Some of you have heard us talk about IJM (International Justice Mission) and some of you have even had us try to recruit you to work for them!  They come into my mind tonight because Steve and I just watched the movie ‘Taken’ on DVD.  It’s a rather unsatisfying treatment of the crime of kidnapping and selling women for the underground sex trade in Europe.  It was unsatisfying because it was done in the Action / Thriller genre – so of course there wasn’t really scope to deal with the heinous evil and injustice of it all, so much as how Liam Neeson could take down as many bad guys as possible while rescuing his kidnapped daughter.  Nevertheless, the heinous evil and injustice of it all stood out, so much so that I didn’t want to go to sleep without posting about it; there are a couple of things I’d like to mention.

We have been saved and the church has been established among other things, to ‘push back evil in the world’.  I really appreciate this phrase borrowed from Pastor Matt Chandler.  Steve and I are convicted and convinced that 5:17 church needs to be doing more to push back evil in the world.  I hope we can all get some ideas going about how we can do this (more) as a church.  I’ll put two down below.

One of our favourite Christian musicians, Sara Groves, reflects on injustice globally and the effects of the sex trade specifically in three songs on her album Tell me what you know. Having met with Southeast Asian survivors of the sex trade herself, as well as being an advocate for IJM, Sara’s reflections are powerful.  We can’t recommend her music highly enough and hope you might borrow some from us or have a listen some other way so that you can reflect and respond along with her.

And that brings me back to IJM. From their website:

International Justice Mission is a human rights agency that secures justice for victims of slavery, sexual exploitation and other forms of violent oppression. IJM lawyers, investigators and aftercare professionals work with local officials to ensure immediate victim rescue and aftercare, to prosecute perpetrators and to promote functioning public justice systems.

What an enormous need our world has for (Christian) organisations such as this.  Please have a look at their site because the world also needs us to be educated and active about these issues and the real humans behind them.

And finally, here are the issues that have cropped up in my Inbox this past week or two that I’m thankful God didn’t let me ignore.  Can we encourage you to take some time to respond to them too, as a way of applying our Amos series from July, as well as telling forth the Gospel of forgiveness, liberation, life, and hope through our actions as well as our words.

1. Sign an E-Petition for the protection of unborn children by upholding current abortion laws in Queensland.
2. Sign an E-Petition to remove pornography from children’s view in Australia.