From Self-Focus to Significance

What’s it feel like to help students discover their deep yearning for significance, to gain a vision of being a part of something bigger than themselves, and to launch them on a path of becoming the kinds of people God uses to change the world? It feels like my new job.

Last month, as Director of InterVarsity’s Los Angeles Urban Project (LAUP), I led 75 students in preparation and training for their summer ministry experiences at our Student Training in Mission (STIM) conference. It was a weekend of cross-cultural exercises, gaining perspective on global inequalities, and focused prayer. Students caught the vision for meaningful participation in God’s mission to love the world and were inspired toward the character growth required to bring good news to the world in word and deed. (For students’ quotes about STIM, click here.)

One of these students was Claudia, a Latina woman from East Los Angeles College. After our last session, students were invited to approach staff for prayer and Claudia approached me. Weeping, she shared, “Every time I try to hope that God can work through me, I hear a voice in my head say, ‘You’ll never do better than working at McDonald’s’”. My heart broke at the thought of this amazing woman trapped underneath lies about her own significance. It was my joy to pray the truth into Claudia, and to play a part in helping her begin to step into God’s hopes for her life.

For two reasons, Claudia captures the heart of LAUP. Claudia was once very much like the urban Latina youth to which LAUP students minister—youth whose spirits suffocate underneath multiple layers of hopelessness, inferiority, and insignificance—to whom LAUP brings love, dignity, and investment. Yet as a college student, Claudia also represents her generation: today’s college students were raised in a culture of self-focus and materialism and need spiritual leadership to transcend the small picture they have of their future. LAUP pulls students out of the stream of culture for six weeks and places them among ministry to the poor, creating space for them to catch a vision for participation in God’s love for the world, and shaping them into people of character.


The great news is that the ministry of LAUP is too big to be shared just by me! Your partnership is invaluable to the advancement of LAUP, and there are a number of ways you can participate:

-sponsor a student intern by clicking here

-set up a visit to LAUP this summer here

-learn about the LAUP facebook group here

-get instruction on how to pray for LAUP here

-or give to LAUP’s program budget here and type out: Los Angeles Urban Project

Thank you for your partnership, and I look forward to deepening our experience of seeing God work in students and in the city, together.