Noticing needs, finding purpose

04-03-2023

For some people, finding their purpose in life comes from connecting what brings them great joy to one of the world’s great needs. Leading Change invites you to a conversation between Dr. Itihari Y. Toure, associate dean for Curriculum Development and Assessment, and Adriana Rivera, M.Div.’21, as they address some of the questions that can emerge when a need in the world sparks a person’s life purpose.

What am I to do with the life that I’ve been given?

That question often surfaces when a person wants vocation to be experienced as a call of God; they desire a sense of fulfillment from what they do; and they believe that their efforts can help to make the world a better place.

Its answer, states Dr. Itihari Y. Toure, associate dean for Curriculum Development and Assessment, is often found at the intersection of what a person loves to do, what the person is good at, what the world needs, and what the person can get paid for. For nearly two years,
Dr. Toure has been leading a team whose work involves integrating these principles into the academic and cultural life of McCormick.

In the second of a four-part series on finding one’s purpose in life, Leading Change invited Adriana Rivera, M.Div.’21, who is currently working on a Ph.D. in Christian Education at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, to respond to some questions from Dr. Toure on how one of those principles – doing something the world needs – is informing her life’s purpose.

Dr. Toure: What have you identified as one of the world’s needs
and what were you paying attention to that brought you to that conclusion?

Adriana Rivera: What I see as a need in our world is a need for community…not just any community, but Beloved Community. That need has been informed by my work as an educator. I taught seventh grade English for five years in my hometown [East Chicago, Indiana] where I was born and raised, and where I went to church [Harbor - Iglesia Pentecostal Emanuel] and served as the Christian Education director. In both spaces, what made those classrooms transformative was the connection and the community that we built. We could struggle together, and question together and celebrate together. The need for connection was more evident during the pandemic when we were isolated. That was when I noticed that people needed to be seen…to be in community the most. That’s when I saw that community was under attack…not just from COVID-19, but also from different policies and actions that were threatening our threads of connection.

Dr. Toure: Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. popularized the term Beloved Community, a society where all are cared for, and all are living without the fear of war, poverty, hunger, or hate. How do you define Beloved Community?

Adriana Rivera: A foundational verse from Scripture for me is John 10:10 where Jesus says he came to give life…life in abundance. The Beloved Community is a community of abundance. My hope is that my work and my life and my love would be directed so that the folks that I’m in community with, can thrive. We should all have food. We should all have somewhere to sleep that is warm in the winter and cool in the summer. We should all have clothes on our backs. Beloved Community is that and more because those things should be givens. What I want is the thriving of community. Not merely self-actualization, but community actualization. There would be fewer fissures in the way that we live life together.

Beloved Community is a movement toward abundance…a movement towards justice, equity, reconciliation, and a lot of good things. It’s helping people find joy at their core rather than the trauma and pain that we’ve all gone through. I think that’s what Jesus was trying to do. He did that in ways that were anti-imperialistic and against the gender and class norms of his times. The invitation of the Beloved Community is to see the image of God in every single person.

Dr. Toure: What are you currently doing to address the need for creating a Beloved Community?

Adriana Rivera: Last September, I was hired as a youth and households minister for two Lutheran churches in the Edgewater neighborhood of Chicago. That position is allowing me to start addressing this need, using the tools that I gained from my studies at McCormick and the coursework that I'm taking at Garrett. We’re working to build the Beloved Community with a neighborhood youth group. One of the things that’s unique about this effort is that the youth who participate at the bimonthly gatherings don’t necessarily go to either of those two churches on Sunday. They live in the neighborhood and the youth group is their faith formation space. My desire is to create a space where they can be and become. I’m using the skills that I have as a teacher, and I allow them to ask me tough, honest questions so that we can see God’s image in each other.

Dr. Toure: How do you balance what the world needs with doing what you love? How do your activities bring you joy?

Adriana Rivera: When I get to work with youth that brings me a lot of joy. Going from teaching full-time to working on my PhD studies full-time was a tough transition. Accepting the youth ministry position, brought me back to what I love…I had started to feel disparate. I also find joy when I allow myself to be more expansive. That openness allows me to see family as more than a nuclear unit…it reimagines what prison systems can be…it expands my understanding of God and what church can be.

Dr. Toure: Your concept of expansiveness includes for me an understanding of our interdependence. In what ways does interdependence come into play when we are identifying what the world needs?

Adriana Rivera: What’s the saying…a rising tide lifts all boats? We want to make sure that in our advocacy, we are supporting the emergence of not just ourselves, but everyone around us. I try to make sure that my work is interdisciplinary, or perhaps intersectional is a better word. Looking at just one dimension usually doesn’t solve anything. Our issues have many parts. When we see the work on racial and gender equality are connected to issues that impact those who are differently abled and anyone who has been left out, that is when actual transformation can happen.

Check out Growing a Bountiful Community (Link to article) to find out how Rev. Melody Seaton, M.Div.’05, and Grace United Church of Christ in Sauk Village, Illinois noticed their community’s need for food equity and started an organic garden on three acres of the church’s property.

Dr. Itihari Y. Toure

Adriana Rivera