Safe To Be, Safe to Grow:: Advocacy

When my boys were very young we would sometimes go to play areas at the mall. 

It's a terrifying experience. The cutest toddlers and children were transformed before my eyes. They all became monsters bent on harming my boys. 

This isn't a matter of these other children being bad kids, they're just on a graham cracker and juice-fueled energy spree. As they would run free with sticky-fingers and dirty socks towards my soft-craniumed pride and joy I would become super protective. Shouldn't you be knocking over the sales racks at Macys or licking the glass at Cinnabon instead? The play area is for equally unstable little people crawling and softly bumping into one another, not 9 year old harbingers of doom made entirely of sharp elbows and knees. 

It's one of the little encounters that we have with justice every day. Someone cuts you off in traffic or says a nasty thing to you or someone you love on social media. This is not the way the world should operate. The mistreated and ignored people in our society should be valued and have their humanity honored. Decency and fairness should triumph over manipulation and deceit.

This Sunday we'll be looking at our fifth and final core value of Advocacy. At Cascade we define this value as; We fight injustices with those who have been treated insignificantly by individuals, systems or indifference. 

How does God call us to see and engage situations that are dangerous for people around us and care when we have every excuse not to care.