Justice vs. Mercy

As people of faith, Micah 6:8 says we must “act justly, and to love mercy.” Many religious groups answer God’s call to love mercy by providing direct services to the marginalized individuals in our communities. However, most congregations aren’t successful in fulfilling God’s requirement to act justly by addressing the root causes of the problems that these people face. BOLD Justice is a vehicle by which congregations can act powerfully together to address the systems in the community that perpetuate injustice.

Justice and Faithfulness: Our Vision of 52/1

It is very important for people in the religious community to “walk humbly with your God.” Most congregations come together at least 52 times per year to fulfill God’s requirement to be faithful. BOLD Justice’s vision is for each of its member congregations to turn out the same amount of people that come together every week for faithfulness, one time per year to do justice. That is why we call our Vision 52/1.

How do we do Justice? Our Great Nehemiah Action!

There is strength and power in numbers, so we know that our ability to do justice in our community is directly related to the amount of people we can turn out to large public gatherings. Every year, BOLD Justice calls a great Assembly that is named after the Assembly that Nehemiah held for the people of Jerusalem. The book of Nehemiah tells the story of how he helped rebuild the wall in Jerusalem. In chapter 5, the people in the city come to Nehemiah with a cry of injustice. The people are being exploited by money lenders and much of their livelihoods are being taken away. Nehemiah corrects this injustice by holding a “Great Assembly” to which he calls both the people and the money lenders. The money lenders agree and “the people did as they had promised.” (Nehemiah 5:13). This story is a biblical example of a group of people coming together and acting powerfully through their strength in numbers.

BHAG, Bringing Broward County Closer to being a City of God

BOLD Justice is doing good work in the community, but right now we are only capable of winning partial solutions to our city’s problems. If we are going to realize God’s vision for a city where “justice rolls on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream” (Amos 5:24) we must build our ability to win larger and larger victories through our strength in numbers. BOLD Justice has a long term goal of expanding enough over the next 5 years to turn out 6,000 people to our 2015 Nehemiah Action. We call this our BHAG, which stands for Big Hairy Audacious Goal.