Aug 13 2008
summit: what interests you?
In the second session of the summit there was a lot of good stuff. I have may have a few posts.
Gary Haugen is the head of the International Justice Mission.
He is serving Jesus and listening to him talk made me want to get serious about serving Jesus.
Early in his talk he challenged us to ask this question, “Are Jesus and I interested in the same things?”
There is some background work that needs to be done on this question. We shouldn’t just assume that we know what interested Jesus. I may need to return to the gospels to refresh my memory. If your first response was, “Well yes, we are both interested in making sure that I go to heaven,” then you need to reread the gospels too.
Haugen suggested that Jesus was interested in loving the world and Jesus was interested in justice. I think that we could add a few. Jesus was interested in gathering a counter-cultural community. Jesus has interested in calling people to a new lifestyle. He was interested in feeding the poor and caring for prisoners. He was interested in taking time out for little kids.
So I need to face these questions.
Am I truly interested in working for justice for all people? Jesus is.
Am I truly interested in living a life-style that challenges the culture? Jesus is.
Am I truly interested in building a community that embraces all people, including those that are deep in sin? Jesus is.
Most basically, do I love the world? Jesus does.
on the walk
-Ethan
What great questions..As you continue to process these thoughts, you might be interested in checking out Just Courage’s website (www.justcourage.com), Gary’s latest book. There are other resources available as well, mp3 file of Gary explaining why he wrote the book, etc. Thanks for posting this up, Lyn from IJM HQ
Thanks Lyn for the official greeting.
I would definitely recommend Gary’s book. In fact I hope that many of you will buy it quickly, and then read it fast and loan it to me because I want to read it too.
:)
-Ethan
You may also want to check out and consider joining the IJM Institute - www.ijminstitute.org Thanks so much for this post!
[…] Gary Haugen (CEO of IJM) had so much good stuff to say that I have a couple more posts in response to his session. After calling us to consider the values and interests of Jesus, he began to focus on leadership. […]