Can We Really Change the World?

Ken is the founder and executive director of the upcoming Justice Conference in Philadelphia, PA. 

In Pursuing Justice, I write about the motto of Kilns College: Learn to Change the World.

A friend recently admitted he was skeptical of my claim. He wondered if, at the end of the day, it’s possible to actually change the world. Doesn’t history show injustice and sin are intractable and constant?  

I’ve faced this question many times. Many people believe the talk we hear about changing the world is simply triumphal and idealistic cheerleading designed to make us feel more important than we really are.

The truth is, those who believe we can’t change the world and those who believe we can are both pointing at deep truths in the nature of reality. One sees the fact that no matter what our efforts, we can’t permanently and fundamentally fix the world and eradicate evil from the human heart, while the other sees the fact that we can and do change the world every day in both small yet significant ways and, sometimes, in large and weighty matters. How are we to understand these two realities?

Back in grad school, studying philosophy, the whole exercise of clarifying an argument always hung on a distinction—separating out a conflated idea into two clear and distinct truths.

The distinction here is: Although we cannot fix the world, we can certainly change it.

My friend Keith Wright, International President of Food for the Hungry, has spent his life helping to grow healthy families and communities in the developing world. Recently, he shared with me a study by the World Bank that found extreme poverty, for the first time, has declined in every region of the developing world. Though that doesn’t mean we can fix every economic need in the world (after all, Jesus himself said we would always have the poor with us), it does mean, however, one significant and large element of the world is slowly changing for the better.

Another friend of mine is a very busy Urgent Care doctor in town. In spite of the demands of his career, Randy uses his own money and personal time to drive around a fully equipped medical van, ministering to homeless folks who have no other access to health services. Sometimes he treats frostbitten fingertips, and sometimes he literally saves a life.

Randy isn’t trying to fix every health need in town. He knows even the folks he helps will have more medical needs in the future, but he serves knowing, in that moment, what he does somehow fundamentally changes the world, if even in a small way.  

Multiply these examples as more and more people heed the call to justice and love for fellow man and the amount of change that happens in the world can grow exponentially. This is why God commands us to do justice and why in the Old Testament he punished his people for neglecting justice, because what we do does make a significant difference for good or for bad in the world.

We don’t have to remake the world.

Ken Wytsma
Ken Wytsmahttp://kenwytsma.com/

Ken Wytsma is the lead pastor of Village Church in Beaverton, Oregon—a multicultural community in Christ. He is also the founder of The Justice Conference, which has reached over 30,000 people across seven countries with a message on a theology of justice and God’s call to give our lives away.

Keep Calm and Minister

Can you pass the "Timothy Test?"

4 Ways God’s Spirit Leads His People

We don't always have the full picture, but discerning how God is leading you is not unclear.

Fit for the Kingdom

The Lord prompted Reardon to think about combining Christian fellowship with fitness in order to create a new small group for men.