Claremont

How ��Ƶ Changed My Life

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 20:43:02 +0000

January 15, 2019

Elton Wong

How ��Ƶ Changed My Life

I was a relatively new Christian when I arrived at the Claremont Colleges. During my freshman year, I went to some of the ��Ƶ gatherings, but after the first semester I decided I was too busy. Over the next few years I still grew as a Christian, however, reading the Bible on my own and connecting on occasion with my church community back home in Hawaii.

Then, during my senior year, I felt God calling me to connect with other Christians regularly and be a part of a community. I decided to check out ��Ƶ again, and it changed my life.

Though I had been involved with several churches, and participated in some meetings with another Christian group on campus, ��Ƶ was the first community to emphasize God’s radical grace and unconditional love for all people, especially those who are outcasts and marginalized in society. When I learned about God’s love for the poor and oppressed, and his desire for justice to set the oppressed free and for us to do something about it, I took it to heart.

After graduating from Harvey Mudd College, I tried to live out my faith by getting involved in ministries that reach out to the homeless or at-risk youth in the Santa Ana community. But it wasn’t until I moved back to Hawaii that God led me to the next step.

I was working at the University of Hawaii as an electrical engineer, and had talked to some of the ��Ƶ folks there about finding a church with justice-related ministries. God used them to lead me to one that had a homeless outreach and a ministry for reaching sex-trafficking victims.

Here, I found a group of people who were living in a Christian community home and had taken in a few homeless people from time to time. One of the leaders there invited me to move in. I had been considering buying a large house for ministry however, so I asked if he’d be willing to purchase one with me instead.

Five years ago, we closed on a house, invited several others from church to live with us, and opened our home to people in need. Since then, we’ve lived with over 50 different people, over half of whom needed help getting back on their feet; people who would otherwise be homeless, recovering drug addicts and alcoholics, single parents and their kids, survivors of domestic violence, and survivors of human trafficking.

One woman had never gone more than two weeks sober in her life since she started using drugs over 10 years ago. After living with us she has been sober for the past year-and-a-half, and is now holding a steady job as a supervisor at a local supermarket. I personally invested a lot of time and energy with her, so I’m happy to see her doing so well.

Another woman, a single mom and survivor of domestic violence who struggled with alcohol addiction and materialism, is now living in a Catholic retreat center, pursuing a stable life with her two boys. Her boys are getting a good private school education (Hawaii public schools are not great) and have grown to be respectful young gentleman.

A man who struggled with alcoholism for many years was able to overcome his addiction while living with us. He attributes a large part of his recovery to prayer and to being in a loving and grace-filled community. He now lives in Los Angeles and is pursuing his dream of a career in music.

Another man who was introduced to drugs at a very young age and was a drug dealer for a while, has now been sober for over 120 days and completed his rehab treatment program. He recently flew to Seattle to be with his dad.

These are only some of the stories we have of people who have been changed by our house and its members. Not all of the stories have a happy ending.

One man who came in and out of our house had a long history with alcoholism and drug addiction that he was never able to fully overcome. We loved him and he loved the Lord, but he eventually ended up dying from an overdose. We held a memorial service for him and invited his family from the mainland and his friends from the streets to honor and remember him.

We can’t help everyone nor can we take the credit for people’s recoveries, but our home definitely serves as a stepping stone and a sanctuary for people on their journey.

In addition to opening up my home, I’ve been involved with our church’s justice ministry for sex trafficking victims. I go out with a team about once a week to talk to the prostitutes in our city. We don’t preach to them but rather we simply share God's love with them by handing out food, since they don’t get to eat regular meals. We also listen to their stories, pray for them, and help them work with local law enforcement if they are ready to get out.

I’m one of the few men involved in this outreach, but many of the women have told me how much it means to have a guy on the team. All they have known are men who have abused them and taken advantage of them. To meet a man who is caring and compassionate toward them without expecting anything in return makes a big difference in their lives and gives them hope.

Ultimately, all of these stories are of people whose lives have been transformed by God through ��Ƶ, indirectly. Without ��Ƶ, I would have never learned of and received God’s heart for the poor and oppressed. I wouldn’t have opened up my home to those in need, and I wouldn’t be giving hope to women who have only experienced the selfish and abusive side of men. I thank God that I had an ��Ƶ chapter on campus and that he led me to be part of it my senior year. I live a crazy and interesting life, and I have ��Ƶ to blame, in a good way.

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Claremont

Harvey Mudd College

Hawaii

Both Feet in Faculty Ministry

gordon.govier@intervarsity.org — Mon, 09 Jul 2018 20:06:31 +0000

July 9, 2018

Gordon Govier

Both Feet in Faculty Ministry

Deciding to join Graduate and Faculty Ministries (GFM) staff was not without its painful moments for Charles Barker. Specifically, it was the sunburn he endured from long hours of conversation on the dock at ��Ƶ's Campus by the Sea during the West Coast Faculty Conference.

Charles had been invited to the conference by Lynn Gill, at that time the GFM Regional Director, when he had contacted her expressing an interest in faculty ministry.

During almost three decades on the pastoral staff at Pasadena Covenant Church, including 17 years as senior pastor, Charles was wary of getting caught up in the institutional life of the church. “I always felt like I was a pastor of a local church with one foot in the church and one foot in the local community,” he said. But after 27 years he prayed, “God, could I have both feet in the next season in my life in the secular world? Could I be a pastor to the non-Christian world with both feet?”

He wasn’t sure what that would look like. And when a friend suggested campus ministry with ��Ƶ, he was dismissive. Working with undergrad college students seemed to him like a job for a younger person. But out of curiosity he went to ��Ƶ’s website, and for some reason the initials GFM caught his eye.

And then he read the GFM ministry vision: “We are planting and building communities of deeply thoughtful, grace-filled graduate students and faculty to join together to bring Christ’s redeeming influence among the people, the ideas, and the structures of the university and professions.”

Charles thought, That’s exactly what vocational discipleship should be about. When he discovered all of the campuses in California without GFM ministry, he knew he had to respond. And that was how he ended up in long conversations with professors attending the 2009 West Coast Faculty Conference, sponsored by ��Ƶ GFM.

One conversation represented the challenge of faculty ministry particularly well. The professor told him, “I experience a profound double loneliness. I am a leader in my church and I love my church, but none of the things that I spend 55-60 hours a week dealing with on campus are in conversation at my church. Similarly, I have wonderful colleague friends on campus. But what informs my thinking about my research and my field—my Christian values, my Christian worldview—all of that feels like it’s off limits. And I really want to talk about that.”

Charles quickly realized he wanted to work in that academic environment, to help faculty members have the opportunity to connect their faith with their discipline and their campus. He wrote in his prayer journal, “This would be a privilege, a high and holy calling.”

Charles was initially assigned to The Claremont Colleges, a consortium of seven independent, adjacent campuses in Southern California. “We have a lively, active, large fellowship there,” he said. “It’s been kind of the hub of regional ministries in Southern California.”

The faculty fellowship at Claremont includes Francis Su, a highly regarded mathematician; ��Ƶ Press authors Mary Poplin and Stephen Davis; Dave Vosburg, chemistry professor and spouse of ��Ƶ Campus Staff Minister Kate Vosburg; and many more who often speak at ��Ƶ events in the region.

The weekly faculty fellowship meetings typically draw 25-30 faculty and administrators from a group of about 75 and a total mailing list of about 200. “That’s remarkable growth in the last 10-12 years,” Charles said. “It’s been a time of God raising up and bringing to us wonderful, brilliant scholars who are Christians.”

Students are also being influenced. One Harvey Mudd College student shared her story at a faculty fellowship several years ago. She took Dave Vosburg’s organic chemistry class and appreciated his focus on green chemistry, addressing environmental challenges, and other aspects of his teaching. Curious about some of the things he said, she went online and found his blog, where he talked about how science and Christian faith are not at odds and how he holds the two together.

The student wanted to know more about Christianity and met with Dave during his office hours. For five or six weeks he answered her questions, and then connected her to an undergrad Bible study in her dorm. From there she joined the ��Ƶ student chapter, where she met other Christian students, and was eventually baptized into the faith.

“I want to continue my education and return to campus,” she told the faculty gathering. “But I don’t want to be just a professor or researcher. I want to care holistically for people, as Dave does.”

Several years after he began working with Claremont faculty, Charles also began to plant a faculty chapter at California State University, Los Angeles. In addition he codirects ��Ƶ's West Coast Faculty Conference, which is now held every summer on the campus of Westmont College.

In 2009, when Charles first visited the faculty conference, there were about 30 attendees. Now attendance runs around 165-170. About half are from schools with chapters of Christian faculty, and half from schools without.

“I think of this as an intensive experience of being a community of Christian scholars who are practicing vocational discipleship,” he said. “There’s a profound thing that we do in ��Ƶ that requires that faculty leave behind functional dualism that says I have my family life, and my friendships, and my church volunteerism, and my spiritual growth, and that’s in this corner, and then I go to work and do my work there, and those two things never meet.”

In the academic world with both feet, Charles’s prayer is being answered as more and more faculty see their faith and academic worlds come together.

News Keywords

Claremont

How ������Ƶ Changed My Life

How ������Ƶ Changed My Life

Both Feet in Faculty Ministry

Both Feet in Faculty Ministry

How ��Ƶ Changed My Life

How ��Ƶ Changed My Life