The Organ of Meaning

Yep, that’s what time I got up today, voluntarily. I’m pretty sure that if the conference was to go on another day that I just might keel over from exhaustion. I’m realizing how nice it is to be at a conference and have a “down” place – a hotel room that is mine so I can take a nap.

I really am enjoying this and enjoying serving here, but going from 6:10am to (probably) 1am tonight is something that I can’t keep doing over and over every day.

I can’t wait to sleep through Monday.

This weekend is another conference for me. I’m running PowerPoint and video yet again and I’m having a pretty good time doing it too. The conference is a regional conference for Impact – an “ethnic student ministry” associated with the organization that I work with. Impact primarily focuses on reaching out to and building up African American students on college campuses.

I am learning a lot about where our ministry is falling short on being more effective on campus… for example, partnerships with local churches are something that Impact does a great job with; and something we do not. I’m hoping to have some opportunity to work more in partnership with Impact locally here in the DC area (did I say that we’ve pretty much decided to stay in the Washington area for at least another year) – even if it’s just helping to train and disciple some of the students on their campuses.

One of the things about Impact is the fact that they don’t have staff on campuses, they depend on the students they work with to be the ones doing the ministry on their campuses and coach them over the phone. Yet, it’s has been very effective… students can do ministry! But, one of the shortcomings of this strategy is the lack of people who can interact one-on-one and face-to-face (I like hyphens (and parethesis)) – we’re hoping that we’ll be able to help out and fill some of that void.