I’m so excited to be attending Youth With A Mission (YWAM) as I enter this next phase of my life. If you don’t already know what I’ve been up to, this letter should definitely bring you up to speed.

In the summer of 2008, while I was on vacation with friends in O’ahu, I felt God calling me to commit a longer portion of my time towards missions before I continued with any further education. Through a rather unique series of events, I recognized God was specifically calling me to join YWAM and go through the Discipleship Training School (DTS) program. After searching through the various DTS focuses, I stumbled upon one called PhotogenX which had a strong emphasis on photography along with serving in the global community, combating injustice and delivering the gospel message to the world. Once I had committed to YWAM, I actually ended up talking with friend of mine who lived and worked at a church in Hawaii about a job opportunity before my DTS started. The first three months of 2009 I ended up working with New Hope Diamond Head (NHDH) Church in Honolulu, Hawaii. That short stint at NHDH really reignited my passion for the work God’s doing in the church around the globe.

It’s that same passion that’s fueled my desire to join YWAM and learn more about a missional lifestyle. As a Christian, I’ve received the commission to go into the world and proclaim the gospel of Christ to the lost, bring hope to the hopeless, stand against injustice, feed the poor, clothe the naked, and pray for the sick to be healed. YWAM is awesome because it exists to equip young people, like myself, to live missional lives intentionally focused on reaching the world for Christ and living out the great commission (Matthew 28:19). They’ve sent out nearly four million young people over the course of their more than 50 years in the field. Even in the short time I’ve been here, I already feel like I’m apart of a great heritage of believers who are excited about reaching the world.

And here’s the part where you come in! One of the luxuries I have as a child of the internet is the ability to be in constant communication with you, as supporters, and give you current updates and prayer requests. My vision is that this wouldn’t just be a one-time letter but that, as you choose to partner with me in what God is doing, we would grow closer as the global family of God and in our understanding of the work he’s doing in every corner of the world. I have a sense that God’s preparing me for a long term investment in real global issues of injustice and poverty.

So what does partnership with me look like? Well, I definitely need to be showered in prayer while I’m here in Kona, Hawaii and also once I’m on my outreach in Panama. Classes have already been pretty intense and, by God’s grace, I don’t even think I’ll be able to recognize my old self once this course is over. It’s certainly exciting to know that God will be doing a work in me but I’m also a bit timid or guarded about being completely open and honest with a group of total strangers. I’d specifically like prayer around the area of God refining and pruning me spiritually in this season. I think it’s safe to say I bring a bit of baggage into this experience and I’m just looking to grow closer to God as my spiritual father and feel his love in my life. I would be personally blessed if you committed to pray for me weekly in the various areas I list on my website.

The other real element of support is in my financial needs. God has already blessed me with enough resources for the first half of the DTS but I still need another $5,000 for the following 12 week outreach to Panama. The great thing is I already know in my heart that God is the faithful Provider, he has proven that fact over my last four years of life. There are two different ways to give. One would be electronically through Mountain View Community Church’s online giving system on their website. The other would be to mail a check to them and they can process the rest.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this letter and I hope that you will prayerfully consider partnering with me in the ministry of Christ. To stay connected, I’ll be making a real effort to consistently update my blog each week at www.calelivingston.com along with additional email updates.

And here are a few pieces of info if you’re looking to support me financially:

If you’re looking to donate through Mountain View’s website you should use “Missions” as the category and specify “Cale Livingston YWAM.” If you want to write a check, make it payable to “MVCC” and write “Cale Livingston YWAM” in the memo line.

Source: http://www.christianethicstoday.com/cetart/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.main&ArtID=959

A Non-Voting Manifesto?
By Tripp York, Visiting Prof. of Religious Studies, Elon University, NC

Note: In this election year many readers will disagree with the author’s conclusions, but to encourage thought and dialogue the article is printed and readers may respond by writing Professor York at tyork@elon.edu .

There are few things imagined in this life more dutiful than the so called ‘responsibility’ of every American to vote. Despite the fact that many decide, for whatever reasons, not to vote, the very idea that voting is an indispensable requirement on each individual goes without question.

Let me state at the very beginning that any qualms I may have with voting stem from neither apathy nor indifference. It simply makes little sense to me, given that we are as Aristotle claimed, “political animals,” that anyone would or should be indifferent to voting. Christians (whom I am addressing) should be concerned with the goods that constitute the temporal cities of this time between times, and voting is but one means of attempting to seek those goods.    Nevertheless, I often wonder if what has been passed down to us as an unquestioned duty is the only way, or even the best way, to be political?             To be even more specific, is it possible that some form of conscientious objection to voting could be understood as an act of politics that is concerned with the good of the polis? Could it function as a witness to a different order, one not predicated on the enforcement of legislation, laws, and the lording of power over one another? If so, what would be the rationale for such an objection, or at least a hesitation, to the act of voting? What sort witness would this attempt to make? In order to answer these questions I have jotted down eight possible reasons why voting could be problematic for Christians. If nothing else, at least dealing with these possible objections should make us more conscientious voters, if we decide Christian civic responsibility entails voting.

I. Romans 13 demands subordination to the government.

Which government? All governments. Paul (while sitting in jail) demanded that Christians are to be submissive to all powers that be because, despite how fallen they are, they, nevertheless, are ordained by God. Rebellion against such powers is understood as rebellion against God and is, thus, not permitted. It makes little sense, therefore, to perpetuate any order that was founded on explicit disobedience to God. The United States of America only comes into being inasmuch as it rebelled against the God-ordained powers of the English monarchy (the irony of this is rich as the most patriotic of souls love to use this text to demand obedience to every whim of their beloved nation-state without recognizing the hypocrisy that made it possible for it to come into being in the first place). To vote for the maintenance of such an order seems to approve of this act of disobedience against God, or at least renders Paul’s command nonsensical as it can be disobeyed if enough time has elapsed from the inception of the said rebellion/revolution.

II. Jesus requires that his disciples not be like those Gentiles who lord their power over others, even it is for some sort of ‘good’ (Mt 20:25).

Christians are, as Jesus says in Matthew 20:26, not to be power-hungry. Rather they are to be as slaves to one another. Perhaps it would be one thing if the elected officials of this nation were forced to take office; instead these are all individuals who desperately want to be in power and all of whom beg and plead with the common folk for their votes, all to the tune, at least in regards to the last election, of more than $1 billion—$1 billion spent to convince us that we should exalt those who would be like those Gentiles who lord their power over others. If we are forbidden to be like them, why would it be permissible to place them in the kind of posture that Jesus decries?

III. Capitalism, the socio-economic order that underwrites this culture, is predicated on the seven deadly sins.

Without just one of these sins, it would fold and collapse on itself. For instance, if there was no greed this economy would be destroyed. We are taught to never be satisfied, to never have our fill, to never be satiated, to remain in a perpetual state of want, all in the name of the common good. How is this even remotely akin to the kind of desires that should be produced by ecclesial formation? Goods are only good if they are shared goods, at least according to scripture and early Christian history. Sharing goods in this culture would be a sin. An aside: Let it not be lost on us that immediately after September 11, 2001, the President of the U.S. demanded that the people of this commonwealth respond by neither prayer nor patience—rather he told the people that they should respond by . . . shopping! The saddest thing about this ‘command’ is that this was actually a morally legitimate response by the President (as it would have been for any president for that matter). Had people ceased spending money, the economy would have collapsed. Therefore, in such a culture one responds to terrorism via trips to the mall as well as supplying a lot of missiles and the youth of the country. This is our way of life? This is what Christians are willing to both die and kill for? How can we vote for any potential Caesar under this sort of politic?

IV. While we are on the subject of the seven deadly sins, let’s look at pride.

Outside of the word ‘freedom’—which is by far the most seductive god competing for our allegiance—there simply is no greater form of idolatry than the worship of, freedom. Pride is a term that is uttered again and again by this country’s leaders. For some reason I am reminded by both scripture and tradition that pride is purely representative of the fall of humanity. There is really nothing to be proud about, except as one can boast with St. Paul, our hope in Jesus. Pride has become the very means that Christians have co-opted to this culture, for it is because of pride that we seem to lack the ability or desire to practice repentance, confession, humility and servanthood—all of which are at the heart of Christian discipleship. Voting is, de facto, an exercise in pride. Especially if you find yourself on the winning side.

V. The kingdoms of this world seem to be ruled by Satan.

Once Satan took Jesus to the mountain-top and offered worldly power: “The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, ‘I will give you all their authority and splendor, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you worship me, it will all be yours.’ Jesus answered, ‘It is written: Worship the Lord your God and serve him only’” (Lk 4:5-8).      Though the powers may be ordained by God, they are, nevertheless (as with all of creation), in rebellion against God. According to this passage it is Satan leading this rebellion. Satan offers the kingdoms to Jesus because they belong to Satan. He gives them, or at least offers them, to whom Satan pleases. All Jesus had to do in order to rule the world the way most of us imagine it is to be ruled, was to worship Satan. Thus it would appear that all of the kingdoms of the world, though rightly ordained for the maintenance of social harmony, are currently under satanic influence. One way to lead them is to worship Beelzebub, hence, my reluctance to vote for this sort of ruler.

VI. Regardless of which leader wins, that ruler will expect my allegiance.

That is, of course, a problem in and of itself, as Christians are called to serve only one Master. One way this affects Christians is that leaders of empires simply cannot enact the radical kind of peace Christians are to offer their enemies. Rulers, history has shown, must take up arms against their enemies. They must engage in warring, or at least threats of warring, in order to secure certain goods. This is a far cry from the peacemaking and non-violence which Jesus calls from his disciples. Jesus demands that those who would follow him must turn the other cheek, pray for those who persecute us (ever heard a president pray for an enemy—except that they be destroyed?), and refuse to exercise vengeance, which  belongs only to God.

Yet any nation-state, not just this one but all of them, demands the exact opposite. The literal imitation of Jesus in non-violence must be rejected in order to exist and survive in the world. I would argue that any order that demands that a Christian not imitate Jesus is a demonic one indeed, a stumbling block for Christ-like discipleship.

VII: The United States may be the greatest Babylon on the planet, but she is still a Babylon.

As William Stringfellow astutely pointed out, if we are to read all nations biblically then we must recognize that they are all Babylons.[i] No nation or culture is the Heavenly Jerusalem or the City of God. They are, therefore, parasitic on the good that is the heavenly city, and the church, as the image of this city on earth, is called to show the state that it is not the heavenly city. This is her task. It is not to buttress the powers that be, but to show them, through her witness that whatever the powers that be are, they are not the church. One way to resist being co-opted by the powers of this world, I imagine, might be to neither vote nor take office.

VIII: Voting is an attempt to elect someone who will enact, legislate. and enforce your political values upon others.

That is the point of voting—to elect someone who will legislate and enforce your convictions. If a candidate promises this, you will support her or him. That is, you expect your candidate to do what you want them to do for the betterment of how you envision the world and how you secure the peace of the city.

This process, in a sense, alleviates the burden of Christians to be the church because now Christians can ask the state require of others our Christian convictions. The church does not need to create an alternative community, does not need to be prophetic, does not need radical discipleship, because Christians now have become the very powers and principalities that Paul claims Jesus has defeated.

By the simple refusal to vote perhaps we can at least see how we have all become seduced by such a power in such a way that we can see how our faith has been compromised and domesticated in the name of something other than the Triune God.

These simple musings are but a few reasons why I am currently hesitant to cast my vote for yet another Caesar.

In a little more than a month we’ll be having a presidential election in the United States. It’s a big deal and I encourage everyone eligible to vote. But I think in this politically charged season the church needs to be reminded that we are not a political party. Our allegiance does not lie with the Republicans or the Democrats. Change we can believe in is not dependent on who governs this great nation.

And as great as this nation is, our cries should not end at God bless America, but continue to include God bless Iraq, God bless Afghanistan, God bless Ethiopia, God bless Haiti, God bless China, God bless Peru–as Christians we should seek for God to bless all the people of the world.

All of this comes to mind because of the story of a missionary couple, Heather and Mike Colletto, trying to raise funds for their work with Trans World Radio in Slovakia. It seems their fund raising efforts have slowed because of Heather’s support for Barack Obama. Heather defends her support of Obama and Mike cares more about why you vote for someone than who you vote for. He also points out that God isn’t an American. Both Jason Boyett and the Burnside Writer’s Blog have covered this issue and offered their perspectives.

The message this kind of action sends is that the church cares more about politics than evangelism. That sucks.

Watch the video!

Three children's bodies lie in a makeshift morgue at the South Oromia clinic.

Why Africa Is Still Starving – TIME

After reading this article I can’t help but become upset at the way America operates in the global community. Obviously I’m not surprised that our government takes advantage of any given situation to make a quick buck but how can they do that in good conscience when they know there’s death on the other end?

Ultimately, I’m and idealist and the main issue I’m pushing right now is “social responsibility.” I still don’t understand how anyone, in good conscience, can exploit the plight of those less fortunate like this. The US has created this deadly co-dependence cycle with starving African countries and I believe it’s our responsibility to correct the problem. We can’t just rely on living ignorantly and reacting emotionally, regardless of our good intentions. Once you get past the initial compassion response you have to deal with the sustained follow-through and end results of your effort. Personally, I don’t think we get credit for providing all that food if everyone starved to death a few years later anyways, right?

May I be so bold as to say I think America’s main sin in this issue is pride. On a deeper level we love the satisfaction of giving charity to others. While I don’t think the concept of charity is wrong, I do believe it’s easily tainted with out own selfish motives. In this case, we want to blow in and solve everyone’s immediate problem with our temporary, and heart-warming, solutions. But I would argue that if we truly did care about the lives and well being of these people then we would actually take the time to create a legitimate strategy to meet their needs both now and for the future. The article says it best with the “Teach a man to fish” adage.

Until then, this seems to be a missed opportunity at providing genuine help. We dropped the ball. But there’s good news, we can still continue to invest in these countries and change our strategies as well. Hope is not lost.

Such is my level of excitement about the vast scope of ideas covered in this article, an excerpt from Michael Pollan’s new book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, that I couldn’t help but quote almost every other paragraph. I must admit, it’s not a just a short internet article that you can skim through. In spite of that I would strongly encourage everyone to read both pages! Michael Polland covers so much ground you’ll want to make sure you read every word.

Without further adieu, here’s the Article Link

I’d love to add my own thoughts to the ideas covered but I honestly can’t think of anything that wasn’t already mentioned. That’s definitely a first for me!

“the reformation of our food economy begins with people going to the trouble and expense of buying directly from farmers they know—“relationship marketing,”…

This is what your hamburger came from, just FYI.

“Much of our food system depends on our not knowing much about it, beyond the price disclosed by the checkout scanner; cheapness and ignorance are mutually reinforcing. The more knowledge people have about the way their food is produced, the more likely it is that their values—and not just “value”—will inform their purchasing decisions.”

“And why should a nation produce its own food when others can produce it more cheaply? A dozen reasons leap to mind, but most of them the Steven Blanks of the world—and they are legion—are quick to dismiss as sentimental. I’m thinking of the sense of security that comes from knowing your community, or country, can feed itself; the beauty of an agricultural landscape; the outlook and kinds of local knowledge the presence of farmers brings to a community; the satisfactions of buying food from a farmer you know rather than the supermarket; the locally inflected flavor of a raw-milk cheese or honey. All those things—all those pastoral values—free trade proposes to sacrifice in the name of efficiency and economic growth.”

“We don’t have to beat them,” Joel patiently explained. “I’m not even sure we should try. We don’t need a law against McDonald’s or a law against slaughterhouse abuse—we ask for too much salvation by legislation. All we need to do is empower individuals with the right philosophy and the right information to opt out en masse.

I wonder if this is the direction we should continue to take. Is finding more fossil fuel really going to solve anything in the long term? I like that the speaker is willing to ruffle some feathers but I think it’s more conceptual, not applicable.