Josh Kaufman-Horner
Bio:
Josh is one of the founders of Mission Year and the longest serving staff member. As Oakland’s City Director from 1997 to 2006 he initiated and nurtured nearly 30 year-long intentional communities. Josh has particularly contributed to the common disciplines that foster the health of our communities such as the “one another” exercise, our model of leadership, and the core Mission Year vows of service, partnership, relationships, justice, community, and discipleship.
Josh began working in urban Oakland in 1987 when he joined a recovery community as a counselor. In 1996 Josh was the founding pastor of a still thriving intentional community (also see The Beloved Community) in inner-city Oakland. For 13 years Josh served as a community college counselor for low-income students at (Merritt College).
While an undergraduate at Eastern University Josh successfully led a student movement urging socially responsible investment of the school’s endowment. Josh’s partnerships with Tony Campolo (EAPE) and Ron Sider (Evangelicals for Social Action) led to work, interreligious dialogue, and travel throughout Eastern Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. In 1990 Josh offered to exchange himself for hostages held by Saddam Hussein after the invasion of Kuwait.
Josh’s worldview was deeply influenced by service in Saddam-led post-war Iraq with the Gulf Peace Team; providing aid to Kurdish Iraqi refugees with Medecins Sans Frontieres; bearing witness to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict; working with Moss Nthla in the townships of South Africa prior to the election of Nelson Mandela; and through collecting first-person accounts of life under the Nazi and Soviet tyrannies in the recently liberated Eastern European countries.
In 2006 Josh, Annette, and their daughter Emma relocated to Charlottesville, Virginia where he became Mission Year’s Pastoral Advisor providing support to City Directors regarding the health of our communities. Josh is also a graduate student at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University and the co-founder, and interim coordinator, of the Freedom from Fear initiative.
Through Freedom from Fear Josh is working to globalize Mission Year’s U.S. efforts by addressing the root causes of employment being outsourced away from urban centers and by continuing to call young people to cross boundaries of race, class, and geography as an expression of love for God and love for people. Freedom from Fear is a lifegiving life giving ministry of solidarity with the poorest of the poor, and of loving discomfort for Christians who profit from the silent civil wars of tyrannies. Freedom from Fear’s mission states: “The primary source of injustice in our world is the greedy alliance of those engaged in uncaring consumerism, the politics of coercion, corporate exploitation, tyranny, war, and passive pacifism. In keeping with Jesus’ teaching and example Freedom from Fear imagines nonviolent opportunities to unite the transnational Church in lovingly seeking the abolition of this 1,700-year era in which tyrants, and those who profit from tyranny, have gone largely unchallenged when claiming to follow Jesus. These faithful opportunities are rooted in the God-given dignity of all people and Jesus’ call to be life giving servants rather than tyrants. Nonviolent transnational direct action challenging complicit Christian consumers, corporate executives, politicians, and dictators is a Christlike act of solidarity with oppressed citizens in the hope of encouraging forms of government accountability most likely to end civil oppression, international wars, and the global system of exploitation. The primary method proposed is the practice of the Rule of Christ (Matthew 18:15-20) with Christians who profit from this outsourcing of slavery.”
Josh’s family attends Charlottesville Mennonite Church. In California Josh was a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Josh is seeking licensure as a Licensed Professional Counselor in Virginia. In conjunction with Mission Year’s academic credit program Josh has been an adjunct professor at Eastern University. His work has appeared in Christianity Today, Sojourners, Prism Magazine, and other locations. Josh has been a speaker at places like the conference of the Christian Community Development Association, Fuller Seminary, and the PAPA festival. He is part of a small intergenerational, interracial community (a.k.a extended family) in Charlottesville.
Josh Kaufman-Horner's Blog
A Dated Introduction to Mission Year Oakland: / Dec 19, 10:27 AM
Mission Year is not currently serving in Oakland – but this introduction served us well for a number of years – and may yet again!
The San Francisco Bay Area is fertile ground for revolution.
Just a few decades ago this area was the epicenter of movements attempting to challenge many core values in our nation’s culture. In San Francisco “hippies” sought utopia through immersion in drugs and rock & roll. At the same time students at Berkeley protested the war in Vietnam and pushed for greater freedom of speech. Here in Oakland the Black Panther Party openly carried rifles, as they demanded jobs, decent housing, an end to oppression by police, and reparations for slavery.
These movements challenged some of the core values of their culture (materialism, conformity, corporate ladders, and peace through strength) and explored a variety of ways to respond to core questions about the purpose of life. Many of their responses were deeply misguided and yet I believe Christians can appreciate the questions these movements raised about their culture.
In the beginning of Romans 12:2 Paul tells us, “Be counter-cultural” (the affirmative version of “Do not be conformed to this world”). The hippies, students, and Panthers effectively followed this admonition. They were counter-cultural.
Mission Year is a different kind of revolution. The entire verse of Romans 12:2 says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect.” While Paul calls Christians to be counter-cultural he also is very specific about the Kingdom culture God wills for them to adopt. In his first letter to Timothy (6:17-19) Paul says:
“As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.”
As the City Director here in Oakland part of my role is to help our Mission Year Team Members, “take hold of the life that really is life.” My hope is that our Team Members, both during and after their Mission Year, have their minds renewed by a biblical vision of Kingdom culture in which God provides richly for us so that we may provide generously for others.
This year in we’ve had almost 30 Team Members living out their faith in word and deed on the streets of Oakland. We’ve seen miraculous transformations in the lives of neighbors and in our own lives. Women still fighting addiction have been baptized in local churches, children have been inspired to develop their academic skills, and men who were lonely have been given support. The miracle of friendship has blossomed between our Team Members and their neighbors. These friendships cross lines of race, class, age, and culture. It’s entirely unbelievable and yet every Mission Year these miracles occur. If you could take a neighborhood walk with one of our Team Members you could start to appreciate the magnitude of God’s work, through each of them, in Oakland.
Mission Year is, thus far, a small movement against a culture that values competition over compassion and greed over generosity. As our Oakland Team Members and other young people across the country devote their lives to loving God and loving others a revolution of generosity is just beginning.
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