What’s in a name?
Just like taking the first step can be the most daunting, typing the first word conjures up enough trepidation to keep the pages blank for far too long. At least for me. Naming things feels like letting the proverbial cat out of the bag, it gives life and breath to something that once only lived in my imagination and it creates something I spend a great deal of energy avoiding, vulnerability. It also emulates something greater, something in our DNA as it echoes the story of creation; knit together in the formless void is a world we now see, things that were once nameless are named and creation points to the Creator. So too, we are born to create. Naming is a part of the process woven into eternity and it is both part means and part end of stitching back together the deep tear in that fabric. So here I am, naming something that has stirred in my soul for quite a while. Something that I pray in this season of my life can be a container for collaborating with God for the renewal, redemption, and restoration of all things.
Sozo Justice Collective exists to provide spiritual direction, soul care, and strategic support to leaders intentionally pursuing mercy and justice in their communities and lives. This is an attempt to name a few things. First, that healing matters. Sozo is a greek word rich with meaning, salvation, healing, deliverance, wholeness, restoration, safety, all find their home in this name. I want to partner with people and communities to create space for healing and hope on the way to a more just and beautiful world. For over a decade, I founded and led a non-profit, pay what you are able tuition school in one of Atlanta’s most under-resourced communities. My family also lived in and for a season I served as a pastor at a local church in this neighborhood more often known as being the largest open air heroin market in the SE United States, a major hub of sex and human trafficking, and a place with more vacant and abandoned homes than residents. Along the way, we saw a lot of sozo happen. Incredible stories of God’s provision and kindness from ideation to incarnation were on full display and it will always be one of the greatest privileges I have had in this life. Along the way, a lot of hurt happened. Some I caused, some is “par for the course”, and some is just the stuff of worst nightmares and things my usually optimistic self can not fathom would happen on the way to doing good in the world. Two things can be true, we participated in seeing sozo happen and I desperately needed sozo.
A second important thing to name is that justice matters. There is plenty of good work to be done to restore the world to God’s intended shalom, nothing broken, nothing missing, everything as it should be. Wholeness and justice co-mingle in the sense that both are an acknowledgement that something is not as it should be, and both are committed to re-storying that reality. What I have experienced to be true in my story and the story of many I have met along the way, is that in our pursuit of justice, there are times when we are actually settling personal scores, or simply seeking a preferred sense of power and control, rather than actually pursuing the restorative justice God desires in the world. Said another way, if we are going to collaborate with God towards just ends, our means must be aligned, and at times because we are human, things get out of sync. Discernment is muddled by our own desire, ambition, or even sense of being in the world that has unhealthily wed itself to the kind of justice we seek to offer in the world. At least, this was and is true for me.
In light of these realities, I’ve been on a journey of my own healing and in search of tools, disciplines, structures, ways of being in the world that get closer to healing and justice with each day. There is no arrival point, but this aptly names the path I am on, and one I hope to companion others on. Because healing and justice matter, I’m naming this space, Sozo Justice Collective. Which reflects a suspicion that there are others who have been on this journey, and perhaps one day we will have a place to locate ourselves, in a community, seeking healing and justice collectively. There are a few ways you can join me on this journey:
Share about this with a mercy and justice practitioner. Someone who you know is seeking to cultivate mercy and justice in an intentional way in their life. Perhaps I can be a spiritual companion to their journey.
Consider if this is something that resonates with you to the point that you would consider financially supporting the empowerment of a mercy and justice practitioner by making the offerings of Spiritual Direction, Soul Care, and Strategic Support low barrier and no-cost.
Stay connected. I imagine this space evolving over the years as all things do, and hope to grow a community of people who would say that healing and justice matter and want to work to that end.
In the coming days, weeks, months, and year, I’ll be writing more in this space. Introducing each of the offerings in more depth and perhaps adding some audio in the form of a podcast. For now, it’s been named, so let’s make space for healing and hope on the way to a more just and beautiful world!
Benjamin Wills
Founder, Executive Director
