Journey to South Los Angeles
Jade Brown's Storyby Jessica Wong
“The call is not to great success in ministry, the call is not to convert the whole world, or for you personally to rebuild your whole city. But it’s be obedient to Jesus, be obedient right now, in ten minutes, today, next week, next year – it’s about that.”
Even though she grew up in the church, Jade Brown met Jesus in a new way in college. She began as a driven student with goals of pursuing international law, maybe more for the money and success than anything else. Through her first couple years of college, she says, “the Lord had stripped me in a lot of ways of my life’s ambitions and goals.”
Jade says that it left her “doubting what [she] wanted to do with her life.” After her third year in college, she took the risk to go on the Los Angeles Urban Project. By the end of the project she was saying to herself, “this is what I want my life to look like! I want this!”
And what was “this”? “I didn’t mean student ministry and being on campus or even necessarily mission and evangelism all day but knowing this intimacy and partnership with Jesus and the joy of really giving myself to the Kingdom.”
By the end of college, Jade felt that she wanted to go but wasn’t necessarily ready to go yet. She decided to spend two years in an internship with Servant Partners, where she received training on racial reconciliation and urban ministry. This experience deepened her conviction of what she wanted her life to be about. Jade is now on staff with Servant Partners. She serves as the assistant director for the domestic internship program and is specifically leading the South Los Angeles internship team.
Since her initial “yes”, Jade has learned that her job is to be obedient to Jesus. Leaving college, Jade says,
“I had the sense that if I’m going to be a missionary, following Jesus is all about the stuff that I’m going to do and all the changes I’m going to make, and all these needs that I’m going to meet, and how responsive everyone will be. And I feel like what I’ve learned is not that.
I’ve been in my neighborhood and church for three years, and I haven’t seen fifty million conversions and healings and lots of really tangible, visible changes in my community, but there’s been some change in me. And I think that a lot of what it’s been is learning that what Jesus is calling us to is obedience to Him… The call is not to great success in ministry, the call is not to convert the whole world, or for you personally to rebuild your whole city. But it’s be obedient to Jesus, be obedient right now, in ten minutes, today, next week, next year – it’s about that.”
Following Jesus is not about the glorious things we will do or the transformation that will come through our hands, it is about the day-to-day obedience, the seemingly insignificant details, and our willingness to commit to Him for the long run.
Unless otherwise noted, all materials on the urbana.org web site are Copyright InterVarsity Christian Fellowship / USA. All rights reserved.
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