the Blue States — the Blue States are some demographic map of “liberal voters”— and he said this , I believe, as a reply to those who would say that to be Christian, one must support the same candidates we do”.