Central Valley Justice Coalition is committed to partnering with the church and community to prevent human trafficking. We seek to prevent this exploitation of human rights through education, partnership and outreach.

As an organization, we have identified values that help to provide a framework for our mission. Rather than a restrictive formula, we believe that applying these values in decision-making is part of a holistic process that leads us to greater freedom.

Our Core Values:

Faith 

Our work is an overflow of our faith, which informs everything we do.

Equality

Inspired by God’s call to love and to seek justice for the oppressed, we serve all people without regard to religion, race, gender, gender identity, or any other factor.

Accountability

We are prepared to account for both our finances and activities as an organization, to accept responsibility for them, and to disclose results in a transparent manner.

Teamwork

We value a unified, team based approach to making decisions, accomplishing our mission, and navigating the complex issues of preventing human trafficking.

Holistic Change

We believe that the only way to bring about lasting change is with a holistic approach.  We view each individual we work with as a whole person with many and varied needs and abilities. We aim to affect change in our culture, in our communities, and in ourselves.

 

What We Believe about What We Do:

Prayer

We believe prayer is the foundation of all we do and by engaging God’s heart through prayer, we are able to see real change occur in our community and in our world.

Partnership

We believe in partnership with God and each other, and in doing the work of the good news where there is oppression in the form of human trafficking and related forms of modern day slavery.

We partner in God’s work to seek justice and reconciliation so that the church and community can live fully in all we are called to be.

We engage with groups in the community, including law enforcement, NGO’s, churches, social clubs, and businesses. We recognize we cannot fight injustice well on our own, and call others to collaboration and unity as we all find our place in fighting for justice. We partner with any group, individual or organization seeking to address human trafficking through unified collaboration and a victim centered approach.

Prevention

We believe education is the first step in preventing and intervening in human trafficking.

We see many instances in which human trafficking is preventable, and strive to model and teach a way of life that keeps men, women, and children from being bought and sold as commodities.

Our Biblical Foundation

God tells us in Micah 6:8 what our proper and natural response is to be when we have experienced his goodness and love. “He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you? But to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”

Jesus came to proclaim, in word and in action, the good news of the Kingdom of God!  He was sent to reconcile all things to Himself, for the glory of God. All things include all people, creation, systems, communities, and every other created thing. In his ministry of reconciliation, things that were broken are made new, whole, and heal, and what they were made to be.

We join Jesus’ mission in Luke 4:18-19.  “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.”

As Christ-followers we are committed to an orthodox understanding of our faith. We affirm the Nicene Creed, which can be summarized as follows:

• We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, of all that is, seen and unseen. 
• We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father. 
• Through him, all things were made. 
• For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man. 
• For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. 
• On the third day, he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. 
• He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. 
• We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son, he is worshipped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets. We believe in one holy catholic (undivided Christian) and apostolic Church. 
• We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. 
• We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.

What We Believe About Justice

God is justice. It is core to God’s character. We must understand that God’s justice surpasses and is different than human thoughts of justice, and it is superior. God’s justice is inextricable from God’s righteousness, is never subjective, and always does what is right. It is also the structure by which compassion, mercy, goodness, and other attributes flow and Justice itself flows out of the structure of God’s love, mercy, goodness, etc.

Throughout Scripture, God calls us to bring justice in every area of life, to all people. God isn’t partial. In Deuteronomy, God tells Israel to give justice for the foreigner and the orphan, but tells them to not be biased both towards these people nor against them. It is clear that God’s desire is for His people to help bring justice to those who are oppressed, to those who are helpless and whose vulnerability is being exploited. The plight of those who are being exploited and enslaved is God’s concern, and He expects it to be the concern of His people. Even more so, God tells us to be mindful of the ways we participate in oppression, both actively and passively, and to choose repentance and justice (see Amos)

He has shown you, o man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you, but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?

Micah 6:8

God’s justice is making thing right through Christ’s life, sacrifice, and resurrection. Andrew Hill of The Mission Church in Vacaville defined it as  “rendering to each what is due them, to be made right by His truth and righteousness, to restore dignity, and and bring things in line with Kingdom rule.”
The reality of God’s justice now is in light of Jesus’ sacrifice. Retributive justice is our society’s most common response to wrongdoing; an eye for an eye. Distributive justice is the proper distribution of good things and in God’s case, this is the generous distribution of good things. Restorative justice seeks to set things right for everyone involved, repairing harm, prioritizing accountability, and healing relationships, individuals, and communities. Restorative justice is the goal of the Justice Coalition.

God declared that Jesus will not falter until He establishes justice on the earth (Isaiah 42:1-4). Because of who God is, Being righteousness, God must administer the proper response to injustice, to all wrong doing, which God chose to do through self-sacrifice. As followers of Jesus, our call is to bring the world around us in line with kingdom rule and restore dignity, to partner with Him in making things right, to bring people and systems in line with who and what God called them and made them to be. We are not called to bring judgement, but life. What God intends for people is good, not because of their goodness, but His goodness. We are privileged to be invited into this restoration.

Accountability is still necessary. At times, this requires governmental authority to administer their justice in the form of criminal punishment. We acknowledge the need for this form of accountability and its limitations, so we continue to seek other avenues of communal and individual accountability, accountability which leads to lasting transformation.

This work is not new to God. God has been about this work for the whole of humanity. We have the incredible privilege of partnering with Him is seeing this justice established here in our community and in our world! We hope you will join us.