Social Justice at Barabbas Road Church in San Diego

From a corporate level, social just is doing good deeds. At the basic level, social justice is working for the systems in society to become more fair and just for the oppressed.

Why is social justice a distinctive of Barabbas Road Church in San Diego?

Social justice is a distinctive because as Christians we should want to do good things for people and help those in need. The difference between a worldly perspective on social justice and the view that Barabbas Road Church has is that the roles of the local church are different from the way the world views them. For example, the world sees the local church as a nonprofit organization existing for the sake of social justice. This means that the church exists to help the homeless, help stop abortion, help stop sex trade etc.

While Barabbas Road Church believes that helping these causes are important, the belief according to scripture is that the church does not exist to run these different ministries. The mission at Barabbas is to make disciple making disciples. Therefore, in regards to social justice, the role of the church is to make disciples so that they will go out and be equipped to help the homeless, help stop abortion and help stop sex trade. This is the most effective way to carry out social justice because social justice is the byproduct of discipleship.

Barabbas Road Church in San Diego is focused very narrowly, which allows for the members of the church to be free to do the work of the ministry. That is why there is an emphasis on discipleship at Barabbas Road Church. The aim for Barabbas Road Church is to functionally organize itself around the idea of making disciples with the faith that real disciples will want to worship God through service. This is how social justice is a byproduct of discipleship.

Now if a person comes to Barabbas Road Church and is in need, the response of the church would not be to deny this person of help. The response would be for the body of the church to take care of this person. Because the church is so narrowly focused on making disciples, there will be church members available and equipped to help any person in need at Barabbas Road Church.

The lever that causes social justice to happen effectively through the church is discipleship. At Barabbas Road Church in San Diego, the view on social justice is much different from other churches, because Barabbas believes that according to scripture the church exists not to transform culture, but to transfer hearts and to make disciples for God’s glory. This is a beautiful thing that you can be a part of at Barabbas Road Church. The hope is that you will see that by the church staying narrow on the mission of making disciples, it allows you the person in the church to be broad and to go out and worship God with freedom.