Podcast appearances and mentions of Gary Haugen

Gary Haugen has seen the darkest things imaginable. He's spent decades fighting human traffickers, corrupt governments, and mobs that enslave men, women, and children to sell them for sex and profit. But he's not one bit cynical. As president of International Justice Mission, Haugen has worked to abolish modern-day slavery and to put the bad guys in jail while building the kind of institutions that ensure people are never treated that way again.   In this episode, Russell and Haugen discuss the objection that “justice issues” distract from the gospel. They also talk about how people can know whether God is calling them to some area of justice and mercy and about how those who are doing this kind of work can keep from burnout or despair. Haugen quoted from C. S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters: “Despair is a greater sin than any of the sins which provoke it.” He talks about how he learned from the writings of Dallas Willard and others the kinds of spiritual disciplines he needs to stay grounded and hopeful. The two also talk about going to church 13 times a week, the complex psychology of an oppressor, the power of art and music to move us to action, practical steps toward seeking justice, and of course, Wendell Berry. Special offer for listeners of The Russell Moore Show: Click here for 25% off a subscription to CT magazine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Some people become the ones others depend on. They organize the plans, remember the details, carry the weight. They know how to fix things—quietly, efficiently, lovingly. That kind of strength can shape a whole life. Until it begins to hollow something out. Amanda Doyle has spent much of her life being that person. In this conversation, she joins Kate to talk about what happens when helping becomes a way to stay in control, when strength hides tenderness, and when receiving love might be the bravest thing we do. She shares her experience of parenting a neurodivergent child, walking through a breast cancer diagnosis, and learning to see herself as worthy of the care she so freely gives to others. This episode is about the ache of being the strong one—and the grace of letting that go, just a little. In this episode, Amanda and Kate discuss: How a lifelong habit of fixing became both a strength and a struggle The quiet, radical act of letting people show up for you What Amanda wishes more people knew about dense breast tissue and early cancer detection The power of being seen—even before you have it all figured out If you liked this episode, you might also like: Kate’s conversation with Amanda’s sister, Glennon Doyle, “The Love Bridge” Gary Haugen, “Joy is the Oxygen” Father Greg Boyle, “Unshakable Goodness” Watch clips from this conversation, read the full transcript, and access discussion questions by clicking here or visiting katebowler.com/podcasts. Follow Kate on Instagram, Facebook, or X (formerly known as Twitter)—@katecbowler. Links to social pages and more available at linktr.ee/katecbowler.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On today's podcast, I sit down with Gary Haugen, the founder and CEO of the International Justice Mission, an amazing global nonprofit organization working to end slavery and violence around the world.Oftentimes Jesus & justice seem to oppose each other. Like you need to choose one or the other. Gary tells the story of how IJM started and explains how Jesus and justice actually go together! - they're not opposed (like many Christians may feel they are or should be).One of my favorite parts of the interview is only on Youtube where Gary gets vulnerable by sharing how he leads his team when he feels fragile. As a leader, I feel fragile often (aka daily!) Don't miss this powerful episode!Thanks to our amazing partner on this episode: International Justice MissionInternational Justice Mission is a global nonprofit working to end slavery and violence around the world, taking special care of survivors from the moment they're rescued all the way through their healing and restoration. To learn more and support their mission, visit ijm.org Subscribe to The Conversation on YouTube and watch the full interview with Gary: youtube.com/@adamaweber Sign up for The Crew: adamweber.com/thecrew  

Today's episode features Jonathan and Sy talking with Pastor Rasool Berry. They discuss:-        The importance of acknowledging and understanding your own and your community's power-        The social and spiritual forces behind the opposition to CRT or DEI (or whatever they're calling it today)-        Pastor Berry's incredible documentary about Juneteenth and Christian faith-        When to leave communities that push back against racial justice-        And after the interview, Sy and Jonathan reflect on the work it takes to pass on a tradition like Juneteenth well, and the truly, literally unbelievable levels of ignorance whiteness creates in people-        Plus, they discuss the Daniel Perry pardon, and the threads that connect it to the Donald Trump convictionsMentioned in the Episode-        Our anthology - Keeping the Faith: Reflections on Politics and Christianity in the era of Trump and Beyond-        An abridged version of Pastor Berry's article from the anthology.-        His subsequent article, “Uncritical Race Theory”-        The documentary Juneteenth: Faith and Freedom-        Resources for screening Juneteenth and inviting speakers involved with the film-        The soundtrack for Juneteenth-        Pastor Berry's podcast, Where Ya From?-        The article on Daniel Perry Sy put in our newsletter-        The Texas Monthly article about how legally unusual Perry's pardon wasCredits-        Follow KTF Press on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Subscribe to get our bonus episodes and other benefits at KTFPress.com.-        Follow host Jonathan Walton on Facebook Instagram, and Threads.-        Follow host Sy Hoekstra on Mastodon.-        Our theme song is “Citizens” by Jon Guerra – listen to the whole song on Spotify.-        Our podcast art is by Robyn Burgess – follow her and see her other work on Instagram.-        Transcripts by Joyce Ambale and Sy Hoekstra.-        Production by Sy Hoekstra and our incredible subscribersTranscript[An acoustic guitar softly plays six notes, the first three ascending and the last three descending – F#, B#, E, D#, B – with a keyboard pad playing the note B in the background. Both fade out as Jonathan Walton says “This is a KTF Press podcast.”]Rasool Berry: There was a lot of nicknames and still are for Juneteenth. One was Emancipation Day, Freedom Day, but Jubilee Day. And when I discovered that, that's when I said we got to get involved in this process. Because you mean to tell me that these formerly enslaved people at a time when it was illegal to read, that they understood enough of the story that they picked out this festival, that it was this reordering of society, the kingdom of heaven coming back to earth. And in the context of this, of their faith, they saw God doing a jubilee in their lives?[The song “Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in. Lyrics: “I need to know there is justice/ That it will roll in abundance/ And that you're building a city/ Where we arrive as immigrants/ And you call us citizens/ And you welcome us as children home.” The song fades out.]IntroductionSy Hoekstra: Welcome to Shake the Dust, seeking Jesus, confronting injustice. I'm Sy Hoekstra.Jonathan Walton: And I'm Jonathan Walton. Today, hear us talk to Pastor Rasool Berry about his thoughts on the movement against CRT, or DEI, or whatever the term for the moment is right now when you listen to this. We're also [laughs] going to talk about his incredible feature length documentary called Juneteenth: Faith and Freedom, which is available for free on YouTube right now. And then after the interview, hear our thoughts on the pardon of Daniel Perry and the conviction of Donald Trump in our segment, Which Tab Is Still Open?Sy Hoekstra: The 34 convictions of Donald Trump.Jonathan Walton: All of them.Sy Hoekstra: All of them [laughs]. We're going to talk about each one individually…Jonathan Walton: Exactly.Sy Hoekstra: …the specific business record that he destroyed, whatever.Jonathan Walton: [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: Don't be afraid, we're not going to do that. By the way, I said at the end of last week that the guest this week was going to be Brandi Miller, and then we realized that we had to do the episode that was about Juneteenth before Juneteenth. So Brandi Miller's going to be in two weeks from now. And this time [laughs], it's Pastor Rasool Berry.Before we get to that, just a reminder, we need your subscriptions. Please go to ktfpress.com and become a paid subscriber on our Substack. Your support sustains what we do, and we need that support from you right now. We've been doing this as a side project for a long time, and like we've been saying, if we want this show to continue past this season, we need to get a lot more subscribers so that we can keep doing this work, but not for free as much as we've been doing it.So go and subscribe. That gets you all the bonus episodes of this show, which there are many, many of at this point. And then it also gets you access to our new monthly subscriber conversations that we're doing. Jonathan and I will be having video chats with you to talk about all the different kinds of things that we talk about on this show, answer some questions, just have a good time. And if you cannot afford a subscription, if money's the only obstacle, just write to us at info@ktfpress.com. We will give you a free or discounted subscription, no questions asked. But if you can afford it, please, ktfpress.com. Become a paid subscriber. We need your support now.Jonathan Walton: Pastor Rasool Berry serves as teaching pastor at The Bridge Church in Brooklyn, New York. He's also the director of partnerships and content development with Our Daily Bread Ministries. Pastor Berry graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor's degree in Africana Studies and Sociology. He's also the host of the Where Ya From? podcast sponsored by Christianity Today, and the writer, producer and host of Juneteenth: Faith and Freedom. Let's get to it. Here's the interview.[the intro piano music from “Citizens” by Jon Guerra plays briefly and then fades out.]Sy Hoekstra: Pastor, thank you so much for joining us on Shake the Dust today.Rasool Berry: Oh, well, I'm glad to be here with you all, back at it again, Keeping the Faith.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. Yes, exactly [laughter].Jonathan Walton: Amen. Amen.The Importance of “Mapping” PowerSy Hoekstra: So, you wrote this fantastic essay for… so, well, actually, it was originally for your blog, I think, and then we kind of took it and adapted it for the anthology. And it was about critical race theory, and you broke down a lot of the history and sort of the complex intellectual background of it and everything. But you talked specifically about something that you said, critical race theory and the Bible and the Black Christian tradition in the US all help us do something really important, and that thing is mapping power. Can you talk to us a little bit about what power mapping is and what the importance of it is?Rasool Berry: Yeah. I first kind of got wind of that framework when we were launching a justice ministry at our church. And two friends Gabby, Dr. Gabby Cudjoe Wilkes and her husband, Dr. Andrew Wilkes, who do a lot of great work with justice, actually walked our church through thinking about mapping power in our church as a way of evaluating what types of justice initiatives did it make sense for us to engage in, in light of what we had in the room. And so for instance, when I was in my church in Indiana, a lot of the parishioners worked at Lilly who's headquarters is in Indiana. And so when they decided to do something for the community, they ended up opening up a clinic in the church building, which still exists and serves the local community, because they all had medical backgrounds.So when they do mission work, they do mission work with a medical component, because that's a effective way of mapping power. Where our church in Brooklyn average age is about 28, 29 and they're more artsy. So we're not opening up clinics, you know what I mean? But what we can do is events that help inspire and help engage with people. And then eventually with our pastor's leadership started something called Pray March Act, which looks to be a place to mobilize churches around issues of justice in New York City. So what is oftentimes overlooked in Christian spaces, and I really am indebted to Andy Crouch and his book, Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power, for really surfacing the need for us to have a theology of power.That this is something that oftentimes especially evangelical churches, or more kind of Bible oriented or people kind of churches, there's a sense in which we don't know how to think about power. And I believe, I suspect this is one of the reasons why the church has been so susceptible to issues like sexual abuse, to egregious theft in money, is because we are not really conditioned to think about power, which is really ironic because the scriptures really do point to… I mean, we literally have two books, First and Second Kings, and those books are pointing to you have the king, this king was a good king, and it impacted the kingdom of Israel this way. This king was a bad king, and then this is what happened.And so it's wired in the text, right? Amy Sherman in her book, Kingdom Calling, Dr. Amy Sherman points to this when she points to the proverb that says, “when the righteous prosper, the city rejoices.” And it's this idea, when she says righteous, she's not thinking about it in the kind of traditional pietistic aspect of righteousness, but she's talking about “tzedakah” in the Hebrew, which has this connotation of justice. Because when people who are put in positions of power and influence, when they do right by the people underneath them when they do right, that people celebrate. Versus when there's somebody who's a tyrant that's in office, the people groan because there's that sense of they recognize we've mapped power dynamics, and somebody who's going to do ill is going to have a disproportionate impact on all of us.And so power mapping is bringing to surface the awareness of what is it that we have in the room. And it's also a very humbling way of being aware of our own power, right? Like how do I show up as a man in a space, in certain things? Like I know if I get up and I'm about to preach that there's some different dynamics depending on who I'm talking to in a room. Like if I'm in a predominantly Black context that's younger, then the locks might actually kind of give me some street cred. Like, oh, that's kind of cool. But if I'm in a older, traditional space, looking younger is going to be more of a uphill climb to say, okay, what's this guy coming at? And if I'm in a White space, versus but I also recognize that when our sisters come up, that there's a whole different type of power mapping situation.And so all of these things are helpful in being aware of how we show up and how that matters. And Andy's kind of thesis is that unlike the kind of post Nietzschean postmodern suspicion and critical view of power that only sees it as a negative, that God has actually given us and ordained us to exert influence and power in redemptive ways. But we can only do that if we map it, if we're aware of it, and if we use it in a way that's not just for our own self or comfort or glory, but for those who we're called to serve.Sy Hoekstra: Can I ask, just for some like to get specific on one thing, because I'm not sure this would be intuitive to everyone. You said if we map power, then we might not end up in the same situations that we are with, like abuse scandals in the church?Rasool Berry: Yeah. Yep.Sy Hoekstra: And I think I… where my mind goes is I think we would react differently to the abuse scandal. I don't know if the abuse scandals themselves would… those happen unfortunately. But I think where the power mapping might come in, is where so many people are then just deferring to whatever the person in, the pastor's narrative is. Is that kind of what you're talking about, like the reaction?Rasool Berry: I think it's on both sides.Sy Hoekstra: You do? Okay.Rasool Berry: Yeah, because for instance, if I am aware, very aware of power dynamics with children and adults, I would see the value in a practice of not leaving an adult in a space with a child by themselves.Sy Hoekstra: Oh, I see. You might put systems in place ahead of time. Yeah, yeah.Rasool Berry: Right. So there's the sense in which we can put policies in place that recognize… it's the same thing why we put the labeling system on kids when they check into childcare, right? Like you put the little label so that some random person can't just come and pick them up because a kid can't defend themselves. Or they may not have the capacity to understand what's going on if somebody just random comes up and says, “Hey, your mom and your dad told me to come get you,” and then they believe that. And so we have systems that we put in place to recognize those power dynamics. And I think unfortunately, that in a lot of our church context and culture there's an overly naive sense of, and really sometimes idolatrous view of pastors and leaders that essentially say, well, they're good and they're godly people, so there isn't a need for accountability, or there isn't a need for, you know…And so no, it's like, well, in the same way that we have trustees in certain churches, or there's a elders board, depending on what your church polity is, that polity should reflect a sense of accountability and transparency so that there is an awareness on the front end as well as on the backend that when it does come to bring people into account, that there's also an awareness of a power dynamic at play there too.Jonathan Walton: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense especially when [laughs] we throw those things out, all we have are the systems of hierarchy and social dominance that exist to define what power is, right?Rasool Berry: Right.Jonathan Walton: So the train just keeps going.The Social and Spiritual Forces behind the Fight against CRT/DEIJonathan Walton: So leaning into that a little bit, you wrote an essay focusing on CRT power mapping and things like that. But it feels like nobody in the Trump camp really had an idea of what CRT was, and it didn't even really matter to them what it was.Rasool Berry: Right.Jonathan Walton: So what do you think is at the core of what's going on with White people when they reject CRT or DEI or whatever the—conscious—whatever the term would be?Rasool Berry: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: What do you think the underlying concern is?Rasool Berry: Well, you know, after… and it's so funny because when I wrote that first piece, I wrote it as a way… [laughs] I wrote it just to get it off my chest. And in my mind, almost nobody was going to read it because it was like a 20-something minute read, and I just didn't care because I was just like, “I'm getting this off my chest,” and this is the last I'm going to say about it. Like I thought that was going to be just this thing, just so I can point people to, if anybody asks. I did not intend, nor did I think that it was only going to kind of position me as this person that people were listening to and reading and resonating with about it. So that was funny. But then what ended up happening, and especially after I was on the unbelievable? podcast with Justin Brierley, kind of in this debate format with Neil Shenvi, who's kind of been one of the most outspoken evangelical Christian critics of critical race theory. Critics is probably too mild of a term, kind of a…Jonathan Walton: Antagonist.Rasool Berry: Antagonist, even stronger. Like this doomsday prophet who says that, who's warning against the complete erosion of biblical norms because of the Trojan Horse, in his mind, of critical race theory. In the midst of that conversation, that kind of elevated, it was one of their top 10 episodes of the entire year, and it just kind of got me into these spaces where I was engaging more and more. And I kind of sat back and reflected, and I had a few more interactions with Neil on Twitter. And I ended up writing a separate piece called “Uncritical Race Theory.” And the reason why I did that, is I went back and I was curious about what kind of insights I could get from previous instances of the way that there were being controversies surrounding race in America in the church, and how the church talked about those debates.So I went back and I read The Civil War as a Theological Crisis by Mark Noll, who looked at and examined the actual debates during the time of the antebellum period of pro-slavery Christians and anti-slavery Christians, and he analyzed that. Then I went back and I read The Color of Compromise by Jemar Tisby, who looked at the pro-integrationist and segregationist arguments in the church. And what I found was that there was incredible symmetry between what was argued in each of those instances, going all the way back to the 1800s, to the 1960s, to now, and there were two things that emerged. The first was that the primary response from those who were supportive of slavery in the 1800s, or those who were supportive of segregation in the 1960s was to claim first of all, that the opposing view were not biblically faithful, or were not even concerned about biblical fidelity.So this is different than other types of discussions where we could say, even going back to the councils, right? Like when there's some type of, like during the Nicaean Council or something like that, they're debating about how they're understanding the text about certain things. Whereas is Jesus fully God, is he man, is he both? But there's a basic premise that they're both coming at it from different aspects of scriptures. What I noticed in the American context is that there was a denial that the side that was kind of having a more progressive view was even biblically faithful at all.Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Christian.Rasool Berry: The second part is related to the first, is that there was this allegation that there was outside philosophies that was actually shaping this impetus because it wasn't clearly the Bible. So in the 1800s that was the claim, “Oh, you're being influenced by these post-enlightenment ideas.” In the 1960s it was straight up Marxism, communism. You see the signs. “Integration is communism.” Like you see the people protesting with that, and of course the new version of that is kind of the remix of cultural Marxism, or these type of things. And so what I acknowledged in each of those scenarios is that part of the problem is that there is such an uncritical understanding of race that it causes, I think especially those in a dominant culture or those who've been susceptible to the ideologies of White supremacy, which can be White or Black or other, There's a tendency to see any claim that race is a problem as the problem itself because there's an underlying denial of the reality of racial stratification in our society, and the what Bryan Stevenson refers to as the narrative of racial difference or what is more commonly known as White supremacy. So when your default position is that you are introducing a foreign concept into the conversation when you talk about the relevance of race in a scenario, then it causes… that sense of uncritical nature of the reality of race causes you to then look upon with suspicion any claim that there's some type of racial based situation happening. And that is what I call, it is really ironically uncritical race theory. It's the exact opposite of what critical race theory is trying to do.And so I think that that's my take on what's happening. And then I think that's more of the scientific sociological, but then there's also a spiritual. I am a pastor [laughter]. And I have to end with this. I have to end with this, because in some ways I was naively optimistic that there was, if you just reasoned and show people the right analogies or perspectives, then they would, they could be persuaded. But what I have since realized and discovered is that there is a idolatrous synchronization of what we now know of different aspects of White Christian nationalism that is a competing theological position and belief system that is forming these doctrinal positions of what we now kind of look at as American exceptionalism, what we look at as this sense of the status quo being… all the things that are moving toward an authoritarian regime and away from democracy, that that is all solidifying itself as an alternative gospel.And I think that at the end of the day, I'm looking at and grieving about mass apostasy that I'm seeing happening in the church as a result of an unholy alliance of political ideology and Christian symbols, language, and values expressed in this kind of mixed way. And that's what is really being allowed to happen with this unmapped power dynamic, is that people don't even realize that they're now exerting their power to kind of be in this defensive posture to hold up a vision of society that is actually not Christian at all, but that is very much bathed in Christian terms.Jonathan Walton: I want to say a lot back, but we got to keep going, but that was good.Sy Hoekstra: We got to… [laughs]. Yeah. I mean, we could talk forever about what you just said, but we could also talk forever about your documentary. So let's transition to that.Rasool Berry: [laughter] You all are like exercising restraint.Sy Hoekstra: Yes.Jonathan Walton: I am.Rasool Berry: Like, “oh, I want to go there.” I just threw steak in front of the lions [laughter].Why Pastor Berry Made a Documentary about JuneteenthSy Hoekstra: But it's because, I mean, the documentary's interesting in a way... It's sort of like, okay, you've seen this movement of mass apostasy and everything, and you've had all these people tell you you're not faithful. And with this documentary in some ways, you're just sprinting on down the road that you're on. You know what I mean? It's like sort of [laughs], you're just going straightforward like we need to remember our past. We need to learn about power dynamics in American history. So you wrote this—[realizing mistake] wrote— you were involved in, you're the kind of narrator, the interviewer of this documentary Juneteenth: Faith and Freedom. And you went to Galveston and you went to Houston, Texas to learn more about the history of Juneteenth and the communities and the people that shaped the celebration and everything.And I guess I just want to know how this got started and why it was so important for you to engage in what was a very significant project…Rasool Berry: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: …to teach people about this kind of history that I think the movement against CRT or DEI or whatever is quite actively trying to suppress.Rasool Berry: And these two stories are very much intertwined…Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Jonathan Walton: Absolutely.Rasool Berry: …in ways that I didn't even fully anticipate in some ways. In some ways I knew, in some ways I didn't. But I grew up in Philly, where there was not growing up a significant Juneteenth awareness or celebration or anything like that. So I had heard about it though when I was very young, the concept of it. I had a classmate whose middle name was Galveston, and I was like, “That's a weird name. Why is your middle name Galveston?” [laughter] He told me that it's because his mom had told him about this situation where there were Black people that didn't know they were free for two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation. I was like eight years old when I first heard that, but filed that away.It wasn't really until more recent years with the, just massive racial justice movement spurred on by the murders of Tamir Rice and George Floyd and others, Sandra Bland. And so, as that movement started to gin up, conversations about race that I was kind of plugged into, I heard about this 90-something year old woman that was appearing before Congress…Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Rasool Berry: …and challenging them to make Juneteenth a national holiday.Sy Hoekstra: I can't believe you got to interview her. She was amazing.Rasool Berry: Yeah. And I was like, why would a 90-something plus year old woman be like this committed to this? So I started looking into it and realizing, I think both spiritually and socially, that there was incredible potency and opportunity in the recognition, the widespread recognition of Juneteenth. I'll go socially first. Socially, the reality has been the United States has never had a moment where we collectively reflect on the legacy of slavery in our country. And if you do the math, from the first enslaved people that we have documented coming into the States in 1619 until if even if you go to the abolition of slavery in 1865 or 1866 with the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, that's about 244 years.If you go from 1865 to now, it's like 159 or so years. So we still have way more time in our society that has been shaped by this most intense version of a caste system and brutal slavery that had global, it literally reshaped the globe. And sometimes we forget. I live in Brooklyn where most of the Black folk are Afro-Caribbean. When you think of Jamaica, you think of Usain Bolt or Bob Marley. Do you realize that all of those people are from Africa, like our African descent people. That like the native people of Jamaica would've been Native Americans. So the legacy of slavery and colonialism has literally reshaped population centers in our world. That's how significant it was.And so to not have a moment to reflect on all of it, the implications of how the legacy still shapes us, but also the progress of what we've seen happen and how we are not in that same place is a missed opportunity. But on the contrary, to put that in place is an opportunity for reflection that I think could really help ground us toward being a more perfect union, toward us being a unified people. Because we're basing it on the same story and information, which increasingly in the age of misinformation and disinformation, that the erosion of us having a shared narrative is really upon us. So I think it's interesting and important from that standpoint. Spiritually, it was even more dynamic because one of the… so there was a lot of nicknames and still are for Juneteenth. One was Emancipation Day, Freedom Day, but Jubilee Day.And when I discovered that, that's when I said, “Okay, Our Daily Bread, we got to get involved in this process.” Because you mean to tell me that these formerly enslaved people at a time when it was illegal to read, primarily because they didn't want people to read the Bible, that they understood enough of the story of the Old Testament, that they picked out this festival in Leviticus 25, this ordinance that God had put in place, that on the Jubilee year, the Sabbath of all Sabbaths, I call it the Super Bowl of Sabbaths [Sy laughs]. Seven years times seven, forty nine years plus one, fifty. That on that day that it was this reordering of society, the kingdom of heaven coming back to earth, which simultaneously anticipates the wickedness and the brokenness of human systems in power, but also projects and casts vision about the kingdom of heaven, which would allow for equity and equality to take place. So debts were forgiven, lands were returned, and people who were in bondage primarily because of debt, that was the main reason back then, they would be set free. And in the context of their faith, they saw God doing the jubilee in their lives. So what that gave was the opportunity for us to talk about and reintroduce in many faith traditions the relationship between spiritual and physical freedom, and see that in the Bible story those things were wedded.What's the major account in the Old Testament is the Exodus account. Like it was both physical and spiritual freedom. And in the same way we see that is why Jesus, when he reveals himself and says, “The kingdom of God is at hand,” notice when John the Baptist starts to waver because he's expecting this conquering king. He's still in prison and he says, “Hey, are you the one or we should expect another?” Jesus points to physical and spiritual aspects of liberation in his response. “Tell John what you see. The blind receive sight. The sick are healed. The gospel is preached. Blessed is the one who is not ashamed of me.” So in the sense of that, what we see elements of the kind of seeds of in the gospel is this aspect of the physical and spiritual liberation being tied together.And that is what Jubilee gives us opportunity to explore and investigate. And I think lastly, seeing the role of the Black church in bringing out that insight, I think is particularly valuable in a time where oftentimes those contributions are overlooked and ignored.Jonathan Walton: Yeah, absolutely. I think being able to watch the documentary was transformative for me. Mainly because I'm 38 years old and it's being produced by people who look and sound and act like me. It's interviewing the people who came before us, trying to speak to the folks that are younger than us. And each generation I think has this, this go around where we have to own our little piece of what and how we're going to take the work forward. You know what I mean?Discerning Whether to Leave Communities that Push back on Discussions about RaceYou interviewed Lecrae in the documentary and he's taken that work forward, right? And you both say that you've had the experiences of believing you are loved and accepted in these White evangelical spaces until you started talking about racial justice issues.And so I feel like there's these moments where we want to take the work forward, and then we're like, “All right, well, this is our moment.” Like Opal was like, “Hey, I'm going to do Juneteenth.” Where now you're like, “I'm going to do something.” [laughs] So I wonder, like for you, when you have to make decisions about how to stay, not to stay or just leave. What is the effect of constantly engaging in that calculus for you?Rasool Berry: Oh, man! It's exhausting to do it. And I think it is valuable to count the cost and realize that sometimes you're best suited to reposition yourself and to find other ways to express that faithfulness. At other times, God is causing you to be a change agent where you are. And I think how to navigate through that is complicated, and I think it's complicated for all of us, for our allies who see the value of racial justice as well as for those of us who are marginalized and experience, not just conceptually or ideologically the need for justice, but experientially all of the things through macro and microaggressions that come up, that weigh and weather us and our psyche, our emotions, our bodies.And I think that it's important to be very spiritually attuned and to practice healthy emotional spirituality as well as, best practices, spiritual disciplines, all the things that have come alongside of what does it mean to follow Jesus. I was recently reflecting on the fact that in the height of Jesus' ministry, when it was on and popping, he's growing, the crowds are growing in number, it says that he went away regularly and left the crowds to be with God. And then the verse right after that, it's in Luke, I can't remember which chapters, I know the verse is 16 and 17. And then it talks about how he had power as a result of going away to do more. And there's this relationship between our needing to rest and to find recovery in the secret place in the quiet place with God in order to have the energy to do more of the work.And that's a lot to hold together, but it's really important because otherwise you can end up being like Moses, who was trying to do justice, but in his own strength at first when he kills the Egyptian, and then he tried to go to his people being like, “Yo, I'm down!” And they're like, “You killed somebody. We don't want to hear from you.”Jonathan Walton: [laughs] Right.Rasool Berry: And then he flees. Because he tried to do it in his own strength. And then when God reveals himself at the bush, now he's totally broken and not even confident at all in himself. And God has to say, “No, the difference is going to be I'm with you.” So I think in my own journey, I've been one of many people who've had to evaluate and calculate where I've been in order to kind of see where there are opportunities to move forward. For instance, I was on staff with Cru for 20 years and then as the opportunities to work with Our Daily Bread, and I remember specifically the podcast Where Ya From?, that we launched and then Christianity Today got connected to it.They were eagerly looking, or at least supporting the idea of us having conversations about faith and culture and race and all these things. Whereas in my previous environment, I felt like that was not something… I didn't even feel like it, I experienced the pullback of talking about those things. So it has actually, by repositioning myself to kind of be able to be in spaces where I can tell these stories and advocate in these ways, it has been a better use of my energy and my time. Now, even in that other space, everything isn't perfect. It's still the same type of challenges that exist anywhere you go in the world where you're a minority in race and racial difference is prominent, but at least it's a opportunity to still do more than I could do maybe in a previous position. And all of us have to make those type of calculations.And I think it's best to do those things in the context of community, not just by yourself, and also with a sense of sobriety of encountering and experiencing God himself. Because at the end of the day, sometimes, I'm going to just say this, sometimes the answer is leave immediately. Get out of there. At other times, God is calling you to stay at least in the short term time. And it's important to be discerning and not just reactive to when is the right situation presenting itself. And the only way I know to do that is by doing it in community, doing it with a sense of healthy rhythms and time to actually hear the still small voice of God.Sy Hoekstra: Amen.Jonathan Walton: Amen.Sy Hoekstra: Because you really can err in either direction. Like some people, “I'm getting out of here right away,” without thinking. Meaning, when you're being reactive, when you're not being discerning…Rasool Berry: Right.Sy Hoekstra: …you can get out right away or you can have the instinct, “No, I'm going to stick it out forever,” even if it's bad for you, and it's not going to accomplish anything.Rasool Berry: Yup, yeah.Jonathan Walton: Yeah. Which I think leans into jumping all the way back the critical versus uncritical.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah [laughs]. There you go.Jonathan Walton: Like if we're not willing to lean into the radical interrogation of the systems and structures around us that inform our decisions each day, we will submit to them unconsciously, whether that be running when we should resist or whether that be resisting where we actually should flee. So yeah, thanks for all that.Where you can Find Pastor Berry's workSy Hoekstra: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much. And so we will have links to both of the articles, to the documentary, which is entirely free on YouTube.Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: So you're just wasting your life if you're not watching it, really [laughter]. And a couple other things you talked about, we'll have links. But is there anywhere that you want people to go to either follow you or your work online?Rasool Berry: Yeah. So the other thing that what we did with the Juneteenth documentary, because the response was so strong and overwhelming, really, people wanted to host screenings locally. And so we did a few things to make that more possible. So you can actually go on our website experiencevoices.org/Juneteenth. And you can fill out like a form to actually host a screening locally. And we have designed social media so you can market it, posters that you could print out, even discussion questions that you can use to host discussions. And sometimes people invite some of us from the production on site. So I've gone and done, I've been at screenings all the way from California to Texas to Wisconsin and here in New York.So you can reach out to us on that website as well if you're interested in hosting a screening with the director or one of the producers or myself, and we can kind of facilitate that. Also be looking at your local PBS stations. We partnered with PBS to air screenings so far over a hundred local channels.Sy Hoekstra: Oh, wow.Rasool Berry: And have aired it. Now, the PBS version is slightly different because we had to edit it down to fit their hour long format. And so the biggest version is the PBS version doesn't have Lecrae in it [laughs].Sy Hoekstra: Oh no [laughs].Rasool Berry: We had to cut out the four-time Grammy winner. Sorry Lecrae [laughter].Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Rasool Berry: You know what I mean? But it just so happened that way it, that it was the best way to edit it down.Jonathan Walton: You had to keep Opal.Rasool Berry: Had to keep Opal, had to keep Opal [laughter].Sy Hoekstra: I feel like Lecrae would understand that, honestly.Rasool Berry: Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was so gracious. And actually, the other thing that Lecrae did, I had told him that we were working with Sho Baraka, a mutual friend of ours, to do the music. And he said, “Yeah, I heard something about that.” He's like, “I have a song I was going to put on Church Clothes 4, but I feel like it would be a better fit for this. If you're interested, let me know and I can send it to you.” I'm like, “If I'm interested? Yes, I'm interested.” [laughter] Yes. I'll accept this sight unseen. And so he sent us this incredible song that features, well actually is listed as Propaganda's song, but it features Lecrae and Sho Baraka. And you can get the entire Juneteenth: Faith and Freedom soundtrack 13 tracks, poetry, hip hop, gospel, rnb, all on one thing. And wherever you listen to your music, Spotify, Apple Music, anywhere, you can, listen to it, stream it, buy it, and support this movement and this narrative. So yeah. And then personally, just @rasoolb on Instagram, @rasoolberry on, I still call it Twitter [Sy laughs]. So, and we're on Facebook as well. That's where folks can follow me, at rasoolberry.com, website. So thanks for having me.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah, pastor, thank you so much for being here. We really appreciate it.Jonathan Walton: Thanks so much, man.[the intro piano music from “Citizens” by Jon Guerra plays briefly and then fades out.]Reflecting on the InterviewSy Hoekstra: Hey, Jonathan, you know what's really useful, is when in the middle of an interview with one of our guests, we say, “Oh no, we don't have time. We'd really like to get into this, so we have to move on to another subject.” It's really useful when we have these little times that we're doing now after the interview to talk more about the subjects than we did with the guests [laughter]. This works out well for us.Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: Why don't you tell everybody what you're thinking after the interview with Pastor Berry?Passing on a Tradition Well Takes Significant WorkJonathan Walton: Yeah. I think the biggest thing for me that I took away among a lot of the nuggets that he… nuggets and like big things that got dropped on me while we were listening, was like the amount of work that he went through to make this film. Like traveling to Galveston. There's a lot in the documentary that reminds me of how much it costs us personally to create things that are moving. To be able to have these conversations, sit down with these people, smell the smells of these folks' homes. That's just a big thing, particularly for me, like not having… I grew up with the Juneteenth story and needing to think through my own traditions and what I'm going to pass to my kids and stuff like that.It's just I'm challenged to do that work so that I have something substantial to pass on to Maya and Everest. And to the folks who listen to the preaching that I give or the stories I write, or the books I'm going to write, just so I can communicate with the same amount of intimacy that he did. So, Sy how about you? What stood out for you?The Literally Unbelievable Racial Ignorance of WhitenessSy Hoekstra: I think what stood out for me was actually right at that point where we said we really wanted to talk more about something, I really did have more thoughts [laughs]. When he was talking about the thing that underlies the fight against CRT and DEI and all that sort of thing. Being just a straight up denial of any sort of racial caste system or racial stratification in our country, I think that point is extremely important. That so much of our disagreements about racial injustice, at least on the intellectual level, not on the emotional and all that kind of thing, the intellectual level that come down to a difference in beliefs about the facts of reality in America. It is literally just do you think racism is happening or not? Because if you do think that it's happening, then everything has to change [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: And there's not a lot of room… you'll have to do a lot more like kind of active denial. A lot more having a very active lack of integrity [laughs] to continue in the way that you're thinking when you believe that there is no racism in America if you find out that there is. Which kind of explains why there's so much resistance to it. But I think one story that sort of illustrates how this dynamic works a little bit that just, this is something that happened to me that this reminded me of. I was an intern right after college at International Justice Mission, and I read Gary Haugen's book, The Good News About Injustice, where the intro to this book is about his childhood growing up in kind of suburban, I think he's outside of Seattle, somewhere in Washington. A suburban Christian home, things were pretty nice and easy and he just did not know anything about injustice or anything in the world. Like oppression, racism, he did not know anything about it. And then the book takes you through how he discovered it and then his theology of what God wants to do about it and what the organization does and all that kind of thing. But just that intro, I remember talking to one of the other interns who was at IJM m when I was there, who was a Black woman who was ordained in the Black Baptist Church and had grown up relatively low income. And I was talking to her about this book because I read that intro and I was like, “yes, I totally resonate with this. This is how I grew up, check, check. That makes sense. I understand all of it.”And it makes sense to a lot of the people who support IJM, which are a lot of suburban White evangelicals. She told me, she read the intro to the book and her immediate reaction was how, there is no way that anyone could possibly be this ignorant. It is not possible [laughs]. And I was like, [pretending to be hurt] “but I was” [laughter]. And there's this wrench in the gear of our conversations about justice where there's a large spectrum of White people who are, some engaging in actual innocent good faith about how much nonsense there is, like how much racism there is in America, and people who are engaging in complete bad faith and have ignored all the things that have been put right in front of them clearly.And it is just very difficult for a lot of people who are not White to understand [laughs] that there are actually… the level of ignorance of a lot of White people is unbelievable, by which I mean it literally cannot be believed by a lot of people. And I don't know, that's just, it is a complication in our conversations about race that doesn't really change what you have to tell people or how seriously you should take your conversations or whatever. It's just a note about what you might need to do to bring people kind of into the fold, by which I mean the fold of the truth [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Yes. This is true of like a lot of White people. And the sad part is that it can also be true of a lot of people of color…Sy Hoekstra: Well, yeah.Jonathan Walton: …who say, “I'm just going to deny, because I haven't experienced.” Or, “We have opted into the system of ignorance and don't want to engage.” And so I'll tell a story. Priscilla was at the airport this week.Sy Hoekstra: Your wife.Jonathan Walton: My wife Priscilla, was at the airport, not a random woman [laughter], was at the airport this week. And someone said, “Yeah, everyone who came to this country, like we're all immigrants.” And Priscilla said, “Actually some people came here as slaves.” Then the person says, “No, that's not true.” And it's like, what do you say to that? When someone just says slavery doesn't exist? And that's literally why we celebrate Juneteenth. So I don't know what this person's going to do on Juneteenth, but when there's a collective narrative and acknowledgement that this happened, and then there's a large group, James Baldwin would say, ignorance plus power is very dangerous.If there's a large group that's ignorant and or like intentionally not engaging, but also has power and privilege and all the things, the benefits of racial stratification without the acknowledgement of the reality of it, which is just a dangerous combination.Sy Hoekstra: So when somebody says something like that, like that didn't happen, people didn't come over here as slaves, I think it is possible that they legitimately don't know that I suppose [laughs], or that they think it's a conspiracy theory or whatever. My guess is, tell me what you think about this. What I would imagine happened there was, “Oh, I never thought about the fact that Black people are not immigrants. And so I'm just going to say no.” Do you know what I mean?Jonathan Walton: Oh yeah. Well, I agree. I think some people even, so let's say like, I write about this in 12 Lies. Ben Carson says that we all came here as immigrants, even if it was in the bottom of a ship. He says that. And I think that is a, to be kind, a gross misrepresentation of the middle passage [laughs], but I see what he's trying to do. He's trying to put Black folks in a narrative that fits in the American narrative so people can, so he's not othered. Because what happens when you acknowledge enslavement is that you have to acknowledge all that. They all come with each other. It's like being at a buffet and there is literally no other menu. Like once you say, once you go in, you can't order one plate. If you talk about slavery, you're opening up all the things and some people just don't want to do that. And that sucks.Sy Hoekstra: Yeah.Which Tab Is Still Open: Daniel PerryJonathan Walton: It's true. And [laughs], I think this feeds into a little bit of this segment [laughs] that we have aptly called Which Tab is Still Open. Because out of all the things in our newsletter and our podcast, there's stuff that comes up for us and it's just still hanging on our desktops, we still talk about it offline. So for Sy, like for you, which one, which tab is still open?Sy Hoekstra: Yeah. We're going to talk about Daniel Perry and Donald Trump today.Jonathan Walton: Fun times.Sy Hoekstra: So I recently had an article in the newsletter that I highlighted as one of my resources, that is about the case of Daniel Perry, which I think kind of flew a little bit under the radar in the fervor of 2020. But he was a known racist, meaning we have now seen truckloads of social media posts and text messages and everything revealing his out and out racism, his fantasies about killing Black Lives Matter protesters, all these kinds of things. Who in the summer of 2020, during those protests, drove his car through a red light into a crowd of protesters. And he did not at that moment hurt anyone, but another, an Air Force vet, Daniel Perry's also a vet, but another Air Force vet named Garrett Foster, walked up to him carrying, openly carrying his, in Texas, legal assault rifle.He didn't point it at Daniel Perry, but he was carrying it. And he knocked on the window and motioned for Perry to roll his window down, and Perry shot him through the window five times and killed him. He was convicted of murder in 2023 by a jury. And the day after he was convicted, governor Greg Abbott republican governor of Texas said that he wanted his case to be reviewed for a full pardon, so that the pardons board could send him a recommendation to do it, which is the legal way that a governor can make a pardon in Texas. And that happened a couple weeks ago. Daniel Perry walked free with all of his civil rights restored, including his right to own firearms.Texas Monthly did some really good reporting on how completely bizarre this pardon is under Texas law, meaning they very clear, they kind of laid out how these pardons typically go. And the law very clearly says that a pardon is not to be considered for anyone who is still in prison, like hasn't finished their sentence, except under very exceptional circumstances, which are usually that like some new evidence of innocence has come to light.Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: And the actual materials that the board reviewed were basically just his defense case where like him arguing that he was doing what he did out of self-defense. He was standing his ground, and that he was afraid of Foster and therefore allowed to use deadly force. In any other case, the remedy for that, if you think that's your defense and you were wrongly denied your defense by the jury is to appeal. Is to go through the appeals to which you have a right as a criminal defendant. And in this case, he became a bit of a conservative cult hero and the governor stepped in to get him out of jail. It was so bizarre. So the weird thing here is, for me at least, for these cases, for the cases surrounding like where someone has been killed either by the police or by an individual, it has always been pretty clear to me which way the case is going.Like if you're someone who's actually taken a, like me, gone to law school, taken a criminal law class, you've studied murder and then like the right to stand your ground and the right to self-defense, and when you can use deadly force, most of these cases are pretty predictable. I knew that the killers of Ahmaud Arbery and Walter Scott and Jordan Davis were going down. I knew that people were going to get off when they got off. Like those were not confusing. And that isn't because the law isn't racist or whatever, it's just the law doesn't take race into account at all. It just completely ignores, it has nothing to do with the cases, according to the law. So it's like this one was stunning.Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: Because if it had gone to the appellate judges, the judges who actually are thinking about like the whole system and the precedents that they're setting would say, “Hey, in an open carry state like Texas, we do not want to set a precedent where if someone who is legally, openly carrying a gun walks up to you, you can kill them.” That is not a precedent that they want to set. But this is not an appellate case, so we're not setting that precedent, we're just letting this racist murderer go. That's it.Jonathan Walton: Yes.Sy Hoekstra: And that is like what effectively Greg Abbott and the Board of Pardons in Texas have conspired to do. And I didn't know this was coming actually. I hadn't heard the news that he was calling for the pardon when it happened, but it's wild. And I just kind of wanted to give that additional context and hear what you're thinking about it, Jonathan, and then we'll get into Donald Trump a little bit.Normalizing Punishing Protestors and Lionizing MurderersJonathan Walton: Yeah, I mean, I think first thing for me is like this is a PG podcast. I won't use all the expletives that I would like to use. The reality of like Kyle Rittenhouse lives in Texas now. George Zimmerman, after he killed Trayvon Martin, he was in other altercations with people with guns. So this is not a person or a scenario that is new, which is sad and disappointing. But the reality of an institution stepping into enforce its institutionalized racism, is something that feels new to me in the environment that we're in. And what I mean by that is like, I think we now live in a society that desires for protestors and folks who are resistant to the system that oppresses and marginalizes people, if you believe that is happening.There are individuals and institutions that desire to punish that group of people. It is now normed that that group of people can be punished by anybody.Sy Hoekstra: If you're in the right state.Jonathan Walton: Well, I won't even say the right state, but I almost think if you can get caught in the zeitgeist of a certain media attention, then you will be lauded as someone who did the right thing.Sy Hoekstra: Oh yeah. Even if you might still end up in jail.Jonathan Walton: Even if you might still end up in jail, like you'll become a hero. And so the circumstances have been created where protesters can be punished by regular members of society, and then their quote- unquote punishment could be pardoned in the court of public opinion, and so much so you could end up being pardoned by the institution. There are going to be more protests on campus. There are going to be more protests in light of Trump's conviction and potential election. The chances of political violence and protests are very high, highly probable there're going to be thunderstorms. And what we're saying is like, let's give everybody lightning bolts [Sy laughs]. And we all know if this is a racially stratified society, which it is, if it's a class stratified society, which it is, then we will end up with things like Donald Trump getting convicted and becoming president.Sy Hoekstra: And the racial stratification is important to remember because people have pointed out, if there had been a Trump rally and someone had been killed, that like, not a chance that Greg Abbott does any of this, right?Jonathan Walton: The hallmark of White American folk religion is hypocrisy. If this were a person of color, there's no way that they would've got pardoned for shooting someone at a protest.The Criminal Legal System was Exceptionally Kind to Donald TrumpSy Hoekstra: And this is the connection to the Donald Trump case [laughs].Jonathan Walton: Right.Sy Hoekstra: Because despite the fact that he was convicted, he has been treated throughout this process in a way that no poor or BIPOC would, like no poor person or any BIPOC would ever be treated by the New York State courts. I can tell you that from experience [laughter] as an actual attorney in New York state. Donald Trump had 10 separate violations of a gag order, like he was held in contempt by the court and required to pay some money, which is significant, but nobody does that and doesn't spend some time in jail unless they are rich and famous and White. It was shocking to watch the amount of dancing around him and his comfort that the system does. And this is, pastor Berry mentioned Bryan Stevenson, another Bryan Stevenson quote.I've mentioned, we've mentioned Brian Stevenson so many times on this show [laughter]. But it's true. One of the things he says all the time is that the system treats you better if you're rich and White and guilty than if you're poor and BIPOC and innocent.Jonathan Walton: Yeah.Sy Hoekstra: And, that's the demonstration. So the Trump indictments happened when we're recording this yesterday. Or the convictions, I mean. And in terms of what it'll do to the election, probably not much. In terms of what it'll like [laughs], like Jonathan was just saying, like this is the situation that we're in here. We don't have a lot of political analysis to bring you about this case because I don't think there's much political analysis to do except to continue to point out over and over again that this is not the way that people are treated by the criminal justice system. This is an exception to what is otherwise the rule.Outro and OuttakeOkay. I think we're going to end there. Thank you all so much for joining us today. Our theme song, as always is “Citizens” by John Guerra. Our podcast Art is by Robyn Burgess. Transcripts by Joyce Ambale. And thank you all so much for joining us. Jonathan, thanks for being here. We will see you all again in two weeks.[The song “Citizens” by Jon Guerra fades in. Lyrics: “I need to know there is justice/ That it will roll in abundance/ And that you're building a city/ Where we arrive as immigrants/ And you call us citizens/ And you welcome us as children home.” The song fades out.]Jonathan Walton: Yeah, I think the biggest thing for me was like the amount of work that he went through to make this film. I'm challenged to do that work so that I have something substantial to pass on to Maya and Everest, just so I can communicate with the same amount of intimacy that he did.Sy Hoekstra: So now you're going to go make a documentary about Juneteenth, is what you're saying?Jonathan Walton: [deep exhale, and Sy laughs] At least a reel [laughter].Sy Hoekstra: A reel… yeah, those are pretty much the same I'd say. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.ktfpress.com/subscribe

Jamie recently released a statement on Instagram that she is stepping away from podcasting for a while. As a team, we have decided to air the six conversations that were recorded prior to May 20th. We decided to do this to honor the guests, the projects they have worked on, and the stories they are sharing.Victor Boutrous, the founder of the Human Trafficking Institute, joins Jamie Ivey on the Happy Hour podcast to discuss human trafficking and how it can be combated. Boutrous shares his personal experience with a trafficking case and explains the work his organization does to build specialized anti-trafficking units and prosecute traffickers. He emphasizes the importance of enforcement and the need to decimate trafficking by reducing it exponentially. Boutrous believes that millions of people can be protected from trafficking through their work. Victor Boutros is the CEO of the Human Trafficking Institute. He was a federal prosecutor in the Department of Justice's Human Trafficking Unit. He and Gary Haugen co-authored the best-selling book The Locust Effect: Why the End of Poverty Requires the End of Violence. Boutros is a graduate of Baylor, Harvard, Oxford, and the University of Chicago Law School. He lives with his wife, three kids and two dogs in Dallas, Texas.The conversation will give you a better understanding of the definition of trafficking, its prevalence in the US, and the role we have in combating it. Check out our links below to get involved and put an end to human trafficking!  SHOW LINKS: -Human Trafficking Institute-Justice Partners-Starfish Project -Digital Safety Resources -The Anxious Generation -The Chosen-Pray As You Go App -Jordan Raynor -Holly's Story -Rebecca's Story

In this 3+1 episode, we're catching up on some global stories that you might have missed and have a recommendation of the pop variety. We're continuing last month's conversation on elections by looking at El Salvador, talking through localization efforts in global development, the scandal surrounding UNRWA-Hamas and then get Brandon's take on Bono's recent biography, Surrender. Dr. Greg Burch of Multnomah University joins Brandon Stiver and Phil Darke for the conversation. Get support for your nonprofit team or project with our team of professionals at Canopy International Resources and Links from the show Foreign Policy : What Bukele's Rise Means for the Region World Relief : Three Trends We're Seeing in Global Development in 2024 USAID : Communicating through a Localization Lens The Media Line : Hamas Sacrifices Gaza Children, and UNRWA Complicit in Crimes Bridgely The Locust Effect by Gary Haugen and Victor Boutros God of the Empty-Handed by Jayukumar Christian Conversation Notes 2:12 - Discussion on Christian Higher ed 8:23 - Considering security, freedom, violence and democracy as El Salvador goes through changes and the leadership of Nayib Bukele 22:00 - Why even bother bringing politics into the podcast conversation? 26:10 - Trends in global development, localization and the place for outsiders 40:30 - Violence against children in Israel-Palestine and the Hamas-UNRWA reports 52:34 - Surrender by Bono and reflections on the celebrity activist   Theme music Kirk Osamayo. Free Music Archive, CC BY License

About the Episode: Victor sheds light on trafficking around the world as a way of modern-day slavery and his passion to educate others on the reality of this but also the calling he felt placed on his life to use his law degree to fight trafficking. He shares how his small act of faith trusts the Lord to fight this injustice and change the landscape around the world through the Human Trafficking Institute. Hear how the Body of Christ is called to fight injustice and the passion behind Victor's heart as he follows the call of the Lord. This is a podcast that has so much joy in the midst of such a dark subject as you think about how much God is doing through tangible hope. If you are struggling with issues related to anything, please don't hesitate to reach out to deeplight@pcpc.org or 214-224-2500. About Our Guest: Victor Boutros is the CEO and co-founder of the Human Trafficking Institute and co-author with Gary Haugen of “The Locust Effect: Why the End of Poverty Requires the End of Violence,” a book published by Oxford University Press in 2014. Drawing on real-world cases and extensive scholarship, The Locust Effect paints a vivid portrait of the way fractured criminal justice systems in developing countries have spawned a hidden epidemic of human trafficking and everyday violence that is undermining vital investments in poverty alleviation, public health, and human rights. The Locust Effect is a Washington Post bestseller that has been featured by the New York Times, The Economist, NPR, the Today Show, Forbes, TED, and the BBC, among others. For their work on The Locust Effect, Boutros and Haugen received the 2016 Grawemeyer Prize for Ideas Improving World Order, a prize awarded annually to the authors of one book based on originality, feasibility, and potential for global impact. Boutros previously served as a federal prosecutor on human trafficking cases of national significance on behalf of the United States Department of Justice's Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit. He has taught human trafficking at the FBI Academy in Quantico, trained law enforcement professionals in the United States and other countries on how to investigate and prosecute human trafficking, and taught trial advocacy to lawyers from Latin America, South and Southeast Asia, and Africa. Boutros is a graduate of Baylor University, Harvard University, Oxford University, and the University of Chicago Law School, where he was an editor of the University of Chicago Law Review. He has written on foreign affairs and human rights, including a feature article in Foreign Affairs and a piece co-authored with former US Trafficking in Persons Ambassador John Richmond in the AntiTrafficking Review, and developed and taught a course on human rights, human trafficking, and the rule of law in the developing world at the University of Chicago Law School. Boutros speaks to corporate leaders, universities, and think tanks on human trafficking and has provided briefings to senior government leaders on human trafficking, including legislators, congressional committees, and the President of the United States. About Our Host: A graduate of Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Mark Davis came to PCPC as our Youth Pastor in 2003 and became our Senior Pastor in 2009. He and his bride, Kristina, met at a Young Life Camp in 1988 and have five amazing kids: Kara (and husband, Drew and granddaughter Haddie), Madalyn (and husband, Jack), Cayden, Esther Kate, & Samuel. Resources: www.traffickinginstitute.org Email us at DeepLight@pcpc.org or call 214-224-2500, and we will connect you with others who can walk alongside you. (music license ASLC-14EAD3E0-84F34F4276)

[00:00:00] Tommy Thomas: For the past six months or so I've been asking our guests the question “If there was a nonprofit version of Shark Tank and you were on the panel of potential early-stage investors, what questions would you need to have answered before you'd make an investment?”  Well, again, it's just a fun question to ask that has turned into some great information that I believe people who are thinking of starting a nonprofit would find useful. The first force you'll hear is Kristen McClave from Episode 81 - Her Leadership Journey from Johnson and Johnson to Cardone Industries and Beyond. [00:00:38] Christin McClave: Oh, that's a fun question. I think first of all I would really want to understand the leader's background. The team, the person, on Shark Tank, they usually have one other person standing with them. And the Sharks are very interested in where they came from, what their experiences are, how the two or the three of them got together, and the dynamic of them working together and what skills maybe one brings to the table, the other one, fills in the gaps. I'd like to really understand that and know, that there's some experience in them building an organization. I think the other piece to that is really the passion, the drive. What is the problem or the issue the founder or the co-founders are trying to solve and what's driving that? And is that passion or is that issue really going to still be driving them in five years or 10 years? Or is it more of a short-term thing? The other piece, and I think this probably comes from my experience on nonprofit boards that are probably larger than this would be, really understanding the percentage of the budget that would actually be going to the work, the problem solving, the issue resolution, and what percentage of the budget would really be going to administration and or SG&A or overhead, however you want to say it. That may not be important for everybody, all investors, but for me it's the piece that I enjoy digging into from a financial perspective and from an accountability perspective with nonprofits that I either work with or talk to and just understanding, are they managing that equation or that ratio. And also as they get larger, they will certainly have donors, investors, fundraising questions around that in particular. And I think the third thing is I'd like to know, who is mentoring them? How do they have support built around them? Maybe they're an early-stage company, they probably don't have a board yet. But I think in the nonprofit context, it's really important to know those things and to make sure there are people that they've built into their feedback process. Maybe it's just a monthly advisor call that they have with maybe an advisor or a few advisors who meet with them on a regular basis. Because the challenge with a nonprofit, is really thinking through your revenue source. If your revenue is not coming from a product or a service, it's coming from the fundraising donation side of things. You've really got to build out some people in your network who can help you strategize about that and become really good at that. And I'll say just from personal experience, that's part of why I haven't taken on a leadership role in a nonprofit yet in my career because I feel like you have to feel called to the issue or the problem at hand. If you're going to be in a senior role of a not-for-profit organization, you've really got to have a drive and a passion for that cause. And, number two, you've got to really understand the revenue source is very different in the nonprofit space. And you really have to think about, okay, we're raising money for this cause rather than, hey, this product has this gross margin, it's a whole different mindset shift. And maybe someday I will, but for right now I'm in the for-profit space. But I love supporting and being a mentor and advisor in the nonprofit space and supporting them as much as I can.  [00:04:37] Tommy Thomas: Next up is Caryn Ryan from Episode 84 - Her Leadership Journey from BP Amoco to World Vision to Missionwell. [00:04:49] Caryn Ryan: This is interesting, but really Tommy, I don't think it's any different for a for-profit than for a non-profit organization. So you're always asking do you have a good vision? And a really big and important question is, do you have the resources? And that's in terms of money but it's also in terms of the network of people to support you making steps towards your vision and making things happen. And then do you have the drive? Do you feel called for this?  How do you demonstrate that? How do you demonstrate that you have the call and that you have the drive? Are you a persister? One thing that will happen for every new organization is just tons of obstacles and problems. They're nonstop. And so, you have to have that ability to persist and to say, look, I see this obstacle. Am I going to go over it, under it or around it? But for sure I'm going to go around it or get through this. And so, you need to have that kind of foundational trait characteristic. I think the difference really between a for-profit and non-profit is in where you get the money from. The Shark Tank for the for-profit might be from investors or a bank. Whereas the Shark Tank for a nonprofit might be from stakeholders, donors, grantors. So You have to make sure that the business plan reflects that. But you still have to have the money and you still have to have the people. And the sense of call might be different too. I think if you're working in a for-profit, you may have a vision around some new product or service. In the nonprofit world, your call may be even more deeply embedded. Especially if it's a religious calling. It may be something that's very right tied or connected to your faith. It doesn't matter how deeply connected it is to your faith. If you don't have the same things that a for-profit needs your chances of being successful fall. Now, God can always come in and intervene, if you're going to do your part in it, you need the same things that a for-profit does. [00:06:54] Tommy Thomas: Episode 100 was a milestone for the podcast. In the beginning I probably wondered if I would ever get that far. Here's Rich Stearns, the President Emeritus of World Vision US – An Inauspicious Leadership Journey Part Two. [00:07:11] Rich Stearns: The very first question that a Shark Tank guy would ask if you came with a new product is how is this product different from every other product that's already out in the market? In other words, nobody needs another cola drink, Coca Cola, Pepsi Cola, RC Cola. There's plenty of cola drinks out there. So, if your big idea is I'm going to do my own cola drink, the first question is why? So with a nonprofit, for example, I've seen young people that want to start up a new World Vision. I want to help the poor in Africa. And so, I'm going to start my own non-profit organization to help them. And my question is why would you do that? Because World Vision is a 3.2 billion organization helping the poor around the world. Compassion is one and a half billion dollars helping the poor around the world. Samaritan's Purse is a billion-dollar organization. So what are you doing that they're not doing? Why would I give my money to you instead of an established, successful nonprofit that's doing that work? And, a good example of a positive answer to that would be the International Justice Mission. My friend, Gary Haugen, who started it about 27 years ago now, I think, but he looked around and he said, look, there's a lot of organizations that are feeding the hungry and bringing clean water to the poor and doing microfinance. I don't see any organizations that are helping the poor with their legal problems, protecting them from corrupt police departments and representing them in court when they're falsely accused of something or getting them out of bonded labor in India by using the court system. So Gary started International Justice Mission to focus on justice and legal issues. He could have called it “lawyers without borders” if he wanted to, because essentially, he hires a lot of attorneys that go around the world and they work through the legal systems to help people who are being oppressed in various ways. So, the first question to ask is, why would I give to your charity? What is unique about it? And why wouldn't you just partner up with somebody that's already doing this work? If there are nonprofits that are doing it, the next thing you look at is the leader's vision and motivation, right? If there's a powerful leader with a powerful vision and capabilities do you believe that they, just like you'd look at a startup CEO, do they have the right vision? That's the other thing. Because it takes a lot of elbow grease to start up a nonprofit. ++++++++++++++++++ [00:09:39] Tommy Thomas: From Episode 115 Terri Esau - His Journey from Being Known As The Jingle King Of Minneapolis to Philanthropeneur. [00:09:55] Terry Esau: First of all, whatever you're pitching, it has to solve a problem and there has to be a resource to help solve that problem. Like for us, it was like, here's the problem. Kids in America are unhealthy, they're obese, there's poverty, so they can't afford a bicycle. Can help solve some of their health issues, not just physical health issues, but mental health issues, right? I call my bike my carbon fiber therapist because, you're a cyclist. It's like I get on my bike, and I go for a ride. I could be having a bad day, but by the time I get done with my ride, all that stress has just been washed away.  So I'm Shark Tank. I think you'd have to go, what's the problem? What's the solution? And then on top of that you have to go, what's your strategy to bring the solution to the problem? What are the logistics? What are the resources that you need? People who give money to causes, you really have to sell them on the fact that you are going to change the world in some small way. At least in the nonprofit world. In the for profit world, then you have to prove to them that you can make your money back on this investment. For us, we say, yeah, you're not making money back on us, but you should feel really good about what you're doing to change the lives of children. [00:11:38] Tommy Thomas: From Episode 88 - Lisa Trevino Cummins, Her Leadership Journey from Bank of America to Urban Strategies Part Two. [00:11:49] Lisa Cummins: I think the question I would ask is what is your employee turnover? And because I have found nonprofits come and go and employee turnover helps me understand what your commitment is, what your ability is to lead, what your consistency is with your values. Because if you're not consistent, employees won't stay long. Maybe you can explain them once or twice, but if you have an ongoing record of employees that are leaving, then there's a problem there. The other thing I would ask is a lot of nonprofits talk about partners. Let's say, describe the continuum of partnership with these organizations. When you say your partner is this because you dropped off a leaflet at their door. Sometimes that's okay. Depends on what the goal is or  is this talking about someone who you know their name, right? You know their name and you know their story and so you're trying to get at it in a deeper way. Those kinds of things. Yeah, I think those are a couple of questions I would ask. I would also ask how well, and this is important, some people will say this is a political thing and it's not. How well does your organization reflect the communities you're serving? Because if it doesn't, that means there's probably a sense of a pejorative type of approach that is not going to be that is less what could be, and it'll result in less than results than what could be. Does that make sense? [00:13:33] Tommy Thomas: And last, but certainly not least, from Episode 109 John Somerville - His Leadership Journey from Marketing Executive with General Mills to Chief Financial Officer At The University Of Northwestern St. Paul. [00:13:49] John Sommerville: I think the first question is, what need do you believe exists that your ministry or organization will serve? And how is what you're doing, how will that serve that need? Because if there's a true need I think many things follow from that. And if you have something unique that will really help meet that need, then the organization needs to exist. So I think those are big questions. And the other thing that I often ask is, who else is doing this? What I find is that there are people who are pioneers who do something for the very first time, and we write books about those people, but often what we need is I found more often that the people that are innovators they're just being novel without actually being effective and so it's important to understand the need, be able to meet the need, and then also give examples of how that works. You may have a unique spin on it, but the core of it needs to be channeled into an area that others have been successful in the past. +++++++++++++++ [00:14:51] Tommy Thomas: Next week is Christmas. And in keeping with the tradition, I followed for the past two years, I've interviewed someone from the music industry. This year, our guest is David Tolley.  David is an amazing music, composer and arranger, and a tenured professor at Delaware State University. Part of David's story is that a big part of his career was launched from an inauspicious and some might say accidental appearance on the Johnny Carson Show. Join us next week to hear the rest of David's story.   Links & Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas The Perfect Search – What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO   Connect tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Follow Tommy on LinkedIn

Gary Haugen's firsthand experience investigating systemic human rights abuses helped him recognize a troubling pattern: people living in the world's poorest communities experienced constant physical danger because their local justice systems weren't equipped to defend them from the violence they faced every day. Haugen was told that this would never change, but he believed otherwise, leading to the founding of International Justice Mission (IJM). Since 1997, IJM's reach has expanded globally into 31 program offices in 16 countries working to combat trafficking and slavery, violence against women and children and police abuse of power.Still, these issues of violence persist, affecting millions around the world – an estimated 50 million people live modern slavery globally and nearly 736 million women have experienced physical and/or sexual violence at least once in their lifetime.Government officials in the United States are uniquely positioned to create policies and foreign assistance programs that protect vulnerable people from these human rights abuses. How can policymakers work to increase access to justice, hold criminals accountable, and reduce the prevalence of violence and exploitation?Support the show

Dignity Of Responsibility_Gary Haugen_11.12.23 by Covenant Presbyterian

[00:00:00] Rich Stearns: I learned early on, just the importance of, I've said this earlier, being truthful and being a person of integrity in the workplace, you never get caught in a lie if you don't lie. And so, some of my early bosses drill that into my head. Bad news delivered late is terrible. Bad news delivered early is the best thing. If you have bad news, deliver it early. And don't try to hide things when they're going south. Tell the boss or the management that you've got a problem early on. +++++++++++++++++++++ [00:00:28] Tommy Thomas: Thank you for joining us today. We're continuing the conversation we began last week with Rich Stearns President Emeritus of World Vision US.  Today we will continue with Rich's leadership journey. We'll also be discussing the all-important topic of board governance. I'm so grateful to Rich for taking time from his schedule to talk with me. As we mentioned last week, the search that JobfitMatters conducted that brought Rich to World Vision literally set our practice on a trajectory that helped make the firm into what it is today.  Let's pick up on the conversation we started last week. If you were creating a dashboard for a nonprofit to get at their health, what might the dials look like? How do you tell if a nonprofit is healthy? [00:01:19] Rich Stearns: This is one of my pet peeves. You've got these services like Charity Navigator and almost all of these services focus on financial metrics. What's the overhead? What's the balance sheet look like? What's the recent growth been over the last two or three years? Basically, those things have very little to do with whether a charity is a good charity, a well-performing charity, or a poorly performing charity. So, the only thing that really matters is the kind of impact that the nonprofit is having. It's about impact. So, let's say it's a homeless ministry, right? What matters in a homeless ministry is how many of their clients actually get out of homelessness and go on to lead independent lives. That's really the outcome that you're looking for in a homeless ministry. And sometimes homeless ministries talk about how many beds they have and how many nights off the street they give their clients. But just giving somebody a safe bed for the night doesn't solve their problem, right? So, you can say we put 300 men to bed every night, in this homeless shelter, and the next day they're on the street again and then the following day they come back to the shelter and there's nothing wrong with providing some safety for a little bit, but ultimately, you're looking for the cure, right? How do we help these men, if they're men, get out of homelessness and get into more productive lives? But none of these charity evaluation websites talk about impact because it's so hard to measure. And it could be that the charity with the greatest impact also has high overheads. So, they get a negative rating from Charity Navigator, even though they were having a tremendous impact on the people that they're serving. You always try to get inside the charity and say, what kind of work are you doing? And are you making an impact? Now, after that, you start to look at finances. So, at World Vision, we got into the clean water business a number of years ago. So then there's a measure called impact per dollar spent. The cost to bring clean water to one person for life through World Vision is $50. So, you tell a donor that for $50, I don't know what your water bill is, but mine's higher than $50 a month. But for $50 I can bring clean water to a person for life in Rwanda. And then I say, how many people do you want to bring clean water to? How big a donation can you make? So that's impact per dollar, right? Impact per dollar spent. And that's the other thing I tend to look at. [00:03:50] Tommy Thomas: Kind of a similar question. I've been asking this the last month or so and I've gotten some fascinating responses. If you were a judge on a nonprofit version of the shark tank and nonprofit startups are coming to you for early-stage funding, what questions have you got to have solid answers for before you open your checkbook? [00:04:10] Rich Stearns: The very first question that a shark tank guy would ask if you come with a new product is how is this product different from every other product that's already out in the market? In other words, nobody needs another cola drink, Coca-Cola, Pepsi Cola, RC Cola. There are plenty of cola drinks out there. So, if your big idea is I'm going to do my own cola drink, the first question is why? So, with a nonprofit, for example, I've seen young people that want to start up a new World Vision, right? I want to help the poor in Africa. And so, I'm going to start my own non-profit organization to help them. And my question is why would you do that? Because World Vision is a $3.2B organization helping the poor around the world. Compassion is $1.5B helping the poor around the world. Samaritan's Purse is a billion-dollar organization. So, what are you doing that they're not doing? Why would I give my money to you instead of an established, successful nonprofit that's doing that work? And, a good example of a positive answer to that would be the International Justice Mission. My friend, Gary Haugen started it about 27 years ago. He looked around and he said, there are a lot of organizations that are feeding the hungry and bringing clean water to the poor and doing microfinance. I don't see any organizations that are helping the poor with their legal problems protecting them from corrupt police departments and representing them in court when they're falsely accused of something or getting them out of bonded labor in India by using the court system. So, Gary started International Justice Mission to focus on justice and legal issues. He could have called it “Lawyers Without Borders” if he wanted to, because essentially, he hires a lot of attorneys that go around the world, and they work through the legal systems to help people who are being oppressed in various ways. So, the first question to ask is, why would I give to your charity? What is unique about it? And why wouldn't you just partner up with somebody that's already doing this work? If nonprofits are doing it, the next thing you look at is the leader's vision and motivation, right? If there's a powerful leader with a powerful vision and capabilities you believe, just like you'd look at a startup CEO. Do they have the right vision? That's the other thing. Because it takes a lot of elbow grease to start up a nonprofit. [00:06:40] Tommy Thomas: Frederick Wilcox said progress always involves risk.  You can't steal second base with your foot on first. What's the biggest risk you've ever taken and how did it come out? [00:06:51] Rich Stearns: Let me mention the Parker Brothers thing again. So, getting Parker Brothers into video games was a huge risk. We had to take our foot off first base because we had to hire 180 people.  We had to create almost another whole company and another whole capability within the company to enter this new marketplace. Cost a lot of money, and a lot of investment upfront, and I would say the outcome was both good and bad. So initially for a couple of years, we doubled the size of the company. We had huge growth, huge profit. But then about two years in, the whole video game market collapsed. It had been a bubble and it collapsed. And when it collapsed, we had seven of the top ten selling video game cartridges in America. From our startup position, we had been very successful. But once the market collapsed, you couldn't give those products away. They were selling video game cartridges, three for $10 in a barrel at Toys R Us because the market was glutted with people trying to get into that market. It was a little bit like the Dot Com bubble in 2000. So anyways, all that profit we made. We had to give it all back over the next few years. That's one of the reasons I got fired from Parker Brothers. But I tried to persuade Parker Brothers to stay in there, hang in there, right? Because video games are going to come back. But they decided that it was too risky. They wouldn't stay in. And of course, we now know that the video game market is bigger than all of Hollywood combined in terms of revenues. And it's bigger than most professional sports. And so had we stayed in video games, we would have probably had huge opportunities in the future, but that was a huge risk to take. And when you take a risk, you bet big, and you lose big, or you win big. I think the other risk was the AIDS campaign that I did with World Vision, because there was a possibility that HIV and AIDS would turn the American church against us. People say, why are you doing this? Why are you helping people that were affected by this, disease that's sexually transmitted? I thought you were about helping children. And so, we had to get our messaging right with AIDS. We took a bit of a risk to go there, but in the end, it really paid off because what people learned about World Vision is that we would tackle the most difficult issues in the most difficult places. And that earned us a lot of respect from pastors and donors. Because nobody else was doing it at the time, nobody else was willing to take that risk. And we did, and ultimately a lot of organizations followed us a few years later. But that was another pretty risky venture. [00:09:39] Tommy Thomas: What's the best piece of advice anybody's ever given you? The best piece of advice that I have received is to be truthful and be a person of integrity in the workplace. You never get caught in a lie if you don't lie. [00:09:41] Rich Stearns: The best piece of advice that I would say, first of all, I learned early on, just the importance of, I've said this earlier, being truthful and being a person of integrity in the workplace. You never get caught in a lie if you don't lie. And so, some of my early bosses drill that into my head. Bad news delivered late is terrible. Bad news delivered early is the best thing. If you have bad news, deliver it early. And don't try to hide things when they're going south. Tell the boss or the management that you've got a problem early on. One piece of advice I got during a difficult time, I can't remember where I was, probably at Parker Brothers. It was a difficult year and one of my coworkers said, what you have to understand, because most of us, we're afraid we're going to lose our job or we're afraid something's going to happen to us. And he used to say, remember this company needs you more than you need them, right? Because if you're a good worker and you're productive and you've got good ideas, the place you work for needs you more than you need them. And I learned that later as a CEO looking for good people. When I had good people working for me, all I want to know is how do I keep them? How do I motivate them? I need them more than they need me because they can find another job, but it's going to be hard for me to find another person of that caliber. So, the importance of retaining really good people struck me. +++++++++++++++++ [00:11:09] Tommy Thomas:  You've been out of office for a couple of years now, but let's go back three or four years.  If you had invited me to one of your staff meetings and then we had dismissed you, and I asked the team what's the most difficult thing about working for Rich?  What might I have heard? [00:11:27] Rich Stearns: I don't know. I want to say you have to ask them that question. You've interviewed some of the people that worked for me in the past. But I would probably say I tended to be an idea machine, that in a particular meeting, I would throw out 20 new ideas. What about this? Or what about that? What if we did this? And what I learned is that when you're the CEO people are frantically taking notes on everything that comes out of your mouth. Let's say you throw out 20 ideas. They're likely to leave that meeting and spend the next month pursuing all 20 of those ideas. And I realized that I had to tell people, look, I'm going to throw out a bunch of ideas in this meeting. I want you to throw out ideas too. Not all my ideas are good.  Number one:  Don't be afraid to challenge me just because I'm the president.  In this room let's think of ourselves all as equals. Everybody in this room has got good ideas and we need to challenge ideas. Some are good, some are bad, some are worth keeping, and some are not. They're like panning for gold, right? I realized that I needed to give people permission to challenge me as a leader and to challenge me in front of other people. I used to say, if you don't challenge my ideas, you're not very useful to me because I need other people to help me evaluate which of these ideas have merit and which ones really don't. And if you can't contribute to that, why are you at the meeting? You realize that they probably say Rich threw out too many ideas at the meeting. And I left wondering which ones do I really focus on? So I think that could have been frustrating sometimes for people. [00:13:04] Tommy Thomas: What do you think they would have said was the most rewarding part? [00:13:09] Rich Stearns: I don't know. I like to feel that people enjoyed working for me. I tried to create a sense of camaraderie among my teams.  I tried not to lead like the imperial CEO that I'm the boss and you're not. Or I'm here on the organization chart, you're down here. So I tried to be more of a collaborative leader.  Hey, we're all a team and every member of the team is important. All these people that work for me are made in the image of God and they have incredible talents, ideas, backgrounds, uniqueness, unique gifts, and talents. Everyone's gifts are different. And you've all got great ideas. And I tried to, especially in the latter half of my career, I started to see that all these people that work for me are made in the image of God and they have incredible talents, ideas, backgrounds, uniqueness, unique gifts, and talents. Everyone's gifts are different. Everyone's abilities are different. And when you start seeing that kind of symphony of talent in front of you, you're like an orchestra conductor and you say, how can I bring the beautiful music out of these talented musicians that I have working for me? I might have a CEO who was brilliant. In fact, you knew one or two of my CEOs who would have been terrible at marketing, right? But he was a brilliant CFO. And so, I recognized that and made sure that I relied on him and leaned into him for his giftedness. Then over somewhere else, I've got a really talented person in product development coming up with new products. And so, you bring that talent out. Ultimately, a leader is like that orchestra conductor. How do you get all these really gifted musicians, each gifted in a different way to play together so that what comes out is a beautiful symphony instead of, discordant, loud sounds that are unpleasant. I like to think that I could create a positive work environment, positive culture for the team. And what I learned about success in the workplace is that teams of people that work well together and feel valued and are in a healthy culture, they're much more productive than people in a negative difficult culture. Culture matters a lot and leaders tend to create culture. [00:15:20] Tommy Thomas:  Here's a quote I'd like you to respond to: “When you're sitting around the table with your leadership team, you never want to be the smartest person at the table”. [00:15:29] Rich Stearns: I love that quote. And actually, one of my first, I'll go back to Parker Brothers, the President of Parker Brothers, Randolph Parker Barton, when I joined was the family vestige or holdover from the old company that had been acquired by General Mills. Mr. Barton was, how do I say it? Not the most capable leader. He didn't have a Wharton MBA. He didn't come up through other consumer products companies. He inherited his job because he was a family member. He knew a lot about toys and games, but he wanted to hire the smartest, most gifted, talented people he could find and let them do what they were capable of doing. And he developed a reputation from within General Mills, the parent company, for having some of the brightest up-and-coming leaders in the whole General Mills organization, which was much bigger than Parker Brothers. And he basically did it by hiring well and then delegating a lot of authority and influence to the smart people that he hired. He never felt threatened by them because he realized that as long as he kept hiring the best people, he would get the best performance for his division. And General Mills would reward him as the president with bonuses and compensation, increase and all of that. I learned from him to hire really the best people you can, to try to find people smarter than you or smarter than you in their field. Hire the best people you can. Try to find people smarter than you or smarter than you in their field. So again, a CFO who is much better at finance than I am, or hiring a head of human resources that's much more gifted than I am in human resources. A General Manager or a President is really a generalist, right? The orchestra conductor can't play all those instruments, so they need people that are really good at the violin, really good at percussion, really good at clarinet and woodwinds. And when you get the very best musicians working for you, that's when the beautiful music starts to happen. +++++++++++++++ [00:17:34] Tommy Thomas: Let's just switch over to board service. I think board service is hard at any level. Talk to me about the board chair. What's the primary function of the chairman of the board? [00:17:49] Rich Stearns: I think the primary function of the Board Chair is to manage the board.   We used to have 18 board members at World Vision. It was a pretty large board. And you got 18 people in a room that are all pretty smart. They're all from different walks of life and they've got ideas and suggestions and things of that nature. The Board Chair's main job is to manage the Board.  That Board Chair reminds the Board that their job is governance, a policy role. And the Board Chair has a very important role in focusing the board on the job at hand. You're not necessarily here for everybody to throw in their ideas. We have a professional staff to run the company or run the organization. The board chair reminds them that their role is a governance role, a policy role. Certainly, their ideas can be offered, but it's really the role of the CEO and the staff to determine whether those ideas are effective or usable. I think the board chair really must control the work of the board and direct it in the right ways. And he's basically herding, 10, 12, 15 other board members, to focus on the job at hand. The other role of the Chair is to be close to the CEO so that the CEO and the board chair are on the same page. The Board Chair can deliver some difficult information to the CEO if let's say the performance is poor or other board members have a problem with the way the CEO is conducting the meetings or leading the organization. The Board Chair is often the messenger that brings that information to the CEO, hopefully in a way that's redemptive instead of crushing, that, how can I help this CEO be more successful by giving feedback to him from the board?  The board chair is really a pretty critical pivotal role. [00:19:37] Tommy Thomas: I know your past Board Chair for the last few years of your time at World Vision. What was the key to you and Joan working together so well? The key to a CEO / Board working relationship comes down to mutual respect. [00:19:45] Rich Stearns: I think it comes down to mutual respect. I think Joan had a lot of respect for me. I was a long-serving CEO of World Vision by the time she was Board Chair. She had a lot of respect for me, my capabilities, and what I'd accomplished at World Vision over those years. But I also had respect for her and her position.  I always respected the Board Chair's position because in my worldview, the board chair and my board in a Christian organization, that was God's way of holding me in the organization accountable. These people were accountable before God for this ministry that was entrusted to their care and their governance care as board members. And I never saw the board as an adversary, I always saw them as really a gift that they were there to keep us on the right track, to keep us out of trouble, to ask the tough questions that needed to be answered to make sure we were financially solvent, to make sure we stayed on mission. And by respecting their role they could see that I respected them, which caused them to respect and trust me more. A board relationship is very much about trust. If if the board trusts the leader who's leading the organization and that leader's team that's a critical ingredient. And the leader has to trust the board not to do inappropriate things or get involved in inappropriate ways and not to be disruptive and if you have mutual trust, which the chair often negotiates that, or referees that, or tries to ensure that you're off to a good start with a board CEO relationship. [00:21:24] Tommy Thomas: When I interviewed you back in 2017 you mentioned that from your perspective, the best thing that the World Vision Board did for you when you came on was you recalled an offsite retreat where y'all got introduced to each other. Could you share a little bit about that with us? We probably have a lot of up-and-coming CEOs listening and that might be an interesting discussion. [00:21:45] Rich Stearns: I don't know how much that costs. Probably not much, but it was the best money World Vision ever spent. When I came into World Vision the Board and the CEO had what I'd call a turbulent relationship. He wasn't thrilled about his board and the way they behaved, and the Board wasn't thrilled about him in certain ways. And so, I was coming into kind of a troubled marriage, right? You could say there'd been a divorce, and I'm the new husband coming in. And so, the Board had enough wisdom to say, you know what, we should start off on the right foot here. Why don't we hire a board consultant to come in and do a two-day retreat with a new CEO to teach the Board and the new CEO how best they should interact and communicate with one another? So, a friend of yours and mine named Bob Andringa, he's retired now, but he was in the Board consulting business. He's written at least one book if not several. He came in and he conducted a Board Governance 101, 102 course for all of us and gave us tools to use and dealt with different scenarios of the dos and don'ts for Board Members and the dos and don'ts for the staff and the CEO. Here is the best way to understand your responsibility as Board Members. This is what your responsibility is, and this is what your responsibility is not. This is the role you play. This is the role you don't play. And the same with a CEO. Rich, your role is this. The board's role is to establish policy. I guess the best way to say it is it laid down the ground rules for a healthy relationship. And I don't think it's an exaggeration to say I had a 20-year honeymoon with my board. Not that there wasn't an occasional marital argument over the years. But it was like a 20-year honeymoon with the board. And I respected them, they respected me. My staff, when I first started, after a year, they said, boy, you've had a one-year honeymoon with this board. It's amazing. Because they'd seen some of the dysfunction in the prior years. And 20 years later, they were still saying you're still on your honeymoon. And in terms of my response, what I attribute it to, is what I talked about earlier, Tommy, that the board knew they could trust me. I would never tell them a lie. I would never hide anything. I was completely transparent. Anything they wanted to talk about at a board meeting, we could talk about. Any numbers they wanted to see; we'd show them. If I had some bad numbers, I'd bring them to the board and say, look, this is not good, and here's what we're going to do.  They never felt I was hiding anything. And so that created trust as well. The board knew they could trust me.  I would never tell them a lie. I would never hide anything. I was completely transparent. Anything they wanted to talk about at a board meeting, we could talk about. +++++++++++++++++++++ [00:24:34] Tommy Thomas: One of the guys that you've influenced over the years is Joseph J. Mettimano, the President at Central Union Mission in Washington, DC. And when I interviewed Joe he talked about a lesson he learned from you about the President's Report to the Board. He would attribute part of his success to what he learned from you there.  Tell us about that. [00:24:53] Rich Stearns: I started every board meeting with a President's Report. So, the Board is gathered, in the case of World Vision they've flown in from all over the country and here they are at the World Vision board meeting, and remember, they're all volunteers, some are pastors, some are business people.  They're from all walks of life and so I tried to use the President's Report to basically bring them up to speed on what was going on at World Vision. What were the important issues? What were we doing about the important issues? How are the finances doing? I tried to answer as many questions as they might have in advance. I started every board meeting with a President's Report. I tried to use the President's Report to basically bring them up to speed on what was going on at World Vision. What were the important issues? What were we doing about the important issues? How are the finances doing? Because the rest of the board meeting, the finance committee was going to meet and other committees were going to meet. And I tried to use the President's Report to cast a bit of a vision for where we were as an organization, where we're headed, what my outlook was for the coming year or the coming quarter. And I try to use the Board Meeting to really cast a vision to remind them of the mission of World Vision. Often, I would start with a trip report. I've just gotten back from the Syrian refugee crisis, and I want to tell you what I saw. I would remind them, we're sitting here in a nice boardroom, but people are dying all over the world. And our job is to intercede for them to help them to rescue those who are perishing, as the book of Proverbs says. And so, trying to remind them why they were here, why World Vision was here, and then look under the hood at the financials, the numbers, the revenues, the overhead, and you had to deal with issues like real estate transactions and mundane stuff like that. I wanted to always put it in the context of the bigger mission, vision, and values of the organization. My President's Report would sometimes go 90 minutes to two hours, which is a lot. But usually, the board would say that was the highlight of the meeting because that really brought them up to date on everything. My President's Report would sometimes go 90 minutes to two hours, which is a lot. But usually, the board would say that was the highlight of the meeting because that really brought them up to date on everything. [00:26:46] Tommy Thomas:  I've done a little bit of speaking here over the past three or four years, most of it pre-pandemic on succession planning and one of the things that we talk about in that is how much of the outgoing president's identity is tied up in his or her current job. You've been away now for almost two years, any reflections on that? Did you have any trouble walking away? [00:27:11] Rich Stearns: No, I didn't actually. I talk about this a lot. We had a very orderly succession process when I left World Vision. In 2015, I hired a Chief Operating Officer, and he worked under me for three years, learning the ropes. He then became a candidate to succeed me, although the board did a nationwide search. They ultimately selected him. But about two years before I retired in an executive session of the board, I said, look I'm planning to retire.  I had a contract that expired in two years, and we renewed my contract every five years for 20 years. And I said, at the end of this contract, I'm planning to retire and I'm giving you a gift right now. The gift is number one, I'm leaving without any drama, it's like you're not having to talk at the bathroom breaks about when is the old guy going to retire, when is he going to leave, I'm retiring, I want to retire at the top of my game, not at the bottom of my game. And that's a gift to you because now as a board, you can focus totally on how can we have the best transition process. How can we use this time to find the very best candidate to replace Rich? And you don't have to worry about any of the drama or that I'm going to be clinging to power and so long story short, Tommy, they did a very good job. They did a pretty thorough search. They took a lot of advice from me because I said a lot of nonprofits do this very poorly. And some of the nonprofits that I shared with them during my 20 years at World Vision, some of these nonprofits that were peer organizations had 10 CEOs come and go. And I said that's very unhealthy for an organization to have 10 years. And the reason they had 10 CEOs is because their nonprofit volunteer board continued to make bad decisions about who to hire, so I wanted to help them make a good decision about who to hire with all the facts on the table and knowledge. So then I retired, and I had a nice retirement party. We had a passing of the torch to my successor, Edgar Sandoval, who was the COO under me for the last three years. Then I walked away, and I know a lot of people really have a struggle in retirement and they feel like they've lost their identity. I felt like I gave everything I had for 20 years. I gave World Vision everything I had to offer. It's somebody else's turn. I sensed it was time for fresh leadership. I was 67 years old I had a family, a growing family, grandsons, a wife that I had been away from for a lot of months during my time at World Vision, traveling internationally and I was ready, and I looked at retirement as this is my sabbath rest after a 45-year career. [00:30:01] Tommy Thomas:  Bringing this thing to a close. What's something that you would have liked to have told a younger version of yourself? [00:30:09] Rich Stearns: You know a couple of things come to mind. One is comical - a career is a very long time. In your 20s or 30s, you're in a particular job in a particular industry or sector and your career seems you're focused on this year, right? You're right now, this job, maybe you're thinking about what would my next job be, but in a 40-some-year career, you can do a lot of different things, and if you feel like I used to, I tell young people, if your current job is not your dream job, and it probably isn't, think of it as a stepping stone toward your dream job. Because every job you have gives you more information, more experience. I'm good at this. I'm not good at that. I like this kind of environment. I don't like this kind of environment. You're learning more about yourself and hopefully, the next job you have, the next company, or whatever organization you work for becomes a better and better fit, and more and more like your dream job, the dream situation that you'd like to be in. So don't get too impatient. A career is a very long time. Look at me. I started out selling shaving cream for Gillette. I ran a toy company. I was there for nine years. I spent 11 years at Lennox China selling fine china, crystal gifts, and things like that. Then I spent 20 years at World Vision. I've had three or four different careers during my 40-some years, and then developed a fifth career as an author. I've written four books now. You can do a lot of things in 40 years. Even if you don't like your current job, take heart. There's hope your next job may be the one that you really love and really fits you well. One other thing I'd say, this is a little piece of managerial advice, the most powerful tool in a leader's vocabulary is encouragement. You motivate people a lot more with encouragement. Hey, that was a great idea you had at the meeting today. Wow, I loved your contribution to that discussion. The most powerful tool in a leader's vocabulary is encouragement. You motivate people a lot more with encouragement. That report you gave was fantastic. With that kind of affirmation, people just thrive and they bloom when they get a compliment from the boss. The problem is, as bosses, we often like to lead with criticism. Yeah, I didn't like the way you ended that presentation. Or, 90% of the presentation could have been fabulous, but you didn't like their last two slides. And you think, oh, so what do they hear? I failed. The boss didn't like it. And that diminishes people. It crushes their spirits. You attract a lot more bees with honey than you do with vinegar. There's a time for correction. And even correction is more easily digested when it's preceded by praise and encouragement. I think it's a superpower that a leader who really encourages people, we've all raised kids, and your kid will bring home some crazy drawing from first grade. And what do you do? You praise it and say, I love the way you drew that pumpkin for Halloween, I love the way you drew that house. We praise them. We encourage them. We need to find ways to praise and encourage our staff, and our teams. And then again, correction, when needed, obviously in the right circumstances, but encouragement is powerful. Tommy Thomas:  Thank you for joining us today and thanks to Rich Stearns for sharing his leadership journey with us. I've put links to all of Rich's books in the episode notes, along with some that he and his wife Reneé wrote together. Several months ago, we began to put a transcript of the podcast in the episode notes. Many of you have commented on how helpful this is to you.   Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas World Vision Books by Rich Stearns: Lead Like It Matters to God: Values-Driven Leadership in a Success-Drive World by Richard Stearns The Hole in Our Gospel 10th Anniversary Edition: What Does God Expect of Us? The Answer That Changed My Life and Might Just Change the World by Richard Stearns Books by Rich and Reneé Stearns: God's Love For You Bible Storybook by Richard Stearns & Reneé Stearns He Walks Among Us: Encounters with Chris in a Broken World by Richard Stearns & Reneé Stearns   Connect Tommy Thomas - tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Tommy's LinkedIn Profile

Give locally. Before you send money off to a national organization that is taking in tens of millions of dollars, see if there's a ministry in your community. My experience is that there likely is. Investigate that ministry first. Big ministries can afford slick marketing. Don't be seduced. Do your research. MinistryWatch tracks the 1000 largest ministries in the nation here. Many of the largest trafficking organizations are there. But, as I said above, most of the local ministries are too small to make it onto our list. To learn about these ministries, use the ProPublica website, here. Volunteer. Local ministries usually need volunteers to work with the people they serve. Many of them offer volunteer training that will help you understand how to be more effective in your work for them, but which also educate you about the human trafficking problem in your area. Give to Christian organizations. Many of the organizations involved in sex trafficking are not Christian groups. For example, neither OUR or IJM are explicitly Christian organizations, though IJM does have many Christians (including its founder, Gary Haugen) on staff. Some of them do good work, but without bringing Scripture and a biblical worldview to this problem, we are likely not providing lasting help. I make no apologies for recommending that you give to and advocate for explicitly Christian organizations. Pray and Give. Don't let negative headlines freeze or frustrate you into inaction. View the negative headlines as a gift, steering you away from the bad actors and toward the good actors. Human trafficking is a scourge, a horrible scourge in this beautiful but broken world. But it is the job of Christians to be restorers, reconcilers, repairers of the breach. Local human trafficking ministries are a great place to start. The producers for today's program are Jeff McIntosh and Rich Roszel. We get database, technical, and editorial support from Stephen Dubarry, Christina Darnell, and Casey Sudduth. Until next time, may God bless you.

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Gary Haugen is the CEO & Founder of International Justice Mission (IJM), a global human rights organization that works to protect the poor from violence. The context here is not one of war, conflict or mass atrocities but, rather, the everyday violence present in many low-income and marginalized communities around the globe, such as gender violence, forced labor, human trafficking, sexual violence, police abuse and land theft. The issue is multifaceted, and so is our conversation. Are the proper laws in place to protect a country's citizens? Is there political will to protect those who are most marginalized? Are laws being enforced? Are social norms exacerbating the problem? IJM was founded 26 years ago and today has around 1,500 staff based in 30 offices across the globe. IJM works with national governments and local stakeholders. Their teams are local and include lawyers, criminal investigators, trauma social workers and local advocates. This episode looks at poverty from an angle of violence prevention. The conversation will inform you and provide insight on IJM's drive to transform local justice systems to protect those living in poverty. Thank you for downloading this episode of the Do One Better Podcast. Visit our Knowledge Hub at Lidji.org for information on 200+ case studies and interviews with remarkable leaders in philanthropy, sustainability and social entrepreneurship.   

In this episode, we consider the readings for the third Sunday of Easter, Year A in the Lectionary cycle: Acts 2:14a, 36-41; Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17; 1 Peter 1:17-23; Luke 24:13-35.We discuss Jesus' decision to appear to the pair on the Emmaus road, Peter's invitation to embrace the grace of obedience, the Psalmist's desperate plea for help and joy in the Lord's salvation, and the conclusion of Peter's Pentecost sermon. The Lord is risen, friends!Notes:--The Locust Effect: Why The End of Poverty Requires The End of Violence - by: Gary Haugen & Victor Boutros--Dwell App--Helpful discussion of ways for Christians to avoid implicit and explicit antisemitism in Holy Week liturgies--Prayers of the People--Metrical Collect for Easter 3The Bible Project--Bible Project's video overview of Acts--Bible Project's video overview of 1 Peter4:35 Collect5:16 Luke 24:13-3527:16  1 Peter 1:17-2339:34  Psalm 116:1-3, 10-1750:57  Acts 2:14a, 36-41 Our outro music is an original song by our friend Dcn. Jeremiah Webster, a poet and professor whose giftedness is rivaled by his humbleness. You can find his published works, including After So Many Fires, with a quick Google.

I recently read about Gary Haugen's experience as a Christian called to respond to the horrible genocide in Rawanda. Haugen says, “When you are standing in a mass grave in Rawanda, the question that came to my mind was not the question that was coming to everyone else's mind. I've had people ask me, where was God in the midst of all this? But I could sense, at least from Scripture and what I knew of my heavenly father, that I knew where God was: He was right in the midst of all that incredible suffering. The more relevant question for me was where are God's people?” Today, Gary Haugen is sending God's people to respond to the world's great needs through the International Justice Mission. Haugen's words should cause us to seriously evaluate what we're doing to help our kids hear God's call to a lifestyle of service and sacrifice. Are you pointing your kids to that high calling?

This season we are focusing on justice as an aspect of spiritual formation and we believe Lent to be the perfect season to explore this connection. Using A Just Passion: A Six-Week Lenten Journey, and the lectionary, we will look at various aspects of justice, its importance to God and why the modern church has often regrettably failed to live out God's call to “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with the Lord.”   Ruth is joined by Gary Haugen on today's episode. Gary Haugen has spent most of his career fighting injustice at the systemic level as a lawyer and founder of International Justice Mission. Ruth and Gary discuss the moment Gary realized he'd grown up his whole life in the church never once hearing a message about how much God cared about justice. They talk about the ways in which the poor are chronically vulnerable to violence, how the church often isn't doing work that addresses this issue, and how, at IJM, attention to their own spiritual formation is crucial in sustaining their justice work.   Lectionary scripture for this week: 1 Samuel 16:1-13 Psalm 23 Ephesians 5:8-14 John 9:1-41   Mentioned in this episode: Just Courage by Gary Haugen The Locust Effect by Gary Haugen Gary Alan Haugen is an American attorney who is the Founder, CEO, and former President of International Justice Mission, a global organization that protects the poor from violence throughout the developing world. Gary has been recognized by the U.S. State Department as a Trafficking in Persons “Hero” – the highest honor given by the U.S. government for anti-slavery leadership.  He is the author of several books, including Good News About Injustice (Intervarsity Press) and, most recently, The Locust Effect: Why the End of Poverty Requires the End of Violence (Oxford University Press). Journey with us this Lent! Our season is inspired by A Just Passion: A Six-Week Lenten Journey, and many of our guests are contributors to this resource.    Music Credit: Kingdom Come by Aaron Niequist O Sacred Head, Now Wounded from Lent Music in Solitude   Support the podcast! This season, in addition to receiving overflow conversation from the episode, patrons at all levels will receive weekly reflection questions intended to help them journey through Lent with both the podcast and the resource A Just Passion! Become a patron today by visiting our Patreon page!     The Transforming Center exists to create space for God to strengthen leaders and transform communities. You are invited to join our next Transforming Community:® A Two-year Spiritual Formation Experience for Leaders.  Delivered in nine quarterly retreats, this practice-based learning opportunity is grounded in the conviction that the best thing you bring to leadership is your own transforming self!

Im zweiten Teil des Gesprächs mit Inklusionsaktivist, Moderator, Autor und Medienmacher Raúl Krauthausen geht es um ein paar seiner vielen Ideen und Projekte, z.B. die Wheel Map. Außerdem sprechen wir über Wunschvorstellungen und Realitäten und die große Frage, wie und wo Inklusion und Barrierefreiheit zur Realität werden.Alles Wichtige über Raul und seine tolle Arbeit erfährst du auf seiner Website oder auf Instagram.Rauls neues Buch gibt es hier zu kaufen.Alle Infos und die Anmeldung zum Mudraise findest du hier.Den TED-Talk von Gary Haugen findest du hier.Du willst mehr über IJM Deutschland erfahren? Dann melde dich jetzt zum kostenlosen Online-Basiskurs an! https://ijmde.org/basiskursMehr zum Podcast und zur Sendung:Trotz allem auf Instagram: bit.ly/3siQdaF Alles weitere zu unserem Podcast:  http://bit.ly/3bifwC5Mehr zu IJM Deutschland: bit.ly/3i6Q8lTModeration: Marius Maurer (bit.ly/3snUTMi)Schnitt & Redaktion: Mathias Schweikert (www.purpose-stories.de)Musik: Friedrich Rexer (www.friedrichrexer.de) Kontakt: Feedback, Anregungen und Fragen kannst du uns über unseren Instagram-Kanal oder per Mail an podcast@ijm-deutschland.de schicken. Wir freuen uns außerdem über deine Bewertung auf Apple Podcasts oder Spotify.

In dieser Folge begrüßen wir Raul Krauthausen. Er ist Inklusionsaktivist, Moderator, Autor und Medienmacher. Seine zahlreichen Projekte, seine Energie und Lebensfreude laden dazu ein, sich Gedanken rund um das Thema Inklusion zu machen. Eine Folge, die Mut macht und die uns daran erinnert, dass jeder einzelne von uns einen Unterschied machen kann.Alles Wichtige über Raul und seine tolle Arbeit erfährst du auf seiner Website oder auf Instagram.Rauls neues Buch gibt es hier zu kaufen.Den TED-Talk von Gary Haugen findest du hier.Du willst mehr über IJM Deutschland erfahren? Dann melde dich jetzt zum kostenlosen IJM-Newsletter oder unserem Online-Basiskurs an: https://ijmde.org/basiskursMehr zum Podcast und zur Sendung:- Trotz allem auf Instagram: bit.ly/3siQdaF- Alles weitere zu unserem Podcast:  http://bit.ly/3bifwC5- Mehr zu IJM Deutschland: bit.ly/3i6Q8lTModeration: Marius Maurer (bit.ly/3snUTMi)Schnitt & Redaktion: Mathias Schweikert (www.purpose-stories.de)Musik: Friedrich Rexer (www.friedrichrexer.de)Kontakt: Feedback, Anregungen und Fragen kannst du uns über unseren Instagram-Kanal oder per Mail an podcast@ijm-deutschland.de schicken. Wir freuen uns außerdem über deine Bewertung auf Apple Podcasts oder Spotify.

Gary Haugen ist Gründer und CEO von International Justice Mission, der weltweit größten Menschenrechtsorganisation mit dem Schwerpunkt auf die Bekämpfung moderner Sklaverei. Schon als Kind haben ihn Gerechtigkeitsthemen interessiert und er wollte eigentlich Politiker werden. Doch schon bald merkte er, dass ihn das Unrecht, von dem er auf internationaler Ebene etwas mitbekommen hat, mindestens genauso betrifft wie lokale Probleme..Wir sprechen in dieser Folge darüber, wie es dazu kam, dass aus einem Jugendlichen, der in California aufwächst, der Gründer einer der weltweit größten NGOs wird. Außerdem erfahrt ihr, was den Ansatz von IJM so besonders macht, welche Herausforderungen Gary und IJM am Anfang meistern mussten und wo der Weg von IJM bis 2030 hinführen soll..Moderation: Marius Maurer (bit.ly/3snUTMi)Schnitt & Redaktion: Mathias Schweikert (www.purpose-stories.de)Musik: Friedrich Rexer (www.friedrichrexer.de).Mehr zum Podcast und zur Sendung:Trotz allem auf Instagram: bit.ly/3siQdaF Alles weitere zu unserem Podcast:  http://bit.ly/3bifwC5Mehr zu IJM Deutschland: bit.ly/3i6Q8lT.HIER findest du die DEUTSCHE ÜBERSETZUNG.HIER findest du das ENGLISCHE TRANSKRIPT..Neuer englischsprachiger Podcast von IJM: Finding Rubyhttps://fightofmy.life.Du willst IJM-Botschafter:in werden? Dann melde dich jetzt zu einer Starterschulung an!https://ijm-deutschland.de/starterschulung.Kontakt: Feedback, Anregungen und Fragen kannst du uns über unseren Instagram-Kanal oder per Mail an podcast@ijm-deutschland.de schicken. Wir freuen uns außerdem über deine Bewertung auf Apple Podcasts oder Spotify.

Gary Haugen spricht über in der Serie "Gastpredigt".

Gary Haugen discusses the origins and organizational focus of International Justice Mission and reflects on the intersection between Christian faith and global justice.  Gary Haugen is a human rights attorney, author, and the founder of International Justice Mission.

When you first hear Jesus speaking in our passage today, you may be slightly offended. Jesus claims to be our shepherd. Jesus says he is our good shepherd because he knows us by name. He doesn't just lead us, he knows us. He will not leave us or forsake us. He gave his life for us. The hands that stretched out, on the cross of calvary, pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities, are in fact the same hands we've been looking for our whole lives, and when they find us, will never let us go. He is the good shepherd who calls the atheist by name, the Muslim, the Hindu, the Buddhist, and you and me, by name. He invites all of us into his fold, if only we would enter by him. And he knows your name. He lays down his life for you. He holds you. And even death itself cannot take you from his hands. Do you know His voice? Sermon Notes: https://www.bible.com/events/4893026022.08.07

"¿CÓMO RESCATA DIOS LA VIDA DE LOS NECESITADOS DE LAS MANOS DE LOS MALVADOS? CASI SIEMPRE, SIN EXCEPCIÓN, LO HACE POR MEDIO DE QUIENES DECIDIERON OBEDECERLO EN FE Y OBEDIENCIA. DIOS NO NECESITA NUESTRA "AYUDA", PERO QUIERE USARNOS. GARY HAUGEN. MARCOS 13:9-13,22; HECHOS 2:41-47; HECHOS 4:1-3,5-14,16-21; HECHOS 7:51:60; HECHOS 12:1-2. #Especial #Preguntasdificiles #RespuestasBiblicas#ComopuedeserverdadlaFeCristianacuandoloscristianoshancometidotantasinjusticias MINISTERIOS DE CRISTO CON AMOR PARA EL MUNDO. FACEBOOK JUAN FELIPE ORTIZ CASTRO

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION “Oft hope is born when all is forlorn.” ~J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) in The Return of the King “There is no power without prayer, and there is no power in prayer without a resolve to endure all things for the sake of Jesus.” ~Jack Miller (1928-1996), missionary and church leader “I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.” ~Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968), civil rights activist “Jesus beckons me to follow him to that place of weakness where I risk the vulnerability of a child so that I might know how strong my Father is and how much he loves me. But truth be told, I would rather be an adult. I'd rather be in a place where I can still pull things together if God doesn't show up, where I risk no ultimate humiliation, where I don't have to take the shallow breaths of desperation. And as a result, my experience of my heavenly Father is simply impoverished.” ~Gary Haugen, founder of International Justice Mission “Some observers predicted that this new secularism [in America] would ease cultural conflict…. That was naïve. …[I]t's…making America's partisan clashes more brutal…. As Americans have left organized religion, they haven't stopped viewing politics as a struggle between ‘us' and ‘them.' Many have come to define us and them in even more primal and irreconcilable ways.” ~Peter Beinart in “Breaking Faith” in The Atlantic (April 2017) “God's vengeance did not fall on the sinners, but on the only sinless one, the Son of God, who stood in the place of sinners, Jesus Christ bore the vengeance of God…That was the end of all false thoughts about the love of a God who does not take sin very seriously. God hates and judges [his enemies] in the only righteous one, the one who prays for forgiveness for God's enemies. Only in the cross of Jesus Christ is the love of God to be found.” ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), German theologian and pastor, executed for his opposition to Hitler SERMON PASSAGE Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11 (ESV) 1 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. 2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins. 3 A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 4 Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. 5 And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” 9 Go on up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news; lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!” 10 Behold, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. 11 He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.

Human trafficking is really important for me to talk about on here but even more so it is this: OUR GOD IS A GOD OF JUSTICE AND MERCY. The spectrum of justice does vary and we do not all have the same role which is why I like this conversation so much. As Naomi points out, it is not only what we DO but what we DON'T do that can be just as important. Naomi answers... Back to Basics: Why do you think our participation in justice matters to God? How would you encourage us to get our hands dirty/boots on the ground and participate where we can? You have a social enterprise. Can you explain what that is? Naomi Holland is a pastor's wife, mother of a 13 and 9 year old  with a BA, major Development Studies. She worked 18 years for a frontline recovery organization in Canada & Nepal. Two of those years she was the house mom in a recovery home. In two years I had over 40 roommates, all women who had been able to flee a the sex trade - in Calgary!  She accidentally started Redeemed with Purpose 4 years ago, redeeming old belts into cuffs and it has turned into a full jewelry line. To date, with the help of our customers and storefront partners, we have given away over $23,500.00  https://mailchi.mp/2e75bb77a26e/advent-planning-workbook-faithschool (DOWNLOAD THE ADVENT PLANNER) Resources: https://player.captivate.fm/episode/e1e26f78-ffcb-41bf-a0de-cf54fef69417 (Advocacy + Ending Slavery with IJM's Anu George Canjanathoppil) https://player.captivate.fm/episode/a2633e3c-c554-4fd1-8fea-b9e864e55fb6 (Why We've Been Failing the Battle Against Pornography and How the Church Can Step Up Rosie Makinney) https://podtail.com/en/podcast/justice-the-inner-life-podcast/episode-3-gary-haugen/ (Justice & The Inner Life Podcast Episode 3: Gary Haugen) http://protectyoungeyes.com (protectyoungeyes.com) https://fightthenewdrug.org/ (fightthenewdrug.com) https://choosechangecanada.org/ (choosechangecanada.org) https://redeemedwithpurpose.com/ (Redeemed with Purpose) Discount Code for 15% off: LeahR Connect with Naomi: IG: http://instagram.com/redeemedwithpurpose (@redeemedwithpurpose) http://redeemedwithpurpose.com (redeemedwithpurpose.com) Connect with Leah: IG: https://www.instagram.com/leah.rempel/ (@leah.rempel) FB: https://www.facebook.com/groups/4075541105853974 (Intentional Women of Faith) Merch Shop: https://www.redbubble.com/people/leahrempel/shop?asc=u (RedBubble Shop) Template Shop: https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/I68Shop?ref=seller-platform-mcnav (I:68 Shop)

International Justice Mission founder and CEO Gary Haugen joins us to celebrate that Menlo Church has donated $1 million over 17 years to the global organization, which protects people in poverty from violence. For the past 24 years, International Justice Mission has fought human trafficking, uncovering civil rights abuses in Thailand, Ghana, Cambodia and beyond. This talk will be a true testimony of faith and generosity, and how those lead to joy. Join us to protect those living in poverty from violence. Sign up to connect with an IJM staff member to make this vision a reality: http://www.ijm.org/menlo Throughout November and December, join us to offer meals, support people in need, and help make wishes come true! There will be opportunities for all ages, skill levels, and interests. We can't wait to build a strong community by serving together. Register here: http://menlo.church/serveyourcity This month, we invite you to give to our Thanksgiving Offering, which will support Serve Your City events and mission initiatives in the Bay Area throughout 2022. If you would like to ensure we can continue to support our neighbors in need in this next year, we invite you to give to the Thanksgiving Offering today. Visit our website http://menlo.church/give to partner with us this holiday season. Find a sermon-based study guide for this week: http://menlo.church/studyguide112121

with guest Pastor Jeremy Cook of Sherwood Park Alliance Church. When it comes to “missions” or helping overseas, the loaded words “mutual transformation” are often thrown around. But what does this idea actually look like in practice? In this episode, Jeremy Cook, Senior Associate Pastor from Sherwood Park Alliance Church, has an answer for you. After nine years of partnership with FH, Jeremy shares personal life-changing stories about walking alongside a community in Burundi. From a prayerful encounter in his sponsor child's home, to a simple ask to sing together that led to a worship experience that united people across cultures. The amazing thing is, these stories aren't just about the transformation of the community in Burundi, they're also about the transformation of lives right here in Canada. Recommended Reading: https://www.amazon.ca/Locust-Effect-Poverty-Requires-Violence/dp/0199937877 (The Locus Effect) by Gary Haugen and Victor Boutros Episode hosted by Shelaine and Eric. Support this podcast

"At the end of the day, what matters? Not so much the skills and qualifications that you may have - although God will use those - but that God is with you where you're going. That's always been an encouragement to me." Gary Haugen, founder of the International Justice Mission, joins Rich Stearns today to discuss what it means to find and pursue your purpose, even when others don't necessarily see the point. Learn more about the International Justice Mission here, and you can buy Rich Stearns' new book Lead Like it Matters to God now.

I heard it said, "Joy is the oxygen to do hard things." by Gary Haugen. How planning a post pandemic party could give you the strength you need to put your life back together. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/amanda-fisher61/message

Adam LaRoche played 12 seasons in the Major Leagues with the Braves, Pirates, Red Sox, Diamondbacks, Nationals and White Sox.  He was selected in the 29th round of the 2000 MLB Draft by the Braves and four years later, made his MLB debut on April 7, 2004 against the Mets.  During his career, he accumulated 255 career home runs and 1,452 hits. In 2012, he was the Gold Glove and Silver Slugger winner at first base in a season that saw him hit a career-high 33 home runs and 100 RBI.  Since retirement in 2016, Adam is staying busy as a co-owner of Buck Commander with Chipper Jones, Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean and Willie Robertson. He's also in law enforcement, having went to Police Academy to be deputized in Ft Scott, Kansas.  Today on the podcast, we talk to Adam about his greatest hunting experience, retiring abruptly in 2016, the importance of being with a community of men and why he has a heart for combatting human trafficking. ...... If you enjoyed this episode with Adam, we know you'll love these conversations as well: Episode 66: Adam LaRoche and Gary Haugen on Human Trafficking Episode 554: Phil Robertson - Duck Commander Founder Episode 63: Francis Chan and Adam Wainwright   .....     Episode 576

To do justice is to do what is right for someone else. Q: Can you recap the stories of I Sam. 20:1-4 and John 11? The ABCDEs of responding to injustice. Acknowledge and lament. Q: Why would Jonathon's dismissal of David's plea for help (at first) be so painful? Q: Is there an injustice you've dismissed too quickly? Begin learning. Q: In what area should you learn through reading and relationships? Care for their whole being. Q: In what ways does HP care for people… …Physically? …Emotionally? …Spiritually? Discern what you should do. a. Am I called to engage? b. Is God providing me with the means, resources, gifting? c. Have I sought God's guidance? d. Have I sought wise counsel? e. Are my heart and head in the right place? Do I need the credit or glory or spotlight? f. With whom will I partner? Engage. Q: Engaging may mean you defend others. Whom might God be calling you to defend? How can you do so in a way that honors Jesus? Andy Stanley says, “Do for the one what you wish you could do for everyone.” Wade Landers says, “God always tells you to start with what's right in front of you. If he wants to expand that, he will.” All of this wrapped in prayer, in humility and prayer. The amazing thing about Jesus is that he entered into an unjust world. And he died for unjust people – people like you and me. Q: Is there a way that you can serve a family in need this semester? Extra: Want to explore another chapter with lots of “injustice” application? Read II Samuel 12. Resources Whose Justice? Which Rationality? by Alasdair MacIntyre Welcoming the Stranger: Justice, Compassion & Truth in the Immigration Debate by Jenny Yang and Matthew Soerens (If you want to learn about immigration, start here.) When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert (foundational book for our Food Pantry) Deep Justice in a Broken World by Chap Clark and Kara Powell (Biblically rich book designed for student ministries) Let Justice Roll Down by John Perkins Good News About Injustice by Gary Haugen (founder of International Justice Mission) Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help (And How to Reverse It) by Robert D. Lupton Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice in Troubled Times by Soong-Chan Rah

HIGHLAND PARK CHRISTIAN CHURCH Tough Questions: What does the Bible say about Justice? August 23, 2020 Sermon notes and discussion questions Q: “What's the first thing you think about when you hear the word justice?” Does God care about justice? God cares a ton about justice because he loves people more than we can imagine. Q: Read Matthew 23:23. How does this apply in our day? How does the Bible define justice? To do justice is to do what is right for someone else. Q: What is the connection between righteousness and justice. 5 principles of Biblical Justice All resources belong to God. I can't claim what's in my pocket, nor can I claim what's in yours. A lot of the Proverbs can be summarized to tell us that the wicked person takes advantage of others for his own gain, but a Godly person disadvantages themselves for another person's gain. All people are created in the image of God. Lev. 24:22 – “You are to have the same law for the foreigner as for the native born.” Q: What unlikely people did Jesus affirm? I have some responsibility for the sins of others. Dan. 9, Josh. 7, Numbers 16, I Sam. 15, Dt. 23 teach it. I'm fully responsible for my sin, but only partially for my outcomes. If I'm wealthy, it's not all because of my good. If I'm hurting, it's not all because of my bad. I'm responsible to act. God commands us over and over to show special concern for the poor and marginalized. Prov. 31:8-9 “Speak up for those who can't speak up for themselves. Defend the rights of the poor and the needy.” Q: When was a time that someone spoke up for you? Q: Will you take the time to read Deuteronomy. 23:15 through ch. 25? What fuels injustice? Fear (Exodus 1 and Matthew 2) Prejudice (John 4). Greed (I Kings 21) Ignorance (Matthew 25) About the Bible About the plight of others Apathy (Matthew 20) Why is Biblical justice the best solution? Q: Why do attempts at justice without God always fall short? 2 Don'ts: Don't chase a form of justice without God. Don't dismiss Biblical justice because you see the faults in secular justice. Q: What did you learn about Biblical justice? Q: Why does God speak so much about justice? Q: Will you pray about these matters? Resources Whose Justice? Which Rationality? by Alasdair MacIntyre When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert (foundational book for our Food Pantry) Deep Justice in a Broken World by Chap Clark and Kara Powell (Biblically rich book designed for student ministries) Let Justice Roll Down by John Perkins Good News About Injustice by Gary Haugen (founder of International Justice Mission) Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help (And How to Reverse It) by Robert D. Lupton Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice in Troubled Times by Soong-Chan Rah I leaned heavily on Tim Keller's research. I was pleased to hear so many trusted friends in the justice world recommend it to me. https://quarterly.gospelinlife.com/a-biblical-critique-of-secular-justice-and-critical-theory/ I highly recommend “The New Activist” podcast, produced by International Justice Mission. They've become faithful partners with Blackbox International.

Friday 31st July 2020 Arena: Evening Celebration with Gary Haugen Certain purpose in an uncertain world. The world may be shaking, but as followers of Jesus, this is a moment to lean into our identity and lock in our purpose. Gary Haugen, founder of International Justice Mission (IJM), helps us explore how we find our redemptive purpose in a fallen world, starting with small steps of love.

In this episode of the 5 Leadership Questions podcast, Todd Adkins and Chandler Vannoy are joined by Philip Langford, president of IJM. They discuss how churches can work with IJM through Freedom Sunday and about leading through crisis. BEST QUOTES "We are all about protecting the poor from violence.""IJM is embarking on this 2030 vision where we actually picture getting to this place where a half billion of the world's poorest and most vulnerable to violence are actually safe and protected and able to grow up into the lives that God imagined for them.""We lead out of who we are on the inside.""A crisis of this scale always affects the poor most profoundly, so in a nutshell we are seeing violence and vulnerability increase everywhere we work around the world.""What has been really profound about these days is there is a way in which this pandemic has brought to light the more hidden pandemic of violence that affects the poor every day.""Necessity is the mother of invention and we are actually seeing amazing innovations, particularly the use of technology to speed up prosecutions of traffickers.""We've been able to lead many of our government and other partners to begin to take on some of these more virtual means that are actually making things more efficient.""Our mission with Jesus is fundamentally the same, and this is not the time to hunker down, but actually to move out in generosity.""You are the beloved son of the Most High, the heir of the King, and he loves you and what you are trying to do and let that be the source of strength and courage for you.""Recognize the voice of shame which I think is the enemy's favorite tool.""Longing and desire, uniquely given by God, is that engine for vision, creativity, curiosity, and imagination, that is so critical to actually walking with Jesus and the things He is trying to fix." RECOMMENDED RESOURCES LifeWay Leadership Podcast Network LifeWay.com/CoronaVirus IJM Just Courage by Gary Haugen

With the current political Justice situation going on in the USA, it is good to take a global perspective that might be different.  Matt Zappasodi and Justin Masterson (MLB) talk with Susan Umlor (IJM) to learn about Modern Slavery, and what we can do about it. Matt's favorite quote from Susan: "...figure out that thing, that lights you up, that you can give your life too..." (41:00) Matt's favorite quote from Justin: "...Let's bash down some doors..." (19:57) Gary Haugen's Book: The Locust Effect International Justice Mission is a worldwide organization that is all about Freedom! Check out their website for more info. ijm.org

Certain people decide to make other people's pain their own. Gary Haugen, founder and CEO of International Justice Mission, is one of those people. In this episode, Kate and Gary talk about how even in the darkest places, joy and goodness can be found. CW: First hand account of Rwandan GenocideFor show notes, the transcript, and discussion questions: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/gary-haugen-joy-is-the-oxygen/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Certain people decide to make other people's pain their own. Gary Haugen, founder and CEO of International Justice Mission, is one of those people. In this episode, Kate and Gary talk about how even in the darkest places, joy and goodness can be found. 

This weekend, we welcomed the CEO and founder of the International Justice Mission, Gary Haugen. He brought an amazing message about what to do when the will of God feels scary. Listen today if you missed it!

Guest Preacher: Gary Haugen

This week, we welcome Gary Haugen, founder and CEO of International Justice Mission. Gary discusses the heartbreaking realities of modern-day slavery, as well as the hope and potential to eradicate it as we step into the Dignity of Responsibility.

Join us this Freedom Sunday to hear from Gary Haugen, CEO of International Justice Mission, on how we can do what Jesus does, and participate in the work to end slavery. Teacher: Gary Haugen Series: Mark: Drop Everything Tags: Freedom, IJM, Sex trafficking, Slavery Scripture: The post Mark: Drop Everything; Freedom Sunday, Gary Haugen (9/22/2019) appeared first on Rockharbor.

It’s time for corporations, businesses, and consumers to wise up about how supply chains play a role in human trafficking around the world. While there are more slaves today than ever, Gary Haugen, CEO and founder of International Justice Mission, shares a game plan to stop it. In this critical interview, hear how IJM is partnering with giants like Walmart and Target to clean up supply chains so they don’t facilitate human trafficking. You’ll also hear how “story” is fueling those efforts. If you’re a nonprofit or business owner, you don’t want to miss it.

In this episode of the 5 Leadership Questions podcast, Daniel Im is joined by Gary Haugen, CEO and founder of International Justice Mission and author of Good News About Injustice and The Locust Effect. During their conversation, they discuss focusing on God through prayer while working on His mission and the realities of slavery in today's world. BEST QUOTES "If what the common poor person was facing was violence, there wasn't a Christian ministry addressing that.""IJM started as a response to that biblical call to care for the poor and to seek justice and to make sure there was a vehicle by which Christians could be loving their neighbors who were victimized by violent abuse and oppression.""There are more people in slavery today than in any other time in human history.""After the first 7 years, we started to sense that God wanted to pour more of His presence and power out among us, but that we weren't really spiritually prepared to receive it.""If we don't have a work that we are engaged in that has us running to God in prayer, it might suggest that we have found some cozy cul-de-sac of work that is a bit more tame than God would intend.""If this is God's work and ministry, why wouldn't we be talking to Him about it throughout the day?""Protecting the poor from violence is God's weight and we are going to do it Jesus' way.""Most of my challenges and weaknesses in my spiritual life don't come from what I don't know about the Scriptures, it's what I don't act upon.""Don't seek to lead. Seek to serve, and people might ask you to lead if you serve well." RECOMMENDED RESOURCES LifeWay Leadership Podcast Network International Justice Mission Good News About Injustice by Gary Haugen The Locust Effect by Gary Haugen The Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin Leadership in Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership by Ruth Haley Barton This Episode's Sponsor: The Overcomer movie has inspired the creation of several resources. For small groups, there is the Overcomer Bible study. For individuals, there is a book called Defined. Both are based upon powerful insights from the Book of Ephesians. Learn more about all the resources at LifeWay.com/Overcomer

Victor Boutros is the CEO and Founding Director of the Human Trafficking Institute and co-author with Gary Haugen of The Locust Effect: Why the End of Poverty Requires the End of Violence, a book published by Oxford University Press in 2014. Drawing on real-world cases and extensive scholarship, The Locust Effect paints a vivid portrait of the way fractured criminal justice systems in developing countries have spawned a hidden epidemic of modern-day slavery and everyday violence that is undermining vital investments in poverty alleviation, public health, and human rights. A critically acclaimed work of thought-leadership, The Locust Effect is a Washington Post bestseller that has been featured by the New York Times, The Economist, NPR, the Today Show, Forbes, TED, and the BBC, among others. For their work on The Locust Effect, Boutros and Haugen received the 2016 Grawemeyer Prize for Ideas Improving World Order, a literary prize awarded annually to the authors of one book based on originality, feasibility, and potential for global impact. Boutros previously served as a federal prosecutor who investigated and tried international human trafficking cases of national significance around the country on behalf of the United States Department of Justice’s Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit. He has taught human trafficking at the FBI Academy in Quantico, trained law enforcement professionals in the United States and other countries on how to investigate and prosecute human trafficking, and taught trial advocacy to lawyers from Latin America, South and Southeast Asia, and Africa. Prior to his work with the Justice Department, Boutros spent time on similar issues in the developing world. He has worked on improving prison conditions in Ecuador, documented bonded slaves in India, and worked on human trafficking issues as a visiting lawyer with the National Prosecuting Authority of South Africa. Boutros is a graduate of Baylor University, Harvard University, Oxford University, and the University of Chicago Law School, where he was as an editor of the University of Chicago Law Review and received a grant to research human trafficking as a Human Rights Research Fellow. He has written on foreign affairs and human rights, including a feature article in Foreign Affairs and a piece co-authored with US Trafficking in Persons Ambassador John Richmond in the AntiTrafficking Review, and developed and taught a course on human rights, human trafficking, and rule of law in the developing world at the University of Chicago Law School. Boutros speaks to corporate leaders, universities, and think tanks on human trafficking, and has provided briefings to senior government leaders on human trafficking, including legislators, congressional committees, and the President of the United States. Learn more: https://www.traffickinginstitute.org

Today, Lead Pastor John Hampton will continues with our series called Say Yes!. Today we will be discussing what is offering up to God.We will be taking a journey through some scriptures Our special guest speaker this weekend is Gary Haugen from the international Justice Mission which is the largest anti-slavery organization in the world. Slavery still exists and we want to be a part of ending slavery in our lifetime. Join us as we have Gary talk about this mission and hear how we can play a role of saying yes to freedom!

Gary Haugen, president and CEO of International Justice Mission and author of The Locust Effect, talks about the significance of taking justice seriously if we truly want to see an end to poverty.

Today, Brian and Ian unpack the article about the years of cover-up within the Southern Baptist church community. Boz Tchividjian weighs in on the matter as well and how churches can protect against these tragedies hurting children within. Plus answering the question are cool churches overrated? Later, taking a look at Gary Haugen's speech at the National Prayer Breakfast tackling what to do when you stop liking your church, and John MacArthur celebrating his 50th anniversary at his church. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As founder of International Justice Mission, Gary Haugen fights the chronically neglected global epidemic of violence against the poor. While a member of the 1994 United Nations team investigating war crimes in Rwanda, Gary Haugen’s eyes were opened to the appalling extent of violence in the developing world. Upon his return to the US, he founded International Justice Mission, an organization devoted to rescuing victims of global violence including trafficking and slavery. Today, IJM is responsible for rescuing more than 45,000 people from slavery and other forms of violence and helped local authorities arrest more than 3,500 suspected slave owners and other criminals. Gary has been recognized by the U.S. State Department as a Trafficking in Persons “Hero” – the highest honor given by the U.S. government for anti-slavery leadership. His work to protect the poor from violence has been featured by Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, the New Yorker, Forbes, the Guardian, and NPR.  He is the author of several books, including Good News About Injustice and, most recently, The Locust Effect: Why the End of Poverty Requires the End of Violence. In this conversation, Branden and Gary go behind the curtain and dive deep into the story International Justice Mission, lean into the power of systems that care for the individual, and explore the idea that joy is the oxygen behind doing hard things. soundsgoodpodcast.com/gary

Gary Haugen is the CEO of the International Justice Mission, a global organization that protects the poor from violence throughout the developing world, not only rescuing victims, but bringing criminals to justice, restoring survivors, and strengthening justice systems. Gary shares stories about how acting for justice on the behalf of those who don’t have a voice is a beautiful and stirring way to bring God’s Kingdom here to Earth.

Every day, countless people are sold into slavery, as slave owners make a profit from their misery. From human trafficking to child labor to sex trafficking, there are over 40+ million in slavery today. On this Freedom Sunday, Rusty sits down with the CEO of International Justice Mission (http://www.ijm.org/), Gary Haugen, to talk about the current state of modern-day slavery and what we can do about it.

From investigating the genocide in Rwanda to becoming the founder and CEO of International Justice Mission (IJM), the world's largest organization dedicated to ending slavery, Gary Haugen know what it means to be courageous. This week, Jessica and Gary chat about what it looks like to stare down fear and take bold steps no matter the consequences. Also, this week begins a special series of shows where Jessica takes us through the themes of her brand new book, “Imperfect Courage,” one chapter at a time! Show Notes
 -Order Imperfect Courage now & get Pre-Order Perks! -Go to www.JessicaHonegger.com for updated info on her book tour, podcast, etc. -IJM’s Liberate Gathering (Promo code NOONDAY) Jessica's Social Instagram Facebook Twitter Linkedin  

Slavery still exists in the world and Gary Haugen of IJM says the church isn't doing enough to stop it.

What is compassion fatigue? Gary Haugen with International Justice Mission (IJM) and Todd Wagner answer that question on this week's episode.

Gary Haugen

Gary Haugen

Gary Haugen is an American attorney who is the Founder, CEO and former President of International Justice Mission, a global organization that protects the poor from violence throughout the developing world.

Gary Haugen is an American attorney who is the Founder, CEO and former President of International Justice Mission, a global organization that protects the poor from violence throughout the developing world.

In a world with so many evils, how are people supposed to know that God is good? That's where we come in. In this message, we hear from Gary Haugen about modern-day slavery and how we can seek justice until all are free. It's very clear throughout the Bible that God is passionate about justice. The question is, are we passionate about what God is passionate about?

In a world with so many evils, how are people supposed to know that God is good? That's where we come in. In this message, we hear from Gary Haugen about modern-day slavery and how we can seek justice until all are free. It's very clear throughout the Bible that God is passionate about justice. The question is, are we passionate about what God is passionate about?

In a world with so many evils, how are people supposed to know that God is good? That's where we come in. In this message, we hear from Gary Haugen about modern-day slavery and how we can seek justice until all are free. It’s very clear throughout the Bible that God is passionate about justice. The question is, are we passionate about what God is passionate about?

In a world with so many evils, how are people supposed to know that God is good? That's where we come in. In this message, we hear from Gary Haugen about modern-day slavery and how we can seek justice until all are free. It's very clear throughout the Bible that God is passionate about justice. The question is, are we passionate about what God is passionate about?

In a world with so many evils, how are people supposed to know that God is good? That's where we come in. In this message, we hear from Gary Haugen about modern-day slavery and how we can seek justice until all are free. It’s very clear throughout the Bible that God is passionate about justice. The question is, are we passionate about what God is passionate about?

Do you remember when you were first given the dignity of responsibility? Gary Haugen—founder and CEO of International Justice Mission (IJM)—teaches us how we have all been given the dignity of responsibility from God, as we do His work in His world. God has us in an utterly unique moment in history, fighting against the most iconic evil in the human story: slavery.

Do you remember when you were first given the dignity of responsibility? Gary Haugen—founder and CEO of International Justice Mission (IJM)—teaches us how we have all been given the dignity of responsibility from God, as we do His work in His world. God has us in an utterly unique moment in history, fighting against the most iconic evil in the human story: slavery.

Do you remember when you were first given the dignity of responsibility? Gary Haugen—founder and CEO of International Justice Mission (IJM)—teaches us how we have all been given the dignity of responsibility from God, as we do His work in His world. God has us in an utterly unique moment in history, fighting against the most iconic evil in the human story: slavery.

Do you remember when you were first given the dignity of responsibility? Gary Haugen—founder and CEO of International Justice Mission (IJM)—teaches us how we have all been given the dignity of responsibility from God, as we do His work in His world. God has us in an utterly unique moment in history, fighting against the most iconic evil in the human story: slavery.

Gary Haugen, founder and CEO of International Justice Mission (IJM), reflects on his work in Rwanda, the beginnings of IJM, and the ways Christian spiritual formation naturally leads to working on behalf of the suffering and poor. Note: This conversation contains explicit descriptions of sexual and physical violence that may not be suitable for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. For more resources for a deeply formed spiritual life, visit Fuller.edu/Studio.

SHOW NOTES Sheeba Philip has built a career around building and transforming global, iconic brands. She was recently the Vice President of Marketing Strategy & Communications for one of America’s most well-known retailers, JCPenney.  She was a critical member of the turnaround team and was responsible for brand strategy and building relevance and deeper engagement with customers. Her responsibilities include oversight of all media buying/planning, advertising/communications planning, PR, digital/social media & cause marketing.  Sheeba and her team recently led the launch of JC Penney’s new brand platform & campaign – Get your Penney’s Worth. Sheeba has also spent ten years in brand management at both Mondelēz International and Kraft Foods across global snacking, beverage, and dessert categories. She assumed the role of Global Marketing Director for the World’s #1 Cookie, Oreo, a $2 billion+ brand present in over 100 countries. She was responsible for global expansion strategies, advertising campaigns, and marketing/product innovation. During her tenure, she also led and managed multi-million dollar, iconic brands such as Ritz and Jell-O. Prior to joining JCPenney, Sheeba also served as VP of Marketing & Communications for International Justice Mission (IJM), the largest anti-slavery/anti-trafficking organization in the world.   She spearheaded the launch of the book, The Locust Effect, written by Gary Haugen, Founder & CEO of IJM.  The Book was named a Washington Post Best Seller and featured at the World Economic Forum. Listen and Learn: Why you need to research the customer journey. How to use digital media to drive your marketing message. Why your marketing focus needs to be your most compelling tactic. Discover what to say and what not to say when developing your message. Why you need to know who your audience is and how they consume media. TO FIND SHEEBA ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.  

Adam LaRoche played 12 seasons in the Majors with 6 different teams, most notably the Pirates and the Nationals, where he won a Gold Glove and Silver Slugger Award in 2012.  LaRoche abruptly retired from baseball in March 2016 after his club, the White Sox had placed a restriction on his 14-year-old son entering the team's clubhouse every day. By retiring, LaRoche walked away from a $13 million contract.  Adam's platform has allowed him to bring to light the issue of sex slavery and human trafficking.  Gary Haugen is the founder and CEO of International Justice Mission, who's mission is to rescue those enslaved in human trafficking, protect them from violence and bring hope and justice for the poor.  Before founding IJM in 1997, Gary was a human rights attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, where he focused on crimes of police misconduct.  In 1994, he served as the Director of the United Nations’ investigation in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide. In this role, he led an international team of lawyers, criminal prosecutors, law enforcement officers, and forensics experts to gather evidence that would eventually be used to bring the perpetrators of the genocide to justice.  Gary has been recognized by the U.S. State Department as a Trafficking in Persons “Hero” – the highest honor given by the U.S. government for anti-slavery leadership. His work to protect the poor from violence has been featured by Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, the New Yorker, The Times of India, Forbes, U.S. News and World Report, the Guardian and National Public Radio, among many other outlets.   On this episode of the podcast, Jason Romano sits down with Gary and Adam in front of a live audience at a conference in San Antonio, Texas to talk about the real issue of human trafficking and sex slavery.  For more, log on to http://SportsSpectrum.com  

Gary Haugen is the founder and CEO of the world's largest anti-slavery organization - International Justice Mission. Today on The New Activist, Gary gives us a revealing portrait of his life and the experiences that drove him to be a crusader for freedom. Contest! Bring The New Activist to your hometown - click here. --- The New Activist is a joint production of The RELEVANT Podcast Network and International Justice Mission.

In this episode, Gary Haugen, CEO, and founder of International Justice Mission shares disciplines and habits that he and the entire IJM organization practice together.

The panel "Violence and Justice: The Missing Piece in Our Anti-Poverty Agenda," was part of HDS's bicentennial celebration on April 28, 2017. The panel was moderated by Jeffrey D. Sachs, world-renowned professor of economics, leader in sustainable development, senior UN advisor, bestselling author, and syndicated columnist. The panelists were Gary Haugen, CEO of the International Justice Mission and author, Danielle Allen, James Bryant Conant University Professor and director, Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, and Sheryl WuDunn, co-author of "A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunity" and "Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide." Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.

Sermon preached at RUF Large Group on April 4, 2017. If we are to move out of the salt shaker and into the world, "we need to come to grips with the notion that the world we are sent into as salt and light is a world that needs [both] because, among other things, it is full of corruption and the darkness of injustice" (Gary Haugen, founder of IJM). Not only do we need this awareness, we need courage. Our courage is going to come from two places: 1) the conviction that God loves justice and hates injustice, and 2) the conviction that we are not alone in our fight against injustice.

In December Congress passed the End Modern Slavery Initiative, an enormous step in the fight to end modern slavery around the world. The initiative's author and primary champion was our very own U.S. Senator Bob Corker. In this brief interview we discuss a bit about his time in Chattanooga serving as mayor, time in the Senate, and then spend the rest of the conversation talking about his passion for this new initiative that he has been passionate about. Referenced in this episode & other links: Senator Corker's EMSI page - http://bit.ly/2iVaizD End Modern Slavery Initiative Act - http://bit.ly/2jk3FdQ International Justice Mission - https://ijm.org/ Human Trafficking in TN - http://bit.ly/2jwvI6Z Chattanooga Organizations: Second Life - http://bit.ly/2itbc5u 7th Well - http://bit.ly/2ixWDAU

Gary Haugen is CEO and founder of International Justice Mission. Before founding IJM in 1997, Gary was a human rights attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, where he focused on crimes of police misconduct. In 1994, he served as the Director of the United Nations' investigation in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide. In this role, he led an international team of lawyers, criminal prosecutors, law enforcement officers, and forensic experts to gather evidence that would eventually be used to bring the perpetrators of the genocide to justice. Gary received a B.A. in Social Studies from Harvard University and a J.D. from the University of Chicago. Gary has been recognized by the U.S. State Department as a Trafficking in Persons "Hero" - the highest honor given by the U.S. government for anti-slavery leadership. His work to protect the poor from violence has been featured by Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, the New Yorker, The Times of India, Forbes, U.S. News & World Report, the Guardian and National Public Radio, among many other outlets. He is the author of several books, including Good News About Injustice; Just Courage; and, most recently, The Locust Effect: Why the End of Poverty Requires the End of Violence.

We live in a world filled with people in need; people facing difficulties such as hunger, poverty, educational needs, advocacy, injustice! One very simple way to serve people is to meet these needs with a Gospel focus. In this episode, Kenny interviews pastor, author, professor Tony Merida about the importance of "mercy ministry." In the interview Tony challenges all "ordinary" people to change the world by meeting the needs of others; both here in the USA as well as abroad and across the globe. Tony Merida is the founding pastor of Imago Dei Church in Raleigh, NC. He also serves as Associate Professor of Preaching at Southeastern Baptist Seminary in Wake Forest, NC. He is the author of several books including his most recent book Ordinary: How to Turn the World Upside Down and eight volumes in the new Christ-Centered Exposition commentary series (B&H), of which Tony also serves as a general editor, along with Danny Akin and David Platt. Tony Merida is happily married to his wife Kimberly; they have five adopted children. Visit Tony's website: TonyMerida.net Follow Tony on Twitter: @tonymerida Recommended Resources:  Generous Justice (by Timothy Keller) Orphanology (by Tony Merida and Rick Morton) Ordinary (by Tony Merida) Ministries of Mercy (by Timothy Keller) The Locust Effect (by Gary Haugen)  

The Legatum Institute hosted the International Justice Mission (IJM) for a discussion and pre-launch of a new book authored by Gary Haugen, Founder and CEO of IJM, and Victor Boutros, Federal Prosecutor for the US Department of Justice. Speakers included Gary Haugen and Kevin Bales, lead author of the Global Slavery Index and Co-Founder and former President of Free the Slaves. The discussion was moderated by the Legatum Institute's Director of the Transitions Forum, Anne Applebaum.

The world's poorest communities face many obstacles on the road out of poverty: insufficient food and clean water, limited access to healthcare, education and employment, among many others. These shortcomings are often addressed through international aid or development projects and while some progress has been made, a major obstacle remains—everyday violence. According to Gary Haugen, aid and development efforts cannot succeed in the face of corrupt police forces, organized criminals and failed justice systems. As long as the global poor must fight against common violence in addition to the other challenges they face, their circumstances will not improve. Haugen argues lasting results can be achieved through grassroots efforts to reform justice systems and stem corruption. He will discuss the connection between poverty and violence and share stories from his work in the field.Gary Haugen is the President and CEO of International Justice Mission, and Lecturer at University of Chicago Law School.For more information about this event please visit: http://www.worldaffairs.org/events/event/1214

Charles Lee talks to John Ortberg about leadership and his book, Who Is This Man? And Ken Coleman sits down with Gary Haugen and Pranitha Timothy from International Justice Mission. Both interviews from Catalyst West.

Message given by Gary Haugen of IJM

Ken sits down with Gary Haugen, President and CEO of International Justice Mission, backstage at Catalyst Dallas. Jon Acuff interviews Margaret Feinberg, author of new book Hungry for God, and Ken is joined in the podcast room by Chad Johnson to share Early Bird Registration deadlines for Catalyst Atlanta.

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to digicomm@uchicago.edu. The University of Chicago Law School is proud to welcome Gary Haugen '91 for the 2010 Ulysses and Marguerite Schwarz Memorial Lecture. The Schwartz Lectureship is held by a distinguished lawyer or teacher whose experience is in the academic field or practice of public service. Haugen is President and CEO of International Justice Mission, a human rights organization with operations in 12 countries. The Schwartz Lecture will take place Thursday, February 18 at 4:00 p.m. in the Weymouth Kirkland Courtroom.Haugen's lecture, entitled "A New Mandate for Human Rights: Why a Half Century of Human Rights Activism and International Development is Failing the Poor, and What Can Be Done about It," will probe why significant contributions by the international development and modern human rights movements have failed to establish a platform of basic rule of law in the developing world.

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to digicomm@uchicago.edu. The University of Chicago Law School is proud to welcome Gary Haugen '91 for the 2010 Ulysses and Marguerite Schwarz Memorial Lecture. The Schwartz Lectureship is held by a distinguished lawyer or teacher whose experience is in the academic field or practice of public service. Haugen is President and CEO of International Justice Mission, a human rights organization with operations in 12 countries. The Schwartz Lecture will take place Thursday, February 18 at 4:00 p.m. in the Weymouth Kirkland Courtroom.Haugen's lecture, entitled "A New Mandate for Human Rights: Why a Half Century of Human Rights Activism and International Development is Failing the Poor, and What Can Be Done about It," will probe why significant contributions by the international development and modern human rights movements have failed to establish a platform of basic rule of law in the developing world.

Gary Haugen discusses how prayer has been the foundation for the work of International Justice Mission.