american dream

I’m tired of the “Don’t blame me, I voted for…..” bumper stickers. Here are some I’d like to see instead:

“No griping about the welfare state until you’ve mentored a teen mom.”

“Yes, abortion is wrong. How many of those unwanted kids would you like to adopt?”

“I got a good education so I’m tutoring someone who didn’t.”




Last week I had the opportunity to participate in a branding strategy meeting with Matthew Barnett and other leaders of the Dream Center in Los Angeles. In a city where 11,000 people sleep on the streets and 17% of all families live below the poverty line, the Dream Center is making a real difference. Food trucks feed 22,000 people each month. Dorm-style housing provides a place for the addicted to begin again. A mobile medical clinic offers treatment, lab work and pharmacy services to the destitute on Skid Row. (In true California style, the Dream Center even provides free chiropractic services at its headquarters.)

It’s trendy for churches to be involved with “social justice” initiatives, and many of them do a lot of good. But Barnett and his team are more interested in sharing the Gospel (thousands worship at Angelus Temple each week) and social transformation (in the Dream Center’s first four years, local prostitution and gang violence dropped 73%, the homicide rate dropped 28% and rape dropped 53%).


The Dream Center operates under the assumption that the Church—not politics, policy or government programs—is the answer to society’s spiritual and tangible needs. Instead of pointing fingers at dishonest politicians, they focus on restoring wholeness to a city ravaged by the father of lies. Instead of waiting for political hope and change, they’re offering real Hope (and a hot meal) to anyone in need.


I was inspired by my day with them, but also frustrated when I opened Facebook that night to see the usual status updates of context-less Bible verses interspersed with opinions about Obama, Glenn Beck, the Tea Party, Fox News and Sarah Palin. I wondered how many of these friends, across the political spectrum, not only trumpeted their views online but quietly volunteered to improve a specific problem in a specific city.

As Christians, we don’t get to complain because we voted for the other guy. We don’t get to blame everything on the red states or the blue states or sit at home wringing our hands over the state of society. We don’t get to say “the local church is the hope of the world” but be content with community outreach consisting of Upward basketball and scrapbooking.

Instead, we get to partner with God in the restoration of all things. The church can do what politicians cannot, and now I’m dreaming about how to be part of it.

A few years ago I read Barbara Ehrenreich’s wonderful book Nickle and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. She explores the reality of America’s working poor by taking a variety of low-paying jobs—hotel maid, fast food worker, Walmart associate, and others—and tries to live solely on her earnings. It’s required reading for everyone who’s ever said, “Those people on welfare should just get jobs.”

Since N&D was so good, and in light of my current circumstances, I was eager to read her newest book Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream. In this one, Ehrenreich goes undercover as Barbara Alexander and gives herself ten months and $5,000 to find a PR job (the only white-collar job she considered herself qualified to pursue after a lifetime of freelance writing and academia) with benefits. To give herself some structure, she establishes three rules: She will be open to every form of help available (books, websites, networking contacts); she will be willing to travel for interviews and move for a new job and will let employers know this; and she will take the first job she is offered that meets her requirements as to benefits and a moderate salary.

I’m about 2/3 of the way through, and I can’t stop reading. Many of her experiences, such as dreary powerpoint-driven “networking” sessions at suburban Shoney’s restaurants, I fortunately can’t relate to—yet, anyway. Others I can, such as trying to make sense of (and ultimately giving up and mocking) the meaningless buzzwords that have infiltrated corporate America.

For instance, this passage about her first telephone conference with a potential career coach is wonderful:

Our half hour is drawing to a close, I note with relief. She thinks I will need three months of coaching, meaning she will need $1,200. This will be a lot of work for me, she says, because she practices “co-active coaching,” which is “very collaborative.” “I want you to design me as your best coach,” she says, perhaps forgetting that she has already been not only designed but “branded.” If I were “designing” her, I’d throw in a major serotonin antagonist to damp down the perkiness, and maybe at some point I will find a tactful way to suggest that she chill. The session has left me drained and her more excited than ever: “We’ll dance together here!” is her final promise.