InterVarsity's Vision is to see students and faculty transformed, campuses renewed and world changers developed.
The Sacramento Urban Program works to partner with students, faculty and staff to see all of those, with a special emphasis on developing world changers. Here's what's core to our program:
EXCELLENT TRAINING: Justice, race and ethnicity, Kingdom lenses and Shalom theology are bedrock components of our program. We particularly dive deep into Biblical multi-ethnic theology, awakening (ethnic identity + reconciliation) and deepening, an invaluable help as students engage in their campuses and cities in the midst of our national turmoil around this area particularly.
LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT: From 17/18 year olds to 50+ year olds, when you participate in the Sacramento Urban Program, you will have the opportunity to develop as a leader -- on your campus, in your city and community, in the church and in the world. Students who participate in this program, even for 8-24 hours leave changed with new lenses to engage in the world around them.
LISTENING HUMBLY: In order to become world changers, the very first task is to become a good listener, a slowing and often uncomfortable practice. At SUP, we work to follow Jesus' lead of centering voices that are often muted or set in the margins in our communities. As we listen, we are transformed.
RECIPROCITY: Often times in mission settings, we enter in with the expectation that we have something to offer. If each human is indeed made in the image of God, than we need to always expect that God has something to offer us as we encounter each person, enter each community. We see Jesus himself model this as he encounters the Samaritan woman at the well.
REFLECTION: The famous discipleship cycle in InterVarsity is: hearing, responding and debriefing. We know that each step is critical, yet debriefing helps create space for processing what you've seen and heard and how you'll choose to let that form you and grow deep roots in your life.
PROXIMITY: The closer you are to people, communities, and neighborhoods, the more the concerns and issues and realities that are theirs are humanized and become ours. Our hope is for us to become more like Jesus who took on flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood (earth) and therefore understood what concerns, struggles, joys, etc we have and to do likewise. This is a movement away from isolation and towards relationship and awareness.
MULTIPLICATION: Folks who come to Sacramento (or Reno or Stockton or East Palo Alto or ...) for a week or weekend have life-changing experiences. But our hope is that these students and staff and church folk wouldn't just think of that city or the places they came for their urban/rural program experience as THE place to serve or engage, our hope is that the experiences they have here would multiply to their campus cities and communities, hometowns, churches, families... and to the ends of the earth. We set up experiences that can be reproduced in other contexts and provide training, resourcing/consulting and feedback to help create similar experiences in other places (whether campuses or cities).
Basically, expect how you think about engaging with the world, or missions, to change in ways that are beautiful and challenging and oftentimes new. We hope you'll consider joining us for a day, a weekend or week sometime soon!
The Sacramento Urban Program works to partner with students, faculty and staff to see all of those, with a special emphasis on developing world changers. Here's what's core to our program:
EXCELLENT TRAINING: Justice, race and ethnicity, Kingdom lenses and Shalom theology are bedrock components of our program. We particularly dive deep into Biblical multi-ethnic theology, awakening (ethnic identity + reconciliation) and deepening, an invaluable help as students engage in their campuses and cities in the midst of our national turmoil around this area particularly.
LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT: From 17/18 year olds to 50+ year olds, when you participate in the Sacramento Urban Program, you will have the opportunity to develop as a leader -- on your campus, in your city and community, in the church and in the world. Students who participate in this program, even for 8-24 hours leave changed with new lenses to engage in the world around them.
LISTENING HUMBLY: In order to become world changers, the very first task is to become a good listener, a slowing and often uncomfortable practice. At SUP, we work to follow Jesus' lead of centering voices that are often muted or set in the margins in our communities. As we listen, we are transformed.
RECIPROCITY: Often times in mission settings, we enter in with the expectation that we have something to offer. If each human is indeed made in the image of God, than we need to always expect that God has something to offer us as we encounter each person, enter each community. We see Jesus himself model this as he encounters the Samaritan woman at the well.
REFLECTION: The famous discipleship cycle in InterVarsity is: hearing, responding and debriefing. We know that each step is critical, yet debriefing helps create space for processing what you've seen and heard and how you'll choose to let that form you and grow deep roots in your life.
PROXIMITY: The closer you are to people, communities, and neighborhoods, the more the concerns and issues and realities that are theirs are humanized and become ours. Our hope is for us to become more like Jesus who took on flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood (earth) and therefore understood what concerns, struggles, joys, etc we have and to do likewise. This is a movement away from isolation and towards relationship and awareness.
MULTIPLICATION: Folks who come to Sacramento (or Reno or Stockton or East Palo Alto or ...) for a week or weekend have life-changing experiences. But our hope is that these students and staff and church folk wouldn't just think of that city or the places they came for their urban/rural program experience as THE place to serve or engage, our hope is that the experiences they have here would multiply to their campus cities and communities, hometowns, churches, families... and to the ends of the earth. We set up experiences that can be reproduced in other contexts and provide training, resourcing/consulting and feedback to help create similar experiences in other places (whether campuses or cities).
Basically, expect how you think about engaging with the world, or missions, to change in ways that are beautiful and challenging and oftentimes new. We hope you'll consider joining us for a day, a weekend or week sometime soon!