ccda minneapolis "on location"

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon at an "on location" workshop.  I visited the Northside of Minneapolis and had the opportunity to learn about Urban Homeworks (www.urbanhomeworks.org).  Their mission is to perpetuate the hope of Jesus through innovative community development that produces dignified housing for low-income families, a strategic network of good neighbors, and the redemptive development of real estate.  Their tagline:  rebuilding houses, reconnecting people, reclaiming hope.   More importantly than rehabbing almost 150 properties in the past 15 years or so, is the mission to intentionally and strategically weave a strong relational fabric of neighborhood in the community.

Right next to Urban Homeworks, iss Juxtaposition Arts (www.juxtaposition.org) and around the corner is The Cookie Cart (www.cookiecart.org), both youth development programs in the neighborhood.  I was told that the Cookie Cart began when a local nun began to invite youth from the neighborhood into her home to bake with her in the kitchen.

Take a look at a few pictures below from my afternoon on the Northside of Minneapolis yesterday:

ccda mnpls speakers

We're two days in at the Christian Community Development Association's National Conference this year.  My head, heart, and notebook are being filled with thoughts from those who have spoken at the conference so far.  Just some snippets....

Tony Campolo and Shane Claiborne came on stage yesterday morning to talk about their new co-authored book, Red Letter Christians.  The term "Evangelicals" no longer has many positive connotations, so they were seeking a new word that would better represent Christ-followers, and they landed on "Red Letter Christians"..people who take the red letters of the Bible (the words of Jesus) and take them seriously.

Campolo: "We've created a god that has made Jesus the god of middle-class American values.  Are we going to make God American or are we going to embrace the Jesus of Scripture?"

Emmanuel Katangole and Chris Rice spoke beautifully about a theology of reconciliation.  They work together at Duke University's Center for Reconciliation.

Rice talked about how we can't have Jesus without Justice or Justice without Jesus.   Katangole and Rice both spoke of New Creation, Lament, and Spirituality for the long haul in the work toward reconciliation.  They followed an outline found in their book Reconciling All Things, one of the most helpful books for me in the past year and a half of my life.

Richard Twiss spoke powerfully our opening night at CCDA.  After watching awesome Native American dance and Aztec dance, Twiss came on stage to talk about Story, both the power of and the need to redeem some of the stories that have taken root in our American society.

Sami Awad, director of Holy Land Trust, spoke so beautifully about his journey in engaging in nonviolence in the Middle East and his revelation about Jesus's command to us to love our enemy.  Awad spoke about the enemy as being fear and lack of trust, not the Israeli, not the soldier, but enemy as presence of fear and absence of trust.

Ray Rivera spoke last night passionately about being a reconciler with contradictions.  He spoke about how being a reconciler will sometimes demand confrontation, sometimes collaboration, sometimes civic engagement, sometimes confronting your own people.  Ray has a book recently published called Liberty to the Captives, and he spoke from a strong captivity theology...our captivity, even as we do the work of reconciliation, in the broken systems and structures of our world.

ccda mnpls our group

Twenty-one Cedar Valley friends traveled to CCDA Minneapolis this year.  Some from Orchard Hill Church, some from Harvest, and a few representing our broader community, including the Peace and Justice Center of the Cedar Valley and the Salvation Army.  

ccda national conference 2012

Heading to Minneapolis/St. Paul tomorrow for the annual Christian Community Development Association National Conference.  Theme this year is RECONCILE.  Looking forward to all God has in mind for our local group of 21 attending this year's conference!   To learn more about the conference and who will be speaking this year, click here

get a life. verse

Orchard Hill Church is currently on a "life verse" campaign, encouraging members and friends to consider a Scripture that God is using in their spiritual development in this current season of life.  Each life verse chosen by our staff and board, along with personal sharing, is being emailed out each morning, and these have been so powerful and encouraging to read!

If you'd like to learn more about discerning and choosing your own life verse in this season of your life, click here for more information.

Here's the life verse I chose:


Mark 1:15
"The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!"

God has been directing me to this verse repeatedly over the past three months. He seems to be reminding me lately that the gospel Jesus preached was in fact the kingdom of God, and that Jesus himself came to earth embodying and bringing the kingdom, and making the kingdom kind of life accessible now, on this earth, through his life, death, and resurrection.

The greatest good news for me is to see, experience, live in, and be on mission in the kingdom of God, through Jesus, for an eternity that starts right here, right now. I believe Jesus is reminding me these days that "Laura, the time is now," and he's revealing to me what the needed repenting, or turning, continues to look like for my life, so that I might live more fully in the kingdom of God.

book recommendation

I'm reading The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power is Destroying the Church by Greg Boyd.  The book does a great job contrasting the Kingdom of God to the kingdoms of this world, and it lays out the negative effects of politicizing our Christian faith.  It was written around the 2004 election but is very timely to read in this 2012 presidential election year!

"The kingdom of God is not a Christian version of the kingdom of the world.  It is, rather, a holy alternative to all versions of the kingdom of the world."  

random thoughts for the day

1.  "You haven't learned it until you're living it."  (Joyce Meyer quote)

2.  I am thinking about writing down John Perkins quotes at the 2012 CCDA conference next week and writing them into a rap that I want to try out with John and Brion in their new recording studio.  Yes?

3.  I've thought about something I heard yesterday that confirms for me the hard road of local "missions" compared to that of global missions.  A church member shared that she heard a person tell her that she wouldn't go to Crossroads Mall to shop because it was in Waterloo.  This same person who wouldn't go to the local mall signed up to go to Mozambique on a global mission trip.  Reminded me to refer to a past post on why local missions is so difficult...read here.