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."

Mic'd Up: Ridiculous and Redemptive's Keynote Address

If I could host a Ridiculous and Redemptive Conference, this guy would be your keynote speaker.

Joe Bankard doesn't just get the nod because he is one of my closest friends.

He doesn't earn our attention on the heels of his recently published book.

He doesn't make this short list because he is a Philosophy professor that finds himself discussing elevated topics like: "Moral Instincts and the Problem with Reductionism."

No. Bankard gets the nod because he lives the Ridiculous and Redemptive ethic. This guy is able to crack up, dress up, and bug out with the best of us.

But he is also a deeply committed follower of Christ.   He lives Kingdom priorities as consistently as anyone I know.  And his words challenge me to be more faithful.  They will challenge you as well.

A couple of weeks ago now, Joe was given the chance to preach at his church in Boise, Idaho.  His sermon, "Things I Wish Jesus Said: 'There is Nothing More Important than Your Nuclear Family'" moved me deeply.

In the same way that MLK Jr. used the parable of the Good Samaritan to ask "Who are your neighbors?" Joe uses Luke chapter 9 to ask the question, "Who is your family?  In less than 22 minutes, he was able to capture and delineate what I currently understand to be my life calling: to broaden my concept of family and to be present with the motherless and fatherless.  

I am inviting you and challenging you to listen today.   <<CLICK HERE>>  Be sure to listen to the sermon from 7/28/2013.

In his teaching, Joe reminds us that the task of redrawing lines around family is not the role of a single family pastor or of that one crazy family in your church that adopted 18 kids.  It's going to take all of us.   Each of us that identifies with the name of Christ has a role to play in welcoming God's children that lack family here on earth.

It can look all kinds of ways.  It can be mentoring youth (through UrbanLife, please :).  It can look like inviting the lonely neighbor out to pizza with your own family.  It can look like fostering a baby (like Angels Foster Family Network) or a teen (like Casey Family Programs) with the targeted support of a private family service agency. It can look like providing diapers and respite for a struggling single mother in the church or neighborhood.  It can look like faithfully giving and writing to a Compassion kid abroad in a way that mitigates disadvantage and suffering that come with poverty. It can look like an unexpected invitation to a Thanksgiving meal or a regular weekday dinner.
It should look like all of these things and more.  And when it does, the world will see the church at its best.  The children and youth that we befriend will experience the church at its best.  People will see the church living and laughing and embracing like an extended family.

May we find more and more ways to re-draw the lines around traditional family.  Let's do this until every single child knows they are a child of God and are loved unconditionally.

In the end, it may be the most redemptive thing we could do.                       Ever.