Doing Justice and Loving Mercy: Compassion Ministries, Mentor's Guide, MG16

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D O I N G J U S T I C E A N D L O V I N G M E R C Y : C O M P A S S I O N M I N I S T R I E S

* How does your church view itself relative to the world around it–is it seeking to engage it, withdraw from it, confront it, or what? How has your church shown itself to be an outpost and beachhead of the Kingdom, demonstrating freedom, wholeness, and justice in its engagement with the world? * Are you encouraged by the kinds of ministries, services, and good works your church has done as it has sought to demonstrate the Kingdom’s ethic in your own neighborhood and community? How have you contributed to this demonstration–what ministry of service do you participate in your church that shows justice and mercy to others? * Of the four critical issues of our time covered in this lesson, which moves you most to act on and to think Christianly about–poverty and oppression, protection of the environment, dealing with ethnocentrism and difference, and responding to war and violence? Which is your church most actively engaged in to address? * What projects or initiatives are you currently involved with which allow you to express your convictions about God’s justice and mercy of God, either locally or globally? What holds you back from being more involved in these kinds of projects? * Do you grasp what the Bible teaches about the concept of difference? Can you explain the importance of difference, and what is at stake if we fail to properly understand its role in building relationships with others? * Would you say you are understanding and tolerant of differences between and among people? Were you raised in an environment that loved people in spite of differences? Were you ever a victim of a situation where differences were distorted or misunderstood, where they became toxic, and led to hatred or even violence? How did you deal with that (those) situation(s)? * Which of the three historical positions about war seem most convincing to you–total pacifism, the theory of the “just war,” or relative pacifism? Have you served in the armed services, or could you do so, if asked? Why or why not? * To what extent have you embraced, in your own life, a strategy of Christian peacemaking which acknowledges, celebrates, and welcomes differences among people? When does tolerating differences become an issue of moral

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