not quite as simple, it seems

so yesterday’s “this is what the andersons are going to be up to” bloggage received a lot more attention than i suspected it would, and pretty firmly divided into two groups of responses:

those who knew us, who said nice things about us and wished us good times and most importantly got excited with us for this adventure that we are about to embark on

those who don’t know us who by and large said or asked somewhat judgemental sounding stuff mostly relating to us going on a big holiday in the states while there are poor people in south africa to be taken care of [who we can fittingly see as we are driven off to the airport]

and i didn’t even allow half of the comments written to be posted [largely it was more of the same – for some bizarre reason there is a whole host of people out there who are telling us we should stop doing our transcription – which incidentally is part of a study focused on poor people in townships and will be used to help assist them to make better choices and be exposed to greater opportunities – and get waitering jobs if that isn’t beneath us – i worked for 5 years at rondebosch spur back in the day and absolutely loved most of it – i’m pretty sure i’m the first person who both made and sold Hunter’s and Blackcurrent Hooch milkshakes, i kid you not]

however, the point of this blog is not so much to defend against the stream of attacks – i tried to do some explaining yesterday altho i really didn’t need to and certainly do not need to defend my action to a bunch of anonymous people hiding behind their keyboards [Brits, however, am definitely looking forward to that beer/coffee] – one day i will stand in front of God and account for my actions, and my mistakes and i feel quite confident that this Simple Way trip is not something i am going to be embarrassed by…

but the point of this blog – and i mentioned it in a response yesterday but not everyone may have seen it – is that we all create our own lines…

for a number of people, flying overseas to americaland and working with poor people in a community over there is unacceptable because of the number of poor people here and the money for the tickets etc could be better used given to the poor [which sparks a reminder of a guy named judas in the bible who said a similiar thing about money that should rather have been spent on the poor than lavishly wasted on Jesus, and things didn’t turn out so well for him because his heart was rotten] but all of those people typed their responses on a computer [or possibly a cellphone] which means that [apart from those who were doing it at work i guess which would be using work time for personal pleasure which i guess is another line] their line includes having access to a phone/computer [which could surely be sold and given to the poor blah blah blah]

the one extreme picture is this – give everything you have to the poor and eventually when you have nothing more, you yourself end up on the street and are poor and are unable to give any more and thus unable to help any more [i’m sure we will all agree this is largely unhelpful]

at the other extreme we have the person who gives nothing – who lives completely for themselves and spends money only buying things for themself and their friends and follows a path of luxury and pleasure and wastefulness [i’m sure most of us will agree this is largely evil]

and then there is somewhere in the middle of these two poles – being generous with my resources while maintaining the ability to be so – spending on myself and my friends but also spending on those less fortunate than myself – being actively involved in the lives of those who seem unable to help themselves – answering Jesus’ call to be a sheep and not a goat and make sure that we are reaching out to those who are hungry and thirsty and sick and in prison and strangers…

within that space there are lines – and probly lines within lines – and mine will not always look like yours, maybe they never will – some of my lines look like this:

i personally can’t justify flying business class but perhaps you can

i personally can’t justify having a big fancy car when my epic rust collector gets me from a to b, but i quite possibly could justify having something a bit better than what i have now if the opportunity arose

i generally do not give to poor people at traffic intersections unless they are doing some kind of work like selling the Big Issue or the funny sheet because they are at least making some kind of work effort to lift themselves up. there are a lot of poor people i say no to even when i have the means to help them [i generally don’t say “I can’t” or “I don’t have money” as those are generally not true] but there is a guy who hangs around across the road from our church who i buy food for on a regular basis

i don’t buy label clothes when there is a piece of clothing as sufficient for 2 or 3 hundred bucks cheaper

those are a couple of my lines and i won’t make them absolutes for people – this is how much you can or should be giving and this is where you stop – myself and val need to find a place where we are happy to stand before each other and before God and say “I think we used our resources well”

i imagine we get it wrong a lot and there are a lot of questions i wrestle with like is it ever okay to go and watch a movie when you walk past a hungry man on the street to get there, or go out for a meal at a restuarant when you can stay home and make a meal for R20 or R30 bucks (that will probly taste better if tbV is cooking like last nite flip!) but i don’t wrestle with having a laptop (because it allows me to do a huge part of what God has called me to do) or some of the others that you might

so look at yourself, take a long hard look at the way you live, the way you spend money, the way you hold tightly on to money, how generous you are to those you know and are in relationship with and also to the strenager on the street and make some decisions if necessary but whatever you do, live intentionally and be able to stand in front of God one day and say “i did what i thort was right” and let Him drop or throw His stone…

and uber big thankx to all those of you who are excited for and with us and who dropped in here to share some words of encouragement – this is a kingdom thing and we are so very super amped for what lies ahead…

Downward Mobility in an Upscale World – shane claiborne speaks…

been wandering around the simple way page and reading thru a couple of shane’s articles and really being inspired and challenged and challenged to inspire…

here is an extract from ‘Downward Mobility in an Upscale World’, an article by Shane Claiborne

“Over the years I have come to see how charity fits into — and legitimizes — our system of wealth and poverty. Charity assures that the rich will feel good while the poor will remain with us. It is important that the poor remain with us, because our capitalist system hinges on it. Without someone on the bottom, there is no American dream and no hope for upward mobility.

Charity also functions to keep the wealthy sane. Tithes, tax-exempt donations, and short-term mission trips, while they accomplish some good, also function as outlets that allow wealthy Christians to pay off their consciences while avoiding a revolution of lifestyle. People do their time in a social program or distribute food and clothes through organizations which take their excess. That way, they never actually have to face the poor and give their clothes, their food, their beds. Wealthy Christians never actually have to be with poor people, with Christ in disguise.

If charity did not provide these carefully sanctioned outlets, Christians might be forced to live the reckless Gospel of Jesus by abandoning the stuff of earth. Instead, thanks to charity, we can live out a comfortable, privatized discipleship.”

you can read the full article here and i encourage you to.

on immoral wealth

my beautiful wife val just wrote this blog and it’s been stuff that is on my mind and heart a lot these last few years and she pretty much nails it:

check out her blog titled “on immoral wealth”

blessed are the slow to act

so my beautiful wife Val has posted this post on poverty and our gut reaction vs a more thort out one and it’s a bit of a catch 22 of which one is right or not but the key thing it teaches is to think which is something we need more of in all aspects of life, and is often one of the most frustrating things about many christians who ‘have the right answer’ without taking time to consider that there might be another option

http://valanderson.wordpress.com/2010/08/05/on-poverties/

i love that lady!

your wealth is my poverty but his just getting by

do you see yourself as rich? i would imagine probably not

if i had to put myself on a wealth scale i would probably rate myself as below average

i would compare myself to the people i know who have so much more than me – own houses, better cars, holiday house, huge screen television, able to fly overseas on holiday (or even have lavish comfortable holidays here), more impressive toys and so on

would i see myself as poor? definitely not – having lived in a township for a year and a half i have witnessed a small aspect of what poverty can look like and so i know that i am completely not close to being poor (altho to be fair there were a lot of people in the K who had better phones, cars, toys, clothes than me so i wasn’t even the toppest rich there)

but the reality is that if i can read (which i can) then that puts me in the top 30% of people in the world – if i own a computer (which i do) that puts me in the top 1% of people in the world – when you look at things like acess to safe drinking water, three meals a day and so on then suddenly my wealthometer reading is skyrocketing

the truth is that wealth is relative – apparently 6% of the people in the world own 59% of the entire world’s wealth – India and China (two of the countries with some of the world’s poorest people in them) are top of the list of most new millionaires this last year

to some of my friends and people in my church i am poor… but to some of the guys i work with in the K and to the guys lining up in the road down the road from where we stay every morning looking for work i am most definitely very rich – my ‘poverty’ is another man’s ‘incredible wealth’ and my ‘abundance’ is another guy’s table scraps

in the Bible in the book of Timothy (1. chapter 6.10) it says ‘for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil’ – the bible doesn’t speak of money as evil (it’s the love thereof) and doesn’t even say you can’t be rich (but does say a lot that to be rich is more difficult and that rich people better use their money wisely) but it does teach us to use what we have well. very well.

i imagine wherever you appear on the wealth scale, there is someone less wealthy than you that you can reach out to and encourage and assist and help up, and so my question is, what are you doing with your wealth to ease someone else’s poverty?

and above all, i guess my point here is that as much as i would love to see myself as ‘below average’ i am in fact overwhelmingly rich, as are you if you are reading this.

two of the questions

that i am grappling with lately:

one of them is taking the incredible life-transforming simple-gospel stuff we are reading about in books like Shane Claiborne’s ‘The Irresistible Revolution’ and Erwin McManus ‘an unSTOPPABLE force’ and Rich Stearns ‘The Hole in the Gospel’ and even going back to the legen….dary Keith Green’s ‘No Compromise’ story and not just being excited and ‘challenged’ and ‘changed’ by it, and not just talking about it and maybe looking down on others who ‘don’t get it’ and all that and when do we actually start doing it and being transformed and changed – do we actually ‘get it’ or are we just excited by the idea? that is a tough one and i know my biggest problem is knowing the ‘how’ cos i am excited and i do think it’s great and i do want to live the simple passionate compassionate miraculous life to the full Jesus calls us to, but practically what do i need to do? question one i am grappling with.

part of question one is how do i justify the fact that i just spent R600 on an Eddie Izzard dvd boxset but don’t feel i can justify spending R700 to R900 for me and tbV to go watch him live (i guess that could be a problem with justifying both as opposed to either one of them perhaps) but then also not being able to justify someone else wanting to spend R300 on make-up for a wedding? why is mine okay and theirs not okay?

linked to that question will be that my lavish will be simple and ridiculous to Bishop’s Court residents and Saudi Arabia moguls but my simple will be wasteful and lavish and dreamed of for a typical Kayamandi shack resident – wealth and poverty can be relative to an extent.

question 2 regards being pastory type guy at enGAGE, a congregation that is part of the Vineyard church in Stellenbosch – are we really effecting change in the community or am i realistically simply just maintaining a small community of like-minded people? as in really, like what is really really happening there? cos if this year is all about just looking after 30 to 50 Christians and trying to make sure they are all still Christian at the end of the year and maybe a bit more Christian, then what the flippy flipperson? there MUST be more than this.

not needing answers (well, not from you) – just needing to ask the questions…