From INHERITANCE Issue #4 - Winter 2009

Hello. My name is Daniel Kim but most of my friends call me DK. Here’s my life in a nutshell:

I gave my life to Jesus early in high school, immediately became a worship leader by default (since I was the only kid in youth group who knew how to play G, C, D, Em and the occasional F on guitar), joined staff at Newsong Irvine shortly after graduation from the University of California, Irvine in 2003, moved to Thailand two months after my wedding to help plant Newsong Bangkok in 2005, came back to California in the fall of 2007 to assume the role of Worship Pastor for Newsong Irvine, and in the fall of 2008, started a movement called Justice NOW as my wife gave birth to our first son, Micah.

PHEW. How’s that for a run-on introduction? Glad we’re friends now and we can have a normal conversation from here on out! Now on to the Justice NOW story …

A Passion for Worship
Worship, especially in the musical sense, has been my passion and calling for the past 14 years of my life. I find that it is my primary avenue of connection with God. It is part of my gifting and desire to lead people into genuine, transformational encounters with our Creator. That being said, recently I have been on a personal journey that led me to start Justice NOW, a worship and justice movement launched through a simple prayer.

A Challenge from Isaiah 58
In the summer of 2008, I came across Isaiah 58. It’s a pretty ridiculous chapter (and required reading as far as I’m concerned) so I suggest you look it up on www.biblegateway.com. For those of you on the toilet right now, unable to do the required research, may I present to you verse 10:

¹⁰And if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. (NIV)

I don’t know what you think but I was inspired and troubled by this passage of Scripture. Inspired because it gave me something to aspire toward, a new life mission, if you will. Troubled because I wondered how the heck I was supposed to live this out!

In Irvine, California there is literally no sign of homeless people here except for the occasional “straggler” (who is then swiftly escorted back to a city like Santa Ana by the Irvine Police Department) or the Halloween junkie who decides it will be fun to dress like a vagabond in the middle of June (never actually saw this but I’m sure it happens).
Verses 5 and 6 also really got to me:

“⁵Is this the kind of fast I have chosen, only a day for a man to humble himself? Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed and for lying on sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD? ⁶Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?” (NIV)

Fasting for me is an act of worship I offer to God. For lack of a better word, it’s the “ritual” I perform to show my devotion, gratitude and need for Jesus. I felt like my worship to God was incomplete without attention to this whole idea of loosing the “chains of injustice.”

I was inspired and troubled. What would be my response to this? All I could do was pray this simple prayer of “God, give me an opportunity to live out Isaiah 58.”

This prayer would soon be answered as our team at Newsong began dreaming about organizing regular worship gatherings we would call “NOW” (Night of Worship), which is a name we adopted from the worship nights we had in Bangkok, Thailand.

However, after being a part of so many worship nights throughout the course of my life, I felt like it was time to try something different.

The Vision for Justice NOW
It suddenly clicked in that moment as I realized this was God’s way of providing the opportunity to live out Isaiah 58. What if we organized Nights of Worship centered on bringing awareness to and advocacy toward social injustices around the world? We could call it Justice NOW!

Our hope would be that as we gather to worship and receive the heart of the Father, we would respond by realizing His heart is for the poor, the oppressed, the lonely, and the exploited. Worship is action. Action is worship.

Our first Justice NOW gathering took place on October 22, 2008 at the Newsong Irvine site. We highlighted the plight of human trafficking, both at the international and local level. Multiple organizations that were doing great things to combat this injustice were invited to set up booths in the foyer to offer participants more information and practical next steps.

We invited Charles Lee of www.just4one.org, who was able to challenge the group toward advocacy through illuminating the facts while offering Biblical precedents for the synonymy of worship and action. In an alternate room, we showed a film on the ugly reality of the sex trade.

The time of corporate worship was co-led by a mixed band of neighboring churches and it was incredibly powerful. Over 400 people showed up to this initial gathering. The response was tremendous and the vision of Justice NOW officially took root!

The Future
Since our inaugural gathering last year, we have had four gatherings in 2009. In February we highlighted the issue of poverty with Vineyard worship leader and homeless advocate David Ruis. In May, we met at Rock Harbor Church (Costa Mesa, CA) as we brought awareness to the plight of orphans and foster children in Orange County.

Our first Justice NOW outside of Orange County took place in Torrance, CA on November 1 with a focus on poverty and on December 3, we held our first international gathering in Mexico City, Mexico!

We are in the planning stages for future gatherings in Riverside (CA), San Diego (CA), and Durham (North Carolina). It’s very exciting and very incredible how God is starting to use this vehicle!

For the Kingdom
Our hope for Justice NOW since day one has been that this would be a collaborative Kingdom movement. Though birthed out of Newsong, we never considered this a one-church thing. Nothing kills collaboration faster than a struggle for credit and name recognition!

We hope that people all over the world would catch a vision for Justice NOW types of gatherings as we provide a simple model that others can follow. Justice NOW is not an organization but a movement with a simple message: we worship to breathe in the presence of God and in turn, exhale His justice.

I have been learning that while worship is more than a song, it is also more than mere altruism and humanitarian efforts toward equality and justice. Our worship is incomplete if it’s simply one or the other. Worship is “both-and”.

I once heard Joel Houston of Hillsong United say that “justice will take place through the revelation of Jesus.” That further affirmed my conviction that our worship is made complete in our love for others while simultaneously God does His justice work through the revelation of His Son in worship.

Like I said before, Justice NOW came out of a prayer and a desire for change. As I am a part of this journey, I am constantly amazed at God’s work in the midst of my own insecurities, insufficiency, and “normalness”. I am grateful that God can use a completely plain person like me to play a part in His greater plans.

Finally, I am extremely excited to see what happens when everyone who reads this article, lays this magazine down, closes their eyes and decides to pray the simple prayer I prayed: “God, give me an opportunity to live out Isaiah 58.” Get ready!