What is going on in my brain: Josh edition, 10/8

I’ve been reading through the beginning of the Exodus story for the past few weeks and seeing as I have yet to post on this blog I thought I would share a bit of what the Lord shared with me this morning as I sat at Peets.
I will focus most of this on Exodus 4:22-23 where God tells Moses to tell Pharaoh, ‘Israel is my firstborn son, and I say to you, “Let my son go that he may serve me.”’. A couple pardons before I expound:
1) if this post feels like jumping into the middle of a thought or conversation that you missed the beginning of, it is because that’s exactly what it is. My conversation with the Lord concerning Exodus that has been going on for weeks now.
2) I assume some things theologically, certain roles, purposes and definitions that may not make sense since again, this is jumping into the middle of a thought process of mine, so feel free to ask questions, for definitions, and to challenge me. I love that anyways.

Exodus 4:22-23

V 22 – “Israel is my firstborn son”
1) Because Jesus came to do what Israel failed to do, that is, to be a light in the darkness of the world and to spread God’s intentions and kingdom, it is important to note that Israel is referred to as God’s son in one of its great defining narratives. This verse, according to NT Wright, represents one of two main ideas that Paul has in mind when he writes Jesus is the ‘son of God’; the other is found in Psalms 2:7, a well know Messianic psalm where the Lord says of the Messiah, “You are my Son”. So for Paul to write that Jesus was the ‘son of God’ goes far deeper than simply saying that Jesus is literally God’s son (which of course He is most importantly that as well). Paul is referring to the dual role that Jesus embodied: 1) of being for the world what Israel was supposed to be for the world and 2) that of the Messiah.

V23 – “Let my son go that he may serve me.”

1) What then is the role of Israel that Jesus took upon himself as the ‘son of God’? I believe this verse shows that one of the main roles of Israel (and there are many) was that of God’s servant. God intended to free Israel from the evil and oppression of Egypt for the very specific purpose of servant-hood, of serving the world around it in so the world around it might see the love and mercy of the Creator God.
a. God did not free them so that they could live in the Promise Land and exclude themselves from the world around them with the elitist mentality of “aren’t we so great, look at us, no one else can have what we have or be included in God’s kingdom”. In fact, it was the opposite: Israel was freed so that they could inhabit the Promise Land and be a light to the world around them, to bring God’s kingdom to the world not to hide it from them. That is why God’s call to Abraham in Genesis 12 said that his descendants would “bless all the families on earth” and that is what Jesus does that Israel did not do.
b. At the same time, this verse is a great example of God making the very clear statement that He is the one that is to be obeyed above all else and the one who will rule over every empire in the end, no matter how powerful those empires seem. For Moses to say to Pharaoh, “Let my son go that he may serve me” was basically another way of saying, “We are going to serve someone other than you and while you may claim to be divine and have all the power, actually there is another who is more powerful than you and more worthy of worship, praise and service.” It is no wonder that Pharaoh’s heart hardened.

2) Finally, all this I believe points to Jesus, for he took the responsibilities of Israel upon himself, he included all of humanity in God’s plan and salvation where Israel had excluded anyone but themselves; he brought about the Kingdom of God and his followers declared him the “Lord” of all creation in the face of Ceasar who in the Roman Empire held that title; Jesus arrived on the scene during a period when the Jews were anticipating the Messiah and yet, they failed to see that the Messiah would not come in the way they were expecting: they wanted a political and military leader and God gave them a suffering Servant whose words of hope and actions, while often dealing in the political realm, indeed often subverting it, also transcended it and who was the culmination, the great apex of the plan that God the Creator had intended since the beginning of time for all of humanity and all of creation, not just Israel. And how did Jesus do this? By first and foremost being a servant of God, a servant to all humanity and a servant to God’s creation; by practicing sacrificial love that gave his words authority and that ultimately got him killed, but then gloriously resurrected just as God had intended.

Throwing in the Towel

Winners never quit, except if it's dropping a nicotine habit. Or so they say.


















Lance Armstrong DNF'ed a marathon mountain bike race. Michael Jordan retired. Nixon resigned. Christine and I gave up on Wednesday. Wednesday is our team prayer & fasting day, and it gets tricky when you're supposed to be productive and prayerful at the same time.

It felt kinda like giving up the search, no longer looking for your lost cat. So wrong. It all started with a slightly late start on the day; not too back, but not what I was hoping for. We headed to BART as we went over to SFSU for a time of prayer on campus, and, who'd of thought, our BART Train stalled out in between stations. No joke, we were 1 minute from our exit, and that minute stretched into 1o, 20, 30, and finally 45 minutes later we were being ushered off our train to another one in the pitch black underground of southern San Francisco. Not a bad experience, but we effectively missed our prayer time. So after being escorted back to another BART station, we headed home and drove back to campus to meet some students. Following this, we went back to the office and sat, doing nothing well, completing no tasks and communicating very poorly. We tried to pray, after all we in a church. I didn't work.

Finally, about 3:30, we let the poor thing RIP. We quit. Fast over. What a weird day.

Too Cool for the Hipsters

As a ministry, we've always tried to come up with simple, yet profound ways in which to connect with Jesus. It seems like so often we, as believers, want to grow spiritually, that we forget those around us, and our "ministry activities" become solely focused on those already inside the faith. Granted, this is not often the desired intent, but it happens anyways. The SF Metro Team's G3 card has its participants run through three categories: Give, Grow, Pray -and the order is intentional. The idea was that if the group didn't start with the outreach-oriented stuff, it would easily forget and become inclusive in character.

So, Fast Forward to this school year and the only thing we've really got going with consistency (if you will) on is the Discipleship Lab. Experiments in Following Jesus. I love these things because they ask the hard questions and allow for lots of conversation. The first week we talked about what it means to follow Jesus and the second week was focused on defining the Good News of Jesus. Basically, those two weeks boiled down to: Love God and Love others. Who would've thought? The homework we assigned was to pray about who God would lead you to share your life with, but somehow I already seemed to know.

Now you see, my neighborhood is a little more on the blue collar, more latino side of things. There's quite a mixture of people here; the neighborhood was originally Italian and Irish, then moved more toward Chinese and African American, but it's been Latino for awhile.

The odd thing though, is that over the last two years it's become quite the hipster hangout. In the last 2 years we've seen 4 new coffee houses arrive within 3-4 blocks of us, all on 24th St. As well, 24th & York, one block up from us, as become quite the hipster hotspot, with St. Francis hopping on the weekend mornings and Pop's Bar spilling out onto the street at night. When we moved here, I wanted to make Pop's my local watering hole, but was a little on the scared side: i wasn't hard core enough. However, now that the hipsters have moved in, I've felt a lack of desire to even look in the windows.

It's funny, we want to reach out to our neighborhood and serve those who are in need, yet the closest demographic to me personally has no draw. A social network of poorer 20-30 something punk-ish kids hangs out regularly 1 block from my place and I don't ever look on the place in love. How calloused and self-righteous.

Thus, as we finished the D-Lab and thought about who to care for, God pulled the hipster bar to my heart. I knew I couldn't just walk in one night and start making friends, so I asked my buddy Adam to join me in a weekly routine. Every Tuesday night, after the Abolition workshop, we'll head over for our own D-Lab experimenting. After all, Jesus would be hanging out there, even if I wouldn't.

Abolition Class

I've never really thought of myself as an abolitionist-- although as a little girl, I always dreamed of how romantic & exciting it would be to work with the underground railroad and fight against evil & tyranny (I also played with Barbie dolls, but I had my occasional selfless, noble moments).

However, tomorrow, Chris & I will officially become abolitionists, attending the first of 6 classes on human trafficking in our city. After spending the summer in Uganda, working with girls who had been abducted & forced into sex slavery, we were really hoping for ways to continue serving in this area once we returned home.

Human trafficking-- and specifically sex slavery-- has been an issue that I have been wanting to learn more about. I had heard that many "massage parlors" downtown offer a little more than just a massage, and that most of the women "working" there have been brought from Asia and forced into sex slavery.

Of course, it breaks my heart to hear about things like that-- especially in my own city-- but I had never really known what to do about it before: Walk door to door downtown, asking at each massage parlor if there was anyone being held there against their will? Maybe not the most effective use of my time.

But when we heard that some friends of ours-- that run a really cool, alternative, artsy ministry just down the street from us, called Reimagine -- told us they were doing a workshop on Abolition in SF, I jumped for joy (okay, maybe not literally-- kind of a somber thing to be jumping for joy over). What a perfect way to gain awareness and to work on a solution with other interesting people!

What's really fun is that some of our students are going to join us. Hopefully we can make this a part of our movement on campus. I would love to get other clubs, sororities & fraternities involved & work together on this. We'll see how it goes!

City Girl in a Small Town

This week, Chris & I drove down to San Luis Obispo and I had the privilege of speaking at their Campus Crusade for Christ meeting (W8) on God's Heart for the Poor.

It was so much fun to meet so many passionate, sincere students who were so eager to follow Christ. There really is something special going on there (plus it's just a great town-- so relaxing & dare I say quaint? I love it there). We got to talk to several graduating (or eventually-to-be-graduating!) students who were all fired up about our new team in SF... and many who were just excited about serving the poor in general. Yeah, it was a really great time.

Our hope & prayer now is that God would lead us to more students like the ones we met in SLO... and that some of those students we were able to meet would feel God's calling to join us in San Francisco. They would be super fun to work with =)

Revolution by Heather Zydek

I'm so excited about this blog. I've been reading and thinking about many related issues this summer. One of the best inspirations came from The Revolution: A Field Manual for Changing Your World. I liked it so much I just ordered several copies to share with friends. Message me if you'd like to borrow one! The reviews on amazon are great and informative. I especially enjoyed the articles on Fair Trade Economics and Gang Violence. They were intelligent and empowering. I finished them really feeling like I could make a difference. So, I sent in an application to become a mentor with Big City Mountaineers in hopes of becoming a mentor to some inner city kids in my favorite mountain environments. Check it out.

Inaugural Blog

Welcome! I'm glad you found us here. I'll give you just a little bit of background (hopefully not enough to bore you!), and tell you a little bit about where we hope to be going.

My name is Christine, and I live in a beautiful, colorful neighborhood in San Francisco, called The Mission District. I love my city.

God brought me & my husband here about 3 years ago to work with college students through Campus Crusade for Christ. Honestly, it's been a difficult journey since then. This can be a tough, dry, lonely place to live, and we've had a rough go at it. But through it all, God kept a deep love in our hearts for the city, the culture, the people, our neighborhood, and college students. We've learned a lot, and opened our minds & hearts to new ways of experiencing Jesus and growing in him.

For the last 3 years, we've worked with an amazing team... but God is starting something new, calling people in different directions, and next year, Chris & I will be the only ones left in San Francisco, starting a new team, and leading this experiment called City Limits.

So that's a bit of the background... now where are we going?

We are hoping to start a community of everyday people who are seeking to live out the Gospel in real life. We want to reach out to the college campus (specifically San Francisco State University) and to the community (our inner city neighborhood) with Jesus' love, and see if we can't bring those two worlds together.

We want to express and experience Jesus' love through art, story, community, and through serving & loving the needy in our neighborhood.

This is still in the "dreaming" stage, and we hope to get things rolling with a new team in the Fall. If you are interested in being a part of that team-- as a student, an intern, or a volunteer-- or if you think you know someone crazy enough to try this out, please let us know.
We would love to have you along for the journey.