Facing Your Future

Austin, TX is the capital of Texas and one of the most unique places in the United States to experience ministry first-hand. Austin is consistently rated among the top five places to live in the US, is rated among the top five fastest-growing cities in the US and is rated as the #1 place to live for young adults because of the cultural richness, authenticity and small-town feel despite being the 15th largest city in America. Lying on the Colorado River in Texas’ hill country, Austin is known as the Live Music Capital of the World and home to the University of Texas. Austin’s motto, “Keep Austin Weird” describes the artistic, counter-cultural, liberal and young feel of city’s character. In the Christian world, Austin is often referred to as the hub of missional thought, boasting several influential churches, innovative Christian leaders and the VERGE Network.

Most of our work will be done with Sunrise Community Church, a missional, inner-city CRC which has existed for about 20 years. In addition, we’ll touch base with many cutting-edge church leaders and concepts, including the CRC’s new church planting cluster concept, an innovative Korean CRC congregation, a low-income childcare center, a hybrid satellite campus church & non-profit center planted in a low–income neighborhood, church planters and several mega-church leaders. We’ll get our hands dirty working with homeless folks who live in the woods, serving meals under a downtown bridge, repairing flooded homes and planning/executing a worship service in cooperation with worship leaders.

You’ll get to try out some Texas barbeque, visit the Alamo and River Walk in San Antonio, pose with Bevo (the University of Texas mascot), swim in an underground lake and watch the largest urban bat population in the US take flight. But more important than that, you’ll get to live the day–to–day life of ministry, walking and talking with a variety of innovative churches and leaders who operate with one mission—boldly following the Holy Spirit as it transforms one of the most influential cities in the US.

The Toronto, Ontario site is hosted by a unique partnership between a Christian Reformed campus ministry at York University (one of the largest universities in Canada with 40,000 students), namely LOGOS Campus Ministry, and a church plant, Friendship Community CRC, which is also part of a larger cross-denominational coalition of churches in the Jane-Finch community, one of the most multi-culturally diverse communities in the already multi-cultural city of Toronto.

Participants will serve hands-on in cross-denominational programs tackling urban poverty in a cross-cultural neighborhood, e.g. after school programs for at risk youths and GED education programs preparing moms for their high school equivalency exam. Learning modules or presentations will cover topics such as, “Ministry on a Secular Campus”, “Theology and the City”, “The Power of Servant Leadership”, “God’s Mission and World Religions”, “Poverty & the City”, “Cross-Cultural Ministry”. Some learning modules will be held at York University.

Tualatin, OR is a southern suburb of Portland, OR. Tualatin is an Indian word meaning “lazy river”. Portland is located at the confluence of two of the West’s Coasts largest rivers, the Willamette and the mighty Columbia. Portland is 90 miles upriver from the mouth of the Columbia and about 90 feet above sea level. Oregonians are a unique breed in the Pacific Northwest. Many of them think they still have the pioneer spirit. It is also a place to escape from Midwest values. The Max line, the homeless, hippie remnants and the wealthy among others all converge in one place in quite an ethnic display. You might run into the spaced out rubber guitar player singing Elvis songs off-key asking for donations to Portland’s legitimate non-profit church of Elvis. We have screaming liberals and rednecks, no military bases except for the National Guard and we are as politically divided as the rest of the country. Mormonism is huge here with a large Temple just a couple of miles away. The cults seem to thrive here from Jehovah Witnesses to Eastern Religions to New Thought Churches, Christian Science and Scientology. The Foursquare denomination is the fastest growing Christian denomination in Oregon and is the only one that rivals the cults in growth.

Some of the possible projects for FYF to experience is a day with the homeless passing out socks and other daily necessities, doing a door-to-door survey in Tualatin, canvassing for a day for food for a local food-bank, learning “The Way of the Master evangelism method” and then doing some cold-turkey interviews in downtown Portland, working a day at Medical Ministries international which includes touring their third world re-creation of a Mexico City slum complete with the garbage and the smells. We might consider serving a day in the migrant camps as well. Hopefully we will spend one day either on the Pacific Ocean or hike up Oregon’s famous Multnomah Falls trail. Or, if we go the top of Larch Mountain at 4,000 feet, we can hike to the bottom of Multnomah Falls (passing other falls on the way) all the way down to about 100 feet above sea level.