There is an amazing concept in scripture. The Hebrew word is Shalom. Although we often translate this word as “peace,” perhaps a more full sense of its meaning is “nothing missing, nothing broken.” It is a picture of wholeness.
What does it look like for our lives to be whole? What does it look like for nothing to be missing? What does it look like for nothing to be broken?
The mission of Graffiti 2 is to meet the holistic needs of our community. What does this mean? Well, we want Shalom. We want nothing to be missing, nothing to be broken.
We don’t have to look far to find brokenness and inadequacy. Of course, as ministers we find it first in our own lives. But, it is also evident in our students’ education: a third grader that can’t read, eighth graders that don’t know their times tables, a high school junior who has difficulty composing a sentence when she has been asked to write an essay, a young adult who has a bank account for the first time and is trying to manage his money.
These kids, teens, and adults Learn@335Beekman. They learn 7×5=35. They learn how to play the piano. They learn how to budget their money. They learn how to write words, sentences, and essays.
Upside-Down Devotion, a book by Taylor Field (the pastor of Graffiti in Manhattan) reminds us that God cares about everything: “You can’t dissect the gospel. Jesus didn’t wake up with His disciples in the morning and say, ‘Today we’re going to do the evangelism gospel, or the discipleship gospel.’ It was always simply the gospel. The gospel is so expansive, it touches everything. If we look, we can almost always hear/see/touch the good news, whether we are dealing with salvation or sewage, heaven or housing, preaching or peanut butter sandwiches.”
Graffiti 2 knows that if God wants Shalom then we must care about everything, from music to math, savings to salvation.
Week of Giving Idea: Graffiti 2 has Upside Down Books for sale in our webstore. Buy a book, give it to a friend, and ask them to make a donation to Graffiti 2.