Echoes and Moments

Ministry at Hancock presents me with such a challenge in light of my well-groomed Cal Poly education. On one hand, I could probably upstage the average student in theoretical or trivial knowledge of many subjects, write a better essay, and comment more eloquently on music. The numbers even say that I will earn far more during my lifetime, and offer my own children an incredible quality of life some day. On the other hand, I have no idea what it's like to have to raise a child while in school, to work full time in the service industry, and to regularly attend night classes at the end. How do I call these students to respond to God' love for them and their campus with authority? What right do I have to lead them? It is in the places that I lack, these misunderstandings, these frustrations that I have with the students that my soul is renewed daily. I realize I am the one in deep need of what they have to offer me in sharing their struggles. I have never met people more willing ...

I was moved deeply at a recent meeting with our student leaders. Through the night we celebrated God's work on campus and opened discussion about how to care for each other in ministry and invite God to increase our witness on campus. Our plan as staff was to encourage the leaders to step out despite the limitations that they place on themselves, to operate in the liberty of Jesus' love. My fellow staffworker Eleanor invited our students to participate in a visualization exercise to close a meeting, and it went something like this: Close your eyes. Imagine all the people you know, all the people you've ever known, standing in a circle around you. Picture your family, your neighbors as a child, your elementary school classmates, teachers, friends, past boyfriends and girlfriends, the bus driver, and the homeless man on the street. Watch them walk away, one by one. They all leave until only Jesus remains. He says to you, "Does no one condemn you? Neither do I. Go a...