Becoming the People of God

As we train our LAUP interns for urban ministry this summer, our hope is to root them in the biblical story of the world’s brokenness, and God’s choice to enter in and redeem. After beginning with the reality of the world’s brokenness (see previous post) we laid out the role of Jesus, entering into our world to conquer death and brokenness, and giving people access to the Kingdom of God. “Much like a massive explosion at the base of a dam,” LAUP teacher Chris Harry taught, “Jesus’ death and resurrection struck the death blow to brokenness. The dam hasn’t come down yet, but if you look closely, you can see the cracks.” Using this image, we invited students into participation with God in “pulling apart the cracks” to let the power and reality of God's kingdom come rushing into their lives, and into the inner city.

In the midst of this vision, my (Scott’s) hope from the beginning has been to nurture a sense of community that would embody the Kingdom of God: that our group of 60 would be a safe place for honesty and encouragement where God’s grace became tangible.

I put this hope into action--as previously mentioned--by making a point to share very vulnerably about my own brokenness and weakness, even in the midst of leading the entire project. At the end of day one, I went home feeling naked and second-guessing the wisdom of sharing so vulnerably in the midst of establishing my leadership of a group of students for the summer.

To my surprise, day two ended with a spontaneous time of training students in listening to God’s Spirit, and as they did so, a consistent theme of God calling students to be refined by him emerged. One woman saw a mental image of a hand being slowly twisted off, convicting students that in the midst of serving the poor this summer, we ourselves needed to be refined and transformed over a period of time. Students left engaged with their own issues of character.

Fast-forward to our last night of orientation, Thursday. As we wrapped up the week, we made space for students to share what God had being doing in or around them. Having never had a time like this during the week, and knowing that students were drained by the amount of content and input, I wasn’t sure what to expect. As the time was opened, immediately one student shared how he had been feeling spiritually flat and had just been revived with joy and hope, supernaturally, just minutes before. Another man stood and confessed his struggles with lust and pornography, followed by a woman who confessed the same thing. For the next fifteen minutes, student after student shared honestly, vulnerably, and hopefully about God’s work in their own character, and their awareness of his grace.

As I sat, listening, I realized that what had been a fragile hope was actually coming to life right before my eyes. We spent the rest of the evening in joyful worship of God, collectively aware that—in the midst of our own issues, and the brokenness of the world—God, indeed, was present, offering healing, hope, and redemption.

I leave our first week surprised by the depth and potency of what is already happening. I look forward to see what is in store as we move forward into serving the youth and families of urban Los Angeles.

Taking in Reality...the First Days of LAUP

We’re one week into LAUP and I’m already in awe of God’s work…the stage is set for something very significant. Since last Sunday, the 19th, we’ve been meeting with the students daily for the purpose of training them for service in the inner city and giving them a spiritual lens through which to understand their summer.

We launched LAUP by offering the narrative of the Bible as an alternative to our 21st century American culture understanding about truth, meaning, and reality. Much like when the nation of Israel lived in Babylonian exile, American Christians are beginning to be more shaped by our surrounding context than we are shaping it, often just as caught up in materialism, consumerism, and ambition as our secular neighbors. To counter this, we shared the overarching story of scripture: things were not always this way. We told the story of Genesis and had students capture how their hearts yearn for the beauty, peace, and trust of the Garden of Eden through painting white tiles. The tiles were beautiful and the mood was sweet.

But, we continued, humanity didn’t submit to the boundaries of the garden. As we chose to defy God’s authority, brokenness entered the world, from the murder of Abel by Cain all the way through the world we live in today. “Not only is our world broken,” I (Scott) challenged, “but we ourselves are participant in that brokenness.” As I said this I walked over to our tiles and pulled mine down from the board and placed it on the podium in front of me. As the gasps punctuated the room, I raised the hammer I had in my hand, and with each confession of my own participation in damaging the world, I struck my beautifully painted tile. As the tile shattered into more and more broken pieces, I poured them into a bin, and invited students to reflect on their own participation in damaging our world. The next fifteen minutes was a powerful time of taking in the reality of our world, the sharp staccato of steady hammer blows shattering tile adding a wave of grief with each hearing. The underlying spiritual realities of our world were beginning to set in.

But as the mission of LAUP is to engage urban poverty unto transformation, a theoretical understanding of brokenness wasn’t enough.

The following morning we took a walk down skid row. Starting near little Tokyo, and working our way through the financial district at 5th and Flower, we looped back down 7th street as we headed back the the East. As we turned the corner onto San Julian, time suddenly stopped. Life felt like it was moving in slow motion as we walked the two blocks from 7th Street to 5th http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifStreet, seeing hundreds of homeless men and women living in abject despair. The numbers of people, the tents on sidewalks, the absence of cars driving down the street—all in the middle of the day—were other-worldly. Having walked straight from the corporate culture of lunch in the financial district brought a contrast that made the brokenness of our world all the more vivid, and the inequity that our world is so used to all the more repulsive.

We returned to our session and discussed the experience. As we used the lens of Genesis to interpret our world and ourselves, students felt the ache for divine rescue in a new way. It was with this kind of God-informed sobriety that we continued taking in the story of God’s response to the brokenness of our world, and the invitation to us to participate in its redemption.

If you'd like to be praying for LAUP specifically, please see the calendar of topics here...we'd love prayer for each topic each week!

Preparing for a Work of God

LAUP has begun! On Thursday the student and recent alumni who are leading the nine teams throughout urban Los Angeles arrived and began their training.

As a parallel of our journey with Jesus through the inner city this summer, I took them on a literal journey...a three hour hike to the top of a mountain! To their surprise, as the hike began I pointed to a radio tower at the peak of a mountain and told them, “Meet me there,” and took off running. As they figured out their way to the top, they discovered who they were as a team, and how to trust themselves to make decisions. (What they didn’t know is that all paths they could have chosen all led to the same place.) At the top, we took time to look at and pray for Los Angeles as a team, that God would prepare the way for his work this summer. By the end of the day, they had taken away a number of leadership lessons, one of the chief ones being the importance of not losing sight of the people for the sake of the goal.

We've had a great three days of getting vision for where we're leading students, gaining spiritual eyes to see the issues of the inner city, and committing to making space to gain God's heart for the poor.


Today is our last day of preparation before the interns arrive tomorrow!

Pray for God to protect and shape our kick off to LAUP, especially tomorrow as we arrive, and Monday as we launch the content and curriculum of our summer.