The Wrong Kind of 'Come Up'

My students are “coming up” on things way too frequently.

In the hood, to “come up” on something, means stealing it.  

Before I served youth with UrbanLife, I didn’t think so many people were engaged in criminal activity just to meet basic needs. But these days, I see it happening all around me.  The tentacles of poverty have their slime all over our students.  And this morning, it’s grieving my soul.

*******

Corey didn’t commit the crime.   But he was a lookout for the criminals.  Corey needed money from somewhere.  And it wasn’t coming from his mom.  According to him, she gets the most angry when he asks for new clothes.   He shouldn’t have to wear shoes that are so small, his big toe loses feeling.  But those are the shoes he wears every day.

We told Henry that he was going to steal from the wrong person at some point.   But the immediate rush of dopamine and monetary reward was too great for him to stay away from.  He kept stealing.  Finally, last spring, he was arrested in a stolen vehicle.  It landed him behind bars for some hard time.  

Walter is perhaps the most promising student I have worked with at UrbanLife.   He excels in both school and sports.   Adults are compliment him and students follow him.   I just happen to follow him on Facebook.  Over social media I began to see phones for sale way too often.  If he wasn’t stealing them himself, Walter was selling the stolen phones for profit. 

Todd made sure he slept at his friend’s house last weekend.  It was the end of the month.  And there wasn’t any food in his cupboards.  His dad is on trial for burglary next week.   He desperately wants a different life for himself though.  On Sunday, he interviewed to be a part of The Come Up Leadership Development Internship.  We are all pulling for this kid.

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There’s no excuse for this kind of behavior.  But it’s also not a given that these guys can ask their parents for a lock (for your PE locker), for new socks or football cleats, or for money to pay a debt for a textbook that his sister wrote in.  Most of my guys are not even thinking about homecoming.   The way into a suit and onto a picture order is way out of reach.  Cash is dry at home. Jobs are hard to come by.  And foot-pushing scooters are their best mode transportation.

I've taken some hacks at addressing this blunder. I’ve hired youth to work at our house.  For hours at a time, they’ve mowed the lawn, pulled weeds, and washed vehicles.  Last week I had a couple youth washing exterior windows for neighbors.  But these are all '1-offs'.

This week’s launch of THE COME UP, our leadership development internship, will create new realities for a handful (See yesterdays post).     “Coming up” doesn’t have to mean stealing.   It can also mean rising from the bottom to high places.   We believe this will happen in the lives of many of our young people.   This kind of “Come Up” is an avenue to meaningful work, fair pay, and real challenge that calls forth their gifts.   Perhaps most importantly, participation in this internship decreases the chances of their lives being defined by the worst thing they haveever done.

You can allow 1 more student to be included in this internship.   Commitments of $100 a month allow us to expand the opportunity to additional qualified applicants.

Give HERE if you are able, designating gifts to “The Come Up.”

*Names are altered to protect identities of my students.  Photos included in this entry are not the actual students I am describing.

The 'Come Up'

Transformed PEOPLE transform neighborhoods.

This is our core belief. 

New buildings won’t produce lasting change around here.   A stronger police presence alone won’t all together eliminate the crime.   Parenting classes by themselves can’t retool families that are stacked densely into apartments.  Even doubling the amount of UrbanLife activities to the calendar won’t remake the realities for some of my neighborhood friends. 

God still holds the patent on life transformation.   Only He can generate the kind of transformation we are longing for around here.

That’s why we are committed to leadership development of youth.  Christian leadership development necessarily involves God in the transformation of people.

We believe transformed youth will grow up to be different kinds of moms and dads, employees and neighbors.  Better ones.  It took only 12 people (disciples- see New Testament), relentlessly committed to following Christ, to change the course of history. So I am pretty sure our neighborhood will look different with a band of transformed youth, driven to love God and neighbor.

Yesterday we interviewed 15 youth for “The Come Up,” a year-long leadership development internship.   In this internship, we look critically at the challenges facing our neighborhood and push the interns to engage in positive ways.  We coach them to be Jesus-style leaders, serving rather than wielding power.   And we pay them $100 monthly stipends.   This allows us to prepare them for employment and to train them to be professional and productive.  Additionally it allows a portion of them to help their families and turn from dishonest methods of making money in the ‘hood.  Unfortunately, we are seeing startling numbers of youth turn to different versions of a ‘hustle’ in efforts to meet basic needs (see tomorrow’s post for more).

Help me develop more students.  Although 10 of the 15 students, who interviewed, are ready for this kind of rigor and development, our current budget allows for only 5 hires.  While we have capacity to train more students, we just don’t have the capital.  With only a few new financial partners, we will be able to hire more emerging leaders this Thursday. More specifically, one new partner giving $100 a month will allow us to include an additional student in the cohort.  Four financial partners, giving $25 dollars a month will also allow us to include an additional student in the cohort.  

Would you pray and consider giving generously to see youth in our city, ‘Come Up?’

LINK to give online.

LINK to UrbanLife homepage

Let this Marinate in Your Brain

Mission Bay Baptism

You may remember Courtney as the guy who pledged to grow a square of hair (a “tail”) so long as his love for Jesus kept on growing too {post titled "Both Ridiculous and Redemptive"}.

The good news [and the bad news-aesthetically speaking] is that tail is still growing strong!

A striking sign of Courtney’s continued spiritual growth was his decision to be baptized last month.   Given the opportunity to baptize Courtney, I asked him three questions.  Each had significant gravity:

 Do you believe that you have a need for God because of your own sin and the brokenness of the world around you?

Do you believe in Jesus, who forgave your sins, died for you, and rose again that you might experience abundant life?

Do you choose follow God all the days of your life and commit to this family of believers, offering the best of your time talents and treasure to King Jesus?

With the affirmative answer to these questions, Courtney was submerged in the salty Mission Bay.  Then he emerged, dripping and smiling.  Amidst the hooting and clapping of onlookers, we witnessed an outward expression of an inward reality.

In Christ, Courtney is a new creation. 

Worship With 1001

Church happens throughout the week here.

It happens on a Monday night when fifty or so students walk over from the park to share a hot meal, some spontaneous laughs and a piercing story about God-in-flesh walking this earth.

Church happens on Tuesday when high school students weed and water UrbanLife Farms, bringing life to a barren city lot and empowerment to their own experience.

It happens Wednesday, as young adults mentor and love middle school students, right after 5-dollar pizza and immediately preceding sock dodge ball.

Church happens Thursday night where, once UrbanLife high school students, now Orange Avenue Church college-aged leaders, gather in a local condo to study scripture.

It happens Friday too, when we sabbath purposefully and worship as families.

Church even breaks out on Saturdays, from time to time.  

On Sunday we gather to proclaim what God has done during that week, to listen for His voice, and to beg God for strength to face another week.

We've been functioning as a church for a long time now. This fall, we will be formally chartered as a congregation.  In anticipation, a camera crew came by to capture a portion of God's movement in our neighborhood. Enjoy this succinct and up-close look at Orange Avenue Church, one of our denomination's 1001 New Worshiping Communities.   

Click any image to watch.

Peanut Butter Make-up is the Path to Significance

 This is how we build mentoring relationships that matter:

At this point in the year, we are doing a lot of inviting.   We are asking folks to join us.   And, in some instances, we are begging.

In my neighborhood, I have 60-70 youth who desire significant, formational, caring adult friendships.  For lots of reasons, they just don't have them.  As we start to gather students on Monday evenings, beginning in a few short weeks, students will come.   I'm just praying adults will too.

We don't need adults with perfect lives or iron-clad advice.  Volunteers don't need schedules with openings the size of part-time jobs.  We aren't even looking for 40 and 50 year-olds to dress with 'swag' to fit in.

Instead...

We need mentors who will show up.
Mentor leaders join us many Monday nights.  Additionally they see students outside of program, attending games, sharing meals and even running errands.  We ask for a weekly connection and a year-long commitment.

We need adults who are willing to 'let loose.'   
This probably means some version of painting your face with peanut butter and letting high school students spit q-tips out of straws, in your direction.

We need adults who want to be significant.
Volunteer leaders discover that they are receiving far more than they are giving.  At a basic level, the youth we work with help us to escape the gravitational pull of narcissism and worry.   When we give for the sake of giving, we find life.  And we make genuine friends.

If this is you and you realize a little bit of peanut makeup could be the path to significance, then please contact me.
justin@urbanlifesd.org

Invincible at 18

Most of our students get around on foot.   

A lot of them use the city bus.

A handful ride bikes.

And a few brave souls skateboard throughout our urban terrain.

Skating is cool.  It is quiet efficient.   But it can also be a meat grinder. 

I was headed from UrbanLife, back home, with Amare and Atsede in the car.   Our summer farm crew had just finished work.  Ernesto was headed home too.  He was on a 5 foot long skateboard, built for speed and 'carving.' We happened to be leaving at the same time.

Heading west from campus, I realized that Ernesto was going to have to deal with one giant, no gargantuan, hill.   Urbanlife sits atop the highest point of City Heights, overlooking the whole community.

As Ernesto approached the drop-in point beyond the crosswalk, my chest became tight.  In a moment, I experienced a significant portion of his adrenaline rush.  In a flash, I was transported back to 1997 at the University of San Diego.  In that place and time, I dropped in on an asphalt mountain, riding a skateboard and carrying a surfboard under my arm. I didn't make it that day.  And neither did my right clavicle bone.    

"Is he really gonna do that?" I breathed again.  "No!"

He was 18 and invincible though.

Accelerating our minivan through the stop sign to follow Ernesto, I saw it.

He dropped in.  

He picked up speed.

He picked up more speed.

Then he leaned into a turn.  He leaned the opposite way, into the hill.   

It seemed to be controlling his speed!

He made it half way down and then pointed the nose of the board straight down.

Ernesto was going to make it!

Then a wheel popped off.

Metal trucks, once spinning four wheels, dug into the concrete.  Sparks flew.   And so did Ernesto.  

Something was going to take the hit.   He sacrificed his rear, elbow and palm, forcing them to act like brakes.   

The skid lasted way too long.   I hated watching it.   I still hate thinking about it.

Speeding up and then pulling over, I rushed out to check his condition.  He was shaken up.  But seemed okay.

"Did my wheel come off? That was so weird."   I didn't know.  It happened too fast.

Like a good soccer mom, I had a full blown first aid kit ready to go in the minivan.

We stopped the bleeding.   We got him some water.  And we transported him to his mother.

"Thanks a lot JP" Earnesto repeated.

"No worries man.   I am just glad you are okay."

With one more thing to say, I added, "Oh yeah, Ernesto?"

"Yeah JP"

"I know that you are 18 bro.   But you are not invincible."

"I got you JP."