BGU Journal - 1/22/09

The end is in sight!  I really love this course work at BGU, but I am ready to be home in Pittsburgh with my family and friends.  I'm sensing that everyone here is feeling this same way.  This has been a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but we're ready to begin implementing all that we have learned.

I was talking to Randy White today, explaining that I feel like I now have a "tool kit" for urban ministry in Pittsburgh.  Throughout the course of these past two weeks I've learned about many different ministry models for urban and complex environments.  So much of what I have learned is directly applicable to LAMP and North Way.

This morning, we were asked to pick out three main ideas that we are taking back with us to our ministry contexts.  My three were:  Live intelligently (Skip Li's advice), love Pittsburgh (Ray Bakke's advice), and embrace change (Ken Fong's advice).  I think all of these ideas will help me tremendously when I return to Pittsburgh.

Our morning lecturer was Tim Svoboda, who served as a YWAM missionary to India for almost 30 years, and who more recently has served as the director of YWAM outreach efforts in the San Francisco bay area.  He gave us a great history of missions work in India since the mid-1970s, and also an overview of the complexities of ministry in inner city San Francisco since he began serving there two years ago.  He presented a "ministry wheel" model that I think could successfully be implemented in Pittsburgh.  In his model (which he effectively used to decentralize YWAM's efforts in India), macroleaders provide enthusiastic leadership for microleaders of certain aspects of city development.  Macroleaders serve as cheerleaders and coaches for microleaders in areas such as:  street kids, elderly, migrant workers, handicapped, arts, education, prostitutes, sports, middle class, unemployed, university students, hindus, drug addicts, homeless, business, government, Muslims, prisoners, family, media, church, suicide, or the poor.  In this model, microleaders are empowered to implement effective ministry models at the grass roots level.  The microleaders become powerful in this model.  He has a passion for implementing models of urban mission through pains, problems, peoples, powers, and potentials.  He reminded us to engage the urban trinity:  police, pastors, and politicians.

Wynn Griffin then spoke to us about the importance of engaging the dissertation process at BGU.  I should begin thinking about my problem statement right now, and the research bridge that I will take in early 2010 will help to launch me into the dissertation process of this program.  BGU hopes that I will be able to publish my dissertation project into a book that is widely read.  BGU has the connections to make this happen!

Gwyn Dewey and Lowell Bakke then guided the class through a research process called appreciative inquiry.  Basically, this process helps to provide solutions to problems in cities by asking the right questions (and finding common ground) of influential people who are "brought to the table" in cities that are in need of transformation.  We practiced the appreciative inquiry process on one another, and we were presented with examples of how this process has been successful in cities around the world (Manila, Phillipines was one example).  The process involves deciding, discovering, dreaming, designing, and delivering.

Even though many of us are anxious to return to our homes, I was still appreciative of the information that I learned today.  I love to learn about new cultures, and Tim Svoboda provided an excellent overview of front line ministry in India and San Francisco.  I was privileged to learn from a person with that much experience!  As I mentioned earlier, the ministry wheel model already has the wheels in my brain turning about organizational systems that could be implemented back in Pittsburgh.  I have been searching for an effective way to organize North Way's local outreach efforts, and this provides a great framework for something like that.

The overview of the dissertation process was also extremely helpful.  I have a great deal of reading and writing to do before I get to that point.  The important thing, though, is that all of my class work should potentially tie into the topics that I'll be working on for my dissertation.  BGU really wants to work with me to publish my work as a book that could impact many other people who are interested in impacting young people in the world.