People use the term “moved” to describe a mental state or emotion. Being truly moved by something usually goes much further than emotions and feelings. Someone who is “moved by a song” is therefore ”moved to tears” or “moved to dance”. Being moved by something is action fueled by emotion, feelings or experience. So being moved is more than a feeling. It’s feelings which lead to action; an adjective that is actually a verb.
MOVED is a commentary on modern-day Christianity; how, many Christians all too often gets caught up in services within the walls of a building, religion, tradition and liturgy, whilst sometimes neglecting the needs of broken, hurting groups of people outside those church walls. Jesus lived a selfless life of love and service to others, and more specifically the people who society of the time pushed to the outskirts.
If we are Christians, “followers of Christ”, it is important for us to look at the life Jesus led, and to be moved to act similarly. We need to be MOVED; faith which leads to appropriate action.
Social worker, child activist, and rapper Ryan Dalton was born in 1980 in the small town of Cookeville, Tennessee in America. At the age of 18 he visited Cape Town, South Africa for the first time, during a six month program with Youth With A Mission. While he was in South Africa he met the children living on the streets of downtown Cape Town. He was intrigued by their lifestyles and shocked at the callousness society displayed towards the children they labeled as “street kids”.
In 2000, after Ryan completed the six month program, he moved back to Cape Town and began fulltime work with the children living and surviving on the streets of Cape Town central business district. He is a firm believer that actions speak louder than words and over the past ten years he has attempted to “live out” his faith to the kids and others he meets, rather than preaching or “evangelizing”.
Though Ryan’s work began as merely building relationships with the children on the streets (by hanging out, taking them to visit their families, visiting them in jail or in hospital, etc.) and working with each on an individual level, over the years he saw the need to impact the situation on a greater scale. He started using music and media to try and bring awareness and change to the bigger picture. He has released two hiphop albums, where he speaks about the issues he sees on a regular basis on the streets and in the communities of Cape Town.
From 2003 to 2006 Ryan studied at University of Cape Town where he got his Bachelor of Social Sciences in Social Work with a Psychology stream and an Honors in Social Development. He continues to live and work in Cape Town.
Later that year I was temporarily homeless, living on the streets of downtown Cape Town. I was dirty. I was smelly. I had not washed in days. My, once white, shirt was brown with filth. My face was hairy. My shoes were tattered. There was black gunk under my long finger nails. My teeth had a build up of yellow plaque. My face was leathery from too much sun exposure. I was generally unkept and unapproachable.
The sun was setting. My friends and I were hungry. The small Styrofoam bowl of stew from the soup kitchen early that morning had long left our stomachs. Our spirits were high though. We laughed and talked. I had just announced that I was going to go up to Long Street to try and beg for some money for food. All of the sudden we heard singing, clapping, and the clomping of marching feet in the distance. It was the sound of youth. They were enthusiastically singing, “God will make a way…”, a wonderful reminder for my screaming stomach.
Their voices became louder as they came around the corner and into sight. They were wearing matching blue shirts with the name of their church youth group printed on them. They continued marching, clapping and singing with vigor. Many of them held bibles and pounded the beat out on them as they approached us ruffians. The group broke up, scattered, and teamed up on us, two on one. Two young men approached me. “Jesus loves you!” the one forcefully said. I thanked him and told him that I was aware of that. I don’t think he heard what I said.
He then aggressively went on talking, “I was also a drug addict! I was the worst of the worst…words, words, words…but God delivered me and now I am free…” The assumptions and judgments in his statements like “I was also a drug addict” were humorous yet frustrating, and the aggression with which he delivered his message was frightening and off putting. I suggested that he ask someone if they are interested in his life story before he launches into it. I wasn’t trying to be a jerk, I was just hungry, and at that moment, his words were doing nothing for my churning stomach.
He became more excited and hostile. “God wants to use you one day!” He obviously based that statement on the fact that clearly, because of how I looked, the company I kept, and the fact that I was homeless, there was no way that God was using me at that very moment. He didn’t know me. But he thought he did. He had me summed up from the context with which he found me in. He thought I was a wretch that needed a savior. And indeed I was, and still am a wretch, but I knew my savior very well.
What the young man did not know was that at that very moment I was homeless by choice. I was a little over halfway through a 16 day commitment of sleeping on the streets for the 16 Days of Activism Against Violence Towards Women and Children, in protest to the fact that we as South African society allow children to live on the streets. He had no clue that I had dedicated the last nine years of my life to that very same cause. And yes, that very cause was inspired by the very Jesus that he was shouting to me about. I did not tell him all of that. He became frustrated with me and the group moved on; marching, clapping and singing, “God will make a way…”
The group was excited. They wanted to get out and make an impact in the world. That is a wonderful thing. But they were not taking time to listen and get to know the very world they wanted to reach. They came with their preconceived notions about the world’s problems mixed with their preconceived solutions. And they marched their way through the city; harassing anyone they came upon who looked like they needed this message of “hope”. At least they were out there. But I couldn’t help but wonder if they were causing more damage than good. I mean, I walked away from the experience more frustrated than anything else and I am a Christian. I can only imagine how their message was received by nonbelievers. Their hearts were in the right place and I do think they meant well.
They were moved. But for all the wrong reasons.