Our Presbytery recently hosted the annual Mission Conference.

 

That name might not evoke what this conference is really about. I have heard multiple people tell me they thought it was centered on topics like traveling overseas or who to give your money to who is involved in that work.

 

The conference is not about that at all. A more fitting name is the Justice Conference.

 

The mission of the church is to bring the justice of God to the world. The sessions at the conference are an attempt every year to work out how justice might be played out in different contexts people may find themselves in.

 

The two main speakers this year were Nikki Toyama-Szeto and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove.

 

Nikki spoke of Isaiah 58, which speaks out against religiosity and calls for true worship, which is releasing the chains of the oppressed and being providing for the marginalized. She shared how she has done this in her current context, and here are a few examples she gave:

Advocating for the needs non-English speaking families in the schools her children are in.

Not choosing her children’s school based on what is rated the best, but by which community she may be able to be the best advocate and helper in.

Participating in a nonviolent civil disobedience in protest over family separations (she got arrested for her civil demonstration).

 

You can learn more about her by clicking here: Nikki Toyama-Szeto

 

Jonathan is known right now for his work in exposing how the church in the US developed, well before the Declaration of Independence, a theology which was distorted to justify of slavery.

 

He talked through some early US history and provided us with some examples of theologians trying communicate how it was okay to own slaves (or simply benefit from an economy supported by slavery) and still be a Christian. All of the major denominations split over slavery, and we are all still rooted in this divisive wound. You can learn more about his vision in his most recent book, Reconstructing the Gospel (I also gave a summary of this book in a previous blog post linked here)

 

You can learn more about him by clicking here: Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove

 

At the conference there are also a number of breakout workshops with speakers and discussion.

 

My favorite one this year was led by Dr. Robert Chao Romero, who is an attorney, an ordained pastor, and a professor at UCLA. His workshop was about how immigration is God’s grace to those migrating and also to those in the host country. He talked about this from the Scriptures and also from his own experience. He works with the Matthew 25 Movement in Southern California which has been helping immigrants network with safe people, as well as providing legal help for those navigating the laborious legal channels. They also do advocacy work specifically within “right-of-center” churches to help them see how immigration is a blessing and a grace, and how being in solidarity with those in the migration process should be a crucial aspect of the church’s work in the world.

 

So, for those who have not experienced the conference, I could not recommend it enough!

 

The high school students of Emmanuel attend this conference every year (they are actually always the only high school students there), and it gives me a particular perspective about the conference.

 

However, there are not a lot of physical spaces where these topics are discussed in a meaningful way, in a way that is also accessible to a high school student. Our students got to listen and ask questions to a lawyer who has fought for the rights of migrants in the legal process. They got to hear from two speakers who have been arrested in the past year participating in non-violent, civil demonstration advocating for marginalized people groups. These are the sort of conversations our students are invited into. And when they move on from Emmanuel and go to college, or move away for a job, they will continue to be involved in these sorts of discussions. But where can they go to learn from people on the front lines? Will they be some of the few who worked out their opinions around these matters in a community-environment? When they sit in classes and talk about immigration, how many other students had the opportunity to listen to an attorney who had gone multiple times to visit with a migrant caravan in Mexico? 

 

We are doing our best to shape our students into people who trust Jesus and seek out Jesus’ justice for the world.

 

When our students reflect on the spaces that were made available to them to tease out what that might look like in their life, they will think of the church. It was at church where they got to work through the topics of migration, Muslim-Christian relations, slavery, poverty, and so many other topics that this conference organizes around. 

 

If this is part of the image of church we gift to our students, then I think we have done well by them!

 

And be sure to put next year’s conference on your calendar. Fr. Gregory Boyle will be one of the keynote speakers! You can learn more about him by clicking here: Homeboy Industries