Three questions with Shaun Groves

As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, Shaun Groves has a new album coming it — Third World Symphony. It’s sweetness!

The album drops Aug. 30, but you can listen to the entire album here and pre-order your own copy of musical greatness here.

And being the gracious guy that Shaun is (I mean how many other artists stream their entire album online two months before it’s released), Shaun offered to take some time to answer three questions for any bloggers out there that were interested (hint, he’ll answer questions for your blog as well) — so naturally, I had to take him up on it. Here’s what he had to say:

Q: Your new album wrestles with the tension between living in the first and the third world – what’s the greatest tension you deal with while living in the US and visiting so many living in poverty with Compassion?

A: The greatest tension used to be coming home to so much after spending time with people who had so little. Now that I lead trips overseas for Compassion I’ve seen this as the first tension everyone experiences to some degree. We wrestle with how much enough is, feelings of wanting to sell it all and move into a cardboard box, wanting to moderate such radical thoughts, fear of looking like an extremist or – worse – a liberal!

This first tension is easily resolved. We form theologies that help us to rationalize the disparity between us and them. Or we don’t and instead change how we live. Somehow the tension is resolved. But a deeper harder-to-out-maneuver tensions take it’s place.

For me the greatest tension since that first one has been the gospel of the first world versus the gospel of the third world. Is “give us this day our daily bread” a metaphor, an ancient expression, or is it a prayer for food whispered by the hungry and God-dependent? Did Jesus die to atone for my sin and reserve me a place in heaven for eternity or did he come to bring a kingdom on earth as it is in heaven? This is a tension I live in still. To what degree is my faith about the soul and a pilgrimage to my certain future eternal home and how much of my faith is the exercise of God’s power to release body and soul from a foreshadowing of hell on earth today? Is my Good News good for me or good for the poor or good for all of us?

Q: How do you communicate these ideas with your family (kids especially) and friends who haven’t witnessed the differences first hand?

A: Stories and pictures. If they can’t go with me I tell stories and show pictures. With humility. Careful not to think of myself as having arrived, as “getting it.” I have to be diligent about preventing pride and arrogance from creeping in. I’m aware that I’ve seen things few first-worlders have seen. I’ve had the gift of this experience and education. But others have received other gifts, had other experiences, and have much more to teach me than I have to teach them. So I thumb through pictures and tell my little stories. One at a time. Slowly showing the world, the hope, God-on-the-move to my friends and family and complete strangers on airplanes. And I pray that God teaches us both something in the exchange. And He always does.

And with my kids that humility looks like bringing them along slowly, giving them small opportunities to show compassion, and helping them ask better questions to come up with answers of their own. I give them chances to experience simplicity, sacrifice, generosity in small age-appropriate ways. Sponsoring a child through Compassion International. Stocking shelves at a food pantry every week. And I answer their questions with questions along the way: Why do YOU think that man is homeless? If you were him what do you think you would want people to do for you? That sort of thing. Patiently. Little by little.

Q: Realizing poverty is a multi-faceted issue around the world, if you had the power to solve one issue those living in poverty deal with, what would it be?

A: Hopelessness. Poverty tells a child she’s nothing, has no value, no future. If I could give an impoverished child anything I would give her Jesus. Then, regardless of her present, she’d know she has a future.

But not only Jesus in her heart – but Jesus in the flesh. I’d surround her with other Christians – little-Christs – who would love her as Christ does, teach her, serve her, feed her, sacrifice for her.

I would give her Jesus in word and deed.

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Thanks again Shaun!

And don’t forget, Third World Symphony drops Aug. 30. You can listen to the entire album here and pre-order your own copy of musical sweetness here.

And you can also make the difference in the life of a child by sponsoring a child through Compassion International for less than a typical night out on the town.

Third World Symphony by shaungroves