Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

As the year comes to a close with the celebration of Christmas and the hope for a better year in 2012, we pause to thank you for your interest and participation in the National Council of Churches Poverty Initiative. In a year of severe challenges to the middle class and especially those living below the poverty line, we have organized and advocated for fairness and justice in the affairs of our government. We are profoundly disappointed at the failure of Congress to act decisively to alleviate the suffering of the poor among us. We end the year confident that God will continue to work through us all to share the abundance of the earth with the whole family of humanity. We know our work is unfinished and we resolve to continue to pray and advocate with you in the New Year. If we don’t believe we can end poverty now—we never will.

Here is a look back at a year of intensive advocacy in solidarity with those who struggle the most for a fair share of the abundance of God’s creation. In 2011, the NCC Poverty Initiative:

• Shared in leadership of the Faithful Budget Campaign of the Washington Inter-religious Staff Community in a Capitol Hill, designed to protect anti-poverty programs in the federal budget and deficit debates in Congress. During the summer, we held daily outdoor public prayer vigils for three weeks attracting from 20 to 200 people. We organized meetings with top congressional leadership in the Senate and House, and 11 faith leaders (Jewish, Christian and Muslim, including the director of the NCC Poverty Initiative) were arrested in a civil disobedience action in the Rotunda of the Capitol. We led a fall revival of the Faithful Budget campaign targeting seven of members of the Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (Super Committee) September –December). The campaign is closely coordinated with and is and a complimentary part of the larger campaign of ecumenical , interreligious denominations and organizations (WISC). The campaign included in-district visits with congressional representatives, local, state, and national call-in days to congress, regular action alerts to constituents, toolkit for organizing local, state and national prayer vigils and a “Super Vigil” on November 20 in Washington DC while groups at the local and national level also held vigils.

• Developed prayer and education materials, including Prayer Vigil liturgies, how-to guides for prayer vigils, prayers, sermons; a comprehensive faith based resource on poverty “Eradicating Poverty, the Call of the Church;” produced a video on the faithful budget campaign with senior interreligious leaders providing spiritual and prophetic witness to anti-poverty work.
• Was a founding member of the Circle of Protection: a broad, unprecedented Christian coalition that also made a significant impact on the budget impasse prior to the passage of the legislation to lift the debt ceiling.  The Circle of Protection (www.circleofprotection.us) produced a statement that attracted well over 100 religious leaders and twenty organizations. At last count over 6,000 individuals had signed the statement online and over sixty national religious organizations.  One of our partners generated 23,000 signatures including over five thousands pastors.  The Circle also had a meeting with President Obama during which he agreed with the principle of protecting programs that support the “least among us” from cuts in the legislative resolution of the crisis.
• Co-chaired the fall mobilization of Fighting Poverty With Faith—Working Together to End Hunger. We challenged individuals in our churches and members of congress to take the Food Stamp Challenge and organized a shopping experience among national faith leaders, congresspersons, members of the administration and food stamp recipients in the District of Columbia. The leadership team enlisted 40 local groups in planning events during the mobilization, most of the events were interfaith.

What a year it has been. Again, I thank you for journeying with the National Council of Churches as we participate in God’s mission to end poverty. I look forward to continuing our work together in 2012.

Grace and Peace

Michael Livingston

Director, National Council of Churches Poverty Initiative

Think You Don’t Have Enough to Give this Christmas?

“I pray this message for all those who come to Christmas thinking they do not have enough to give — Caught in a consumer culture that shames them if they cannot afford to buy all they feel they should.
Hear the healing word of God: what you have to give cannot be bought.

Your most precious gifts are the same ones Jesus gave to you.
Give your time to those who need you.
Give forgiveness to those who hurt you.
Give your love to all around you.

You are the gift of God. You are the reason Jesus came and was born a poor child, and gave not as the world gives but gave as only a generous spirit can give, the true Spirit of Christmas.”
- The Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston, Assistant Bishop, Ethnic and Multicultural Missioner, The Episcopal Church Diocese of California

Our God, Born into Poverty: A Christmas Reflection.

Yesterday on Capitol Hill, we held the last Faithful Budget prayer vigil of the year. Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon, General Secretary of the National Council of Churches, led the vigil. Please read the compelling Christmas reflection he offered yesterday. It is a theological reflection on the meaning of the incarnation for the engagement of Christians in poverty and justice issues.

Grace and Peace,

Michael Livingston

Director, National Council of Churches Poverty Initiative

Reflections from Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon on Why Christians Should Be Particularly Aware of Poverty and Justice Issues at Christmastime.

(Delivered at the Faithful Budget Prayer Vigil on Capitol Hill – December 13, 2011)

I realize that we are an interfaith campaign, but I thought it might be appropriate if I said a brief word about the Christian holiday of Christmas, and why I believe it compels Christians to be here for this vigil.

What Christians confess and celebrate in this season is that “God [the Word] became flesh and lived among us” (John 1:14). The implications of this are so staggering that I fear we, Christians, often miss them. If we look for God only in spiritual things, if we speak about God’s presence as something that is only in our hearts, if we teach that God’s promise has only to do with heaven, then we may overlook God altogether. Because the God we know and worship was born in a cave where animals were kept—the child of poor, Jewish peasants—threatened by a king who saw in him the seed of political revolution (Luke 2:1-20; Matthew 2:1-18). “Christmas,” writes theologian Shirley Guthrie, “is the story of the radical invasion of God into the kind of real world where we live all year long—a world where there is political unrest and injustice, poverty, hatred, jealousy, and both the fear and longing that things could be different.”

Let me say it another way. The Christian doctrine of incarnation—that God became flesh—affirms that life in this world, though distorted by sin, is supremely precious to the Creator. In the Christ child, Christians see the purpose of God who has drawn near that humanity (all creation!) may have abundant life (John 10:10)—not just in another realm, but here and now.

That’s why a religion that celebrates incarnation cannot remain aloof from political oppression or economic injustice or environmental destruction. God, Christians believe, became flesh, the ultimate act of solidarity with this world in all its political, economic, and ecological messiness. And that’s why the church, as the primary instrument of God’s purpose for Christians, is called to promote social transformation toward the day when God’s will for abundant life is realized on earth as it is in heaven.

Theologically speaking, re-enactments of the Nativity should not take place inside our sanctuaries, but outside the doors of the church, in the midst of the everyday world where “the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Colossians 1:19). To put it simply and bluntly: A church that is indifferent to worldly struggles, indifferent to the plight of the poor, is following its own agenda, not God’s.

Urgent: Relieve Unemployed Families’ Anxiety this Christmas Season.

This morning, I joined our friends at Faith Advocates for Jobs in Upper Senate Park to lead a prayer vigil for unemployed workers. While we pray, we are also working for justice. Please click here to write to your members of Congress and ask them to extend the unemployment insurance program. 

Unemployment insurance is an important lifeline that helps people who are out of work maintain stability for their families while they seek a new job. Congress may not renew the unemployment insurance program before it expires on December 31. This could prove a devastating start to the new year. Two million unemployed workers would lose their insurance in January. Another four million would lose insurance over the course of 2012.

In the past year, unemployment insurance has kept an estimated 3 million families out of poverty.

This instability hurts families and creates anxiety for everyone. People are asking themselves, “can I afford a toy for my child this Christmas? What kind of meal can I put on the table for my family?” There is a fundamental moral incompatibility between celebrating the joys of this holiday season and Congress leaving this session without passing legislation to extend unemployment benefits. Our Congress needs to act now to serve the American people, especially those who are struggling to support their families in the Christmas season and beyond. Please click here to write to your members of Congress and ask them to extend the unemployment insurance program.

Please share this message with friends and family. Our voices make a big difference.

Grace and Peace,

Michael Livingston

Director, National Council of Churches Poverty Initiative

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh published by Ballantine books New York 2011. Recommended by Ann Deibert, pastor at Central Presbyterian Church in Louisville, KY.

A first novel by Vanessa Diffenbaugh, The Language of Flowers tells the story of Victoria Jones, who is finding her way in the world after growing up in foster care. It’s a world with little support and few safety nets. Burning bridges, even with those who think they are trying to help, is often the easier impulse for Victoria. With many false starts, a few friendships begin to sustain her, at the same time challenging her to confront the defenses she has, understandably, developed to survive. While this novel is not an excursus on poverty, poverty and a life bumping around in foster care certainly shapes and limits the choices and resources available to Victoria.

If you’ve read it or you want to, comment on the blog to start a discussion, or tweet us @NCCEndPoverty.

Do you have a book recommendation? Send it our way at info@nccendpoverty.org