This isn’t something I can really explain. But I’ve noticed that in all of my design work lately I’m starting with graph paper, pens, and markers.
I have every conceivable fancy design tool and yet I’m going old school and not new school.
Does that mean I’m getting better or worse?
Everywhere I’ve done youth ministry I’ve met undocumented students. (Chicago, Northern California, Suburban Detroit, and here in City Heights)
But it wasn’t until I started doing youth ministry here in City Heights that I truly started to understand the difficulty they had in furthering their education and starting their own American Dream.
Think of the uphill battle a student in our neighborhood climbs towards adulthood. Their parents brought them here when they were very young. They were put into an elementary school where they didn’t speak the language. But they’ve overcome obstacles beyond language. A lack of health care, parents with unstable jobs, parents who struggled with the stress of starting a new life in a new culture, (the divorce rate is high) rough schools, the temptation of gangs, the reality of substance abuse, the allure of teenage pregnancy, few meaningful extra-curricular activities, on and on.
And despite everything– these students have succeeded by every measurement tool. tudents with high GPAs, excellent standardized test scores, held offices in their class, been star athletes… the top of their class.
Born in quick sand sucking them towards a failure no one would blame them for. They have struggled, clawed, and fought their way through high school. They are living proof that hard work pays off.
But, as it stands now, the American Dream ends there for all but a few.
As they reach graduation, a waypoint on their way to what they can become, they are faced with a new struggle they might not be able to overcome: Their immigration status prevents them from many academic/financial aid opportunities they would otherwise qualify for. Likewise, their immigration status prevents them from another viable option towards a career in the military.
To put that in perspective in my neighborhood: Future community leaders hit a roadblock towards education and military service and are left with few options towards a bright future.
The young adults in that video could just as easily be students in our youth group. And, in all reality, there’s a very good chance that there are students in your group facing the exact same problem. Our ministry isn’t just about preaching Good News, it’s about bringing good news to the neighborhood. See, this has everything to do with youth ministry here in San Diego and around the country!
That’s where the DREAM Act comes in. Without going into a comprehensive immigration reform and all of its political pitfalls, it helps bridge a gap immediately that most people agree needs to get fixed.
Purpose
The purpose of the Development, Relief and Education of Alien Minors Act, also called the DREAM Act, is to help those individuals who meet certain requirements, have an opportunity to enlist in the military or go to college and have a path to citizenship which they otherwise would not have without this legislation. Supporters of the DREAM Act believe it is vital not only to the people who would benefit from it, but also the United States as a whole. It would give an opportunity to undocumented immigrant students who have been living in the U.S. since they were young, a chance to contribute back to the country that has given so much to them and a chance to utilize their hard earned education and talents.
Would I qualify?
The following is a list of specific requirements one would need in order to qualify for the current version of the DREAM Act.
- Must have entered the United States before the age of 16 (i.e. 15 and younger)
- Must have been present in the United States for at least five (5) consecutive years prior to enactment of the bill
- Must have graduated from a United States high school, or have obtained a GED, or have been accepted into an institution of higher education (i.e. college/university)
- Must be between the ages of 12 and 35 at the time of application
- Must have good moral character
For nearly 10 years the Dream Act has taken on many forms as it’s proponents have tried to get the law to pass through both the House and Senate. It has stalled or was killed every time.
On December 8th, the bill was passed by the House of Representative. It was hoped that the debate in the Senate would begin immediately. Unfortunately, the Senate tabled a vote on the measure yesterday.
Obviously, this is labeled a political issue.
But in my world this is a social justice issue. These students have done everything right and the only country they’ve ever known prohibits them from pursuing their dreams. They have looked adversity in the eye and climbed past it’s sneering, snarling teeth and overcome everything to become the embodiment of success our country adores.
It’s time that this legislation passes and they are allowed to move on.
More info:
Follow the story on Twitter, #dreamact
Dream Act Portal (student activist site)
And I really don’t care who your favorite cartoon character was as a kid. Nor do I care about a twibbon.
And yet these meme‘s make their way through social media sites over and over again as if they made a lick of difference. “You just have to do this, it’ll raise awareness about ____.”
Don’t kid yourself. Changing your avatar or posting a one word Facebook profile status update isn’t changing the world or raising awareness. It’s just clutter.
You want to change things? You want to be an activist?
Speak out. Act out. Write out. Video out. Stand out. Get out. Stand out. Jump out.
There is a whole world full of worthy causes to activate people about. And God may be calling you to be that voice for that cause. So do it.
But don’t fall into the trap of passive activism. Be bold, loud, proud, a pain in the neck, a thorn in their flesh, a force to be reckoned with. Stick it to the man. Get kicked out of school. Live in a tree. Whatever it takes.
Just don’t ask people to change their avatar. Ask them to give money. Go to the place you are trying to make a difference and make a video to activate resources and your friends. Ask them to join you actively in a movement.
There’s no real point to this one. I just thought it was super fun, creative and thought it was worth sharing.
ht to LikeCool
That’s the goal of our high school ministries Winter retreat.
I’m not talking about a cash neutral event to the youth budget. I’m talking about… we’ve got no money so we need to do this retreat for free. We don’t have budget money and our students literally have no cash to offset expenses.
Here’s what we’re trying to do:
Create a memorable, kinetic, outside-of-our-neighborhood, experience with our high school group. We need this retreat. It’ll be good for the students and it’ll be good for the group.
Beg: I’m not too proud to beg. Especially when it comes to the faith development of the students in our ministry. Fortunately, when it came to location, I didn’t even have to beg. I just asked a Kingdom-minded friend if we could crash his youth building for 30 hours. When I visited Danny Long earlier this fall and saw his facilities (about 30 minutes from City Heights, but far enough into East County to feel completely separate from the urban environment.) I asked if it might be a possibility to use his building for a retreat. Without flinching he was happy to do it.
Next up, Kathy (our youth pastor) asked her cousin to lead worship. Done. Teaching? I’m pretty sure we’ll split those duties. Now we’re out begging for folks to pick up the tab on our Costco run for food for the retreat.
All that’s left is to beg off some programming elements. One of the tricks I learned from retreat-guru Lars Rood [author of an upcoming YS book on doing ministry for cost-neutral or free] was to not skimp on experience. So we are officially on the lookout to bring something to this retreat that our students from City Heights completely unexpected. (Horseback riding, sledding, paintball, or something along those lines.)
Borrow: We’re going to borrow ideas. Darn near all of them. Why spend all the time thinking up stuff when we can take things people are already offering for free and tweak them to work in our ministry/ From activity ideas to theme to kitchen appliances.
Steal: OK, we’re not going to steal anything. But we are stealing victory from the enemy by doing something we can’t afford for free. We might not be a resource rich ministry, but we are a resourceful group who aren’t ashamed to rely on the Kingdom.
Have you ever done a ministry event like this? If so, leave a comment and share your idea. [So I can steal it.]
Right out of college, Kristen and I were full of ideals about where we wanted to serve in a local church.
We had a list of things we were looking for: Having been in the midwest for eight years we were ready for a geographical change. We wanted to see mountains and take a break from winter weather. We wanted a ministry in a small town that reached out to kids from broken homes, loving the unloveable. And we wanted to leave the big church world for the medium-sized church world where I could be involved in more than just one program.
When we found the right place in Northern California. We looked past the rough parts of the job (Which would lead to us staying only a year) to tried to see the diamond in the rough. The ministry was in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. It boasted the highest teen pregnancy and teen drug abuse rates in California. It was a strong, medium-sized church, and I’d have responsibilities in a bunch of areas.
In truth, being my first experience in looking for a full-time ministry I asked all the right questions but didn’t listen for the right nuances to the answers. It was perfect and wrong at the same time.
Worse yet, when it came down to talking about my salary package I based our salary off of what I hoped we could live on instead of what things were really going to cost. Visiting this small town with a big city mindset I just couldn’t have seen some of the hidden costs of living in the middle of nowhere.
About 60 days into our new life in rural California I came to a painful realization. I had misunderstood what my utilities were going to cost in making my budgets and we were in trouble every month. (Water and electric were about 400% more than our place in Chicago. Combined, they totaled what I was paying in rent.) I had flat out negotiated for the wrong salary.
I sweated out a couple of months hoping that it was just a fluke and we’d settle into a more affordable reality.
It didn’t happen.
Every month we had too much expense and not enough income. Kristen and I cut back and cut back. We cut back to the point where we were spending less but we just didn’t have enough for groceries. (About $100/month was all that was left over after fixed expenses.) A hundred dollars was basically covering formula and the basics. In truth, the only way we were making it was by accepting every offer for a meal that came our way! (After church every Sunday, every party people from the church had, stuff like that.) Another trick to hide our meal shortage was that I started taking tons of high school students out to talk so I could take them out so I could buy a meal and put it on the church credit card. (Taking home the leftovers was part of the deal.)
But, as financial pressures tend to go, this was really stressing us out and stealing our joy.
With my tail between my legs I took our budget to the elders. It was humbling to look at these older men and admit that I was going broke and needed help. I’ll never forget opening up my laptop and showing them the numbers on Microsoft Money. It was humiliating.
Since the church was doing well financially I had hoped they would just increase my salary by a few hundred dollars per month to alleviate the pressure.
They chuckled. No, they laughed at me. They gave me the small town vs. city slicker grin I had long ago tired of. And they came back with two possible solutions. (Three if you count the sarcastic “you can live in a tent in my backyard” comments.)
I chose the latter. And the elders quietly began to let it be known that those city slicker McLane’s needed food.
You know, as a pastor, you know in your head that your salary comes through the offering plate and that you, in turn, have enough to pay your bills because people give. You feel it but you don’t really see it as the process is rather sterile.
But when you hear someone pull into your gravel driveway and get out of the car with a paper bag full of vegetables from their garden or a hen they’ve raised from a chick– it changes your perception of an offering.
Our little family literally ate people’s first fruits of our churches labor.
And it changed us forever.
What had once robbed our joy became one of the few sources of joy in a ministry experience of sorrow.
[Lights up]
[The main character, Abram, walking his dog through his middle class neighborhood.]
[His phone rings, the ringtone is Usher’s OMG]
[Abram bounces his head to the song as he pulls the phone out of his pocket.]
[Abram’s glances at the caller ID and stops cold. He raises his eyebrow for a brief second, thinking about letting it go to voicemail.]
Abram: Ah, man. I don’t really have time for this today. Give me a break… OK, whatever.
[Abram swipes to take the call]
Abram: [With a little frustration in his voice] Hello?
God: Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.
Abram: You don’t even say hello anymore? For once it’d be cool if you would at least say who it is. [pause] OK, OK… what do you want me to do? Leave the country and go somewhere? What do you mean by “leave?” You mean go for a little trip? Or do you mean I need to pack up my house, quit my job, and move? Are you OK? Have you been creating planets again? A little more clarity would be nice here.
God: I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you.
Abram: [pausing, looking inquisitively at his dog, who just raised his leg to pee on a bush.] What does that even mean? You don’t even say hello, you tell me to leave the country…. and now, a great nation? All I ever asked you to do was to help me be a better dad. A great nation? I’m not into politics. I don’t want to become a great nation… I just want to now how to talk to my kids about the tough stuff… you know… sex and why the Cubs suck. Stuff like that. [Pause, catching up to the reality of who he’s arguing with.] Any way we can talk a little bit more about the blessing part of it and a whole lot less of this moving somewhere else bit? I mean… I’ve got my kids in a great school. There better be one heck of a blessing for me to talk about pulling the kids out of school. You know, I’ve got a wife. I’ve got to sell her on this idea. Blessing, yeah… talk about the blessing some more.
God: I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.
Abram: [Letting out a little doubtful snort] You want me to tell that to Sarai? Have you met her? [raising eyebrows and envisioning getting punched when he tells her.] She’s pretty comfortable in our neighborhood as it is. She loves our house. She’s got a whole bunch of girlfriends. Our kids our happy. We’re safe. And you want me to go home and tell her that leaving all of that is going to make our name great? She’s gonna throw that back in my face, you know? And I don’t think I like the sound of “you will be a blessing.” I can’t sell that to her. She’s going to want to here that you are going to bless us. Not be a blessing, get a blessing. Work with me here, G.
God: I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse.
Abram: [turning his heart from despair, slowly to more of a realistic tone.] Well, now we’re talking. Sarai’s gonna dig this part of it. So when our kids start at a new school and the other kids tease them because they don’t look right, don’t dress right, and live in a neighborhood they clearly don’t belong… you’re gonna have their back. And you’re going to make it pretty obvious that people are getting blessed because they bless my family, right? I’m getting the idea that you aren’t asking me if I’m willing to do this… so you’re starting to speak my language.
God: And all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.
Abram: [long pause, having been stunned into thinking deeply about those words] Whoa. OK… so what’s you’re saying is that if I go home and convince my wife to move from a house we love to a place to be determined later… that every person on the planet will be blessed through me? I’m not even sure how to respond. I guess I get to respond just by doing it, right?
[Abram realizes that God has hung up]
Abram: Hello? You still there? Yeah, I’m out here walking the dog… this canyon must have a dead zone or something. You’re breaking up.
[Pulling his phone down, he sees the screen displaying “Call ended.”]
[By this time, the dog has gotten tired of standing on his walk. So he’s laid down on his side. Abram puts his phone back in his pocket, stares off into the distance some more.]
Abram: [under his breathe] Yeah, easy enough for God to call me like that. Now I’ve got to go home and try to convince Sarai. How would God know? Not like He has a wife.
[Pulling on the leash and getting the dog going.]
Abram: Come on. Let’s go. Good dog.
[Light out]
Narrator: So Abram went, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran. He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.
Epilogue: It’s one thing to take the call. It’s another thing to put the call into action.
Wanted: Christians willing to love neighbors.
Pay: None.
Experience required: None.
Training: None.
Location: Work from home.
Starting date: Immediately.
Ouch. A little too close to home for a Sunday, eh?
