If you're going to be a missionary to India, typically it's quite necessary to actually go to India.
I was reminded of this principle again recently as I was graciously reminded of the privilege and responsibility that God has given us here at Equip at SDSU.
So just for a point of reference, these two pictures are of the Student Union (at a particularly quite time of the day today, unfortunately). At least at SDSU, the Union truly is the "living room" of campus, a very common place for students to come. They not only have food (and the
best food) in the Union in abundance, but they have a lot of
couch real-estate. Fires, couches, tables and all sorts of places to sit and study or just hang out.
This is where I spend much of my time on campus. It's simply so central to the life of SDSU that it makes going outside of the union often times unnecessary. In fact, I asked the Keith, 2nd in command staff guy, "how many students come into the union per week?" How many would you guess? 2,000? 5,000? 7,000? I'd say 7,000, wouldn't you? You'd be wrong though: It's 10,000! On average, 10,000 students come into the student union through the main (two) entryways. So, needless to say, it's quite the central opportunity to meet students and engage with many.
Anywho...just thought that'd be an encouraging and interesting little ditty.
Please pray for my final message in our "Twisted" series. Tomorrow night is "Male and Female He Created Them". Here is a small snippet of my introduction (stolen largely from Doug Wilson, or at least inspired by):
Ostriches don’t actually stick their heads in the sand, but some people do. And so, if you aren’t aware that the issue of gender and sexuality is a contentious and hot issue in the past several years, I warmly invite you to put both hands on the ground, and gently pull your head out of that hole. The past several years has been contentious, but especially the past several months we have witnessed a water-shed moment in American culture. What once was unthinkable, is now unquestionable. The SCOTUS ruling (supreme court of the United States) recently declared that two people of the same gender may be legally married and considered the equivalent of opposite sex marriages. The ‘institution of marriage’ has had nearly universal acceptance and generally the same understanding for millennia as between 1 man and 1 woman. This has been legally changed in the U.S. Homosexuality used to be taboo and is now not merely accepted, but celebrated. And increasingly, the refusal to celebrate homosexuality or same-sex marriage is being penalized and demonized. In late 2014 Facebook had 70 gender options you could choose from. Google wasn’t going to lose revenue source as the only bigoted company, so google now (last I checked) offers ‘infinite’ gender options: letting you choose anything, or fill in your own word to describe what you think about your gender (so screw you Facebook, you can’t do infinite + 1).
Now some of you might simply have a gut, base reaction of “ugh”, or “yuck” or some sort negative reaction. Others of you might be generally thinking/feeling “That’s good. Gender options creates a more loving, accepting, and welcoming world. We don’t want to discriminate”. You might agree with those who would equate a wedding cake baker or photographer’s polite refusal to bake or shoot a same-sex wedding ceremony with jim-crow, racist bigotry. To refuse to be a part of celebrating a SS ceremony is the same as whites only drinking fountains or restaurants.
Ps. A fair bit of that intro will very likely be altered or changed by the time tomorrow night roles around, that's typically how it works for me.
