Ethnic Diversity Matters

You may have read in my last letter about my trip to headquarters in Orlando, Florida back in August. I went to help the national direction team create a strategic plan for our national priorities and it was an honor to have been invited into that conversation.

I’ve been invited into several projects over the past few months with Cru. Although my new role title is female director for Jersey Metro Cru, I have been invited into several other conversations by some of its national directors that will help change the outlook of our organization as a whole.

Diverse group @ Jersey Cru

Around the nation, Cru campus movements are led and filled with majority White staff and students. Jersey Metro Cru is a rare community with various ethnic backgrounds and cultures represented. Some of this could be attributed to the make-up of the campus or the students’ rare ability to integrate with one another. Sadly, another reason could be the fear and uneasiness in presenting the Gospel to students of a different culture or ethnicity.

My long-term goal is to help Cru campus movements across the nation reflect its scope ethnically. God recently provided an opportunity for me to put these thoughts into a video presentation (visit my blog to view video) that was presented to our national campus direction team at headquarters by the Mid- Atlantic national director and a few others.

God is already moving in the hearts of so many staff, faculty and students to go in this direction. I am excited to see how God will use students from New Jersey to help transform Sunday morning experiences and encourage love and unity throughout our country during this very difficult time. Thanks for being part of this.

“And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common.”

(Acts 2:43-44)

1. Students leaders are preparing for finals and the holidays. Please pray they are able to set their eyes on Jesus.

2. Jersey Metro Cru staff are preparing for next semester and for RADIATE in our nations capitol. Please pray for this.

3. Personally I’m tired. Please pray I rest well in Jesus and His word.

www.JerseyMetro.com

Tabbystab.blogspot.com

A dream…

On August 28^th, 1963 our nation heard a speech from a well-known Pastor concerning a seemingly impossible dream called equality.

This speech helped “remind America of the fierce urgency of Now.”

“This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism... Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children. It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment,” says MLK Jr.

With Christine in the MLK garden @ KU

Later in his speech, King encourages the people to love one another and remember that each person is an individual who deserves a fair chance and we as a people cannot “walk alone”.

On August 27, 1985 I was born to a young Christian Puerto Rican couple in the back seat of a station wagon in the Bronx of NYC. After being raised in a very ethnically diverse environment, I later went to Kean University in NJ to study yet another culture – deaf education. The summer of 2008, after a one-year internship with Cru’s campus ministry in New Jersey, I joined staff.

Over the course of the past 11 years serving God through the ministry of Cru, the Holy Spirit has placed on my heart a dream to see His children fellowship together across ethnic barriers. I’ve been privileged to see Him transform the ministry in New Jersey and recently experienced amazing new efforts by the national leaders of the campus ministry to see an Acts 2 community come alive across the United States. (Specifically verses 7-11 & 42-47)

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. – Ephesians 3:20-21

Next week I will be at our headquarters in Orlando, Florida with a team from across the nation praying, hearing & strategically planning to make Cru a more ethnically diverse ministry. There is so much more I can say about this matter, but for now, I would just as you to please pray that I submit to the Holy Spirit and follow as He leads in regards to this very sensitive topic.

… And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream.
– Martin Luther King Jr.