God's Provision for Our Family.

I have been offered a promotion within InterVarsity, and I’m going to take it.  Let me tell you why.

As many of you know, directing the LA Urban Project has been my dream job:  it lets me connect my influence of college students to our ministry in the inner city.  I’ve had the chance to see God give students his heart for the poor, and to become relevant disciples of Jesus in a cynical generation.

At the same time, since moving to Seattle to finish my master’s degree, my family has been thriving like never before.  Jenny’s theatre career has really taken off, we found an amazing school for our kids, and our whole family—including Lucy and Tyler—has had a sense of shared mission that we’d never had.

“How do these two realities fit, God?”  That became my question.  For the past year, Jenny and I have been seeking God with this tension.  God has been teaching me to really see and hear Jenny in a way I never have.  He has also revealed a deeper sense of my own vocation that transcends any particular city:  to fan the flames of what God can do at the intersection of the rich and the poor.

It was in the midst of that seeking, last November, that I was offered a job as the Associate National Director of Urban Projects for InterVarsity.  The job involves developing the 25 urban projects across the country--including LAUP--stepping into more national influence within the InterVarsity movement, and launching in Seattle what’s been build in Los Angeles.  I suddenly felt like God was answering my question by offering me a new version of my dream job, with more influence, that was based in Seattle where my whole family could thrive.

After taking the next two months to pray and seek wise council, I accepted the position at the end of this past January.  Not only am I incredibly excited for this next chapter of life and ministry, but I am deeply grateful to God for providing for our family as we have tried to seek Him above all else.

For now, I am still running the LA Urban Project, and will still spend two months of this summer running our 7-week inner city internship in Los Angeles.  This will also involve training the new LAUP director, and then I will transition to my new role on September 1^st.

Even after September 1st, however, in my new role, I will continue to mentor and train the next LAUP director over the next two to three years.

In this transition, LAUP needs your prayer.  We are in the midst of taking applications for a new LAUP director.  The past five years have seen better partnership between LAUP and the campus work than ever before, and we want to see this continue and deepen.  It will take the right person, and we need God to bring that person to us.  Pray also for a strong finish to my tenure as LAUP director, and that God will give me wisdom to set things up well into the future.

Additionally, I (Scott) am seeking $30K of financial support as I transition out of the LAUP job, into my new national role.  If you feel led to help me in this transition, it would bless me and my family.

Thank you for walking with me and my family through the journey of ministry as the LAUP director.  You are a spiritual family of partnership that have surrounded me in prayer, giving, consultation, and friendship for many years now, and I am grateful to have you behind me as God opens up the next chapter of life for my family, and the next chapter of LAUP ministry.

Scott

"Invited Into Joy"

Last week I led 14 USC students and 1 Harvey Mudd student through five days of living as good news to the poor.

We spent two days on skid row, and then the last three pouring ourselves into South LA. Anchored in three core Scriptures--Luke 4, Matthew 25, and Luke 16--we completed the LAUP house community garden (teaching kids to put kale on their pizza), we completed the LAUP house tutoring space, and welcomed the neighborhood to experience practical good news. Our last evening there, college students partnered with neighborhood youth to invite families up and down the block to a barbecue, and saw some 40+ people come by.

At the heart of the experience was a surprise…it was more joyful than anyone imagined. Whitney described Jesus' invitation into loving the least as an "invitation into joy." There is a secret joy of God's kingdom that is uniquely found in making the choice to pour ourselves out for those on the margins…the same joy, I believe, Jesus had in pouring himself out for us.

We concluded our week with a call to commitment: three committed to living their lives in obedience to Jesus for the first time, five committed to letting Jesus realign their life plans in light of being good news to the poor, and 14 of the 15 committed to coming back weekly to continue investing in and tutoring kids in the neighborhood.

It comes one experience at a time, but God is launching a revolution of young people who are rediscovering the good news of Jesus in a way that demonstrates the grace, power, and love of God not just abstractly, but concretely in ways that the world can't deny.


To see the summary video of our week together, click here: LAUP Plunge, 2014

Watching Their Garden Grow

Just a quick update as I head into leading a LAUP spring break plunge, which will be attended by both Christians and some of their non-religious friends…the LAUP garden is in FULL SWING!

Youth from the neighborhood have begun growing their own food to learn about health, and to help the nutrition of their families since January, and the leafy greens are really starting to pop!  It's really exciting to see the beginning of a picture of inner city kids drawn into a relationship with the earth, with nature, and with healthy eating that has the potential to change their world view.

Just one more way that the full range of Jesus' good news is being experienced by the families and kids of South LA through college students and your partnership!

What part do WHITE people play?

In light of this past week’s MLK holiday, and the upcoming Black History Month, I’ve been reflecting on the role White people have to play in God’s heart for justice.  After centuries of being at the center of power in the West, is it time for White folks to take a back seat to people of color?  Do we no longer have the right to have a voice in the conversation?  Or is there a place for our voices and leadership?  Is there something lost without us in the mix?

Catherine (left), a Junior at Pacific Luther University

Last week I asked some of these questions to students at Pacific Lutheran University.  A junior at PLU, Catherine, responded to my challenges in an email I have pasted below:

“I have heard a few talks about race and white privilege (some through Intervarsity, some in class, some in church) and I think they have always made me uncomfortable. I resonated well with your description of the guilty-feeling white person. That has always been me: I know that white privilege exists but I never knew what to do about it or how it connected to my faith. When (my staff leader) told our leaders team…that you were coming, I was a bit nervous:  first, because it is a topic that I have struggled with in the past, and second because—as you stated—it is an uncomfortable topic for many.

As I'm sure you know, one of our main roles as leaders is follow-up and having dialogue with our small group members after the talk. I was nervous about how I would be able to do this. But after last night I am only excited and eager to talk to my community and the members that I am disciplining. 

I loved the way that you started with the scripture from Matthew 25 and the 3 servants stewarding their bags of gold. I have never heard someone connect race and privilege to scripture in such a logical and inspiring way:  (that we are responsible to use the power we’ve been given for God’s good purposes…and to have power and deny it is to abuse it.)  Last night was the first time that I was able to start seeing the ways that Jesus cares about privilege and wants us to use it for His kingdom.

I think that also in the past I have been stuck on feeling guilty because I could never tangibly see how I could use my privilege to God's glory, but last night God was definitely speaking through you as my eyes and heart started to open and see that that is possible. I loved your story about your dorm wing and how the African American janitor became a part of your community there (through your White roommate befriending him.) I was inspired and convicted while hearing that story.

In Intervarsity we talk a lot about "God's heart for justice", and things were starting to click for me last night as that sometimes confusing and vague statement started to come to life for me. Thank you for your passion about this topic and your devotion to the Lord and His kingdom.

Thank you again for opening many eyes and hearts last night to what Jesus really thinks about race and privilege, and I look forward to having you back to campus so that we can all learn even more.”

As Catherine and I journey down this road, I invite you, too, along:  what power do we have as White Americans?  How does God hold us responsible to use that power for good?  Where can we make the choice to do so?

A New Path to Jesus for This Generation?

About ten years ago, David Kinneman came out with a book called Unchristian, which polled tens of thousands of Americans, and found that their primary perception of Christians was that they were hypocritical, judgmental, anti-gay, too political, old fashioned, and just trying to convert people.  NT Wright says that this comes from a version of Christianity that has wrongly separated spiritual growth from social and civic engagement.  Today’s college students have experienced a church that wants to save their souls without doing anything to save the world…they’ve witnessed an impotent gospel.

Yet Jesus himself said that we shall know a tree by its fruit.

The LA Urban Project is more than a place for Christian students to gain God’s heart for the poor, but a place for non-believers to have an authentic Christian experience that integrates faith into Christian activism that heals our world.  Students spent the fall turning the LAUP house into a tutoring center and community garden for South LA kids and families.  As a result, non-Christian students experienced the authentic gospel that has the power to bring both inward and outward change.

One of them wrote me this message after her weekend:

“It feels great to be part of something like LAUP, especially when I consider what my Friday night/Saturday would have consisted of had I been here, on campus.

…Besides that, it was also a really spiritual experience for me.  I think I mentioned that I have never considered myself a Christian or even a remotely religious or spiritual person, but I can’t stop thinking about Friday night’s discussion.  The idea that helping others could be a spiritual experience has never resonated with me until that moment…I have always been one of those people in the statistics you read us who stereotyped Christians as having a certain political agenda or have historically used Christianity as a means of imperial domination.  But, when we discussed Jesus as a leader of a grassroots movement, essentially, who was concerned with helping the poor and marginalized members of society, I was introduced to a more universal worldview of Christians.

…I definitely broke into tears on more than one occasion this weekend.  It was only two days but it definitely affected my entire worldview in terms of my own relationship to others and the way I think about my own spiritual purpose…It was really a transforming experience and I’m so happy I took part.  I will definitely try to visit soon and see how the garden is doing and work a little more on it!”

In your prayers and giving to the mission of LAUP, it is my personal belief that you are not only compelling students to remember the poor, but you are investing in the re-evangelization of America by restoring the gospel to its full power, not only to change lives, but to change everything.

It is my honor and joy to partner with you in so critical a mission.  Thank you.