Living a life of faith in our complex world is never easy.  Too often we have the habit as Christians of limiting our religious conversations to what goes on within the walls of the church.  But as we all know, our faith impacts all aspects of our lives – from the daily encounters at work to the large questions of how we live as faithful Christian witnesses as citizens of both our nation and world.

Along with several other CBF Baptists, I recently had the privilege of attending a consultation at Wheaton College entitled, “Government, Foreign Assistance, and God’s Mission in the World.”  Sponsored by  Bread for the World, Micah Challenge and the Center for Applied Christian Ethics at Wheaton, the conference concentrated on several key questions.

* How do we understand the biblical and theological grounding for the government’s role in addressing global poverty?

* Why, should, and how can churches engage in the larger discussion of government responses to global poverty?

* How do we understand the church’s global poverty advocacy role in the context of God’s mission in the world?

These are questions that left me thinking about how responsible we really are for the use or misuse of our Christian citizenship to take part in God’s larger mission in the world.  I am excited that much of our mission at CBF allows us to partner with many other organizations, religious and secular, seeking to meet the Millennium Development Goals, alleviate global poverty, and meet the needs of the most neglected.

We are responsible for the stewardship of our citizenship as Bread for the World argues.  So how can we as local churches and individual Christians work towards these ends?  This is a question I hope we take the time to consider.

To read more about the conference, see David Gushee’s recent ABP article, “The quiet, indispensable work of U.S. foreign aid.”