“Do you know what I want? I want justice—oceans of it. I want fairness—rivers of it. That’s what I want. That’s all I want.” (Amos 5:24, The Message)

Anyone who is a parent, a teacher, a youth minister, anyone who works with children has had the experience of a child loudly protesting, “That’s not fair!” A need for justice seems to be hard wired into the essence of our being. When we are children, our concern for justice centers on what is fair and just for me. “That’s not fair!” usually means I feel slighted, I didn’t get my fair share, the punishment for the crime committed is unfair or my brother should have gotten a worse punishment than me. As we grow, our concern hopefully broadens beyond ourselves to include our friends and our family. If our concern for justice continues to grow and mature, we become concerned about the people in our community, our town, our state, our nation, and our world. We begin to move more toward a concept of justice that fits with Martin Luther King’s statement that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” The kind of justice God wants knows no borders. It rolls down like the water of the greatest oceans and it flows without stop like the mightiest of rivers. Since childhood I have heard that God is a God of justice. I don’t think I ever thought much about God “wanting” justice. That is “a want” of holy proportions! How do our typical “wants” stack up against God’s “wants?”

Recently I was asked to facilitate the new CBF Justice and Peacemaking Ministries Community on Facebook. I am excited about the idea and the potential of social media as a tool to create passion and action around issues of justice and peacemaking. I hope this will be a place where we can gather together as a community, dialogue, share resources and best practices, post links on issues of injustice reminding us why God calls us to take action, and look at how CBF Field Personnel together with partnering churches and concerned individuals are currently pursuing justice & fostering peace. The issues of justice and peacemaking are broad and deep. Many of them as we look closer feel overwhelming. That’s why we need to come together as a community to address them. Together, we can do amazing things! Some of the issues we are looking at are human trafficking, genocide, women’s rights, reconciliation, religious freedom, child labor, and child sexual abuse. I am aware that this is just a beginning list because as we come together and collaborate, new issues will be put on the table because we all have issues and causes about which we are passionate. I invite you to join the conversation, become part of a community that ignites your passion and provides a place for you to join with others around a common cause. Invite your friends to join also. To make this work, we need your voices at the table. We hope to soon have a Resource Sidebar up and running on the page so we can easily share book suggestions, videos, websites, sermons, pieces of art, and reflections that you can use to raise awareness and take action wherever you are. Take the first step today by clicking on this link http://www.facebook.com/pages/CBF-Justice-Peacemaking-Ministries/109994909092027?sk=info. You can then become a part of the Justice and Peacemaking community by simply clicking on “Like.”