Weddings and Other Updates

A couple of quick updates:

I’ll have more to say about this later in the week, but I got to speak yesterday at REUNION on grief. Fun topic! Amy and I shared part of our story of the last year…it was pretty powerful and I think it opened up a lot of stuff for people in our community.
On a totally different note: Friday and Saturday were dedicated to preparations and the actual wedding of Dustin and his new bride, Rachelle. Dustin’s been on staff with Sojourn for two school years now, and he’s been an incredible team member (helped get us started at Northeastern and off the ground at UMB). Love these guys and so happy for their marriage. They chose well!
Lots of writing and prepping to do before Friday, which is when week one of vacation starts!

DIG!

Summer is a slower time for campus ministry and that is a beautiful thing. Campus ministry types like to say we cram 12 months of work into 9, so slowing down during the summer is healthy and needed. But, there are still a number of students who are around Boston, so we are initiating a gathering called DIG. I can’t give away what it stands for (there’s a contest), but it’s to do with Matt 13:44.

The idea this summer is to create community among students from different schools who might not otherwise connect, to explore the “virtuous circle” of scripture/stories/examples/community/practices, and to have fun. And since we are focusing our efforts on this one gathering we get to use the strengths of most of our staff which helps with things like vacation and sharing the work. I’m excited to see how this summer experiment works out!

Resurrection (Thoughts on Teaching and 35 Weeks of Luke)

This past Sunday our church partner, [REUNION], wrapped up a 35 week series on the book of Luke. It was long, but fruitful journey. I had the privilege of teaching 5 or 6 of those weeks. Most recently, week 34 to be exact, I got to speak on the resurrection.

Now, in some ways this is a home run for preachers…who doesn’t get excited to teach the resurrection?! On the other hand, there is a good amount of fear and trembling that goes along with the subject matter. What if the skies don’t open up? What if people shrug their shoulders and say “that was nice”? What if no one is moved?

This is not meant to be a critique of sermons or preachers, but as I was preparing I knew we needed a story. As it turned out there was a great story in our community that couldn’t have dovetailed any more perfectly.

Nancy told her story and she told it well, and probably the most important thing I said all day, and the thing people likely remember the most, was “that’s the power of the resurrection” after she had finished.

We need good teaching and people who can sermonize well, but how powerful and effective is a story? Amazing. And humbling from a teaching perspective. But, so important to the life of a community. Thank you Nancy!

*you can listen to it all here.

Summer

The school year is winding down and the pace of life is changing, but that doesn’t mean nothing is happening with Sojourn this summer. Here are a few highlights:

I will be helping REUNION write some community group curriculum
We are going to hold a city-wide weekly (thursday night) get-together for students who are still in the city
Fundraise (see friday’s post)
Teach once a month at REUNION
Plan and scheme for the fall
Go to a conference I’m really excited about
A couple of weekends away for Amy and I
Get ready for the baby!

Baptisms and Block Parties

We had another full and crazy weekend! Graduation ceremonies, work, Cinco de Mayo block parties on our street, sermon prep, sermon delivery, free student lunch (last one of the school year), and a baptism celebration. All of which was really, really good. The highlight, though, was to be able to baptize my friend, the legendary Cuban John, yesterday afternoon. Sometimes, in the busyness of life and the semester I can lose track of progress that is being made, or the transformation that is happening over time in people’s lives. It’s so good to have a moment to recognize the journey that someone has been on. I needed to see that!

Some Things That Are Awesome…

Another busy weekend as the semester winds to an end…our final gathering of first year/potential leaders was on friday…immediately afterwards we held our final leadership community of the school year…REUNION, our church partner celebrated its 5 year anniversary…and on sunday we honored (slash mourned) our graduates. Lots to celebrate and reflect on!

BU leadership developement:

Leadership Community Dreams:

Dallas, Full Circles, and High Church

It’s been a whirlwind week! Two full days of work last Monday and Tuesday followed by an early morning flight to Dallas for part 2 of our Leadership Network experience. Our time with the University Ministry Leadership Community continues to be an overall good experience (there are some frustrations…I sat through maybe the worst presentation on multi-cultural ministry I’ve ever heard in my life). I think we are seeing some tremendous progress organizationally as we “operatationalize our values” so that we actually do what we say we do, as opposed to saying a bunch of nice things.

Saturday morning at 1:15 am I got on a plane and flew back to Boston, came home, took a 30 minute nap, made some coffee, then headed to BU for an Earth Day/Clean Up project with our students. Being around students was energizing which helped me make it through the day. The funny part of the experience was our project was at the Hale Reservation where I spent two summers with Bird Street Community Center’s camp program. It was a little weird to be back, but also fun to be able to show people around and even connect with an employee who remembered me. Felt like a full-circle moment for sure.

Finally, I got to be a reader at Marsh Chapel’s Interdenominational service on Sunday morning. Marsh Chapel functions as the center for Spiritual Life at Boston University and it was a good moment to strengthen relationship with the school now that I am a campus minister at BU. I usually do the offering moment at REUNION so it was kind of funny/ironic to be the “Offertory” reader during the Marsh service. Very different context and yet a similar role.

A couple more weeks and the pace slows down!

Quick Hitters

Updates in bullet form:

Headed to Dallas, TX early Wednesday morning for round two of the Leadership Networks University Leadership Community. This never seems to come at a convenient time in the semester, but I am grateful to get some time away and focus on the big picture for a couple of days.
We are deep into preparing our leadership teams for the fall. I’m excited to see new students coming on board and excited to be a part of the Sojourn story next year.
We held a baggo (or cornhole) tournament at UMB on Friday (picture). Met some new people and had some good times with old friends!
Tons of writing and prep to do today: it’s a short week!

Easters!

We had a great Easter Sunday yesterday. Unofficially 650 people came to REUNION (Sojourn’s church partner), which will be a record. I love the energy in the Hilton when the room is so packed.

And, we hosted friends and family in our home afterwards. It is always great to bring family, church, students, and Amy’s work together in one place because it doesn’t happen often (or at least as often as we would like). It was on mission, and most of all it was FUN.

One of my all time favorite Easters!

Northeastern Nailing It…

The Northeastern leadership team took home the Golden Hammer (Nailed It!) Award for the month of March. Here’s how they did it:

Every spring NU holds an event called “Sex Week.” Its intention is to highlight awareness and safety (ie anti-sexual assaults) on campus, but it really turns into a raunchy celebration of sexuality.

Our Sojourn team at NU has long wanted to engage this week and to use it as a platform to talk about sex-trafficking in the city of Boston. The team put together a great event, bringing in a local detective who works exclusively on trafficking cases, a representative from Not-For-Sale (an anti-slavery organization), and providing space for questions and discussion.

The Sojourn event got advertised in the sex week publication (which was great and problematic at the same time…you’d have to see the “magazine” to really understand). Over 60 students showed up (some may have picked the wrong room: our group was in-between a lap dance class and the free condom station). They engaged the presenters and the issue well, asked a lot of good questions, and were really interested in learning and doing more to help the cause.

SojournNU nailed it for a couple of reasons: One, they engaged something already happening on campus. So cool to see them integrate into what most of the students are already a part of there. Two, this was almost entirely student driven. Three, it brought light and redemption to a week on campus that has a lot of hiding and darkness. Four, they highlighted an issue that is significant and troublesome in the greater Boston community.

Proud of the team…they nailed it!