As my fourth semester of seminary comes to a close, I am preparing to embark on my final year as a graduate student at the Boston University School of Theology (STH). Claiming notable alumni like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Anna Howard Shaw, STH is called “The School of the Prophets,” and many of us who study there are discerning what it means to be a prophet in modern times. Walter Brueggemann, esteemed Old Testament scholar, was recently asked what misconceptions people have abut the prophetic role. He replied, “Well, among liberals where I live, I think people think being prophetic is just nagging people about social justice, and you wear people out nagging them.”

I chuckled a knowing laugh when I heard that because it’s certainly true in many of my circles. Nagging people about social justice is so easy to do, especially when it seems as if so many folks are in a state of simply being entertained by television shows, sporting events, and shiny new tech toys. It can be easy to want to scream, “Wake up! Don’t you see how people are being oppressed? Do something!” But perhaps not unsurprisingly, condescendingly telling people how they should be doing more to fight for justice doesn’t often inspire them to do so.

It’s not that declarations of condemnation are always wrong. Far from it. Sometimes it is incredibly needed to denounce clearly and publicly both evil and apathy and to be unapologetic in calling people to the greater good. But people also need to be invited into an alternative that is better—not only to hear denouncements of what is sick and toxic in our society but also to see what a healthy alternative might look like. As Franciscan priest Richard Rohr has said, “We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.” We must live differently in order to be able to call others out of the dysfunction and into something more beautiful.

This unfortunately is where our faith communities are often unimpressive in what we can offer to the world. Speaking from my own experience in American Christian churches, we are often good at saying what is wrong in the society around us, but we don’t necessarily show the world a better way. We may decry homelessness, but we aren’t building meaningful relationships with people without homes nor welcoming them to stay in our empty bedrooms. We may speak out about the evils of private prisons, but we’re not regularly visiting prisoners nor supporting them in their reentry processes of coming home after their time of incarceration ends.

Passion about issues without relationships and close proximity to people who are affected by those issues is dangerous because we are likely to find we’re speaking prophetic words without actually living prophetic lives. Living prophetic lives is far harder, of course, than speaking prophetic words, but I believe if we want our words to hold any credibility, they have to be grounded in action to bring forth the world we want to see.

The times I have seen a prophetic witness actually modeled have been some of the most inspiring experiences of my life, and they have almost all involved a great deal of courage, creativity, and faith that things unseen canbe made possible. For example, in my adopted home of Austin, folks at a ministry called Mobile Loaves and Fishes (MLF) were concerned with the lack of housing options for the chronically homeless of Central Texas. Rather than merely showing up at a City Council meeting to critique the city for this, they dreamed big and built Community First! Village. The village offers permanent, affordable housing for homeless folks, complete with a medical facility, community gardens, and an outdoor movie theater. MLF staff and friends believed God never intended for people to live on the streets, so they imagined a place where people could have safe housing and be family for one another—and then they made it a reality. It’s both a prophetic critique against the failures of the larger society and a prophetic demonstration of what a beautiful alternative could be.

Or in Waco, Texas, a community called Church Under the Bridge (CUB) has been living a prophetic witness for the past twenty-five years. With both a congregation and a leadership team comprised of people from across racial, socioeconomic, denominational, and cultural backgrounds, CUB serves as a living example of what churches could be if we weren’t so segregated by our differences. During a Sunday morning service, which is held outdoors literally under the overpass of Interstate 35, university professors sit next to former felons and addicts, and people from numerous races share a meal together. I attended services there while I was an undergraduate student at Baylor University and have since been haunted—in a good way—by the experience of worshipping there. The very existence of such a congregation serves to indict the majority of other faith communities that are homogeneous in their racial makeup, their income levels, or their denominational allegiances, but it does so in a way that invites people to see that a more diverse and robust community is possible.

As winter in Boston blooms into a spring season with fresh potential, we will no doubt continue to need prophetic words of resistance and telling-truth-to-power. But I hope more of us will be learning how to get proximate to the sorrow and injustices that we grieve and stay there long enough to actually create alternative realities. A weary world needs to know that hope is not just for some future time. We must start living the Beloved Community here and now.