The SIAFU Guidebook

Part I I : Making the Case

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Objection 9: SIAFU is no panacea for the city; on its own, without God’s direct blessing and visitation, the SIAFU Network will never accomplish its high goals. The Argument: “You are talking as if SIAFU, in and of itself, is something special and that it will be the thing that makes the difference in the city. This is contrary to experience and to Scripture. The city is so messed up, so big, so intimidating that it would take a God to change it. A few scrawny little Chapters of ex-jacked-up folk will not change the city. We need to depend on God to do that, because he is the only one who can get that done!” The Answer: SIAFU engages its members at the local level, but it is an association of Chapters connected all across the nation. It is a local as well as a regional and national entity. We initiated the SIAFU Network out of a profound sense of neediness, fueled by an inner awareness that all of the work that we seek to accomplish for the Lord in the city would be utterly futile if the Lord failed “to show up and show out” in the mean streets of American ghettos. The crime, the broken homes, the economic blight, and the spiritual darkness continue to settle over thousands of communities, none of which has ever seen or heard of the triumphant victory our Lord Jesus Christ won for them in his incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension. They are lost and without God in the world. Add to these troubling facts, the additional realization that millions of people continue to languish under the gray skies of the devil’s lies and tyranny, existing without hope and with no knowledge of Christ at all. In neighborhoods ravaged by violence and poverty, they struggle to find meaning, and live on the cruel borders of self-loathing and despair. These truths lead to one clear conclusion. With untold thousands of communities under the sway of the enemy, we are convinced that only the Lord can change the city. Neither SIAFU, nor TUMI, nor World