Providing Christian resources from the YMCA past and present to nourish inclusive, equitable work in our diverse and global neighborhoods that build up healthy spirit, mind and body for all.
As YMCAs in the United States grapple with the roiling upheavals of 2020, and the tumultuous start to 2021, as we seek solid ground from which to stand and serve our struggling communities, there is much we can learn from our global YMCA friends and their foundation for serving amidst world-wide challenges.
Grinding poverty, political violence, ethnic resentments, religious strife, environmental pollution, broken families, corrupt cities – whatever shock or resistance American citizens have to these realities in our own country (the wealthiest and most powerful in modern history) fellow YMCA workers from around the world have also had to strive for success in this grueling reality for generations.
What can USA Christian YMCA leaders learn from Y’s in other countries – particularly ones committed to the legacy of George Williams and the Paris Basis?
What have other international Y’s figured out when it comes to embodying the gospel of Christ in a dangerous and violent world?
YMCA Challenge 21 is a gritty and enduring Christian commitment to historical and spiritual realities, but focused on an inspirational and grounded future.
“Affirming the Paris Basis adopted in 1855 as the ongoing foundation statement of the mission of the YMCA, at the threshold of the third millennium we declare that the YMCA is a world-wide Christian, ecumenical, voluntary movement for women and men with special emphasis on and the genuine involvement of young people and that it seeks to share the Christian ideal of building a human community of justice with love, peace and reconciliation for the fullness of life for all creation.
Each member YMCA is therefore called to focus on certain challenges which will be prioritized according to its own context.
These challenges, which are an evolution of the Kampala Principles, are:
• Sharing the good news of Jesus Christ and striving for spiritual, intellectual and physical well-being of individuals and wholeness of communities.
• Empowering all, especially young people and women to take increased responsibilities and assume leadership at all levels and working towards an equitable society.
• Advocating for and promoting the rights of women and upholding the rights of children.
• Fostering dialogue and partnership between people of different faiths and ideologies and recognizing the cultural identities of people and promoting cultural renewal.
• Committing to work in solidarity with the poor, dispossessed, uprooted people and oppressed racial, religious and ethnic minorities.
• Seeking to be mediators and reconcilers in situations of conflict and working for meaningful participation and advancement of people for their own self-determination.
• Defending God’s creation against all that would destroy it and preserving and protecting the earth’s resources for coming generations.
To face these challenges, the YMCA will develop patterns of co-operation at all levels that enable self-sustenance and self-determination.”
Imagine the humble posture of North American YMCA’s discarding their exceptionalism and turning towards global Y’s to learn in mutuality how to live out our mission in this new era of unprecedented disruption and chronic uncertainty?
Imagine the kind of solidarity we could generate in the United States if we relented of reinventing the YMCA and took some lessons from our world partners on living out the historic mission of the Y amidst these challenging times?
Challenge 21 enables North American Y’s to transcend the boring discussions of whether we should be more or less a business or non-profit focused, more or less a gym/swim or social agency.
The vision and depth of Challenge 21 could transform the spirit, energy and creativity of local Y’s, if they are brave enough to embrace it.
Here’s how different Y’s across the world highlight Challenge 21:
If you were to “grade” your Y in light of Challenge 21, what would the result look like?
If you were to connect the most exciting parts of your Y with the Challenge 21, which parts would be highlighted?
Just imagine how exciting your Y could be with a more intentional holistic focus in solidarity with fellow associations across the globe!
One can make the case that Challenge 21 is a robust, thoughtful, dynamic, transformational unpacking of our current YUSA mission statement.
It can open up a way to transcend the colloquial American political and religious anxieties; it can reconnect us with our world neighbors and the immanent love that empowers us all.
What will guide our YMCA in 2021? With what we think is ahead of us, with what we are preparing to overcome, with what must change within and around us – what is our cornerstone for the Y future? Since 1855 the Paris Basis has been a foundation for YMCA’s around the world to navigate unprecedented disruptions and cataclysmic upheavals. What is the Paris Basis, and how can it aid Christian leaders in the Y to “build a healthy spirit, mind and body for all?”
What is the original animating genius of the YMCA?
What is the power source for sacrificial service, resiliency, and love that enables the Y to endure for over 15 decades globally and locally – especially here in Fort Wayne?
The Paris Basis of the YMCA is a concise yet potent agreement for shaping how a global youth movement can adapt to a plethora of cultures and unique circumstances while embodying a transcendent purpose and calling.
Here in the United States, the Paris Basis guided the YMCA amidst the violent upheavals of the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Great War, the Great Depression, World War Two, the Cold War, Civil Rights Era, Korea-Vietnam-Central America-Iraq-Afghanistan wars/tragedies, 9/11, and now COVID.
“The Young Men’s Christian Associations seek to unite those young men who, regarding Jesus Christ as their God and Saviour, according to the Holy Scriptures, desire to be his disciples in their faith and in their life, and to associate their efforts for the extension of his Kingdom amongst young men.
Any differences of opinion on other subjects, however important in themselves, shall not interfere with the harmonious relations of the constituent members and associates of the World Alliance.”
YMCA Paris Basis, adopted at First World YMCA Conference, 1855, organized by Henri Dunant
draft document of the Paris Basis, 1855
The spirit of the YMCA leaders that drafted this document also shaped the future ecumenical movement of European and then international Christian churches.
The emphasis on Jesus Christ, his Kingdom, and harmonious relationships should not be underestimated for its significance on the growth and vitality of the Y in a turbulent and war-torn century.
George Williams, a founder of the YMCA, who embodied this kind of Christian spirit of service, was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1894.
Henri Dunant, organizer of the first YMCA world council, also embodied this Christian spirit of service, and would go on to found the International Red Cross; he would be awarded the first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901.
The Christian spirit of service embodied by Williams and Dunant, as expressed in the Paris Basis and enculturated across dozens of nations around the world in those early decades, still exists today for YMCA’s to work together and collaborate in their communities.
It has been necessary and good for the Young Men’s Christian Association to adapt and mature over the past 175+ years.
In regard to the Paris Basis the need prevails to immerse our mission in it, as we fully immerse ourselves in the cultures of our communities. We still live in a violent, broken, yet beautiful world, as 2020 revealed so clearly to us.
The genius of the Paris Basis is its emphasis on the personal, not the abstract: Jesus Christ as our faithful God and courageous Savior; on its reconciliatory nature as revealed by Christ’s kingdom that prioritizes forgiveness, oneness, and sacrificial service.
The world doesn’t need platitudes or empty promises; it does still need real people living as peace-makers inspired by the words and works of the real Jesus Christ.
The YMCA is at its best when it is personal, when it connects and unites communities, when it brings out the best in others. What makes this transformative is when it happens amidst irascible conflict, brokenness, and apathy.
The spirit of the Paris Basis originated among twelve industrious young Christian men who associated to improve the lives of workers around them living in darkness, squalor, and hopelessness.
When YMCA workers seek to embody this same spirit in its complicated context, the Paris Basis can be a guiding light and spiritual fuel as it enters into difficult and overwhelming circumstances.
The Paris Basis emphasizes some key texts from the New Testament:
– the dynamic person of Jesus Christ as revealed in the Gospel according to Luke, especially the first four chapters.
– the transformative kingdom of Christ unto which we are disciples in faith and life, described in the Gospel according to Matthew, particularly chapters five through seven.
– the harmonious relations stem from a robust and powerful vision of Jesus Christ as he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane “that all may be one” as recorded in the Gospel according to John, in chapter 17, but prefaced by the call to “love one another” in chapters 15-16.
Christian leaders within the YMCA movement can draw great wisdom and strength from reflections on these three core Gospel writings, as they go about their demanding work in the community.
Like anyone else we can get overwhelmed by the upheavals on our world; the Paris Basis can be our North Star in the wilderness, our compass in the storm, our lantern in the dark.
You may not be knighted for your YMCA work, nor receive a Nobel Peace Prize. But that same spirit of Christ that animated Williams and Dunant, as articulated in the Paris Basis, is still alive and vibrant, for those willing to embrace it.
Together we can strive for more peace, in the way of Christ and his Kingdom, especially in the troubled times still ahead for our world in 2021.
“For as the earth brings forth it’s bud, As the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth, So the LORD God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.”
What a beautiful and compelling vision of the future.
For Israel, righteous justice and joyful praise was most definitely not sprouting among the empires of the world.
It seemed as if God was no where – not in the temple, not on the throne, and not amongst the people.
Though Israel knew they had sinned against the LORD and broken their covenant, they wondered when the punishment would end.
It seemed that returning to Jerusalem and rebuilding their life in the Promised Land was the beginning of a new era with God.
But now a new empire was directing the affairs of the nations, and injustice and sorrow marred the gardens and cities.
Which is why Isaiah’s sermon resonated so deeply with Israel.
When would righteous justice flourish – not only in Israel, but also in the surrounding nations?
How long, O Lord, until all the peoples of the earth praised you instead of their idols?
Isaiah reminds Israel who it is they worship, of how great and good is their LORD.
He announces to them that the Spirit of the LORD God will descend upon an anointed servant who will come to Israel.
This anointed servant will preach good news to the poor and heal the brokenhearted.
The LORD God will send his servant to proclaim liberty to the captives and the Jubilee year of the Lord.
The LORD God will have his day of vengeance, and God will comfort all who mourn, giving them beauty for ashes, oil of joy for mourning, and a garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.
If Israel is a garden, the LORD will plant righteousness that the people may be called oaks of justice.
And through this rebuilding and replanting, Israel shall rejoice and God will be glorified.
Through the LORD’s faithfulness, he will make an everlasting covenant with a people who are continually unfaithful to him; BUT, the Lord God will direct their work in truth.
Through what the faithful LORD God does with unfaithful Israel will result in all the world acknowledge that surely Israel is blessed of God.
Isaiah is so sure of this planting, of these oaks of righteousness, of a world rejoicing at the justice and faithfulness of God in how he rebuilds Israel, that he declares himself already clothed in salvation, already putting on a robe of righteous justice, like a bride and groom all decked out in their finest beauty.
Isaiah is so confident in the LORD God, he believes with every bone in his body that justice and joy will spring forth before all the nations.
It will happen as sure as when the garden causes the things that are sown in it so spring forth.
Isaiah wrote to the people of God during the Advent of the First Christmas.
As the people of God, we are now reading Isaiah during the Advent of the Last Christmas.
We read of Isaiah’s confidence in the LORD God almost twenty five centuries later.
Sometimes it seems, on this side of that first Christmas that the robes of righteousness are wearing thin and the coats of salvation are getting threadbare.
We need Isaiah’s sermon now just as much as when Israel needed it then.
They were ready and waiting for the anointed King, their Messiah, their Christ to come and cause justice and joy to spring up from the parched earth.
But Israel crucified their king, cutting down the gardener with all the injustice and hate that we are all to familiar with still today.
God brought comfort to all the people of God who recognized Jesus to be the Son of God and the Son of David.
Through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, God signaled his faithfulness to Israel while vindicating Jesus as the LORD and King of Israel and all the nations of the world.
But through the crucifixion and resurrection we also begin to see how the LORD is going to sow the seeds of righteous justice and joyful praise throughout the world.
He’s going to do it through the church scattered throughout the whole world. In every city of every nation there will be a gathering of men and women who are faithful to the LORD Jesus Christ.
Because of their confidence in the coming of the Lord to establish the kingdom of God, they live now in light of a future that may not come in their lifetime.
They rejoice always, praying constantly, giving thanks to God in all things, for they believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is both with them and coming again to reign upon the earth.
And when he does, the justice and joy that the church has been striving to sow in their community will become true of the whole world.
The justice and joy of the church will become seeds for that nation, and God will cause justice and joy to spring up from what was sown in that place.
Maybe you are having a hard time imagining what it will look like for justice and joy to spring up from the earth.
I want to show you a small three minute movie where you will see men springing up from the earth in justice and joy at Christmas time.
You may have already seen this chocolate commercial.
It’s a story known as the Christmas Truce and it took place exactly one hundred years ago this Christmas, during the first five months of the Great War, of what became known as World War One.
It helps to know a bit of history to appreciate the beauty of this compelling event. The first five months of the Great War was the worst warfare the world had ever seen.
The world had seen many horrific wars over the thousands of years of recorded history.
But none like this.
Prior to World War 1, great battles lasted one day, maybe three days. No battle had ever raged on everyday for a month.
When the battles started in August between Germany and the Allies, France expected the war to be over by the end of September.
So when December came and there was no end in sight of the war, the nations became gravely worried about the new world of chaos they were descending into.
Though the truce only lasted for a day, and though the war raged on to consume over twenty million lives in the next four years, there was a moment where justice and joy sprung up from the earth.
It’s a picture of what could have happened had the rulers and authorities turned away from their fear, pride, and greed.
That Christmas Truce was a brief picture of what the Last Christmas will be like, when the LORD God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up, conquering the dark powers and evil forces that enslave the nations in a kingdom of war and darkness.
We are not living in World War I, but we are still living in the aftershocks of it, one hundred years later.
You may not be living in the trenches, but you are living in a time where it seems like Christ is no where.
There is so much injustice in our nation.
There is so much loneliness and despair.
There is so much violence and death.
There is the every day grind of having to work with people who suck the joy out of the air; of living every day in pain or hardship or the constant struggle to survive with no end in sight.
Maybe it’s the nagging feeling that for all you have accomplished, there is still an emptiness that cannot be filled.
Maybe you need your own Christmas Truce: to rise up out of your trench and choose to rejoice in the LORD and believe that Christ is now here.
It’s important to note how Isaiah ends his poem: “As the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.”
In your hardship, in your grief, in your sadness, in your difficulties, in your uncertainty, in your anxiety, in your sufferings: what are you sowing?
When the evil one seeks to sow bitterness and despair in your heart, do you join him in it?
When the devil speaks lies to you, do you add to them?
When evil strikes you, your family or friends, when death unfairly strikes down those you care about – do you let the shadows of death creep in and drain your life away in despair and anger?
Isaiah writes to Israel, reminding them that it is the Lord who causes righteousness and praise to spring up, but we must sow things into the garden in order for anything to spring up.
There will always be death in this world, but are you sowing life?
There will always be injustice and wickedness, but are you sowing righteous justice and goodness?
There will always be sorrow and despair in our world, but are you sowing kindness and faithfulness anyway?
We plant and water, but it’s the LORD who makes it grow.
There is an old Israelite myth that if you wept over the seeds that you sowed in the spring, you would thus be able to rejoice as you reaped a bountiful harvest.
Sometimes it’s in pain that we continue our faithfulness, sometimes it’s with tears that we do the next right thing.
But we look to the coming of the LORD, whether in our lifetime or in the generations to come, and we believe that he will come and cause justice and joy to spring forth before all the nations from all the seeds that we sowed with our tears.
“In that year of the LORD, he will comfort all who mourn, giving them beauty for ashes;the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; That they may be called oaks of righteousness, that He may be glorified.”
