Last week, I was stunned to see a steady stream of comments about something called the “Compton Cookout” in my Facebook feed. Students from a fraternity at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) organized an off-campus party mocking Black History Month. Some lowlights from the invite:
Archives for category: Kingdom of God
My experience, within mostly evangelical Protestant circles, with practices such as Sabbath, fasting and the liturgical year has been limited mostly to academic study and/or suspicious caution. That’s why I was glad to see the Ancient Practices series released, which covers many of these practices. As followers of Jesus, we miss out immensely when we ignore the wisdom of those who have pursued Christ wholeheartedly before us.
I’m always humbled and amazed at my daughter’s love & generosity. She recently won a gift certificate for a free In-N-Out burger from our local library for completing a reading program. The first thing she wanted to do with her certificate was give it to a homeless person who was hungry.
Unfortunately, the fine print on the certificate specifies that she must be the one to use it (and be accompanied by us, her parents). So, I asked her what she thought of using the money we would have spent on a burger and put it toward something special our church community will be doing this Advent.
This year, our church will be participating in the Advent Conspiracy (AC). My daughter and I talked about what Advent is (the four week season of repentance, reflection and preparation leading up to Christmas) and why our church is participating in the AC this year.
We talked about how close to 1 billion people around the world don’t have access to clean water (more global water facts here from charity: water) and how our little community’s AC offering would be able to help people finally get the clean water we all need. My daughter thought about this for a minute and then said:
We’re lucky. We have a place to live and we have clean water.
We’re really lucky.
She agreed that we would put her offering together with ours to make a difference for people without clean water. I feel like the lucky one, privileged to watch my daughter grow in the love, grace & compassion of Jesus everyday.
Here is an encouraging update regarding the whole Deadly Viper storm that’s been brewing for the past couple of days from Eugene Cho:
I had some good dialogue with Mike Foster yesterday and then a conference call later in the afternoon with Mike Foster and Jud Wilhite (Authors), Chris Heurtz (Director, Word Made Flesh), Soong-Chan Rah (Prof., North Park), Kathy Khang (InterVarsity Multi-Ethnic Ministries Director), and Eugene Cho (Pastor, Quest Church). The conversation was facilitated by Nikki Toyama-Szeto (Urbana 09 Program Director).While I had to click out about 40 minutes into the hour conversation, I was encouraged by the honest conversations from everyone involved and the shared conviction that we did not want this to be a one hit (one chat & out) wonder a la Men at Work (remember them?).
You can also see a bit more on the Deadly Viper blog and from Professor Soong-Chan Rah’s blog.
My friend Dave Ingland, who I met at the first Idea Camp back in February in Irvine, California, just wrote a great piece about The Idea Camp. Since the next Idea Camp is coming up soon — August 28-29, 2009 in Washington, DC — I’d like to share a few of my thoughts as well.
Here’s a quick summary of the ethos behind the Idea Camp (you can read more here):
headsparks* 