CCDA Regional Conference

This weekend, I got to enjoy 80 degree temperatures in this part of our state

with these fabulous friends (a.k.a. GreenHouse Board members)

as well as my favorite person

while we all attended the Christian Community Development Association's Regional California conference.

The conference was awesome!  The worship band was super talented (Steve was in awe of their drummer).  The workshops were encouraging, relevant and applicable.  The speakers and facilitators were inspiring.  But hands down, the best part for all of us was hearing this great man speak.  John Perkins in the founder of the Christian Community Development Association and at the ripe old age of 80, he is fount of wisdom, truth, passion, conviction, vision, purpose, experiences, and love.   I could have listened to him share stories all day.   

A few of my "take-homes" from the conference (some new revelations, others just re-confirmed).

1. I really, really love to worship in a multicultural, multi-ethnic setting.  It lifts my soul in ways I can't explain. It quenches my thirst.  It gives me a small glimpse of heaven.  It enables me to worship my Creator more fully.

2.  I really, really loved having Steve at this conference with me.  It was important to me (and I think very good for our marriage) for us to be there together - hearing, learning, and processing the same things.  So much of what we do these days, apart from child-rearing, is separate from one another.  I have an entire world at The GreenHouse that he rarely gets to experience first-hand and he has an entire world at law-school that I know very little about.  So, it made my heart happy to share such an amazing conference with him (and fun that he even found an advocacy workshop to go to that was right up his alley).   

3.  Education continues to be a burden on my heart.  And with Jonah now in the same educational system as the youth of The GreenHouse, that burden has been kicked-up a notch or two.  I'm trying to tread slowly and wisely into this area...because my tendency would be to try to solve all of the problems of the entire school district and we all know that would nearly kill me...but I get excited when I think of being used in some small way to make an impact on our schools (and their students and families).  

Some sobering statistics that i learned in Education workshop I attended:

• Every year, 500,000 students enter high school as a freshman in the state of California.  By then, many of them have already made significant decisions that will impact who they will become (first drugs, first sex, first violent act).  Of the 500,000 who enter as a freshman, only 386,000 will graduate from high school.  Only 1/10 will go to a UC or Cal State school.  
• California spends $2000 less per student than any other state in the US
• Mentoring is critical, particularly for junior high students, but also for ages 5-14 (and beyond...). 
• The #1 factor in a student's educational success is his or her mother's educational history.  (side note and tangent....I  just finished reading the book Half the Sky.  It's a must read.  The tie-in to this post is that educating women does a whole lot of good - not only for students in California, but for the entire world.) 

4.  Churches are most likely the largest institution in our cities.  However, they are also the most fragmented institution.  (what other institution has 600 branches in the same city?).  When an institution is fragmented, it has no power.  How can we bring churches together - across denominational lines - to rally around common causes and solve some of the problems of our cities? 

The good news is that there are some cities where positive collaboration is happening - and having a huge impact on entire cities.  We got to hear stories from Fresno and Pasadena where coalitions of pastors meet routinely with schools superintendants, police chiefs, fire chiefs, councilmember, etc.  The relationships that they've formed with one another are making significant differences in their cities.  The pastors know what the needs are, they are able to better feel the pain of their city, and they can mobilize the people in their churches to meet the needs. 

Our crew is looking forward to processing all that we've learned and seeing what the next steps are for The GreenHouse, our neighborhood, and our city!