Nehemiah Action - 3/10/2008

IMPACT congregations will come to the Nehemiah Action Assembly on March 10, 2008, bringing hundreds of people together for a large public meeting.

Time: 6:15pm
Location: University Hall

1. The public officials or other person(s) who have been identified as those with the power to implement the identified changes are invited to and present at the Assembly.

2. The gathered people seek commitments from these local decision makers to implement the identified changes. Public officials take the concerns of large groups much more seriously than the concerns of individuals and small groups.

3. The commitments are celebrated and the public officials thanked and embraced by the gathered people.

The name "Nehemiah Assembly" is taken from the Book of Nehemiah in Bible. In this book of the Bible, Nehemiah returns to Jerusalem to help rebuild the ruined city walls, and he finds that the people are being taken advantage of by lenders who are charging heavy interest and who are making them sell their sons and daughters into slavery in order to make debt payments. In response, Nehemiah calls together a large public assembly to call the money lenders to account and to demand that they change their ways. In response to Nehemiah's challenge, the money lenders do change their ways. In Charlottesville today, we may not see this kind of blatant exploitation. However, tackling problems that have become rooted at the systemic level still requires bringing large numbers of people together, so that we can engage those in local positions of power to make changes.