...a new thing

Just a quick note to share some news. Over the course of 2 weeks of prayer and listening, Jen and I have come to a decision about an opportunity placed in front of me.

Without such luxuries as a title or a job description (who needs 'em?), I have accepted a position with the program development of the Kroc Center that was awarded to and will be built in Upham's Corner on the borders of Dorchester & Roxbury in Boston. The project is massive ($85-100 million and 85,000 sq ft) and a team is quickly coming together to tackle phase 2 of the development process. I will be a member of that team which includes advisory board members, our development staff, community members and organizations, and other people soon to be named.

For those who might be interested in a little bit about the area into which the center is going: (from the RFP)

There are currently approximately 24,000 residents in the immediate Dudley Street neighborhood; approximately 58,000 within a one-mile radius. Nearly half of Boston’s children live in Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan, with the largest number of youth in Roxbury and the second largest in Dorchester. The proposed site is on the Dorchester/Roxbury line. 37% of Dudley residents (approximately 8500) are age 19 or under. 89% of Dudley residents identify as minorities, 25 % of the population is Cape Verdean. This cultural diversity adds an incredible flavor to the area, but also creates challenges in providing services across cultural and sometimes language barriers.

The proposed site for the center is a true exercise in urban development, presenting many challenges of land assembly, traffic flow, and parking yet creating an exciting, vibrant center of activity that has the potential to influence and change for the better a forsaken cityscape along a main commercial thoroughfare. Characterized for years by abandoned buildings in desperate need of repair and vacant land serving to attract littering as well as drug trafficking, the arrival of a Kroc Center has an opportunity to greatly improve a neighborhood simply by occupying currently desolate space, to say nothing of the impact that the programs within the center will have on the youth and families for years to come.

I was over there just last week and if there were ever a place where the Army and the Church need to be, it's there. The possiblities for the Kingdom are breathtaking, the challenges almost equally as imposing. As a friend of mine said of it the other day, "The opportunity is massive and terrifying, not unlike the God we serve."

I will maintain a small sliver of what I'm currently doing with Discipleship Training. It will be good to continue in one area of direct, hands-on ministry throughout this phase of the position with the Kroc as it will involve a very different range of activities.

So it's another leap into the deep end of the unknown, but we know who our God is and we trust Him for all that's needed.

We covet your prayers for this transition and again thank those who prayed, counseled and listened through the decision-making process.

Isaiah 43:18-19
19 See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.

If you have no idea what a Kroc Center is, go here