Serving God's World with Kindness


By Jenny Sharrick, Chairperson for Nebraska Synod Micah 6:8 (Justice/Hunger/Global Mission) 


...and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? -Micah 6:8

Micah 6:8 seeks to equip the congregations of the Nebraska Synod to live out their baptismal promise to strive for justice and peace throughout all the earth.  We are made up of lay and clergy volunteers throughout the state, meeting to focus on the intersection of hunger, global mission, and justice ministries. Micah 6:8 began their work by intensely and enthusiastically listening to congregations over the past year--first by surveying the ministries that congregations were already involved in on topics of global mission, hunger, and justice, and then by offering listening sessions to learn what are local barriers to being involved in this work in each congregation and/or cluster’s context. 

            The things we heard back from congregations, both the ways in which you are all Serving God’s World and in the barriers you face, blew the Micah 6:8 committee members away. We will continue to figure out the best ways to be in partnership with congregations at the intersections of hunger, global missions, and justice ministries as we dream and scheme moving forward. In the meantime, we heard resoundingly that congregations are seeking ways to be in deeper conversation with each other, in particular on difficult topics. Besides listening, the other project this group tackled in the past year was that of developing and writing a toolkit to be used in congregations on how to talk about difficult things and where to go for resources on many topics that are naturally occurring in congregational life. Some of these topics include mental health, economic security, gender and sexuality, and advocacy. We hope that the forthcoming toolkit (October 2019!) will assist congregations to talk through those barriers keeping them from engaging in global mission, hunger, and justice work to serve God’s world. 

As Bishop Mass said in last week’s blog (https://nebraskasynod.blogspot.com/2019/09/serving-gods-world-its-what-wegetto-do.html), Serving God’s World is not something we’ve got to do, but something we get to do. The members of the Micah 6:8 Committee feel honored to walk humbly alongside each of you and God in this work to do justice and to love kindness.



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