Vision

Vision

One Vision. Many Voices.
Lifting up the next generation of prophetic voices articulating the biblical call to social justice

After 40 years of public ministry, I am feeling an urgent and personal call to help lift up and support the next generation of   faithful leaders articulating the biblical call to social justice.  As more and more of my time is spent mentoring young leaders from across the country, I see a pressing need for a space where they can grow in their calling together and their voices can encourage more people. Emerging Voices—a project of Sojourners—aims to develop this platform.

Emerging Voices is one of the most exciting things I have been involved in for a long time, and we have formed a very hopeful and impressive circle of young leaders. I strongly encourage you to take a look at these communicators—speakers, preachers, and teachers—on this website. Look at their faces, read their stories, and see what they have written. Consider inviting them to speak at your church, school, or public forum; join the conversation on their blogs; and glean insight from their books.

We envision a platform unlike anything that already exists to promote public speakers and communicators. It’s intentionally:

  • Diverse, particularly along the dimensions of race, ethnicity, gender, and Christian traditions.
  • Collaborative as it seeks to build a community among its participants and its viewers;
  • Equipping as we want to help the participants to develop their unique calling and skills; and
  • Elevating a common vision of biblical justice, not just through a single voice, but through many.

We ultimately hope and pray that this project is a prophetic undertaking. Right before our eyes the world is changing, the church is shifting, and we need a multitude of fresh and culturally relevant voices who can address the challenge of faith and the common good within our complex society. We need diverse expressions of the same prophetic call to biblical justice. We must lift up one vision, many voices.

Jim Wallis, President & CEO, Sojourners

One Vision.4There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, 5one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.  7But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. 8Therefore it is said, ‘When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive; he gave gifts to his people’…

Many Voices.  *11The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, 12to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.

-Ephesians 4 (NRSV)