UC-Berkeley

Building Bridges of Reconciliation

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Fri, 07 Nov 2014 17:00:38 +0000

November 7, 2014

Gordon Govier

Building Bridges of Reconciliation

When Yu-Shuan Tarango-Sho planted an ��Ƶ chapter at Mills College in Oakland, California one of her biggest challenges was gaining the trust of the college administrators. Mills is a women’s liberal arts college famous for attracting activist, justice-minded types.

At Mills, Christianity was looked upon with disfavor as an outdated institution. Yu-Shuan experienced a lot of resistance as she tried to start an ��Ƶ chapter, and was required to document all of her activities on campus. The campus had a policy against proselytizing. Bible studies and worship services could not be held outside of the chapel area. But Yu-Shuan was not deterred.

“It was exciting to think about how we could regain the reputation of Christianity and build bridges with reconciliation and other commonalities of experience,” she said. “In the six years I was at Mills a lot of that work was to help folks read Scripture through their own lenses and dispel stereotypes that Christianity is oppressive.”

The activist-oriented students were intrigued to see Jesus as an advocate for the marginalized and oppressed, who preached justice as well as salvation. Students decided to organize a campus outreach, a fundraiser for the mothers of Smokey Mountain, a garbage village in the Philippines, it was well received. Other groups on campus started asking to collaborate with the ��Ƶ chapter.

As the students read their Bibles and prayed, more changes occurred. A chaplain who had opposed their presence left. Her replacement turned out to be an ��Ƶ alumna. “Under her leadership we were able to move out of the chapel and start Bible studies in every dorm,” Yu-Shuan reported. “It was like a movement of God. Our reputation changed, it was an exciting time.” Since then four generations of staff have come out of the Mills College ��Ƶ chapter.

Pursuing a Christian faith that is vibrant and life changing has been vitally important to Yu-Shuan ever since she committed her life to Jesus during fall conference the first semester of her freshman year at University of California-Davis. She became a leader in the majority White chapter at her campus. But by her senior year she was impatient with the focus of the group.

“My experience in college was this huge divide between faith and talking about a lot of issues that are relevant in communities of color,” she said. Her faith led her to become involved in racial reconciliation work and justice conversations among Christians on campus. She started a discussion group focused on the intersection of faith, racial reconciliation, and social justice.

After graduation Yu-Shuan began working with a faith-based program assisting low-income refugees from Southeast Asia. The focus on social justice and racial reconciliation was exactly what she was looking for. However she missed something that she had grown to appreciate in ��Ƶ: community. “I wanted a ministry where community values were lived out,” she said.

At the same time ��Ƶ was looking to expand the ministry model in the East Bay campuses, particularly the University of California-Berkeley. So Yu-Shuan and her husband, Javier, joined ��Ƶ staff and were able to start a social justice ministry with some of the UC-Berkeley students. They remain in touch with many of the students they worked with, most of whom are still pursuing justice in their post-graduate careers.

Yu-Shuan stayed at Berkeley two years, and then planted the chapter at Mills College. After six years at Mills she spent two more years as an assistant area director for the East Bay. Then she was invited to become the director of the Bay Area Urban Project (BAYUP), which she has done for the last four years.

Many of the lessons she learned addressing the challenges at Mills College have helped mold the BAYUP program. ��Ƶ’s Urban Projects are typically designed for entry-level exposure to the challenges of under-resourced urban neighborhoods. “I wanted to create a program for people who are from neighborhoods like this,” Yu-Shuan said. “So then the question that they ask is not ‘why should I care about social justice?’ but the question is how.”

During each summer’s Urban Project Yu-Shuan leads the student participants in activities that are familiar to most churches: community organizing and providing direct relief services. But she also is teaching them how to advocate for political change. The last two years they have focused on a Bill of Rights for domestic workers and the Trust Act. This past summer they organized around immediate humanitarian responses to the 68,000 migrant children who this year crossed the border from Central America.

Each summer the students have formed a delegation to go to the capitol in Sacramento to talk with their elected representatives. “They talked about their faith and what they’re doing in Oakland, and what their faith has to do with this particular policy,” she said. “For students who come from these neighborhoods, this is the first time they realize their voice matters. Many of these students come from families of low-wage domestic workers and undocumented immigrants. Imagine the empowerment they feel when for the first time they can actually talk to a state senator on behalf of their families.”

Another part of BAYUP is partnering with local community organizers who don’t always have a good relationship with Christians. “They have their prophetic perspective that we need to hear,” Yu-Shuan said. As God has worked in reconciliation with these communities, some powerful times of forgiveness and awakening have occurred.

Having come this far with BAYUP, Yu-Shuan is planning to expand this summer program to a year-round justice institute. Building bridges of reconciliation is a full-time challenge.

News Keywords

Creating Connections on Campus

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Tue, 14 Oct 2014 18:54:41 +0000

News

October 14, 2014

Gordon Govier

Creating Connections on Campus

Javier Tarango-Sho, ��Ƶ’s Assistant Area Director for the East Bay area of northern California, admits that a job applicant for campus ministry with his background would have dim prospects. “I would probably never hire me,” he said. Javier had practically no experience with ��Ƶ during college. He attended University of California-Davis and got involved in campus ministry (not ��Ƶ) only the final year.

Instead of campus ministry, Javier was “a bonafide student activist,” advocating for others and trying to “create access for those who have been denied access.” Yu-Shuan, who later became his wife, had a friend who worked with ��Ƶ and recognized Javier’s ministry potential. She thought he would be a good fit for ��Ƶ’s work on the UC-Berkeley campus and advocated for him.

Integrating Faith and Justice

Javier had a good job and was not sure he wanted to join a ministry full-time. But as God spoke to him through several unique circumstances, campus ministry began to attract him. “I didn’t find ��Ƶ; ��Ƶ found me,” he said.

One of the books he read while considering whether to join ��Ƶ staff was Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger by Ron Sider. It was the first book he had ever read that talked about the social implications of the gospel. “This is what I want faith to be about, and the church isn’t doing it,” he said. He knew that if he had read the book as a freshman, his college career would have been different. He also knew that joining ��Ƶ staff would allow him to deepen his faith and continue to explore the social implications of the gospel.

Soon after joining ��Ƶ staff, Javier and Yu-Shuan created what they called the Justice Internship. It was not a real internship, but it offered a space for students to talk about how justice and faith interact. Meetings were held every other Friday at noon. The meetings only lasted for a year and didn’t seem to have much immediate impact, but Javier and Yu-Shuan have noticed a long-term impact. Many who participated in the internship now work for non-profits or work in the legal system helping disadvantaged people.

��Ƶ Alumni Reunion Weekend

Creating access to ministry for under-resourced staff was the impetus behind ��Ƶ’s first Homecoming reunion for former UC-Berkeley chapter members, which was held Homecoming Weekend, October 10-12. Invitations were sent to about 1,300 UC-Berkeley alumni and almost 100 attended.

The ��Ƶ alumni reunion is a creation of the Advocacy Council, which was recently formed to improve the connections between ��Ƶ’s UC-Berkeley staff and the alumni from one of ��Ƶ’s oldest chapters on the west coast. This was the first of what is hoped will be an annual UC-Berkeley alumni gathering.

At the Large Group meeting held Friday evening, the alumni mixed with current students who participate in the six UC-Berkeley ��Ƶ chapters. “Many of the older alumni had only experienced ��Ƶ as one ministry,” Javier said. Each of the different ministries were identified and explained: LaFe (Latino Ministry), BCM (Black Campus Ministry), Kapwa (Pilipino-American), ISM (International Student Ministry), CCF (Cal Christian Fellowship), and Greek ��Ƶ (fraternities and sororities).

Most alumni who attended still live in the Bay area but some drove up from Los Angeles and one even flew in from Indiana. Alumnus Chris Lema, an internet entrepreneur from San Diego, and alumna Windy Chou, an electrical engineer who became an occupational therapist, spoke at the meeting. “We were hoping our students would be encouraged by their faith experiences,” Javier said. “Students have no idea what they will encounter in the next few years after they graduate.”

Creating Support for Staff

Javier’s supervisor, Wendy Hu-Au, says that campus ministry at UC-Berkeley has benefited from Javier’s gifts in contextualized ministries and strategic thinking. “He has a heart for the marginalized communities and longs to give people of all ethnicities access to the gospel,” she said.

Javier has been a key figure in the growth of LaFe at UC-Berkeley. He trained Sara Fong, a Chinese Japanese American staff member, to lead LaFe at UC-Berkeley. He also started the LaFe Institute for the Pacific Region to develop and equip the next generation of LaFe staff.

Javier created the Advocacy Council to help develop more partners for ��Ƶ staff who, because of their backgrounds, lack the networks needed to raise the financial support for their position. “The idea is to create a structure so we can hire people that we traditionally haven't been able to hire, like me,” Javier said. “I’m grateful that ��Ƶ made space for someone like me.”

��Ƶ staff work calls for a variety of talents. We thank God that he has brought Javier to ��Ƶ to strengthen our ministry to all students at UC-Berkeley and in the Bay area.

News Keywords

Committed to Serving Others

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 14:37:55 +0000

News

June 13, 2013

Gordon Govier

Committed to Serving Others

Being an entrepreneur can be similar to being a campus minister. Jon Paris, who has been both, points out that they both involve starting something from nothing, having a vision and sticking with it, and inviting people to find meaningful roles within the vision.

“Making a lot happen on a very limited budget is also something that all staff are adept at,” said Jon, who was an ��Ƶ Campus Staff Member in California for 14 years. Budgeting tightly served him well after leaving staff, as he lived simply and worked long hours with his team, developing a to-do-list smart phone application called Astrid. Earlier this year Astrid was acquired by Yahoo.

Now, as a Yahoo employee, Jon still makes occasional visits to campus to speak at ��Ƶ meetings and he is also connected with a Christian fellowship at Yahoo. But despite some of the similarities with his previous occupation, he admits, "The pacing of post-college vocational faith communities is different than something like ��Ƶ.”

Focused on Productivity

As a campus staff member at the University of California-Berkeley and the University of San Francisco (USF), and then a team leader at Stanford, Jon saw his role like that of the biblical prophet Samuel. "I felt like my main calling in life was to be one who anointed men and women to go out into the world to have an impact.”

As an entrepreneur, working with a team of mostly former ��Ƶ students, he still focused on serving and productivity. "People have these profound moments of change where they make commitments before their peers and family but then the follow-through is not always excellent," Jon said. "We asked, how can we leverage technology to help us be who we are meant to be: happier, healthier, and more productive?”

The software that resulted from that philosophy has been received with open arms by the online community. Astrid had more than four million users when it was acquired by Yahoo in late April, 2013. "We are incredibly happy at Yahoo, and it's an honor to be here,” he said.

Developing tools to help people be more productive started before Jon left ��Ƶ. In his spare time he developed several software tools to share with staff in a package called Graceful Tools. One tool can handle registrations for conferences, which involve thousands of ��Ƶ staff every year. Another handles appointment confirmations. "If I wanted to meet with 20 student leaders in a given week, I didn't want to spend all my waking hours on email trying to figure out when I would meet with everyone, so I wrote a tool to do that,” he said.

Nikko Toyama-Szeto, a former ��Ƶ colleague, remembers Jon as someone with a sharp strategic mind, but also a very social and outgoing person. “That was a fun combination that worked well at the USF campus as well as at the UC-Berkeley campus,” she said. “It was always fun working with him and he was always game for bouncing around ideas."

Campus Ministry & Bible Study

A Bible handed to him on a sidewalk outside his junior high school by a member of the Gideons played a major role in bringing Jon to faith in Jesus Christ. He made a commitment to follow Christ in high school. When he arrived on the UC-Berkeley campus as a freshman, he connected immediately with ��Ƶ, and was invited to host a Bible study in his freshman dorm room.

Jon’s love for Bible study continued to grow as he participated in ��Ƶ’s inductive Bible studies. "Coming into a university you are expected to be a world class scholar in your study areas, but I think many of us come in with an immature way of interacting with scriptures," he said. "One of the biggest things that ��Ƶ did for me is that it really helped my faith mature through in-depth Bible study and thoughtful application.”

Whether in Silicon Valley or as a campus minister, Jon Paris has stuck with his vision of serving God and serving others.

News Keywords

UC-Berkeley

��Ƶ alumni

It Starts with Forgiveness

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 22:05:53 +0000

News

December 14, 2012

Amy Hauptman

It Starts with Forgiveness

“Before college, I was an atheist,” said Rogelio Gutierrez-Pinto. “I had grown up in the church, but as I started learning about science, I convinced myself that there was some unknown reason for everything, but not God.”

It wasn’t until his freshman year at UC Berkeley, that Rogelio truly experienced the love of God.

“At UC Berkeley’s LaFe ��Ƶ chapter, I experienced love, and not only because I felt welcomed, but because I found friends that showed me the things God is capable of,” says Rogelio. “As I learned more about the nature of God and the love that came from Him, I was compelled to show the same love to others.”

Struggling with Forgiveness

During college, Rogelio struggled with whether or not he was capable of forgiving his dad for painful things in the past. Rogelio attended LaFe Bible studiesand ��Ƶ’s Fall Conference. At these events, God showed Rogelio that His love is not passive, but active.

“I remember one time, I had missed about 5 phone calls from my dad, and I wouldn’t answer because I was afraid of how I would respond to him,” stated Rogelio. “I was convinced that I could just leave my issue with my dad behind and move on. But then God reminded me of His nature and why He sent Jesus to earth.”

God revealed to Rogelio that if he wanted to forgive his dad, he needed to show his dad forgiveness.

“So I decided to call my dad back after ignoring his first 5 calls—it ended up being a conversation that started something great in my relationship with my dad,” said Rogelio. “Today, my dad and I have good communication.”

Since his freshmen year, Rogelio has reached out to others on campus by trying to sharing his story with them. Also as an artist, Rogelio openly shares with others the spiritual significance of his art.

Following Jesus' Example

Rogelio also sees the importance of following Jesus’ example by sharing God’s love with those around him intentionally.

“I know I’ve struggled with being exclusive about who I talk to on campus,” noted Rogelio. “But lately, I’ve been working on talking with and hanging out with people I normally wouldn’t. “

��Ƶ has taught Rogelio about God’s love and the need to take this love to the world.

“I feel that without ��Ƶ, I would have kept an individualistic view of seeking spiritual peace for myself,” remarked Rogelio. “But now, my focus has shifted to bring God’s love and forgiveness to others.”

News Keywords

UC-Berkeley

LaFe

Understanding Differences

webteam@intervarsity.org — Wed, 19 Mar 2003 06:00:00 +0000

News

March 19, 2003

Teresa Buschur

Understanding Differences

The activist panel grew out of the desire to see students grasp the meaning of advancing ministry at the University of California-Berkeley. The student organizations invited to participate in the discussion were those with fewer members, such as the Asian Political Coalition, Black students, and Filipino students.

Shirley Sho, ��Ƶ staff at the University of California-Berkeley, organized the event to provide a safe atmosphere for students to learn about the different communities on their campus.

Shirley Sho, ��Ƶ staff at the University of California-Berkeley, organized the event to provide a safe atmosphere for students to learn about the different communities on their campus. “Unless we know and learn more about who they are and what they are passionate about, we can’t really effectively contextualize the Gospel to present God as One who is essentially relevant to them,” Shirley said. The idea for a panel discussion came from Shirley’s experience with an Asian Pacific Islander Issue Forum she participated in to discuss issues of faith and ethnicity. “The student activists came with much skepticism and mistrust towards the Christian community. After much conversation, I sensed that many barriers and walls towards God were broken,” Shirley said.

The students began to realize that although they are different, they all have similar views about some significant issues. The students were surprised to find that the other participants shared their exploration of faith and social action. The students on the panel shared what they believe in and why, discussed how to move forward in pursuing social justice, and how faith and social action intersect in their own lives. One of the panelists shared, “I am a Christian but never attended or spoke of church since college when I became an activist.” After the session, “Students came up to me and thanked me for breaking the stereotypes they had of God and representing a refreshing perspective of a God who hates injustice and fights on the behalf of the poor and the oppressed,” Shirley said.

The panel discussion encouraged students to build relationships with student activists on campus through sharing their beliefs in Jesus Christ. A non-Christian student on the panel expressed interest in joining a GIG (Groups Investigating God), a Bible study for non-Christians. By learning about the backgrounds and beliefs of non-Christian students, Christians are better able to encourage others with the Gospel of Christ on campus.

News Keywords

UC-Berkeley