For Amy Nelson, a student at Harvard Divinity School, leading a Lazarus at the Gate group has given her a chance to refocus on economic discipleship. Prior to grad school, Nelson spent two years in the Lutheran Volunteer Corps living in an intentional community that focused on budgeting and connecting finances with faith. While there, she had no trouble thinking about simplicity for the sake of generosity.“I lost that focus when I came to school,” she says. Nelson finds that most grad students are too focused on schoolwork to think about generosity. The large debt that they rack up with each passing semester doesn’t help. For Nelson, Lazarus at the Gate has provided a chance for her to return to her Lutheran Volunteer Corps roots and to begin thinking again about faith and finances. “It has been great to get back to thinking about giving and about social justice.”

Nelson says she was intrigued by the idea of bringing Lazarus to Harvard’s campus. “Most people here are interested in the academic study of religion, but very few connect it to their faith life.” Nelson says her group has embraced the challenge of connecting their faith with their studies, personalizing exercises like budget sharing. “The budgets were a way for us to get to know each other and be honest about personal spending habits. The question always arose, ‘Does this reflect your priorities?’”

Like most students, as Nelson approaches graduation, her priorities turn to the debt she will have upon completing her degree. “Most of us will graduate very much in debt,” she says. She says she is more mindful now of where she spends her money, and how her spending reflects her purpose and God’s calling on her life. “Reprioritizing the little things has become important,” she says.

The small group setting has kept Nelson and other members of her group accountable as they reprioritize their spending. “The focus on a growing community of committed individuals consistently meeting and keeping each other accountable is something that is not found very often with these kinds of initiatives.” In addition to the small group focus, Lazarus is also unique, Nelson says, because it requires a small time commitment, yet “has the potential to be very impacting.”

– Camille Beckles

(Published today in the Boston Globe) :

I was among the young Christians who traveled to Park Street Church last month to hear Jim Wallis’s call for social justice (”A New Generation Awakens,” March 12), and I can testify that a generational shift is indeed underway within American Christianity.

In fact, the Boston Faith + Justice Network, which also hosted an event with Mr. Wallis in Boston, is bringing together evangelical and mainline Christians to alleviate global poverty. Through Bible studies, we see our consumer habits in light of Scripture’s concern for the poor. As we awake to the global impact of our lifestyle, we are working for shifts in corporate and public policy to more justly steward and share our resources.

Still, many of my secular neighbors and friends consider “progressive evangelicals” mythical, even oxymoronic. Christian faith has been, and continues to be, a powerful force for social and economic justice.

Rachel Anderson
Director
Boston Faith and Justice Network