Our Story
What went wrong?
War. Genocide. Sex Trafficking. Radical economic disparity. Extreme Poverty. Malnutrition. Homelessness. We seek to insulate ourselves by choosing to escape the onslaught of this world’s brokenness. We stop watching the news or we filter our internet intake, but as vigilant as we are at avoiding and ignoring the pain, it ultimately crashes upon us with tsunami-like-force.
And so, we explain away the tragic with philosophical nihilism, posturing an attitude of Que Sera Sera (“what will be will be”), or we explain it away with scientific materialism, as the normal outcropping of the natural selection process. Yet, we all live as if it is better to seek peace instead of war, to care and nurture rather than to destroy, and to tell the truth instead of lying. Our quest is for meaning that transcends the infinitesimally brief spark of human existence as it relates to the oceans of dead time that precede and follow it.
The Bible grounds this quest for meaning in fellowship with God. It storyboards this relationship as a four-part drama: Creation, Brokenness, Redemption, and Restoration. What God brought through creation was good, beautiful, and true. Our relationships were perfectly intimate as our sense of value, identity and security rested squarely upon the primary relationship we enjoyed with our Creator. This sense of balance, wholeness, inter-connectedness, and “inter-wovenness” could be called God’s Tapestry of Shalom (the Hebrew word for Peace). Christian philosopher, Cornelius Plantinga, defines Shalom as, “The webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in equity, fulfillment, and delight.”
Yet, as the story of Adam and Eve in the garden goes, it was a groping for the forbidden fruit, an illicit reach for autonomy, that was to be our demise. We shirked relationship with God, and thus, our relationship and consequently, the world, was broken. Brokenness. Frays. Fractures. Fragments. Tarnish. Rust. Isolation. Inequity. Fear. Lust for power. The Tapestry of Shalom (God’s peace) was shredded and we lost this sense of balance, wholeness, inter-connectedness, and “inter-wovenness.”
As the Bible reaches its conclusion, there is a promise of the restoration of God’s Shalom, as Jesus, the Chosen One, the only one worthy enough as God-man to become unmade on the cross so that all could be remade, will return to complete this restorative work. In the meantime, we are called to his mission as instruments of redemption, reweaving and repairing the frayed edges and unraveled threads of this Tapestry of Shalom.
Even one who does not assent to the Bible’s version of the story could embrace its framework as a catalyst for this project of redemption and restoration.
How do we participate in reparation?
Doing justice is the art of repairing the Tapestry of Shalom. When those in positions of power and resource-potential push these things out and thread them into the tapestry instead of holding on to them, then under served people are again being held up by the fabric, and equality is re-established.
Modern Americans have an incredibly individualistic approach to everything and we view justice as unraveling (extracting) people from their broken and fractured networks. The biblical understanding of justice is the exact opposite of this individualism. Proverbs 3:27 says, “When it is within your power to act, do not withhold good from anyone for it is their right.” In other words, if we have been given money, education, and skills, yet chose to hoard them, then we are stealing from our community. Not being involved with the underserved and disadvantaged is not merely stinginess or apathy, but it is the subversion of justice! Hebrew Scholar, Bruce Waltke, defined the righteous in the book of Proverbs as those who would “disadvantage themselves for the sake of their community.” Therein we ask, “How have I put myself in a position of disadvantage for the sake of my neighbors?” Proverbs 11:10 proclaims, “When the righteous prosper, then the whole city rejoices!” Therein we ask, “If I were not here, would my absence have an impact on the community in which I reside?”
How did Project Peace come to be?
Bart Garrett, while a pastor in Atlanta, GA, was asked to give a lecture on “Justice” to a group of 1000 college students just two months after September 11, 2001. In preparing for the event, as was his customary practice, he sat down in his favorite coffee shop, purchased an over-priced latte, and pulled out his expensive laptop. He opened a document that was 150 pages long, a document that chronicled a collection of quotes. As he explored the topics, Bart discovered that in a long list of topics ranging from “humor” to “hubris,” there was nothing on justice. It was as if God sat down with Bart at the coffee shop that day and demonstrated that while justice was central to His heart, it didn’t register in Bart’s. It was then that Bart pledged to have the second part of his life count for justice in a way that the first part never did.
Just a couple of years later, Bart moved with his family to the East Bay to assist in developing a new church. As the first six months were given to networking, Bart met with countless executive directors and staffers of several social service providers and agencies, and also with several church pastors. Bart discovered something in these meetings. Many churches had gifts, talents, and resources at their disposal, but did not have the bandwidth to leverage those things in the East Bay community. On the other side of the equation, most social service providers and agencies had countless needs, yet were not sure how to marshal the support of the local churches. Finally, Bart recognized that Christianity was indeed a marginal voice in the East Bay; a minor player, often met by disdain and skepticism by the broader culture. Thus, Project Peace was developed to match the resources of local churches with the needs of social service providers and agencies in such a manner as to restore the broader community’s confidence in the mission of the church and the work of Jesus.