“We have built our education systems on the model of fast food. … There are two models of quality assurance. One is fast food, where everything is standardized. The other are things like Zagat and Michelin restaurants, where everything is not standardized. They’re customized to local circumstances, and we have sold ourselves into a fast food model of education. And it’s impoverishing our spirits and our energy as much as fast food is depleting our physical bodies.” -Sir Ken Robinson

In the end, many Haitians will profess Christ and turn to him. However, in this repentance, there is a turning to Christ in the sense of “adding on to the deities who can be called upon for favors and blessings” rather than “turning away from evil and false past beliefs and practices.” If there is to be spiritual maturity, if there is to be a movement to entrust spiritual formation to indigenous pastors, then there must be increased awareness of sin and the personal responsibility each person has for their sin as Scripture reflects. Missionaries who are concerned with the qualitative value of their evangelistic work as much as the quantitative value will do well to bear these issues in mind.

First, it is imperative each individual begins to see him/herself as culpable of sin. The Apostle Paul indicates in Galatians 3, as well as the rest of Pauline literature, that individuals are responsible for the choices they make. Prior to conversion, rural Haitians engaged themselves in sinful idolatry, removing God from the center of their thoughts and replacing him with selfish desires to manipulate lwa (supernatural spirits). The Haitian’s thinking needs modification in understanding him/herself as responsible for reprehensible or sinful behavior and not the lwa. The Christian Haitian experiences regeneration and indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The presence of the Spirit enables the new convert to choose to act in obedience to God. Although they view the lwa as the guilty party, it is commonplace to understand one is able to “sin” against another individual or the community. The biblical account of sin incorporates this dynamic into its description of sin, but ultimately all sin is seen as offending God. If Haitians are to come to a biblical view of sin, they must realize they not only are they responsible for their actions, but they are also responsible for their attitudes, thoughts, and unbelief as well.

Secondly, this new insight into personal responsibility will lead to an evolved idea of confession and forgiveness of sins. The view of confession and forgiveness of sin as some type of ritual leading to accessing the power of Christ does not evidence a proper understanding of repentance. Genuine confession and repentance results in the forgiveness of sins and demonstrates an understanding of personal blameworthiness on the part of the repentant sinner. In addition to teaching biblical principles regarding sin, confession and forgiveness, missionaries would also strengthen the Haitian Christian’s understanding of sin if the missionary would be vulnerable enough to discuss battles with sin in their personal lives. Too often missionary workers are unwilling to confess their sins and shortcomings for fear the indigenous people will lose confidence in them and reject the Gospel. Instead, missionaries try to maintain the status of a type of “saint” in the eyes of the Haitians rather than a “saved sinner.” This mentality exacerbates problems of failing to be accountable for one’s sins. While there are certain limitations, missionaries would serve their populations well to model confession and forgiveness of sin to the believers in Haiti.

While basing claims of the Gospel of Christ upon Scripture, the missionary fails to consider what presuppositions he/ she might bring to the Biblical text. In addition, the missionary, as well as the recipient Haitian listener, make assumptions that one another categorize and conceptualize ideas about sin and salvation in similar ways, which leads to more frustration and confusion. The Protestant church is growing in rural Haiti, but not without significant problems. Many appear to be converting for the purposes of gaining more power and adding Jesus to a list of other deities they can manipulate to appease the spirit world. Even individuals who renounce voodoo after conversion find themselves rooted and based in voodoo beliefs and thinking. A fatalistic outlook dominates their view of reality as they attribute everything that transpires to the control of the spirit world. This attitude leads to a severe lack of understanding concerning personal moral responsibility. In order to move towards a more Biblical understanding of sin and moral responsibility, missionaries must attempt to fix these mistaken ideas about sin by overcoming many cultural presuppositions as well as teaching the Haitian about the true nature of repentance and acceptance of responsibility for one’s actions.

Joe’s right. Words are not enough.

Once, long ago, words bore the power to inspire change. Now, inspiration is a category of greeting cards and change is a campaign mantra.

We have a need to feel empathy and we fulfill that need in 2 hour increments with movies like The Blind Side or Blood Diamond. We throw away our popcorn and go back to our homes with no intent of living any differently.

In Blood Diamond, Solomon Vandy asks the reporter (regarding her article), ”So when people in your country read it, they will come help, yes?” She says, “Probably not.”

Words are not enough and yet I believe in stories. Sometimes, I think our response to stories is what makes them true. A true story is so even without our proper reaction except that no argument will persuade us to believe a thing we’ve determined to ignore.

The world is wrecked but is that the whole story? I don’t think so.

In the past, I’ve been so overwhelmed by the devastation that I averted my eyes. In doing so, I missed the point. Hope grew distant but I am tired of being hopeless.

My hope is in Christ. My prayer is the same one that He taught His first disciples, “Our Father in heaven hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven.”

But words are not enough. To pray that and not be moved in some tangible way to benefit Jesus’ least of these is to pray in vain. It offends the heart of God.

Realizing this has motivated me to sign-on for a crazy adventure. This summer I, along with 17 others, will bike 3,100 miles from San Diego to Myrtle Beach to raise money to build water wells, latrines, and clinics in Marsabit, Kenya.

I’m a lazy 250 pound guy who gets lost in Wal-Mart and has been unemployed for a year now. Why am I doing this? Because words are not enough.

For more information and to give go to http://www.ridewelltour.org.

[Norman Borlaug, "father of the Green Revolution," during his 1970 Nobel Laureate lecture]

Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.

[Jesus, as recorded in the Gospel of Luke 12:48b]

[Robert S. McNamara, President of the World Bank (1968-1981) in his address to the World Bank, September 1973]

“I am Second is a movement where significance in life is a shared value among people of all kinds. Actors. Athletes. Musicians. Business leaders. Your next-door neighbors. People just like you. Their authentic stories here on iamsecond.com provide insight into dealing with typical struggles of everyday living. You’ll meet people who overcame destructive lifestyles. Plus you’ll discover those who’ve tried to go it alone and have failed, yet still found a life full of hope, peace, and fulfillment.”

“The story of Christ’s birth is a story of promise, hope, and a revolutionary love. So, what happened? What was once a time to celebrate the birth of a savior has somehow turned into a season of stress, traffic jams, and shopping lists. And when it’s all over, many of us are left with presents to return, looming debt that will take months to pay off, and this empty feeling of missed purpose. Is this what we really want out of Christmas? What if Christmas became a world-changing event again? Welcome to Advent Conspiracy.”

Most of my seminary-educated friends would mock this attempt, since they read close to a book a week. My friend Adam Feldman is the inspiration for this little project. A while back he attempted to read 50 books in 52 weeks. You can read his final review here. For me, this is a stretch. I’m easily distracted. I live in the Internet age. If I want to know something, I look it up on Wikipedia, I Google it, or if my books aren’t packed in boxes and stuck in a storage room (and most are right now), I might open one of my books to look it up. I learn in ADHD. I learn in article format, not book format. And so far that learning method has worked for me. But I need to be more disciplined in reading.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. You see the list of books above and realize I’ve got a 20-something page children’s book filled with pictures up there. True. But sometimes less is more, and I think there’s a lot to be learned from Shel Silverstein. Also, I think The Giving Tree offsets NT Wright’s Justification, which I anticipate will be a pretty difficult book to sort through. It turns out The Word Became Flesh is written in a one year devotion style, so I’ll be reading it every day.

I’ve got a few alternates (that’s why you see 27 books listed above), just in case some turn out to be duds. And who knows- maybe I’ll beat my 2 books a month pace and read more. If you’re interested in any of these books listed above, click here and you can visit my Amazon.com aStore, where you’ll find the entire list with book descriptions. You can buy each book there, too (and I get a little cut from Amazon for each book you buy).

So this is actually a challenge. Twenty-five books in fifty-two weeks. Wish me luck. I’ll need it.

Oh, this “noble” culture of ours! It speaks so piously of human dignity and human rights and then disregards this dignity and these rights of countless millions and treads them underfoot, only because they live overseas or because their skins are of different color or because they cannot help themselves. This culture does not know how hollow and miserable and full of glib talk it is, how common it looks to those who follow it across the seas and see what it has done there, and this culture has no right to speak of personal dignity and human rights…

I will not enumerate all the crimes that have been committed under the pretext of justice. People robbed native inhabitants of their land, made slaves of them, let loose the scum of mankind upon them. Think of the atrocities that were perpetrated upon people made subservient to us, how systematically we have ruined them with our alcoholic “gifts”, and everything else we have done…We decimate them, and then, by the stroke of a pen, we take their land so they have nothing left at all…

If all this oppression and all this sin and shame are perpetrated under the eye of the German God, or the American God, or the British God, and if our states do not feel obliged first to lay aside their claim to be “Christian” — then the name of Jesus is blasphemed and made a mockery. And the Christianity of our states is blasphemed and made a mockery before those poor people. The name of Jesus has become a curse, and our Christianity — yours and mine — has become a falsehood and a disgrace, if the crimes are not atoned for in the very place where they were instigated. For every person who committed an atrocity in Jesus’ name, someone must step in to help in Jesus’ name; for every person who robbed, someone must bring a replacement; for everyone who cursed, someone must bless.

And now, when you speak about missions, let this be your message: We must make atonement for all the terrible crimes we read of in the newspapers. We must make atonement for the still worse ones, which we do not read about in the papers, crimes that are shrouded in the silence of the jungle night… [Albert Schweitzer, January 6, 1905]