Top Chef UrbanLife

The challenge was both ambitious and clear:

• ·      Purchase, prepare a and serve a hot meal to 70+ youth by 5:30 PM.
• ·      Include seasonal organic vegetables that will be palatable to urban fast-food-fed youth.
• ·      Direct and empower 8-10 student leaders to plate, serve and clear a 3-course meal.
• ·      Reflect honestly on the evening, making recommendations assembling a handful of recipes to be used by future volunteer cooks.

 

Riley and Ashley, my brother and sister-in-law were up for the challenge.  Even though it meant taking a plane ride to get here.  A lawyer by trade, Riley has a love for cooking and revels in making “blow-out” meals for 4-8 people.  Ashley, a small business owner, plans and executes events to raise funds for non-profits in the Bay Area.  Her breadth of experience in pulling off large events would prove advantageous in our context.

They woke that Monday morning ready to rock.

Game-time butterflies swarmed their insides.  This would be an uphill climb.

Between the sips of coffee, the questions kept coming:

“How will we heat things without an oven?”

“What vegetables have you served in the past at UrbanLife?”

“Do you know where I can buy some faro (a grain)?”

“Is fish totally out of the question?”

“Will we have help getting the food out?”

It felt like we were living the opening scene of America’s Top Chef.

Once the coffee was finished, Riley was racing through aisles of Whole Foods.  He bought all the faro they had in stock.  He made the critical decision to supplement faro with wheat berries.  Ashley and her sister (my wife) happily helped load down a cart at Costco, full of items ranging from persimmons to M & Ms.

Before lunchtime, Riley was grilling chicken breasts over briquettes in my back patio with his shirt off.   And by the time school let out, they were shuttling containers of food over to the UrbanLife property.

Before students flooded the building, Riley and Ashley were working at full-tilt: Riley taught student leaders about food presentation and then used each of them to assemble the main course, using an example plate as a model.  Ashley was busy organizing the servers, assigning them tables and reviewing the order of service.

Full. Tilt.

When students rushed through the doors, it must have felt like a formal family dinner with the extended family.   The hugs, welcome of the volunteer leaders, and the plated food, all announced “Family Here!”  

They sat down to a plated mixed green salad, garnished with fresh persimmons and touched with a citrus vinaigrette. 

In short order, students were served a faro grain bowl, topped with grilled chicken breast, butternut squash, feta cheese, vine-ripe tomatoes and an olive oil drizzle. “Don’t forget the S and P!” shouts Riley.   Salt and pepper.  They remembered.

While the evening’s food may as well have been foreign cuisine to students, most of them devoured it.  A few of them raved about it.  My favorite comment came from Courtney: “When I get rich, you are going to be my personal chef!”

Um…I guess Courtney.  Adults in the room knew what they got that night.  They were effusive in their praise.

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Seeing the Hurds step up to this challenge was entertaining.  

Much more than that though, it was meaningful----for all parties.

As director of this ministry, I (Justin) felt loved and supported in my work.  I caught a vision for how this time can be even more welcoming and nourishing to the souls and bodies of our students.

Students felt cared for and nurtured.  It was clear.

Riley and Ashley felt emboldened in the act of serving.   We are all created with an intrinsic desire to serve, which is activated when we actually do it.  Whether it is a rush of dopamine or a breath from God, we are reinforced somehow in our serving.   That’s because we are living into the people God dreamed we would be, if only in that moment.   We are created in the image of God.  And serving others is at the core of who He is.

Ashley and Riley might/ might not describe their experience in these terms.  We might hear, “It was our pleasure,” coupled with a wide grin. 

Don’t be mistaken.  The pleasure they experienced came from being the hands and feet of God that night.

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Consider living into your calling with us at UrbanLife.   It may mean firing up your Croc Pot with some hot chili.  It could mean working an extra shift at work to purchase the food for a Monday night.  Or it could mean committing to a mentoring friendship with a few youth in our community.   I would love to facilitate your particular expression of God’s image in you.   Just contact me.  

Ridiculous Swagger

Perhaps the most effective means of connecting with youth, is acting ridiculous yourself.   It takes courage and self assurance and "swagger" to dance in public without invitation.  But Sarah does it.  All the time.

Featured in this video, is my ministry sidekick Sarah Wiese.   She is amazingly gifted in connecting with youth and moving them into deeper waters of faith and reflection.  She also serves as "House Mom" to our UrbanLife Girls House.  Less than a mile from my residence, several college-aged UrbanLife graduates live in community, committed to one another and to following the call of Jesus on their lives.

I count it a privilege to work with her.

Enjoy the swagger.

Ordinary Meals, Extraordinary Exchanges

Remember when you got busted at dinnertime because your brother kicked you under the table, and you couldn't stop laughing?  You tried.  Dad gave a stern look.  But the milk in your mouth had to come out somewhere. It squirted out your nose.  And that made your siblings laugh even harder.

Remember when things were tough for your family?  Rent was due and your parents seemed scared?  That pre-meal prayer was fervent.  Your family needed God to show up that week. So you prayed together.  And you were extra thankful for the casserole that night.

Remember going around the table, sharing your “highs” and “lows” of the day?  You never wanted to go first.  But after you did, you felt better than normal.  As a youngster you couldn’t describe it.  But it felt good to share your day with people who cared about you.

Many youth in my neighborhood don’t have spaces for these kinds of interactions.  A lot of them don’t eat around a dinner table with their families.  Most of them don’t have caring people to share the events of their days with. Virtually all of them seek something like this.

At UrbanLife, we serve 16,000 meals per year.  It’s an extraordinary number.  You wouldn’t expect that to come out of a kitchen that measures 6 feet by 5 feet.  Hot meals in that volume cannot come from setups that lack both ovens and stoves.   In real terms, our kitchen is a plastic-industrial sink, two refrigerators and a leaning closet half packed with food. But somehow, it is enough.

Dining with youth in the neighborhood and providing warm meals is central to what we do at UrbanLife.  Together, we are focused on seeing God transform a neighborhood, from the inside out. Transformation doesn’t happen solely because 80 more bellies are full.  In fact, the food is not the change agent at all. The most powerful dynamic is the interaction around a family dinner, between neighborhood youth and their adult volunteers.  In these mentoring friendships, students know they are listened to, welcomed and cared for.  They begin to experience healthy family interactions.  They laugh and share details from the day. They practice giving thanks and cleaning up after themselves.  They build trust.

This strategy for relational ministry has been employed for years.  Jesus used it throughout his time on earth.  He ate with all kinds of folks: slimy tax collectors (Mark 2:15), ‘skanky’ prostitutes, obnoxiously religious phonies (Luke 7:36-50), and poor folk.  He took a lot of flack for this.  But he also knew that eating with someone expressed deep love. 

This fall, we are working to improve this sacred practice.  We are working against the impersonality of a cafeteria style-food line.  Instead, we are making practical changes to spur authentic relational building events. We will sit in single tables throughout the building. Each table will have a trained adult volunteer. We will train a team of student leaders and adult volunteers to deliver and serve tables of students so that they can remain seated.  Often, we will strategically seat students.   And we will provide activities during dinner to propel conversations and incite good times.   It sounds great in theory, right? I will have to report back on how it goes.

We need people like you to pull this off.  First, I invite you to join us any Monday night at 5:15 PM for the meal.  We can use you to serve tables of students.   We are also looking for groups, of friends or Bible studies, of sports teams or families, to provide food for a Monday night meal. There are a variety of “home run” meals that groups have brought in the past.  Crock Pots, fired up in just a few homes, can generate food that feeds scores of people.   Some groups get each member to bring different ingredients and then combine them together to make tacos, burritos, or baked potato bars.  If you are unable to visit or sign up for a meal, I invite you to consider donating to cover the cost of a Monday night meal.  It costs $250.00 for us to serve between 60-80 students on a given night.  Filling this need will allow us to love and serve youth in this context throughout the school year.   Please contact me if you (along with others you know) are willing to step up in any of these ways.  

We are relentlessly pursing the vision of transforming a neighborhood, one transformed student at a time.   

Extraordinary, God-inspired, unexplainable transformation often occurs in the most ordinary places. In our context, it happens around rectangular folding tables and over warmed plates of lasagna. 

Both Ridiculous and Redemptive

Courtney experienced God up at camp this summer, no doubt.  He can't stop talking about it.  This will be an exciting year of walking with Courtney through his senior year: discipling him, rooting for him, and pushing him.

Today, after church, he shared with me that the new "tail" he is sporting has spiritual significance.  "As long as I am growing in my love for God, I am going to let this tail grow."

He said it with confidence.
I kept a straight face.

I was impressed.  It's an authentic 'setting apart' for God type thing.

But.  If I'm honest.   It's a little ridiculous too.

I love this stuff.

Sights and Sounds of the BEAR

Take 2-3 minutes to see how God moved in the lives of students up at Big Bear.

Ricardo and the Metal-head, Ukulele-playing, Mexican-American, Greaser-Crew

We call them the “Greasers.” They are about five or six freshmen and sophomore students who come to UrbanLife faithfully and call it home.  This summer, with less students around, I finally got to know this crew.  

All teenagers are trying to discover who they are and how they fit in.  It is just painfully and endearingly obvious with this group.  I mean, how many Mexican American teenagers do you see rocking Metallica t-shirts, slicking their hair with a black pocket-comb and strumming Hawaiian tunes on their ukuleles?  They long to be a part of a sub-culture.  And, whether they admit it or not, they long to fit in.

The “Greasers” also long to be known and loved.   

So where do I find a leader that can connect to this complicated crew?

In my own family.

Ricardo.

Ricardo has some chameleon-like qualities himself.

True stuff:  He is Mexican.  He is American.  As recent as last week, he had knotty dreadlocks. He (used to) slick his hair.  He owns a ukulele.  And what really matters: He can connect with just about anyone, anywhere.

Fresh off of 4 months of world travel, Ricardo is in the process of discovering his purpose.  At least a piece of it may be found in loving and serving this particular crew.

I am so proud of Ricardo.  I am proud of the way he befriended these guys.  I am proud of how he led them throughout the week.  I am proud of how he pushed them into new and often challenging and scary experiences.  I am proud of how he modeled confidence and the ability to cut loose.   

Would you pray with me for these guys?  Pray that God will use Ricardo in the coming school year as a safe and inspiring mentor in their lives.  Pray that Ricardo will also discover more of his giftedness through his leadership with the “Greasers.”

There was a moment at camp where incarnational ministry became real to me.  For the 1980’s dance party, the Greasers brought some metal rock music from that era on a CD.  They convinced the DJ to play it.  And I promised to take part in the mosh pit.   When the guitar came in, the dance floor mostly cleared.  In the middle, bumping and slamming into one another, was Ricardo, myself, a couple brave African American dudes, and the whole Greaser posse.   This was their world.  And we got to enter it, if only for half a song.

If the Greasers long to be a part of a sub-culture.

Why not the sub-culture of Christian disciples?

I am praying it goes down like that.

I can see it now:  

UrbanLife’s own Christ-following, Metal-head, Ukulele-playing, Mexican-American, Greaser-Posse.

Single Track Squeals

Courtney's hands gushed sweat the whole way up the mountain.  On the asphalt road, he tried hard to think about other things.  On the bumpy dirt road, the knots in his stomach got tighter and tighter.  If you had looked into his eyes, the fear would have been obvious.   But he wasn't about to admit it.  Not in that company:

Courtney had never learned to ride a bike.

The complication with the scenario, was that our cabin was headed for a single track, double black diamond mountain bike trail.  Once the van dropped us off, the only way back was down the trail.

I rode in the middle of the pack. Guys squealed like girls and brakes squealed like angry mice. Thrill seeped through their pores.

Courtney was more like a drunk driver though.  He struggled to stay on the track.  His near-collisions with  trees and boulders added up.   Somehow...someway...he made it through the forest trail.   He didn't even go over the handle bars.  He didn't even slide out.

At the bottom, he finally copped to one of us:  "I have never ridden a bike before."

Really Courtney?
That would have been good to know.
Dude: you b--a--r--e--l--y made it.
I'm glad you are safe.
I'm proud of you.


Camp is like this though.   This very dynamic is why we take youth out of the city and up into the mountains.   They experience new things.  They are faced with fears.  They overcome them.

And...they realize new giftings.  They begin to wonder who God created them to be.

I'm pretty sure Courtney is not believing God created him to be a downhill biker.  But he is beginning to wonder about his purpose.   He is starting to imagine how God might use his love of athletics (football & wrestling), his knack for busting rhymes, and his welcoming hospitable nature.

Call students to be all that God created them to be.

If this is all we do at UrbanLife, I am all in for a long long time.