Day 3

Today began with attending a special conference on how the Church could make a bigger impact on the growing problems of gangs in Central America. The U.S. is exporting more than food, movies, and high-tech products; we are also a major source of gang leaders and networking. All Latin American countries are struggling with the growth in gang activity, as is the USA, but Guatemala seems to have more than it’s share of the problems. It was estimated at the conference that the number of people involved in gangs in Guatemala ranged anywhere from 8,000 to over 160,000 people. If the high number is accurate it would mean more than 1% of the population was in a gang!

In attendance were pastors, church leaders, educators, government employees, counselors, and many former gang members from every country in Central America. There was even a discussion with a panel of current gang members. We were challenged to think through how we though about the individuals who joined a gang, and how we – as the Christian community – could engage with the gang communities in a way that offered a way out on one hand, and a reason not to join a gang in the first place on the other. The issue is more complicated than meets the eye, and a lot of fear (real and imagined) surrounds the responses from many Christian corners. To engage in ministry in this area would mean embracing lives that are vastly different from what we know or even want to be about, and lives that repulse many good people.

The day prompted Lionel to reflect on what the people of God could (should) do in response to the problem:

"Are we or are we not the living body of Christ? As we spend time here in Guatemala I have been confronted with the realities my past 40 years. Not much has changed other than the calendar and the modern inventions of today. Yet the hunger, the need, the struggle and the search for survival have not changed.

After listening to a former gang member from El Salvador say essentially, "When are we going to come to grasp the reality that the only solution to the problems we are discussing is the gospel of Jesus Christ." This stuck in my heart like a dagger, because it is us, the living body of Christ that has failed them. We are [often] no longer influencing the world around us; on the contrary the world around us has taken over many of our churches.

However, the realities in my new environment make me ponder if we are willing to take the risk that the early Christians took to influence the world around them in such a way that changed it completely. Are we so complacent in our Christianity that we are looking inward for ways & methods to preserve our comfortable status quo, or are we willing to become the living body of Christ once more and look outwardly by being an agent of change in the world around us? Will we welcome strangers into our homes and into our lives? Will we welcome those with different features and a different skin color, or with a different hair style, or a pierced nose or pierced tongue and tattoos? Will we welcome them with open arms, without judgment but rather with the love and acceptance of Christ?

Is there a risk in pursuing this type of active faith? YES! But anything less would be luke warm Christianity and we all know what the Lord thinks of that".