Learning solidarity
I have just spent a weekend at the Urban Neighbours Of Hope discipleship camp. And I was surprised by what was the highlight for me.
UNOH is an order within the Churches of Christ, serving Christ by living with the urban poor and the speakers at the weekend where the founder of the order Ash “Better then Bonhoeffer” Barker and NZ preacher Mick Duncan who has been a companion of the order for years, but neither of them were the highlight for me.
The music was provided by singer/songwriter/missionary Shobie Owen who was launching her first CD - including the great track “Do Justice”. But sorry Shobie, you were not the highlight either.
Reflecting on the camp, the best thing about it for me was that here was a missional training camp about solidarity with the poor - that was actually, in reality, literally in solidarity with the poor because they were right there at the camp and we were all learning together.
There was the teenager from a drug background who came to camp with his Christian neighbours. There was the refugee who still cannot access Australia’s heath system. There were the young women who were struggling with social and relational skills in ways that would not be tolerated in other settings, there were the mentally ill, there were the sexually broken, there were the unemployed… in fact there were all of us. Together. In solidarity.
When I last organised a missional conference, Liquid, we purposefully included visits to see mission in action where we didn’t just hear from exerts but also meet people on societies margins. But I loved how UNOH took this a step further - and I am sure it just flowed naturally from their discipleship - we were all there learning to be disciples together.