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The MDGs - Straight from Scripture

The call these goals echo is nothing new but one woven througout the Bible

MDG cross logoOne of the most wonderful things about the Millennium Development Goals is they unite people, nations, corporations, organizations and religious groups from all over the world -- and invite each to bring its unique gifts to the table.

 
For us as the Church, that starts with prayer and that starts with our story. If our work with the MDGs isn't surrounded by prayer and rooted in our scriptural story then we might as well pack it in, because we have nothing to offer that the world can't get somewhere else.
 
Our efforts to achieve these MDGs are a mission rooted in God's mission. It is that mission -- God's dream of restoring all people to unity with God and each other in Christ -- that is the center of our lives. The MDGs are a vehicle for doing that, a vehicle that by its own remarkable nature links our efforts not only with God's dream but with the efforts and dreams of all humanity.
 
Think the MDGs are some new thing? Think again. Our scriptural story is full of accounts of God's people doing these things and of God calling us to do them, too. Earlier this summer, I sat down with a bunch of fantastic Christian educators from the National Association of Episcopal Christian Education Directors and just off the top of our heads came up with this extensive list of where these goals naturally emerge from our scripture.
Below are just two passages for each MDG -- a more complete list is available here (and send us all the ones we've missed!)Soon, each MDG will have a separate page on our website led off with the scriptural and theological foundation for this work.
 
MDG 1-Eradicate Poverty and Hunger
 
MDG 2-Universal Primary Education
 
MDG 3-Gender Equality/Empowering Women
 
MDG 4-Reduce Child Mortality
 
MDG 5-Reduce Maternal Mortality
 
MDG 6-Heal Disease
 
MDG 7-Clean Water/Environmental Sustainability
 
MDG 8-Build a Global Partnership for Development
 
For an excellent exposition of the theological foundation of the MDGs, read "Why Should We as Christians Care About the MDGs" by Ian Douglas.
 
For sermons on the MDGs check out the sermons page on the EGR website.
Diocesan Conventions & the MDGs
Here's the latest on the MDGs coming out of diocesan conventions across the church.
 
Rochester ShieldThe youth of the Diocese of Rochester presented a resolution to their convention 
     *committing 0.7% of the diocesan budget to the MDGs
     *recommending each parish do likewise.
     *asking each congregation commit to one youth-led fundraiser a year with proceeds to go to the new Millennium Development Ministries Fund, which will make grants for projects and programs supporting the MDGs.
   The resolution passed. For more information about Rochester's convention click here.
 
*Read this article about Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori's address on the MDGs to the convention of the Diocese of Vermont.
 
*Bishop Dorsey Henderson calls the MDGs "a thermometer for measuring our spiritual health and mission accomplishment" in his address to the Diocese of Upper South Carolina.
 
*President of the House of Deputies Bonnie Anderson preached to the Diocese of Spokane's convention on the MDGs and the reconciling mission of the church.
 
*The dioceses of Maine and Rhode Island passed environmental resolutions relating to the MDGs. Read the text here on the website of the Episcopal Ecological Network.
 
*The Australian General Synod and the Scottish Episcopal Church affirm their commitment to the MDGs.
 
Did your diocese do something with the MDGs at Convention? Does your diocese give at least 0.7% of it's budget toward MDG-related ministries? Let us know about it! And for creative ideas to engage your convention with the MDGs, check out this page on the EGR website.
Sunday, Nov. 25 is the ONE Sabbath
One ChurchGeneral Convention designated the last Sunday after Pentecost as "a special day of prayer, fasting and giving in the Episcopal Church toward global reconciliation and the MDGs."  This year, that Sunday coincides with the ONE Sabbath, an interfaith observance asking "What does God require of us as a congregation and of me as a believer to respond to my those in need?" Here are some resources for you and your congregation
 
*Prayer Resources for the MDGs -- The EGR website has prayers, litanies and other worship resources for your congregation. And don't forget to send us the resources you create. Also check out these resources from ONE Episcopalian and ONE Lutheran.
 
*ONE Sabbath Toolkits -- Go to the ONE Sabbath homepage for toolkits for church leaders, small groups and youth groups.
 
*Cool Ways to Engage Your Congregation -- The EGR website and the Micah Challenge have lots of ideas about how to use this Sunday to educate and inspire your congregation about the MDGs.
 
*Resources for Children -- The EGR children's resources page has lots of ideas to engage the youngest in your congregation with the MDGs.
Quote of the Week
 
wendell gibbs
"At the 2006 General Convention, The Episcopal Church adopted a set of priorities that placed responding to the MDGs at the top of the list. Since that time, I have actually encountered folks who insist that the Millennium Development Goals are not the church's priority. Rather, I am told, our priority is to focus on the Great Commission. I suggest that a faithful Christian response to the human needs set before us in the MDGs is part and parcel of our focus on the Great Commission, the Good News of God in Christ, and the living out of our baptism-the uncommon result of faithful prayer.

 
-The Rt. Rev. Wendell Gibbs, Bishop of Michigan, in his address to that diocese's convention.
What One Blogger Can Do
bloggerlogo
 
On Nov. 1, EGR re-launched its blog with 30 bloggers from around the Anglican Communion, one of which will post every day on God's mission of global reconciliation. The Rev. Becca Stevens of St. Augustine's Church in Nashville offered this reflection on Nov. 5. 
Following the path of Jesus can drive you crazy. I pray impatience with the Gospel is not a deadly sin! While we may not necessarily want to skip the journey, and get to the destination, we at least would like to move ahead on our spiritual path. Lord, each week, inch by inch, the church doles out only a tiny snippet of the story of Jesus on the way to Jerusalem. Each week we preach and hear the Gospel a paragraph at a time. Sometimes it is excruciatingly slow.

One section of the Gospel of Luke is called, "The Journey". It begins in the 9th chapter after the transfiguration whenJesus has "his eyes set on Jerusalem".
It continues until the 19th chapter of Luke with the triumphant entry into the Jerusalem. These 10 chapters take months to read a paragraph at a time. It took Jesus months as well, even though he could have traversed that amount of territory in a couple of weeks, easy.
 
Months after the transfiguration we find we are still wandering with Jesus right outside Jerusalem in Jericho. He may have had his eyes set on Jerusalem but his heart is sidetracked feeding, healing, teaching, and praying. His disciples tried to keep him moving.
 
They rebuke parents for bringing their infants to Jesus, but Jesus lets all the children come anyway. He spends time visiting Pharisees, tax collectors, healing lepers, telling parables and debating in the synagogues and streets. And those are just the events they recorded. The image of a map with a hundred dotted lines going every which way indicating all the detours gives us a picture of what on the way may mean.

On the way, he is slowly and patiently teaching his disciples. At the beginning of the 12th Chapter the very first words to his little flock are, "meanwhile". That is the part that undoes me.

Meanwhile, while we preach a paragraph at a time, meanwhile, while we take up one more collection, meanwhile we eat a bite of bread and take a sip of wine.

Meanwhile, the world is burning for his message of radical love, the war is four and half years old, thenumber of people below the poverty level in America is on the rise, and the Nobel Peace Prize has been given in recognition of the crisis of global warming. Meanwhile, he is within fifty miles of Jerusalem in an occupied nation in which people are being persecuted. Meanwhile he takes his own sweet time saying, don't worry about tomorrow, give everything away, give thanks and watch and wait.
Meanwhile, two Sudanese women walked into my office.

I had scheduled forty-five minutes for their meeting. They began the meeting by thanking me for my time, my precious time. Then they told me the journey part of their story.
 
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