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Better_Stories

The past week has been spent with three of our core campus groups (Northeastern, UMASS-Boston, and Boston University), as they wrap up their semesters. What an incredible group of students we have! Diverse and eclectic in every way (personality, culture, background, etc) they have come together to tell great Jesus stories in Boston. Here's a shot of each group and the story they are telling:

Northeastern...

I think NEU is telling an "integration" story. They have a unique model where students spend at least two semesters on "co-op"...an opportunity where they get to work and learn in their field while they are undergrads. Co-ops are super important, students stress out over them, and some even find their first "real" jobs through these internships. The idea flows out of the culture of the school: learning happens been in practice. I see these students really working to integrate their studies, their work experience, and their faith in Jesus. It is a beautiful story.

UMB...

I have watched our UMB students tell a "multi-cultural" story. Multi-cultural because we quite literally have students from all over the world in our community: Brazil, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and even India! We also have multi-cultural "native" students (Mexican-Americans, African-Americans, etc). That's pretty amazing all by itself, but I actually think the true multi-cultural story comes from the ways these students seamlessly flow in and out of various communities and centers on campus. We never have to encourage UMB students to get outside the Sojourn "box". They just do it. They cross all kind of boundaries and build all sorts of bridges and they do it effortlessly. This is also a beautiful story.

BU

No other campus lives my favorite Donald Miller quote quite the way that BU does. (The quote, just in case, is We live in a world where bad stories are told, stories that teach us that life doesn't mean anything and that humanity has no great purpose. It's a good calling, then, to speak a better story). BU is about as hedonistic, individualistic, and nihilistic as you can get. It takes great courage as a student to insist that life means something, that community is possible, that there are better ways to live. They are telling a story of "meaning" and it too is a beautiful thing to watch.

Well done!

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advent_appreciation


final leadership community of the semester...an opportunity to thank and appreciate all the leaders who have worked so hard all semester. played some minute-to-win-it games, spent time celebrating stories, and had a lot of space to talk and laugh and just be together. great times! really love the students we get to work with and i'm deeply impressed with their courage as they tell great stories around out city.

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the_team


pics from saturday night's sojourn team get-together. awesome to have the team from providence for the festivities. continue to thank God daily for this group of people, the families and couples represented, and the community they have provided for amy and i here in boston. love these men and women!

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action


here are some of our UMB students in our "office" space on campus which happens to be right out in the open with all the other campus organizations. it is a great place to be and wonderful conversations and life happen right here. i appreciate our students so much for being present and for being fully "in" at school. love these kids!

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appreciation


amy and i took andre and aleyda to providence on saturday to see rob bell. andre and aleyda have been super instrumental as student leaders for our community at umass-boston. saturday was a good time to appreciate and honor them for their hard work this semester. we had an awesome time and rob blew our minds!

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read_retreat_serve


i love our ReadRetreatServe experience. once a semester we do a mash up of the typical campus ministry retreat/service project in a way that is disruptive, refreshing, and challenging. i've written about our fall/Halloween/salem experience here and here, so i won't go in to the logistics of what we do. what i will say is this: one, it's fun to see how this experience has grown over the past three years. more importantly, we have an AWESOME group of students this year. i am continually amazed at their depth of insight, their level of maturity, and, this weekend especially, their courage, their servant posture, and their flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances (and weather). i am so proud of them and honored to work alongside them on campuses and in neighborhoods around our city.

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open_mic


we held our first ever open mic night on friday in an event titled: perform*. there is a ridiculous amount of talent in and around our community, so it was fun to watch that blossom. the night was also a success in that it brought attention to and raised some money for Amirah House. Amirah Boston is doing some good work and i'm stoked we were able to bless them in some way.

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leadership_network


as i said last week, sojourn was selected to join leadership network's first University Leadership Community. we gathered with 8 innovative ministries to spend three days learning from one another and moving towards some goals for the future. interesting, challenging, and affirming all at the same time. this community last 18 months so still a long time to see what comes, but a good start!

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Quick_Hits

Just a couple of thoughts at the beginning of another full week. I have two exciting happenings to report on.

1) I am going to start shifting more of my time and attention towards Boston University. I am definitely excited to "come back" in some ways to where I started with Sojourn. I had the opportunity to spend a lot of time on campus last Friday. I had lunch with some of Sojourn's students, then I spoke at InterVarsity's large group gathering that night. Both got me excited to spend more time with students on this campus which is a lot different from UMB! 

2) Sojourn has been selected to take part in the Leadership Network's first University Leadership Community (scroll 2/3 of the way down to read about "University Ministry - New Approaches"). This is an affirming and humbling opportunity for us. Affirming in that we were selected as one of the most innovative collegiate ministries in the country. Humbling because we still have a ton to learn, are a young organization, and it feels like we are a long way from being "experts" on any of this. I leave Wednesday morning to be a part of the first round of conversations between ourselves and 8 other ministries. Can't wait to write more about this experience, and to see the ways God uses this to challenge, grow, and sharpen us.