This fall the Boston Faith and Justice Network is starting up its fourth season of Lazarus at the Gate, the BFJN’s lifestyle discipleship Bible Study!  Lazarus at the Gate is a small group discipleship experience designed to impact global poverty. One of the premises of Lazarus is that Christians are called not just to believe in Christ, but also to follow Christ by deciding to live and act as Jesus did. For all, this process of modeling our life decisions after Jesus’ provides an invitation both to be transformed by God’s grace and to know Christ and his love more completely. As the Christian philosopher Dallas Willard writes,

“Practicing Jesus’ word as his apprentices enables us to understand our lives and to see how we can interact with God’s redemptive resources, ever at hand.”

A second premise of this group is that money is a critical object of modern Christian discipleship. Those of us who live in the United States spend most of our time either making money or spending it. As Christians in the U.S., we easily forget that Jesus identified his own ministry and person with the needy and the downtrodden. Today, globalization has placed Lazarus at all of our gates while we all remain aware that half of the world’s population lives on less than $2 a day.

Over a 12-session study Lazarus discipleship groups will support each other in making four individual commitments:
• Spend joyfully: Regularly give thanks for the blessing of wealth Spend justly
• Make one lifestyle change to consume more justly Spend less
• Make one lifestyle change in order to buy less for personal consumption
• Give more: Make a substantial gift to fight global poverty

Near the end of the course, the group selects one to four international charities. They then they pool their individual gifts and give collectively.

Lazarus is an incredible opportunity to explore yourself and your giving potential. The Boston Faith and Justice Network invites you to join us in taking steps to understanding God’s plan the blessings He has bestowed upon us. Contact us immediately if you want to:

1. Participate in the Lazarus at the Gate leader training: The training sessions will be led by the course author, Mako Nagasawa. Although the materials for this course are free there is a $25 dollar charge for the two-session training, which includes lunch. The first session will be held at Park Street Church on September 25th and a follow up session will be offered in early November.
2. Join a Lazarus group: We’ve had a number of individuals reach out to us who would like to join other Christians in and around Boston in this course. Please let us know if we can put you in touch with others who share an interest.

The Lazarus at the Gate curriculum is available upon request and if you interested in leading a group please contact Ryan McDonnell asap as space is limited.

ryan@bostonfaithjustice.org

Videos of the first Gratitude Economy event, Gratitude & Vocation, are now available on the bostonfaithjustice youtube channel.

What is a Gratitude Economy, many ask? Its an idea in progress, largely meant to stimulate our imaginations about what our own economic decisions and the structure of the economy as a whole through the lens of gratitude rather than fear.

In particular, I like the principles that Greg Carmer, Dean of Chapel at Gordon College, expressed at Gratitude & Vocation which – of course – can now be found on line.

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