UCLA

A few weeks ago I was privileged to speak at the UCLA fall retreat. The most intriguing part (for me) was the final morning. With the whole group gathered, we set about on a missional experience. We spent about 30 minutes in discussion about the parable of the soils in relation to the farmer (throwing seed everywhere), the seed (potent stuff) and the soil (what really determined the results).

Then, In small groups, I had them identify every pocket of people we could think of at UCLA. Overall, we had to have about 100 listed on the board (or on the powerpoint & vpu). The final step was to gather by groups that you wanted to influence. This was an exercise in chaos, but in the end we had over 30 groups working out plans to influence a particular segment of campus. Some of the plans where awesome, and some pretty simple, but it was great to see the students (60% of which where freshman and sophomores) engage in missional thinking.

Ask John Book, the UCLA director, how the plans are unfolding.