InterVarsity in South Central PA

Click here to see two Sidewalks 2010 talk about their experience this summer.

The Sidewalks 2010 Urban Project ended yesterday after 6 weeks of life together in the Stevens neighborhood of Lancaster City.  Nine college students spent their summers volunteering at several urban agencies, playing with kids, chatting with neighbors, and figuring out how to manage cooking and keeping up a house.  Yesterday packed their bags, cleaned the house, and said goodbye to each other and to our neighbors.

What’s in a name?  Why Sidewalks?  I read an article in Newsweek a few years back entitled “Sidewalks make a neighborhood into a community.”  That’s the inspiration; that’s the hope.  We bring college students to live with us for a summer to learn how sidewalks perform that function.  It is a little abstract–how could slabs of concrete create intimacy among strangers?  And yet here in the city, in our neighborhood, that’s just what happens.  The slabs of concrete lead the way from home to another, from one porch to another, from one meal to another.  The slabs of concrete are linear parks where there are daily games of catch, opportunities to shoot hoops, linger in conversation, create art, jump rope, and on and on.  In all these ways and so many more, simple slabs of concrete create a connection and wholeness between people that is elusive in many other settings.

So, come to the city, come experience these slabs of concrete that connect us to each other, these sidewalks that make our community.  Come, and see how you might change.

Hey friends and family of the Sidewalks team,

I wanted to take this opportunity to apologize for not keeping the blog updated. I know I promised my friends and family that I would take time each week to write on the blog and let you all know what was happening here. I hope you can forgive the rest of the Sidewalks team and I for not writing but I hope you can understand why this is not our top priority.

These past few weeks have been a time of intense growing. Many of us need time to reflect on the events of the day. We have been learning so much and encountering new ways of thinking that it can prove to be extremely overwhelming at times. Each day we are challenged to not just see from where we stand but instead place ourselves in another person’s shoes (a client, a co-worker, or another member of the Sidewalks team).

When we find ourselves unable to place ourselves in another’s shoes conflict usually arises. We have been learning a different way of conflict resolution. Instead of letting anger fester, we have been told to take the person aside who has hurt us and we talk it out. We explain why we are hurt and in the time of exchanging views we try to understand where the other is coming from and why they feel the way they do. This type of conflict resolution also prevents gossiping and getting third parties involved. I’ve found that this type is extremely healthy and I wish that conflict was always confronted in this way all the time and not just on this urban project. However this also takes lots of time but it is well worth the sacrifice.

I thank you all for seeing where we stand and want you to know that I’m sure there will be plenty of opportunities to share our experiences with you after Sidewalks is over. There are just so many things to share that typing them would not even give them justice. I can truly say that the Sidewalks team is taking this project seriously and putting their hearts and souls into it. I am astounded to hear and see what God is doing not just in the people in our workplaces and community, but also between each of the members of the Sidewalks team. I can’t even begin to fathom leaving here on July 20th because I have grown so close with my brothers and sisters here and really dread the idea of leaving. I hope that we can continue to share openly and deeply with each other after Sidewalks as we do during.

Peace and Blessings,
-Julia

The students of Sidewalks 2010

With a little over a week under our belts, we feel like we’ve taken in a month’s worth of experiences, teaching, and conversations.  Here’s a picture of the team (minus Bret and Betsy), followed by some of the things that have been most significant for the team:

• Joe Manickam, who oversees the Mennonite Central Committee work in Asia spoke to us during orientation about mission.  If we are a Christian, we are a follower of Christ, which means we are a missionary.  Mission involves 3 things: crossing barriers, proclaiming the good news in word (10%), and proclaiming the good news in deed (90%).  Missional relationships are not about taking Jesus to the other side of a barrier, but seeing Jesus on the other side, already at work.  Will we be gutsy and cross over to him?  Joe challenged us to do the following things:
  • Don’t ask “how can I help you,” but “what is your problem,” and walk with people in their response
  • See Jesus as here already – here in the city, here in people’s lives, here at Arbor Place (teen center 4 of us work at), here at Water Street Ministries (health clinic and homeless shelter 5 of us work at)
  • Look for our own transformation
    • Listen and ask questions (vs. trying to provide answers)
    • Weep (let our hearts break for the city like Jesus)
    • Pray (be vulnerable to God)
  • Every day ask “how has God messed with my life today?”  Because if my life, my perspective, my understanding hasn’t been messed with, I haven’t crossed any barriers, and so am not being missional.

• We watched Gran Torino, a powerful film about an old white man who gets to know his Hmong neighbors, with many moving results. We discussed ways the film reflects our earlier study of Philippians 2.  And we looked at examples in the film of the two different ways to approach cultural differences.  An open, sensitive, trusting approach makes it much easier to respond well to the misunderstandings and fear raised by the differences than a suspicious, inflexible, or superiority-complex approach.

• We have had so many deep conversations as a house community and in smaller groups.  After only a few days we were sharing things it normally takes much longer to feel comfortable saying.  One person described these conversations as mental rehab – we’ve been processing and praying about our family baggage, relationships, and sexual pasts.  Healing has been flowing!

• After only 3 days of volunteering, the Arbor Place team was starting to lose their hearts to some of the kids they’re working with.  But they also heard about how 75% of the kids are unlikely to make it out of their tough situations.  The excitement for the kids but pain for their situations resulted in confusion and swirling feelings about how to respond, and what will their involvement actually help, etc.  Lots of stuff to wrestle through – genuinely caring, not making their pain about us, having radical hope, not being tied up in results, putting aside our “we’re here to accomplish something” mindsets and taking up the “we’re here to be a part of what God is doing” perspective.  The following thing also helped us make sense of this:

• Last night we watched the Mother Teresa documentary.  Seeing her love and care, sacrifice and obedience overwhelmed us.  After the film we went straight into prayer.  Part way through our prayer time we were so distracted by a big fight going on outside on the other side of the street.  We could hearing lots of yelling, and a couple little kids crying/screaming.  We switched to praying for God’s peace and love to overcome them.  And actually the neighborhood got quiet soon after.

This afternoon alumni from the Lancaster Urban Project (now called Sidewalks) gathered in the project’s home on East End Avenue in Lancaster.  The project has grown and contracted over the years, originally begun in 2000 and having several fallow years before being revitalized in 2009.  Today we had an alumna from the original summer team and a scattering of alumni from the intervening years.

We began with a simple reflection question: “What was significant for us?”  We looked back to those summer we lived and served and learned in Lancaster city, and we remembered how our lives have been changed.  Here’s what we said:

• It was in my summer in Lancaster that I first realized that Jesus cared about the poor.
• It was in Lancaster that my eyes were opened to the significant needs in the city, especially in education.
• It was in Lancaster that I discovered God’s heart for justice, as we studied the book of Isaiah.  Especially Isaiah 58, when God tells us our worship is meaningless without justice in our lives.
• It was in Lancaster that my eyes were opened to the complexities of culture, and to realize that there is not a monolithic white perspective.
• It was in Lancaster that for the first time in my life, I was honest about what was presently going on for me.
• It was in that first summer project that I was introduced to the city of Lancaster, the place that became my home for the past ten years.
• It was in Lancaster that my eyes were opened to see the people around me, not just respond in fear to an unfamiliar setting where I was the minority.

Many life-changing things have happened in Lancaster through these urban projects.  Our lives have been changed, and we live in those changes today.

Nine students move in this Wednesday.  How will they be different because of this experience?  They’ll be sharing their thoughts on this blog, so be sure to check back here during these next six weeks.

The question of enough has been haunting me for a while now.  Most of my time has been spent around the issue of materialism, as I’ve wrestled with the specific question, “What is enough stuff?”  To be sure, this is an important question in our day and age of excess and entitlement.  It’s a question that I’m reminded of every year around this time, as college students move out of the dorms and leave dumpsters piled high with perfectly functional goods that they just don’t feel like taking home with them.  Even with the green shift, we live in a disposable culture.  Perhaps this is the inherent contradiction of the Millenials: desiring to save the world, but not wanting to be inconvenienced by budgeting or packing light.

On one hand, packing light and keeping the enough stuff threshold is incredibly freeing: there’s less to worry about, less to remember, less to store.  But the other hand, it’s incredibly difficult.  Keeping to a budget is a discipline not easily mastered but many of us free spirits.  Giving up a shirt that I really like but haven’t worn in the past year is strangely personally painful.

Besides stuff, this issue of enough extends into just about every part of life.  Most of the college students I know are asking questions like, “What is enough study and preparation?” and “What is enough community?” and “What is enough sex?” (that’s a blog post unto itself).  Professors have to grapple with questions of “What research is enough?” and “What publishing is enough?”  Friends in every profession wrestle similarly.

The enough question hit me in a new way today as I read my favorite blogger, Seth Godin.  The post I read provoked a new question: “What is enough generosity?”

This is difficult in its own way.  Followers of Jesus squirm around the issues of no good actions meriting more or less of God’s favor, and yet what we do does matter.  Jesus’ call for us to follow him asks for our whole lives, but how do we quantify?  It’s easy to say that all my money is God’s anyway and thus easy to give away, but that’s a nice generality and not as helpful in making a specific choice.  This evening I’ve been pausing to honestly reflect on how I avoid known needs, on where I casually walk around places I know I’ll be asked to help.

This is a question for my own generosity, and it is a question I face as I am the one doing the asking for the generosity of others (as a person who fundraises a full budget for a religious non-profit).  As I ask for financial partnership, what does that do to those I ask, as they are on their own journey of navigating enough in generosity.  I want to invite greater generosity, not subtly introduce either arrogance or numbness.  I’m not sure there’s an answer to this, just something for those of us in fundraising or sales to be conscious of.

What do you think?  Where is enough for you?  What is your journey?

Check out the promotional video for the Mid-Atlantic Region’s annual Chapter Camp!

Funding February.  A month of concentrated focus on asking people for money.  A month where our staff across South Central PA are pulling back from campus to renew efforts in finding partners for this work.

Usually when I tell people that I fundraise a full budget (and now jointly with my wife, a budget well over $100,000 per year), they wince, groan, and comment on how they’d hate being in my shoes.  It makes me wonder if fundraising is just misunderstood, or if I’m a glutton for punishment.  Interestingly, I get similar comments when I tell people that I majored in math in college.

In any case, funding IS part of the job for all staff working for InterVarsity, and it doesn’t have to be a drawback.  There are a few things that are great about being required to raise funds:

• CONNECTION- I’m pretty streaky with keeping up with people (as you may have surmised based on my blogging record).  But there is some wonderful consistency that comes with scheduling newsletters and prayer updates and blog posts.  Perhaps it doesn’t help figure out scheduling visits to see family or a relaxing evening with friends in the neighborhood, but it does create a rhythm of letting people in on my life, and I actually remember others with great regularity as I see their names on email lists, call logs, donor records, and so on.
• DEPTH- Deep relationships are a natural byproduct of talking about money.  It’s awkward, it’s unnatural, it’s taboo.  But it’s sort of like healthy conflict- the fact that it’s uncomfortable actually is a sign that it’s good.  The tension is healthy.  The reality is that money is a necessary part of all our lives, and money has pull on our deepest innermost places that we don’t often acknowledge.  But it’s true.  And asking people to part with money (even for a good cause) shines a light on those embedded strings.  And makes us all have to deal with them.  Uncomfortable, but good.  It’s hard to describe exactly how good this has been for me in relating to family and friends.  It’s strange that just about everyone I’m connected to knows exactly how much money I make, and even stranger that this isn’t true for everybody.  I mean, why is weird to talk about salaries?  And for just about everyone I’m connected to, I know how they think about spending their money and what has been difficult, whether it is the array of worthy causes to give to or the failure of housing appliances or health or business ventures.  I hear these stories all the time, and I pray for family and friends in a depth that is missing in so many other relationships.
• DEPENDENCY- This is both the best and the hardest part of raising funds.  Everyday I am reminded that I need the handouts of others to do the work that I love.  Now, this is actually true also for friends who are computer programmers or selling office furniture or teaching classes- we are all dependent on others seeing what we offer as valuable.  It’s just that I ask directly for validation on the value of my efforts.  I suppose folks in retail are also asking directly, so there’s that connection.  But the temptation I face daily is the allure of a paycheck job, where I just do my work and get a check at the end.  That’s my fantasy when I’m in a dark place.   Yet again, that’s pretty much how this works.  I just have to ask directly for people to contribute money toward the account where my paycheck comes from.  And this is hard, as I’ve said, and as you’ve imagined.  But it is so good, so very good.  Because if I just punch the clock, I pretty easily believe that it’s my own efforts that produce the dough.  And in ministry, this would be a very dangerous assumption.  It would be very, very dangerous for me to have the offer of punching the clock to go to campus, under the radar, connect with students, listen to hard stories, offer to pray, look at scripture, answer questions, make invitations, challenge assumptions, and then simply return home.  It would seem edgy and glamorous and fun.  But it would be all about me.  It would not be about students.  It would be about my glory, not about service.  And there’s something that happens with raising funds- I know that I am not alone.  I might be the only one physically embodied on campus, but really I am just the focal injection of the interest and care and attention and resources of about 100 individuals and families.  I am not alone.  I have a community with me.  I am dependent, but I am not alone.

Yes, fundraising is good.  For connection, for depth, for dependency.  These are structures of community.  My job, fundraising, is required community.  This is a beautiful thing.  One week into Funding February, I remember, I hope, and I work.

This funny word was the theme at Urbana 09, InterVarsity’s triennial missions conference in Saint Louis.

Incarnation:  God coming to dwell among us people in the person of Jesus.

It’s a word I’ve been sitting with as our South Central PA colleges gear back up.  Ramez Atallah, the bible teacher at Urbana, suggested that incarnation is the:

1. MEANS of  how God will speak to us.  God comes to us, lives with us, and speaks with us.
2. MESSAGE of what God would like to speak to us.  The point: God will serve people and honor people by paying us a visit.  The idea of grace and saving flows from this humility of God taking on human form and living among us.
3. MODEL of  how God would see us minister in turn.  God showed us how it’s done: to become the least, to humble oneself, to go to the other.

My reflections of the past few weeks is that as we endeavor to follow the MODEL of incarnation, to go and live among others with the beautiful message that this God we know would also like honor them with a humble visit, that as we go, this incarnation things CHANGES US.  Simply put, I care about the stuff that goes on in my neighborhood, even the dumb stuff, because I’ve made this my home.  And as this choice becomes more normal for me, as it becomes more and more difficult to ever imagine moving, this is incarnation changing me.  That is the vulnerability of a posture of going among and living among:  it changes me, it changes us.

As a new semester gets underway, this is my prayer for our college students:  As you are sent to campus to study and work, may you choose to fully live among your peers.  Really dwell among them in a posture of listening and service, and may you be changed by this, to care about their loneliness, their emptiness, their passion, their hopes, and even the dumb stuff going on.  Live in the midst of campus, be changed, and carry God’s message of incarnation to those who need to hear it most.  Amen.

Finally, here’s a video that kicked off the Urbana conference experience and beautifully illustrates the idea of incarnation.  Enjoy!