ArticleBlog | Justice or just us? Preaching and leading worship on justice issues
Justice or just us? Preaching and leading worship on justice issues
Author: Andy PeckPost Date: 10.03.20
We come to preach and lead worship on justice issues for different reasons. It could be as simple as ‘I’m on the rota for this Sunday and it’s Refugee Sunday/Homelessness Sunday/insert special Sunday of choice’. Perhaps there’s an issue that has dominated your church’s pastoral and missional thinking recently. Or perhaps a text has come up in the lectionary or preaching plan that opens up a particular topic. How do we do this well?
Who are we?
The first thing to recognise is that what we consider a ‘justice issue’ will be shaped hugely by who we are and the church context we find ourselves in.
Let’s start with us. Our ethnicity, age, physicality and environment shape who we are and what we see, or don’t see, in the Bible and in our world. Our personal attributes may also shape how our congregations hear us. Being aware of our cultural location and our own potential blind spots is important when we are leading on justice, because sometimes we presume that God’s justice looks just like our view of justice. Spending some time acknowledging how we have power, or feel that we don’t, can help us to recognise where a sermon may fall into the trap of being paternalistic
