Again, I thank you all so much for everything you’ve done to help me and to minister both to me and through me while in Oregon and while at school. If you would like to continue to keep up with where I am, what’s going on in my life, and how God is working in and through me in terms of ministry, you can email me, write me letters (I can email you my address), or follow my blog:

EMAIL:
antonio.robledo@moody.edu

BLOG:
museandmystery.wordpress.com

Thanks to you all – and I look forward to the next time I get to see each and every one of you!

-Tony Robledo

It amazes me how there are opportunities for ministry everywhere. Really, we cannot escape them. They are in friendships, in the words we exchange, in the places we visit and the restaurants we eat at. God is omnipresent; and so he is everywhere. People are everywhere. And everywhere that people are, there is God at work, moving and speaking and creating – ministry is simply seeing and seizing the opportunity to join him wherever he already is.

As an RA I have already been encountering day in and day out the endless opportunities to leave a lasting impression in the lives of these guys. I love them. They’re amazing people and I’m so fortunate and blessed to be able to participate in their lives and their spiritual care and formation. I am deeply honored and humbled at the thought that what I do and say will be watched and noticed by the 22 guys I am proud to say are on my floor: Culby 18. It’s scary – to think and to know that I will mess up, I will make mistakes, I will be careless and proud and rude and self-seeking (very opposite of 1 Corinthians 13′s definition of love). It is humbling to trust that God will teach them and grow them and accomplish through me – despite me – everything he has set out to do from the foundation of the world.

I hope to be a good steward of their lives while I am able to care for them.

Please pray for me, for the floor, for leadership and love and humility, for unity among the guys, for patience and perseverance in me, for clarity and character and courage. Pray, pray pray. Please pray.

I hope that this summer – in your involvement and participation in the ministry I am doing and have been doing – has been as much a blessing to you as it has been to me and to those I have been ministering to. Your support has been undoubtedly and exceedingly important to me. And I’m so thankful that you would want to be a part of what God is doing in my life and in the lives of those I am with. He is using you, right where you are. And that’s amazing.

This fall, I am continuing my studies at Moody – this is my senior year. It has gone by so fast! I am shocked at how quickly life slips through my fingers and I can’t believe that in 8 short months I will be graduating. Unbelievable. I’m so excited. My time at Moody has, without question, been the most incredible part of my life so far – learning so much, both in classes and in relationships, from authors to professors to friends. I really don’t know how I’ll react to leaving this place. I need to – to remain here would be an attempt at preservation, resistance to change, and actualization of stagnation – but I will miss it terribly and will think fondly back on college and the unbelievable ways that God taught me and broke me here.

For those of you who would be interested in further supporting me and my studies at Moody, I am in need of books that I have no idea how I am going to buy. As some of you may know, my dad has been without a job since last December, and we’re praying he finds one soon. I’m currently seeking out jobs here in Chicago, applying for Financial Aid, and may be pulling a loan from Sallie Mae. I don’t mean this to be a pity party, but as men and women who have shared and participated in my life this summer, I want you to know where I am financially at this time. The last thing I want to do is pretend like I have it all together – too many pastors and too many churches have played that game and reaped the results of putting on a proud mask for everyone to see. There have been plenty of pastors and churches who have also done the opposite: been horrible stewards of the care and generosity of the body. They, too, will reap their reward.

I do not want to fall into either of those camps. I hope to stand in the honest space between.

I believe not only in words but action that in meeting the needs of the body of Christ, we really and truly look more like him and bear his image more clearly. Some have not been called to do ministry in the way I am doing ministry. Some are encouragers; and so they should encourage. Some are men and women of vision; and so they should look to the horizon and get others excited about the potential they see. Others are hospitable; they open their homes to whoever needs a place to stay. We are the body, and we care for one another.

I care for the men on my floor. I cannot feed them, and I have nothing to give to them except my time and my life. And so I give it, in the mornings or at coffee shops, in their rooms or talking on a park bench, through dark hours of the night and into the dawn. I give my life, and I give it all, because Christ gave his. There are men who struggle with pornography or gambling addiction, men who are still working through the scars left by their abusive fathers, men who cry because they feel inadequate and unfit to do ministry, men who are looking for prayer and for support, for someone to weep with them, to listen to them and say nothing, to sit with them in the pain to simply understand. These are the pastors and missionaries and counselors of our future, and I hope that by giving my life they may later give theirs a little more fully.

My aim is not to guilt you. I am sorry if that is what this feels like.

If it is, disregard this completely. Duty is cold and heartless, guilt-driven, overshadowed by shame. That is not something I want to be a part of. If you feel drawn to participate in my life because of joy and because of love, then I gladly urge you to help. Then it is blessing. Then it is good.

If you are – out of joy – interested in how you can help me this semester, send me an email. I love to hear from you. I want to fill you in on how your investment in me has turned out this summer in more specific ways than what I’ve posted online. I love the comments I get on here and I love when I see more people have been reading what’s been going on. You may email me at:

antonio.robledo@moody.edu

I love you all, and I am deeply grateful and indebted to you. I hope that I may have the opportunity and the honor to serve you in return in a more immediate way, very soon. Shalom.

This summer has been great. I would be overstating if I said it was phenomenal, but it was far better than any other summer I’ve had. I think. Here’s my review (I’ll indent it to make it look more official):

Antioch church has some really amazing qualities to it. The staff and leadership have expressed great interest in exploring, examining, exposing, and encouraging the divine design inherent in each of us as bearers of the image of God. That is a great goal to strive toward, since it makes God supremely valuable in valuing and trusting the purpose of his created design. I’ve always thought this to be idealistic, but it’s been so good to see it actually in practice. It will be great to see how this continues to play itself out as the church grows.

The internship is both fun and hard work, and the church is young, so there is lots to do. If you aren’t doing anything, just ask, and you’ll have plenty to work on. Meetings are short and sweet: this is awesome. For everyone. I don’t know if anyone really likes meetings, and so when we are able to maximize our time by sticking to the allotted time frame and meeting schedule. Things moved quickly. Meeting times and events were communicated clearly and continued to be communicated clearly throughout the course of the internship.

Mentorship was great. I had Matt Smith as my mentor. He has been heavily involved with an organization called World Relief NEXT and in addition to pastoring at Paradox, was also leading the Solitude internship for those interns as well. Matt’s been a great guy to bounce ideas off of and it’s been rich to hear his heart and take in his teaching. We went through the book In The Name of Jesus by Henri Nouwen – the same author he used when mentoring the Solitude interns (a book ironically called Reaching Out). I’ve greatly enjoyed our time together and enjoyed learning from him, beginning to understand the value of slowing down and being still and being alone with the God of the universe. I catch myself sometimes in groups of students or other RA’s actually just wanting to leave and get away and be alone. It’s relaxing. It’s refreshing.

The other interns were all fantastic. At first, there was a complaint that a lot of the Moody students tended to hang out with each other for the most part. This tendency is normal. But I think it broke down soon after that, and we all meshed pretty well with everyone. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know them all, working with them, hearing what they’ve been doing this summer, and spending time hiking or climbing or swimming with them all. As much as this summer’s been a great solitude experience, it’s been a great relational one as well.

The teaching and worship on Sunday mornings are great as well. Ken is a thorough thinker and carries his audience’s attention well. He allows them to follow his train of thought, and rarely loses them. He isn’t expositional and doesn’t necessarily speak straight from Scripture, but he does give a great deal of Scripture-informed thought. It is interesting and engaging to think through and beyond what Scripture says to what it means for us in our lives and in the lives of other believers throughout Christianity. I value many of the things he’s said over this summer, and have appreciated the opportunity to listen to his heart.

A potential hazard I foresee (and perhaps the only hazard, and maybe hazard is too strong a word) that would be wisely avoided would a path toward a somewhat-elitist value system. This summer I was stoked and excited for this internship largely because I was looking forward to a staff that would not only pour into me, but get to know me well enough to know what my natural strengths and weaknesses are, and how to make the most of those. Now I am good at a good number of things, but what am I great at? Am I great at anything? Some of the interns were specifically sought out and asked and encouraged again and again to come back to Antioch. They were extremely talented individuals. Others wanted to come back and offered, and were gladly accepted, but only a few were sought out. It’s been my journey over the last several weeks to cultivate in my own heart a readiness to celebrate the blessings that fall into the hands of others as if they had fallen into my own. It is good to do this. I don’t want jealousy to arise in me. I want to celebrate with them that something truly good has happened to them and they have found a place where their gifts and abilities are recognized, valued, encouraged, and challenged. And it is an unbelievably unrealistic expectation to think that everyone belongs there. But it would serve them well, and serve the body well, to see a staff or individual who intentionally seeks to draw out of people talents that don’t shine as brilliantly, and to value them just as much. There are fantastic individuals who have beautiful talents and abilities who have no idea they have them, or have had no one who has recognized those in them. And so naturally, they don’t make the best of those talents.

Maybe it’s just my heart to seek out the margins in every group of people, but I hope in the future to see not a wider or broader investment in interns, but a deeper investment. Not more interns, but maybe fewer. I love Antioch, and I love everyone there. They are awesome and perhaps one of the closest body of believers to what I hope will be the church I work with or attend for much of my life. And so, as with anything and everything, change is progress, and I hope that both change and progress continue to be a part of the growth process of Antioch church and its internship program. Corporations and organizations and churches – as with any system – are brutally attacked and criticized by so many, and I pray my voice would not be counted among them. Instead, I hope it would be an encouraging, sanctifying, empowering and trustworthy assessment that can be used for the growth and beauty of the body of Christ.

More to come on thinking over the summer, thank-you’s, and other great ways all of you can continue to journey with me throughout this semester and this year if you so desire.

Jerell Carper - Pastoral Intern. Working with High School Youth Group.

Paul Crouse - Discipleship Intern. Working creating art for Antioch.

The horizon vs. the climb gradient. It was steep, especially on that last 1500 ft. to the summit.

If you look closely, those tiny white dots over on the left side of the ridge, are actually people. The upper rim of South Sister is big.

Me, climbing to the summit.

Broken Top Mountain from the summit of South Sister. Broken Top was (is?) a volcano.

Hydrating.

With a view like this, how could you NOT worship? I can't begin to imagine the sheer scope and beauty of heaven.

Really big lakes look really small from way up here.

Matt Albacete - Graphics Intern. Working on computer graphics and media for Antioch.

The interns at the top of South Sister.

Well, I’ve been trying to copy and paste the outline into here as text, but WordPress isn’t letting me because of the outline formatting involved in making a Word document outline. So here’s a screen-print image:

There’s amazing depth here in the prayer Jesus prays to his Father. It is as if we listen in on a divine conversation. We hear the heart of Jesus. We see what he cares about, what he asks for and prays for. And from it, we can gather so much. There is more that I said today that fills in between “points” that I wish I had the time to write out. But ask me about it sometime, and I’d be more than happy to share it with you. It’s far easier to explain vocally than to write it all out – I belabor the writing process searching for the perfect word to embody what I am attempting to communicate. So it would take some time.

As of tonight, we officially have two days left in Bend.

Wow.

I don’t know what to do with that. It’s gone by so quickly. I stared for a while tonight at the stars, realizing that before coming to Bend, I hadn’t seen the Big Dipper in some time, and it’s likely I won’t be seeing many stars in Chicago. There’s far too much light pollution to see them. And there are no snow-capped mountains to see or fresh earth and pine to smell. I’ll miss it.

I am excited to return to Chicago, though. I love Chicago this time of year – it’s my favorite time of year there. It helps that my sister and brother-in-law will be in Chicago this year as well. I’m going to love spending time with them. And I’m very, very excited for this year on a new dorm floor as an RA (Resident Assistant) – there’s so much I’m looking forward to and there’s so much I’m nervous about. Things I’m anxious for in both positive and negative ways. Returning to things I miss about college life and things I loved leaving behind.

I’m thinking back over this summer and I’m thinking through what I’ve learned. And there’s so much. I don’t quite know how they’ll manifest themselves this coming year in my life and how they’ll continue to shape the way my life plays out, but I’m glad for them. God teaches in strange ways. God teaches in unexpected ways. And he teaches unexpected lessons. Again, I wish I could write it all out. If you’d like, you can check out my personal blog here, where I’ve written some of my personal thoughts and things that I’ve been learning or thinking about:

http://museandmystery.wordpress.com

I’ll be posting pictures soon of our recent hiking. We climbed the 3rd highest mountain in Oregon – South Sister, at 10,400 FT. It was a spiritual experience. If you’ve never climbed a mountain, I’d encourage you to plan it. We saw people of all ages up there, summitting the mountain and looking out at the majestic creation. Unlike anything else, nature has a way of making us feel small. And rightly so. Sometimes it takes climbing a ten thousand foot mountain to put me back in perspective, to remind me that my world is not the whole world, to convince me that my God is bigger than me.

He is majestic. And he is glorious.

I’ll be posting my next two lessons (tomorrow and Monday) very soon. I’m so excited about this message in Luke. Completely humbling and frankly, hurtful. It hurts to see radiant love for Jesus when it isn’t our own. It is worth celebrating, it is joyous and beautiful and lovely, but it should evoke a sense of ache in us as well. I hope you’ll love this next message.

Again, I’ll be posting more pictures soon. For now, you can watch a video one of the interns put together to promote the Antioch Internship Experience. This video doesn’t capture the essence of the internship, mostly the events. There will be another video posted with interviews (of which I am a part) on what we think of the internship and what it looks like from our perspectives.

Antioch Internship Promo Video: http://vimeo.com/13921795

This song is about the deficit of trust I tend to have in God when I am in a place of uncertainty. It’s a plea to be saved, a recognition of my lack of faith, my distrust in God’s guiding hand, my difficulty believing he hears me and answers prayer. I was asked to do special music at Antioch this past Sunday, and this is the song I wrote this summer and sung there.

How could blood make healed the soul
That asks for joy while holding pain,
Who’s still broken instead of whole,
Who asks for sun but loves the rain?

While I’m still distrusting You,
You set my feet upon the waves.
You bid me come, You bid me move,
You have me where I’m most afraid.

Father, save Your sinking son,
From the raging winds and waving seas,
Spirit, hold me up above,
Cause the water is rising about my knees,
I’m swallowing water, I feel I can’t breathe,
Oh how He loves me and oh, how I disbelieve!
Faithless me.

Swaying with the fickle tide,
The current’s pulling me to sea.
Should I just do what feels right,
Or should I wait for You to speak?

Salvage my untrusting heart,
Cause I don’t know just what I need.
I hurt more now than at the start.
Oh God, my fear runs deep in me.

Now let me be critical of myself. I always hate the way my voice sounds when it’s recorded. Always. I don’t think I’ve ever recorded something and liked the way it sounded. I was also a little nervous, thus the shakiness, and I forgot a word towards the end of the song. And the guitar buzzes through the amp with too much bass from the lower E string.

With that said, here’s the link to the live video:

http://vimeo.com/13816361

Saturday night, I headed back home early because for yesterday morning’s service, I played special music – a song I wrote while here in Bend. It went well. As soon as I get the link for the video, I’ll post it for you. Most people weren’t there, as they were at Family Camp still, which should take a bit of the pressure off, but I still managed to forget a word. Oh well.

Matt, my mentor and ministry focus leader this summer, delivered a great message this Sunday about wisdom. Again, I’ll post a link to the message as soon as I get it. He spoke of the secular/sacred divide and how to find wisdom, truth, and discernment. It was delivered in a very different way than I expected, and I enjoyed it.

This Friday, I speak at Paradox again, and then Saturday I lead some interns out on a hike to practice solitude and to pray and to meditate on specific truths and questions about God. I hope that it will be rich with beauty and rest and satisfaction. I’m excited about it.

I’ll be posting a few posts this week. It’s our last week here! It’s gone by so fast already, and I feel there’s so much still to do and to prepare for this fall. Overall, in all areas, I’m excited for what God’s done and what he’s going to do in the future. Stay posted!

One would think that during the course of a ministry internship, you’d learn to give of yourself. To sacrifice yourself on behalf of those around you. To serve those you are in ministry with.

I think this internship has taught me differently.

I have, indeed, been learning to give myself; but to God, not people. I’ve been learning to sacrifice, but to sacrifice social interaction for solitude. I’ve been learning to serve, but to serve God with my whole heart.

This internship has been very much about stopping, and stepping back.

I am an extremely relational person. And I’m prone to make idols of relationships. I’m prone to set them on pedestals and worship them with uncontested amounts of time. Time is how I show affection. It’s a very big way that I show love to those I care about. But I’ve marginalized God.

I know that he’s with me wherever I go. I know that I can communicate and talk to him wherever I am, under any circumstances whatsoever. But I’ve lost the art of being alone with him. It’s a scary thing to be left alone with God, once you really understand what that means.

There’s a book that some of the other interns went through in their Solitude Internship. It’s called Reaching Out by Henri Nouwen. Ironic, isn’t it? A book on solitude with a title like that. The interesting thing is, Nouwen argues that we can never really invest as fully or completely or richly in creating and participating in community until we’ve processed through identity. And identity discovery can be a lonely journey, because no one can walk it for you. We are best known by God. And so if we are to seek identity, where else would we look?

This fall, I will be a Resident Assistant (RA) of the 18th floor of Culbertson Hall at Moody. I will be expected to pour myself into the lives of each of the guys on my floor – praying for them and growing relationships, being vulnerable and available, establishing community and camaraderie, and creating space and environment and atmosphere in which these guys can wrestle with God and learn from each other. But it is wise to understand that I cannot offer them any part of myself that I have not allowed God to teach. And I can only do that if I am committed to spending time alone with him, in solitude and silence, in prayer and aloneness.

I am deeply, deeply grateful to each and every one of you who have been praying and supporting me faithfully in prayer and for providing generously in your finances to make this internship opportunity, this life-changing experience possible. You have been participants in what God is teaching me here. You have left an eternal legacy. You have made your mark on my life that will show forever.

Soon, I will be completing my big project for the summer, and it will be a retreat/hike in practicing solitude and silence, and exploring what it means to be alone with God, even with people around. Interesting thing is, you don’t have to be alone to practice solitude. Anyway, I am excited about it, because it is something that God’s been teaching me, and I think that’s the best way to teach – out of what God is teaching you.

Stay tuned and check back for another update really soon!  More to come on solitude, the Justice Conference, climbing Mt. Thielsen, and more message preparation!

I was excited about the material and the content of the message and had written so much. I wanted to communicate how it had taken grip of my heart. I was nervous about this message because of my excitement and because it had affected me so much this past week. And that’s a hard thing to show. It has affected my emotions, and you can’t manufacture that. You can’t just will that your heart would show itself, beyond your words, beyond the research and facts and structure.

Also, I switched my method of teaching right in the middle of the message, which I don’t know is a good idea or not. I am uncomfortable teaching, and I want to get better at it without having to learn by trial and error because when I mess up and feel I haven’t communicated well, I feel like I’ve wasted people’s time.  So post-delivery, I wasn’t feeling so great. I felt like I didn’t communicate what I wanted to well. Again, it went well enough. But I want to become a better communicator.

There’s a two or three minute gap/silence near the end because of the powerpoint I had put together. I had thrown up a number of slides with passages from the Psalms that speak of delighting in Christ. Each one was up on the screen for 15 seconds. It is to illustrate a point. It was awkward time, and it was purposed to be so – slide after slide after slide, no music, no one talking. Just Scripture.

Anyway, here’s the audio:

http://paradox.antiochchurch.org/#/messages