Our team recently had the honor of meeting and getting to hear Dr. John M. Perkins preach at 1st Presbyterian Church of Berkley. This was a special honor for me, because I have always admired Dr. Perkins, and seen him as a personal hero of mine. Dr. Perkins was a civil rights leader in the 1960’s and really has been a father and groundbreaker in the modern social justice and racial reconciliation movements in the church today. I have also …
Living in community can be a sudden, random, thing. After grocery shopping on Sunday, I felt the need to get away and spend some time in solitude with me and Abba. I ended up going to Dimond Park right on Fruitvale Avenue, to read some curriculum, and spend some time in devotion and prayer. What a blessing that ended up becoming! After finishing my reading, I decided to walk around the park. I came up onto a hiking trail. A …
“Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others.”- Martin Luther King Jr. This quote has been a discovered truth in my life. Since coming back from Christmas break, I have had a very peaceful and renewed vision about what I want this year to look like. But sometimes you lose focus on the giving and …
I have struggled to find a good holiday message to reflect on and write about, but for some reason the word “Advent” has kept coming back to me. What is Advent? According to the dictionary it is, n 1. a coming; approach; visitation 2. specifically, the coming of Christ. This time of Advent should be spent in preparation. Preparation for what? The birth of Christ? Christ has already been born; we celebrate His birth on Christmas day. We have this …
We live in strange world. I was walking out of an Oakland city government building after taking a day long training for homeless residency data entry for my service site, and I was seemingly swept into a crowd of energetic hippie protestors. Although I had heard of what these people were here to protest for, the hectic emotion and chaos of the situation, although it was understandable, made it somewhat hard for me to comprehend what type of protest I …
When I first found out that I was going to spend this next year with Mission Year, I thought that it was very aligned with my interests. A year serving people in the inner city, which was my comfort zone. What I was not expecting was the challenging, learning experience that I have so far experienced. As most of you know, I spent a year in inner city New Orleans two years ago, so coming into Mission Year; my expectations …
“My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.”
― Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel
Hi! My name is Jonathan. Jon for short if you would like.For starters, I am 22 yrs old. I like music, sports, and all things one would consider nerdy. I grew up in a christian family, and attended a christian high school. Although I experienced what most would call a solid upbringing, I never exactly experienced the life transformation that some Christians i knew seemed to have had. In short I lived a miserable, selfish existence that I would wish …
