The 10th annual Urban Youth Workers’ Institute (UYWI) starts tomorrow. I’m excited about it, especially seeing some old faces & making some new connections. I’ve been working with John Lewis a little bit to organize church & ministry leaders in East LA/Boyle Heights to form a cohort to broaden the kingdom impact of our ministries in the city. We’re hoping this will be a launching pad for meeting other leaders from East LA & Boyle Heights & casting some vision for this network/cohort.

I’m also teaching a seminar on Friday morning on the faith challenges/opportunities that high school grads face in college. Should be fun, though I’ve been trudging through to finishing prepping. Not sure why this has been so difficult to prep, since its about as up my alley as topics go. Maybe that’s why I’m having a hard time focusing in. But I’ll be ready.

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The phrase - part of this guy’s mission statement - just grabbed me. What can I say?

BTW - His taco recommendations have been pretty good. My brother and I are going to check out this place. Soon. Very soon.

P.S. We’ll probably go right after we get me a tattoo. Seriously. I wouldn’t do that with out my big brother next to me. Like starting 1st grade or buying my wedding ring, I don’t do the big things without his input.

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I’m doing some preparation & research for my seminar next week at the UYWI on the faith challenges for students entering college. This quote about the spiritual perspective of the average college student stood out to me:

…most college students… view religion not unlike vegetables—as something that is “good for you” and part of adult life, but not as something all that relevant to their current stage as college students.

As one freshman put it, “I feel like God dropped me off at college and said, ‘I’ll be back to pick you up in four years’.”

Note that this student, like many of his peers, planned to be picked up when he graduated—in the same place and by the same driver.

What do you think?

Read the whole article here

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Life in a Country of Death
This from the chapter “Life in a Country of Death” from Eugene Peterson’s Living the Resurrection:

It is uncommonly difficult to stay centered and absorbed in our primary life-affirming, life-witnessing work. We continue to perform the vast array of activities in work and conversation that I’ve listed, and more than that. But we are also under the continual threat of death, of becoming disconnected from life and people and God and just going through the biological motions—mouthing clichés and not participating in life itself.
(more…)

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I’m talking about Jeremy Del Rio’s A Campus Ministry Primer for Cities. Check it out this excerpt:

“There’s this teenage boy I know. He appears ordinary enough, with nothing much to distinguish himself except that he’s studious and works with his step dad in construction. Like many teens he’s struggling to find his place and feels like a curiosity.

Living in the ghetto is hard, especially since he just immigrated to the neighborhood in the last few years. Try as he might, he hasn’t mastered the accent and local customs. And forget the slang; that’s like learning a third language. Worse, the old-timers all seem to know something about him that he hasn’t figured out yet. He gets the distinct impression they’re always talking about his family, reinforced by the overheard name-calling. A few of his schoolmates have teased him to his face, and one punched him in the nose after school. The soldiers occupying the streets find the bullying funny.

Sometimes the mocking gets to him. He wants desperately to fight back, but mom forbids it, promising that someday the rejection will all make sense. He tries to take comfort in her words, but for now his heart just hurts, and the injustice makes him angry.

So he sneaks off to the outskirts of town and hides behind an old sycamore tree. There he remembers what it was like in the refugee camp, and recollects vague memories of a midnight flight from the small town where he spent his childhood. The details are sketchy, but he remembers stories of bloodshed and murder that he barely escaped. Not fitting in has been a recurring theme for him.
(more…)

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I have folders of bookmarked blogs that I check out irregularly, depending on how often they post, what they post about, and sometimes just how I’m feeling at the time. But there are a few blogs whose content I read pretty much daily.

Special Needs @ About.com - Focus on issues for parents raising special needs children, and covers a wide array of special needs, from autism, to down syndrome, to cerebral palsy.Away with Words - Jeremy Del Rio’s blog. Even though he is from New York, he’s great guy. His blog is a lot about the NY urban ministry world. Plus, I love to read about what Latino IV alumni are doing in the world.

UrbanOnramps - Another Latino IV alum (from Stanford), Rudy is the godfather of urban ministry bloggers. And his blog covers a bit of everything.

BarrioProphets.com - Since he got me into blogging, I’d be remiss to mention him. Abner Ramos is my ministry partner in crime with InterVarsity La Fe. If he only could blog more than once every full moon.

ServingBread.net - Another IV staff colleague.

Kathie Hernandez - Lives in La Canada, and goes to the church I grew up at - LCPC or La Canada Presbyterian Church.

And don’t worry, there are many other blogs I read often. I don’t want anyone to walk away with their feelings hurt.

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Every news media is covering this story. Being the parent of a special-needs child and being involved in campus ministry, I couldn’t help but catch my eye at these two perspectives & accounts not found everywhere.

This link is from the special needs parenting blog on about.com. One of her children has autism, in particular, but I think the concern is wide-spread

“It’s at times like this that, even as you pray for the dead and wounded and their families, you also secretly pray that the person behind the rampage won’t be found to have a diagnosis similar to your child’s.”

“The tragedy that took place yesterday at Virginia Tech, in which 32 students were gunned down, apparently by a fellow student, will be everywhere in the media for a while. It will be hard to shelter our children from… And if the killer does turn out to have a special-needs diagnosis or be taking psychiatric medications, our children may have to deal with guilt by association.

From the InterVarsity website

Wes Barts graduated from Virginia Tech and has been a staff member with InterVarsity at Virginia Tech for three years. He works with an undergrad fellowship that numbers about 150 students. He feels the shock of Monday’s tragic shooting on campus as much as anyone. “Though it feels like a dark cloud is over the Blacksburg campus,” he says, “God is present.”

“It’s good that we know a God who knows suffering in Jesus Christ,” Wes says. “He knows how we feel. In this time of mourning, Christ is with us in our pain. In Christ Jesus we find our hope and refuge.”

After the campus was opened up and declared safe, Wes and fellow staff members Lindsey Jones and Robert Howe concentrated on being available to the students who were still in shock from the events. “We walked around campus all afternoon, comforting people.”

Facing the inevitable “Where is God?” questions that are posed after tragedies like this, Wes says, (more…)

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I’m mailing out a copy of my March Ministry Update, but you can read it online by clicking here. (P.S. - Leave me a comment to let me know you were here.)

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Got tipped to this Bills Simons report (all the way at the bottom) on ESPN.com by my friend Chris. Good to know that student witness is stronger than sports:

“I wanted to write you without my name or anything, just as a student of UNC. Our loss last night was tough — some might say heartbreaking. But what’s worse is that it may overshadow the death of a true Tar Heel. Jason Ray, our mascot, died this morning.

He was the very first person I met at UNC. He was helping freshmen move into the dorms as a part of Intervarsity (a Christian ministry on campus). The elevators were all jammed up, so he helped me cart a refrigerator, futon, and all my other stuff (and girls have a lot of stuff) up NINE floors in the 100 degree heat. And he did it happily.

We became friends and I spent a lot of time around him. He let me wear the ram head one time because I thought it’d be funny (even though I’m sure he wasn’t supposed to). You’ve probably gotten a lot of e-mails about yesterday’s game, but could you maybe mention Jason in your article, if only for a second. The world deserves to know who this person was. I don’t just want him to be a ‘UNC mascot dies’ blurb on ESPN.com. He was such a good person. A true friend. What every Tar Heel should aspire to be.”

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Two new academic quarters start up today for me - both Cal.State LA and Fuller Seminary just finished up spring break.

At CSULA, this means a kick-off BBQ on Wednesday to reach out to new students in the on-campus housing, and then our regional La Fe Training day for students from across Southern California on Saturday at the Harambee Center.

At Fuller, I’m still wait listed for a class on “The Cross in the NT,” and enrolled in my backup option in a course on “Job & Human Suffering.” Sort of a ‘can’t lose’ learning situation for me, I’d say.

Speaking of Fuller, I read this from Richard Mouw’s blog (he’s the President of Fuller) on interfaith dialogue vs. ecumenical dialogue:

“In a signficant sense, interreligious dialogue is less stressful than intra-Christian dialogue. When we can take it for granted that we are divided by serious issues of eternal significance, there is not the temptation to get upset when someone says something that you strongly disagree with. But when the claims being made are offensive, and also made in the name of Christ, there is often too much at stake to remain calm.”

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I’m preparing a seminar with Abner Ramos for the upcoming La Fe Training Day next Saturday, March 31st at Harambee. The seminar is entitled - “Redeemed Images: Working towards Latino male wholeness.” about Latino. Abner sent me this link from Christianity Today, of an interview of Robert Lewis. He says:

We compared the first Adam with the last Adam, Christ, and we found four differences. They are our four foundation stones for authentic manhood.

A real man is one who rejects passivity, accepts responsibility, leads courageously, and expects the greater reward, God’s reward.

I usually cringe with cheesy categories and generalities about manhood, but I think this interview has some substance to it.

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Funny thing - I just started reading this book by Kent Keith last night when I saw a blog post on it today (nice job Kathie - you must shop at Costco). Anyway, looks like a helpful reminder of the reality of the upside down nature of the kingdom of God.

Here’s the synopsis of the Paradoxical Commandments:

1. People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
   Love them anyway.
2. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
   Do good anyway.
3. If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
   Succeed anyway.
4. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
   Do good anyway.
5. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
   Be honest and frank anyway.
6. The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
   Think big anyway.
7. People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
   Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
8. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
   Build anyway.
9. People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
   Help people anyway.
10. Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.
    Give the world the best you have anyway.

Source: http://www.paradoxicalcommandments.com/

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Last week Isabel & I got up early to make it up to the Kaiser Sunset hospital for an upper GI x-ray, also known as a swallowing test. The aim of the test was to ascertain how well Isa’s body works in the whole swallowing process from throat to intestines. Often for victims of a stroke, and for children with cerebral palsy, the whole eating & digestion process can be fraught with difficulties & challenges.

Anyway, the test consists of Isa needing to (more…)

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Abner Ramos and I are beginning to get our bearings for several La Fe projects we’d like to develop in the coming months. One involves a La Fe network of Latino alumni from IV chapters in the greater Los Angeles, many of whom don’t even know what La Fe is or that they are La Fe alumni. (*La Fe is InterVarsity’s Latino ministry, aka La Fe or The Faith. It also is short for Latino Fellowship.)

So Abner & I are putting out this call on our blogs: (more…)

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“But God is present in reality no matter what unreality our practices and our ponderings imply. He is forever trying to establish communication; forever aware of the wrong directions we are taking and wishing to warn us; forever offering solutions for the problems that baffle us; forever standing at the door of our lonliness, eager to bring us such comradeship as the most intelligent living mortal could not supply; forever clinging to our indiffference in the hope that someday our needs, or at least our tragedies will waken us to respond to his advances. The Real Presence is just that, real and life transforming.”

From Captivating Presence by Albert Edward Day

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I had a great meeting yesterday with Conrad, a CSULA student from Australia. He got involved in the ministry in the fall while I was on sabbatical, went to Urbana, and is at a really great stage of growth with God. He has been praying about re-starting our men’s Bible study, so we got together yesterday to talk things through and come up with a game plan.

More than coming up with a great strategy or having super insight into male culture, I’m most excited about training Conrad in this because of (more…)

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It has been more of a transition back into ministry from sabbatical than I thought it would. I’m not sure why this is surprising, since not only have I shifted to working part-time (30hrs), but I’m also significantly changing my job description. For the past 7 years, my primary focus has been leading the ministry at CSULA. “On the side” (as I like to say), I was also trying to develop La Fe - InterVarsity’s Latino ministry - in greater LA.

Now, my primary focus is split - personally towards the special care needs of my daughter Isabel, and vocationally making developing La Fe more the central focus in my ministry. I’m still serving directly at CSULA, though figuring out how this all fits together.

Last week, it looked like this: (more…)

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“For most of us, the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith. It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it. We will just skim our lives instead of actually living them.”

John Ortberg, author

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