As a group of active member of Wieuca, we seek to use various means to educate Christ-followers regarding how cultural and social practices result in unfairness and mistreatment of people.  Many of these issues are shocking to us all when we first learn about them.  We see it as our duty as responsible Christ-followers to bring these issues, which are often occluded by rhetoric and equivocation, to the fore of our awareness.  Only when we are educated about an issue are we able to respond in action.

We educate ourselves by viewing films, using videos, reading contemporary critiques related to practicing justice, and engagning in efforts to bring into our thinking the question, "What would Jesus do?"   JEPR is a safe space where participants can raise issues of critical concern and are given opportunities to educate the rest of our congregation about the importance of such issues for the ethical life of a follower of Jesus Christ.

Past Initiatives for Education & Action Include:

• A series of dialogues between Christians and Muslims
• Education about creation care and the environmental impact of global warming
• Information about the plight of Child Soldiers in Africa
• Education about the ethical decision to purchase fair-trade coffee

Christian-Muslim Dialogue
Reaching out in respect and understanding to those who are different from us, particularly those who belong to other faiths, is important for the peacemaking task to which the Gospel calls us. In September 2007 the JEPR team was a sponsor of the first event at Wieuca to promote dialogue and understanding between Christians and Muslims. We began with Christians and Muslims in particular due to the state of affairs in the world and the tremendous misunderstanding that exists between the two groups.

Over 200 people (almost 50/50 between the two faiths) attended over a span of three weeks to understand, share, and learn together about the Islamic faith. Much was learned and many misperceptions were cleared. This kind of dialogue process is what we seek to continue and to expand. Dialogue dinner groups will be starting in the near future as a follow-up to the seminar; however, other initiatives will surface as people's interests and passions intersect with the needs we see in the world.

Creation Care
Seeing environmental concerns as moral and religious ones, JEPR sponsored two previews and discussions of the film “An Inconvenient Truth.” Wieuca joined over 4000 faith communities nationwide in this review of scientific understandings of causes and effects of global warming and to consider its relation to biblical imperatives of creation care.
 
Subsequent related actions included reviews of other relevant films, acquisition of materials for the media center, establishment of a process at Wieuca for recyclables, and acquisition by the church of an energy management system. Increasingly Christ-followers are encouraged to recognize care for the environment as one component of “doing justice.”

Invisible Children
One JEPR program in 2007 was the showing of the film, "Invisible Children". This independently produced film dealt with the little-known but deeply tragic practice in Africa of kidnapping children and using them as soldiers in tribal conflicts. Christian churches in Uganda attempt to minister to children affected physically and emotionally by this practice.

One implication raised by this program is the matter of how U. S. foreign policy and/or U. S. neglect of issues contribute to continuing tragedy.  Such an implication relates to how U. S. Christians practice justice as part of their faith.

Following the plight of child soldiers in Africa, Wieuca will be sending a mission team to Balama, Liberia to help support the work of Jesse and Calandra Togbadoya as they minister to child soldiers in the wake of a decade-long civil war in the country of Liberia. 

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