This was an interesting article that was emailed to me:

January 11, 2009
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Tax Cuts for Teachers

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Over the next couple of years, two very big countries, America and China, will give birth to something very important. They’re each going to give birth to close to $1 trillion worth of economic stimulus - in the form of tax cuts, infrastructure, highways, mass transit and new energy systems. But a lot is riding on these two babies. If China and America each give birth to a pig - a big, energy-devouring, climate-spoiling stimulus hog - our kids are done for. It will be the burden of their lifetimes. If they each give birth to a gazelle - a lean, energy-efficient and innovation-friendly stimulus - it will be (more…)

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Read it here first: The latest ministry update.

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A few things from the blog-0-sphere that I read through more than once:

- I work on a commuter campus, so can relate to Eddy Ekmekji’s post “Ministering in the convenience” about a recent Atlantic Monthly article about the state of community colleges or as the article labels them, colleges of convenience.

- “Give us your Black Sheep” - Jeremy Del Rio posts on the creative explosion when space is given to explore the ideas of otherwise malcontents.

- Marriage: The Public Debate - I really appreciate reading Richard Mouw’s (President of Fuller Seminary) as he articulates about the intersection of religious conviction and public policy-making in a pluralistic society, in this case, addressing the recent developments in California on same-sex unions.

- The Institute - Anthony Bradley links to story of 11-year old girl in Romania that was raped by her teenage uncle and who sought permission from the state for an abortion at 21 weeks.

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Urban. Young Men. Students. Bonding. Incarnational. Relevant.

Based on a conglomeration of these things, I’ve been ushered into a on-the-fly introduction to hip-hop over the last month or two. In my own opinion, I’m about a decade slow (if not more) in this whole arena, but hey, the turtle beat the hare, so I’ve got a chance.

And since I’m serious about learning, I’ve attached (more…)

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Read more about it in this week’s update.

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That is, more involvement in their lives.  From HispanicPundit.com, this post on parent involvement in college for Latino students.

It’s no secret that parental involvement increases academic performance in elementary and secondary schools, but scant research has been conducted to evaluate the effects of parental involvement on the academic achievement of college students…. Today, 49% of Latino college students are first generation college students - which means that their parents need information and support about how to navigate the college system and help their children be successful in higher education.

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Some of the young men of DEEP at CSULA Here is a copy of the latest news from my ministry with InterVarsity LaFe at CSULA.Developing World Changers

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This picture is worth a thousand sermons.

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“If you want to go fast, go alone.
If you want to go far, go together.”
- African proverb

When I began full-time, vocational ministry, fundraising seemed to be - if I can share quite honestly - (more…)

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From last weeks fellowship meeting, aka DEEP
You can read about the most recent update about the ministry - with news about how our student group is deepening, about our upcoming conference at Catalina, and the Cumbre event on Nov.16, as well as an update about Isabel - by clicking here.If you’d like to get the update automatically, sign up here to subscribe.

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This is one of the reasons I love being on staff, for being a part of stuff like this.

Poster for the upcoming “Cumbre de Alabanza” (Spanish for “Worship Summit”)When we started doing this event 5 years ago to serve Latino students around the Greater LA area, “we” was just Abner Ramos & I working together on the side, adding to our otherwise already full plates as campus staff, and our hopes were that a few students would come, maybe 30 or 40.

Now (more…)

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If a note-taking bug were on the wall, here is what they would see today

- At almost 2, Isa is a late-night party girl.  Today she got me up at 1:40am and danced in my arms (and then Vero’s) until 4am.

- Slept until 7:30, cleaned up the house before waking up Isa at 8:30 in order to eat, and put on her hand splints/’hip-hop’ gloves (you’ve got to see them to understand) before her vision therapy at 9am

- Worked on my presentation on “The Gang Crisis” for my Race & Identity in the New Testament class this afternoon, while Isa practiced tracking the red pom-pom and activating the light & music on her drum.

- Drove up to La Canada to have lunch with an old high school/church friend who is currently living in Sweden.

- Raced over to Fuller, somehow found good parking, but was late to class because I needed to make handouts for the presentation.

- Will make my weekly run from class in Pasadena (at 6pm) to make it to CSULA in time for our fellowship meal at 6:30pm.

- I’m excited to hear my friend Chris - church planting here in the eastside - speak at DEEP to our students from Luke 5:27-32 on Jesus as the good doctor.  We spent some time this morning talking through the specifics of our group, and Chris is a great speaker, so I’m really excited for our students tonight.

- After DEEP (our on-camps fellowship meeting), I’m taking 3 of our core guys to In-N-Out to talk about “fella”ship and hospitality in our ministry.  I’ll probably get home before midnight and am praying that Isa isn’t planning another late-night party.

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According to a recent study, 40% of employers make hiring decisions based on Facebook accounts. I’d better warn my students about this (their not scandalous, but…)

HT: UrbanOnramps

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Our returning students gathered to help new students move-in.
I’m trying out something new for sending out ministry updates. You can read it here.

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Needless to say, I’m highly invested in how this kind of issue goes. Whether Tom Freston, former Viacom exec, is a saint or not, I appreciate his stated motivation, as the article quotes it:

“In a statement, he said he contributed reimbursements he received from the city — and will donate future ones — to a special-education support center in a public school. He says he is pursuing the case so other children, “without jumping through hoops,” can attend appropriate schools “regardless of their family’s financial means.“

My snooty answer to the question - especially when asked in light of schools that already fail typically developing students, before we even begin to talk about special needs students - is whenever public schools fail to provide what they’re supposed to with the tax-payer funds they’ve been alloted, then other means should be funded. It’s why I’ve begun to swing towards a pro-choice stance on the models that vouchers and charter schools provide.

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Never one to be “the first,” I’ve recently gotten onto the Facebook/Myspace thing.  I’m finding that where cell-phones used to be the new “it” when I first came to CSULA, now if I want to get in touch with my students, the fastest way to get a response is by leaving a comment on their Facebook/Myspace or, sometimes faster, by text message.  I need to actually figure out if texts are part of my cell-phone plan, but I found a great website for sending free text messages - Txt2Day.com.  Very easy.  Great response time from my folks.

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That’s what the start of the school year feels like in campus ministry.  In addition to digging (and praying and meeting and asking…) my way out of big funding deficit, the beginning of the ministry year is in full effect… and classes don’t even start until next Thursday.

Last weekend we took part in IGNITE! - InterVarsity’s Southern California Evangelism conference.  Yesterday we had our very first faculty/staff prayer meeting (yeah!!!) and last night we gathered some of our returning students to prepare for Move-In on Saturday and for meeting and welcoming new students, over the next few weeks especially.  Saturday we’ll be sweating it out (literally) in service, helping students move-in into the housing units (their not dorms, trust me).  Then we’ve got 3 days of tabling, surveys, a raffle, a big BBQ to kick-off the quarter, our first DEEP, and then the first day of class with our first two Bible studies - day & night - starting off the year.  We’re going to be preaching through the book of Luke at DEEP this year, and teaching through the parables in Bible study.  Should be good times all the way around.

With the anticipation of all the craziness that accompanies the first half of the quarter (from now until the end of October when we go out to Catalina for our annual Fall conference), we spent sometime today as a staff team to pray.  I won’t list out all of the ugly details here, but for those of you who pray, please do.   More than just on-time taxes are on the line.

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Cleverly spinning off of the UPS ad campaign, we shared the LaFe vision for Greater Los Angeles by introducing this video at the end of our staff conference on Thursday.

Our hope was to give staff something to remember as they think their ministry and Latino students on campus. What do you think?

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Several weeks ago, at a coalition meeting of urban youth workers in East LA, we were asked to share about ourselves by answering the question - “What keeps you up at night?”

Too be totally honest, my instinctive response was (more…)

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Photo from our end-of-the year Scripture conference at Campus by the Sea
I’ve posted my most current ministry update - you can read it here. It has a recap of our summer conference, as well as my ministry trip to Turkey.

P.S. If you didn’t get the chance, I also posted a full-update last month about Isabel’s development.

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