Welcome to JustLife, a space dedicated to exploring the connections between faith, money, justice and lifestyle.
On Saturday 28 February at 10am, a Tearfund breakfast workshop called Invest for Life is happening in Kirkpatrick Memorial Presbyterian Church in East Belfast. It’s on money - the theology and practice of giving, budgeting, investing and using our money for the good of ourselves and the world around us. We hope you can be there.
JustLife is designed to help us go deeper on some of the issues that are raised at the event. Every Wednesday until the 25 March, a group of us involved in Invest for Life will be posting short pieces discussing topics like fair-trade, ethical banking, giving and sustainable living. Whether you can join us on the 28th or not, we hope you’ll feel free to join in the conversation.
Money matters. It matters because what we wear, the food we eat, how we travel and lots of other everyday financial decisions have a massive impact on the lives of people all over the world.
And money matters for Christians because God tells us to love our neighbour, to pursue justice, to fight poverty and inequality. But too often we’ve used our cash in ways that make us just another piece of an economic system that keeps the global poor down.
They may not be on our doorstep but they are our neighbours. We are connected to them. From textile factories in Bangladesh to banana plantations in Ecuador to farmland threatened by climate change in Malawi, sons and daughters, fathers and mothers are counting on us if they are ever to get a chance at a dignified life.
Christianity in Northern Ireland has often been seen as private and pietistic, little interested in the world around it. Many of us are just at the beginning of understanding that following Jesus is not only about our own spiritual lives but also about getting on board with God’s transforming mission of love, hope and justice on the earth.
The Invest for Life event and the JustLife blog are about discovering together how a concern for justice at home and abroad can become a natural part of our daily lives. We want to know what Micah’s call to ‘act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with God’ means for us in Ireland in 2009. We want Jesus’ desire that people have ‘life in all its fullness’ made ever more real in our own lives and in others’.
Unfortunately, it’s much easier not to change the world than to change it. It’s easy to say it’s too hard. It’s easy to leave it to people we think are wiser or better than us. And, if we’re honest, it can be difficult enough to keep our heads above the water of work and family commitments, never mind thinking about other people. But we’re not left to do this on our own, and when we meet and reflect with others on the same journey, it all becomes a whole lot easier.
We hope you’ll stay with us over the next five weeks and share your thoughts and experience on the issues. Leading a just life occurs as much in the supermarket aisles as the protest march, as much in the tiny act of kindness as the million pound donation. With small steps, an everyday radicalism can take root in our lives that brings real change and real hope to our small, fragile and precious world. Let’s do it together and let’s do it now.