Jubilee Justice Goals and Strategies:
 
The Jubilee Justice Network was founded in 1999 to be an advocate for global and local economic and social justice from the faith perspective of the United Church of Christ. We speak from our faith, not for the faith (or non-faith) of others. That means that while we try to be faithful to the biblical mandate for liberty and justice in our religious tradition, we do not claim singularity of message or universality of  truth.

Our first strategy to accomplish this is to continually remind our denominational structures and members of its historic commitments to creating a more just and humane world. to do that we have introduced a number of resolutions at UCC Conference Annual Meetings and national General Synods, and offering workshops and conferences on justice issues. for example, we have offered and had passed numerous resolutions on a state and national UCC levels on third world debt, economic globalization and the use of fair trade coffee. And the Jubilee Justice Task Force was the organizer of the New England Conference on Economic Justice two years ago in Holyoke, Massachusetts.

Our second strategy is to offer educational and advocacy tools for local activists to help them understand and act on the biblical vision of the Jubilee. Our dream is not just for a better educated membership but also for a better, more compassionate world. T accomplish this we have done several things. First, we have created the the UCC FairTrade Coffee Project, a partnership with Equal Exchange Coffees. As of this writing (Fall, 2006) we are offering workshops for clusters of local churches to acquaint them with the coffee crisis and how their church can get involved in the program.  Second, we sponsor delegations to developing countries. In recent years we have gone to Colombia, Cuba, and Chiapas, Mexico. Our trip to Chiapas was with our Equal Exchange partners, and it was to look at the effects of global political/economic policies on poor coffee farmers. We will be returning to Chiapas once again this coming January 20-28, 2007. A flyer and application form can be found elsewhere on our web page. Please contact us if you are interested in going with us. And third, we are hoping to launch a program in the spring of 2007 to help congregations organize faith-based economic justice ministries. Using the model of the "Jubilee Congregations" program of the national Jubilee USA Network, we help churches Celebrate (worship), educate (learn about the issues), activate (how to write your congress people), and procreate (spread the word).