JourneyOnline
ATTENDING the Voices for Justice conference was an amazing experience of public action as part of how Jesus calls us to live.
Two hundred and eighty Christians from different denominations around Australia came together in Canberra from 15 to 18 September for this national gathering of the Micah Challenge.
As Christians, it is up to us to be agents of change.
Many great social movements, like the call to end slavery, originate from the actions of Christians.
The theme for this year's Voices for Justice was Finish the Race, and we called on parliamentarians to finish what they started when they committed to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), aimed at halving poverty and improving human wellbeing by 2015.
Effective aid has seen success with some MDGs, such as a halving of the proportion of people without access to clean water, but others – reducing child mortality by two-thirds, reducing maternal mortality by three-quarters and halving the proportion of people without access to adequate sanitation – are still unmet.
Micah Challenge National Coordinator John Beckett reminded us at the Voices for Justice opening service that our meetings with politicians in the coming days were worship, as Jesus calls us to both personal worship and public action.
When we met my Federal Member of Parliament, Warren Truss, and his colleague Wyatt Roy, Member for Longman, they made some interesting points, while agreeing with ours about effective aid.
Both men said if Christians want to sway opinion in Parliament House, they first need to sway opinion in their home electorates.
Mr Truss added that he gets more letters from Christians opposing aid than supporting it.
In the forum "Faith, Justice, Politics and Change", Kevin Rudd, Member for Griffith, reiterated that as Christians we are called to both personal worship and public action.
We asked the parliamentarians and senators we met with to pledge to finishing well, and to attending a Finish the Race event in their electorate. Pledge to "finish the race" with Micah Challenge and play your part in halving poverty by 2015.
Pray for our leaders and communities and for God's mercy and justice for the poorest people in our world.
For more information or to sign the Finish the Race pledge visit Voices for Justice at www.micahchallenge.org.au.
Photo : Kevin Rudd and UnitingWorld staff Bronwyn Fraser, Laura McGilvray & Andrew Miller at Voices for Justice. Photo courtesy of UnitingWorld.
