Answering

I get asked, a lot, what it is that I do.  I either stumble around with that til I've talked far too long and not given a good answer or, more recently, I use a rote answer which, at it's best, isn't actually too descriptive.  But last night, just before I drifted off to sleep, something came to me that I feel like I can actually use: I help students realize how much Jesus loves them.

At the beginning and end of the day, if I'm doing anything else, I'm not doing something I actually want to do.  It's not, ultimately, witnessing communities growing in love that will change the world.  It's the love of Christ.  That's expressed through a witnessing community, sure, but I hate the word "witnessing" anymore.  If we can't strip the message down to fit any context, I don't want that message.  I don't want a message steeped so much in systematic theology that I've got to fear the wrong questions that could tip over the system, because that system, well, it's man-made too.

But the love of Jesus isn't.  It's not something we can comprehend, and that is something worth dedicating time to on campus. This isn't a change; it's a realization of what I should have been saying all along.

How we respond to Jesus determines how we live our lives.  We can choose to love him back and make the world a better place by expressing that love ourselves, or we can reject it and ignore it.  But love is a powerful thing; only love can really change the world.  That's why the gospel is good news at all: because it is a profound message of love and it is that message that I want to proclaim on campus and call students to join me in proclaiming with their lives.

There are 17,000 students at Cleveland State right now that either don't know how much Jesus loves them or aren't getting to experience that love in the context of a loving community on campus.  That's a travesty, because it's within authentic community that God intended us to experience his love and grace.

Maybe it's pride, maybe it's because God intends me to be different, but I never could quite rally around an answer someone else gave me for that question.  Maybe it's because I didn't quite believe the answers I was trained to give.  But I do believe in how much Jesus loves each and every student, everywhere.  It's my job to proclaim that at Cleveland State and help students live in the reality of that love, right now.  I can do that.  What's more, I actually want to do that, and even more than that, I finally feel like that's what God wants me to do, and has been, all along.

-Zack

"Anything we can mess up we can fix up; Sword to plowshare"

-Flobots

Stitched

Yesterday may have been the best day I've ever had fundraising.  It has nothing to do with an amount (because I don't know one yet).  It has everything to do with vision.  I was invited, a few weeks back, to attend a "supported ministries luncheon" by a church that, at the time, didn't support me yet.  Yesterday was the day that happened.

What that meant, is that in 10 or so rooms, groups of 5 or 6 consisting of a mixture of ministry representatives and church members had lunch together, shared about the types of ministry in which we participate, and prayed together.

In Hillsdale, my only line of support, my only bit of community, was an hour away in Lansing.  There were at least 50 people (and I do believe quite more) there yesterday.  Just looking around, the message was clear: we're all in this together.  We all do something different, but the idea is the same: the renewal of Cleveland, Ohio.  I felt alone so often in Hillsdale, and largely, I was.  That, however, will never be the case in Cleveland, and for that, I am so grateful.

Cleveland has so bad a reputation, but I was reminded yesterday, as I have often been in the past 5 years, that Cleveland has so much hope.  I'm a part of that now proactively.  I can't wait to see what God does via the chapter at CSU.  It's so cliche to say we can change the world.  But we can, and to believe otherwise is to believe less of God than he warrants.  His love transcends sin and his love transcends how low Cleveland may be or have become.  There are and will always be problems in Cleveland.  But even more than that, there will always be a God in heaven who loves each and every one of the residents in that city so incomprehensibly much.

Perhaps the best part is that you can be a part of it too.  As much as all of us who were there yesterday are in this together, we all, everywhere in the body of Christ, are in it together even if we can't see it or feel it as tangibly as I did yesterday.  But you can't stand on the sidelines forever and leave it for everyone else.  We really are a body, and you've got as much a role to play as I do, no matter how different it might be.

-Zack

"This is love, this is not treason"
-Flobots