In a few weeks, the City of Houston will be host to the Neighborhoods USA (NUSA) annual conference. The City of Houston's Planning and Development Department has taken the lead in planning the conference, and is working alongside other city departments, including the Department of Neighborhoods and the Mayor's Office of Special Events, to provide workshops and events that aim to build and strengthen neighborhood organizations.
If you are in Houston and would like to attend the NUSA Conference, I encourage you to do so. If you live in Houston and would like to volunteer for four hours at some point throughout the conference, you can attend the rest of the conference for free! (Register to volunteer here.)
The conference will be hosted at the Hyatt Regency Houston, located in Downtown Houston, and will feature a number of speakers, tours and workshops, showcasing the neighborhood development work that has helped to create Houston's neighborhoods. Keynote speakers include Angela Blanchard, President and CEO of Houston's Neighborhood Centers Inc., and Kirbyjon Caldwell, Senior Pastor of Houston's Windsor Village United Methodist Church. Mayor Annise Parker will speak at the Mayor's Reception on Thursday night, May 21.
NUSA will award winners for the organization's Neighborhood of the Year, Best Neighborhood Program, Who's Who in America's Neighborhoods, and (the highly coveted!) Neighborhood Newsletter Competition.
On Seinfeld: Kramer's "Peterman Reality Bus Tour"
The conference will also be a chance for Houston to showcase all the developments that have been made in our city since the last time Houston hosted the NUSA annual conference.
Before the conference formally begins, Michael Payne, Executive Director of BikeHouston, and Michael Skelly, of the Houston Parks Board and Houston Bike Share, will lead a group of 30 conference attendees will be led on a tour of Houston’s bayou and trail system, using Houston's bikeshare program, BCycle. There will also be a Houston City Bus Tour, provided by Houston City Tours.
Yesterday evening I had the pleasure of attending the annual benefit dinner for the Houston Pregnancy Help Center, hosted at the Hilton Americas in Downtown Houston. A number of Sojourn Heights parishioners came to the event by invitation of one of the pregnancy center's volunteers. It was a night of the testimony of how God is working in Houston, saving lives and ministering to women and men in unplanned pregnancy situations. Many of us had not heard of their work in Houston, but we are glad that we now do.
It was a joy and encouragement to hear the center's director, Sylvia L. Johnson, speak about her passion in ministering to mothers, no matter their choices and backgrounds. It is evident that Ms. Johnson's passion for loving people comes from her passion and love for Christ. It was refreshing to know that the Houston Pregnancy Help Center offers a life-affirming alternative to the culture of death that has grips our communities. The culture of death is one that does plague our neighborhoods and thoughts, without regard to class or creed, and one that is perpetuated throughout much of society today. Ms. Johnson offered testimonies of women who visited the clinic, still intent on having an abortion, and through the love of the clinic, and its staff and volunteers, brought life to their children instead. Please read some of the clinic's other testimonies, as they are powerful, and offer a reminder of the hurt and confusion that plague many of our neighbors.
Last night's event was headlined by author and television host Eric Metaxas. You can see his story here at I Am Second. Mr. Metaxas is a regular guess on many national media outlets, including Fox News and CNN, and has had many of his works published in publications such as the Wall Street Journal. His op-ed, "Science Increasingly Makes the Case for God," featured in the WSJ, is a fantastic, thoughtful piece. He highlighted many of the points made in his "Miracles" book, and reminded us that many of us maintain a hunger to know what is real and what is true.
Mr. Metaxas also reminded us of the sacred state of God's creation, that His creation is set apart and infinitely valuable. This is a worldview that is not shared by all, but one that the Houston Pregnancy Help Center is striving to share with mothers and fathers in Houston. It also reminded me of the work of rapper Trip Lee, shared in his song "Beautiful Life". I highlighted this song a while back, but it's important to remember the truth that is contained in it.
"Beautiful Life" is an account of a young woman struggling with the question of abortion, and the inconvenient timing of a child due to an unplanned pregnancy. Trip follows with a verse dedicated to the male in the relationship, who was most likely "caught off guard" by a pregnancy. Finally, as poetically as possible, Trip links the struggles of abortion, especially the guilt of those with that have already had an abortion performed, to the gospel and forgiveness found in Christ. That third verse is about as good as anyone could explain the freedom that exists in Christ, even for sinners like us.
On Trip Lee's most recent album, Rise, he features "Beautiful Life 2 (Mine)", highlighting the joy that is found in fatherhood and the creation of his son and daughter. That is the joy that the Houston Pregnancy Help Center is fighting to share with mothers and fathers facing unplanned pregnancy here in Houston. See how you can help them here.
Houston's mattress population continues to rise. Mattress Firm, Mattress Pro and Mattress 1 One locations continue to open at a pretty fast pace. Those three chains alone account for 169 mattress stores in the Houston area. Swamplot showed that Mattress 1 One is slated to open a location on the 5800 block of Houston's Memorial Drive. A while ago I looked at all of the Mattress Firm and Mattress Pro locations in the Houston area, and compared them to a few basic demographics. What we found wasn't really surprising: people who are more educated, with more money, who move more tend to buy more mattresses. Or, at least mattress stores want to be located near people who fit into those demographics.
Well, the same is pretty much true for Mattress 1 One. But, the chain does have some locations in areas where household incomes are less than Houston's city median household income. Mattress 1 One also does not seem to be as intent on positioning itself in direct competition to a neighboring Mattress Firm or Mattress Pro. Mattress Firm seems to be locating along corridors, saturating them with stores (Westheimer!). Perhaps this provides shipping efficiency. Mattress 1 One on the other hand seems content to cast a wider net, blanketing the city.
Median Household Income, 2013
Percent of Population, Bachelors Degree and Higher
Percent of Population, Different Residence 1 Year Ago
Details have been swirling the past few weeks involving the City of Houston's possible lease of space in the Exxon Tower at 800 Bell to house the city's deteriorating justice complex. It's been a topic on the minds of city leaders for years, and will be a decision that will shape the city's emergency departments for the next 20-50 years. City and political leaders, including Houston's police chief and presiding judge of municipal courts, have voiced their hesitation to the city's recently announced plan to house justice and emergency operations at 800 Bell.
City leaders might like to see the justice complex rebuilt on its current site on Reisner and Lubbock streets, given its proximity to Downtown Houston, Harris County courts, and a concentration of transit options, including METRO's bus and rail lines. This City of Houston Public Safety Committee presentation provides a background of current conditions of the Reisner site.
I've been listening to Json's "No Filter" album for the last few weeks. There is a good deal of this album that you and I would most likely not identify with. Json gets incredibly personal on this album. No Filter address the difficult things in life, where Json begins detailing his birth, being born to a mother who used crack cocaine. He goes on to tell us of his past growing up in St. Louis selling crack cocaine, finding hope and salvation in Christ, and sharing some of the most difficult things in his life, including the sexual abuse suffered by his wife while she was young, and the effects it has had on their lives now that they are married. The larger struggles of lust, greed and the desire to be wanted and accepted are prevalent throughout the album as well.
There may not be much of those experiences that you or I can actually identify with, but, there is much to be celebrated, encouraged by, and to be learned from what Json presents. As I listened to "No Filter", the song that stuck out most to me was "Identity". It is probably the song I can relate to most, as I have not experienced many of the things that Json is so transparent about on the rest of the album.
In a recent Rapzilla interview Json says “I talk about identity. That’s at a height in our culture. When we start talking about identity — you gotta see [God] properly. If we don’t see him properly, we can’t see us properly. I wrestled with identity when I was growing up. You don’t hear men talk about it, so I wanted to give men a voice.”
All too often we make attempts to cover up our struggles, in some sort of attempt to hide them, or distort them with filters. Our culture is feeding off of presenting ourselves to be an enhancement of what we really are. That's why there's not only social media, but there are countless photo editing applications for our smart phones so we can touch up our photos and post them to social media within a few seconds. In fact, Json credits his album's name from the popular Instagram hashtag of "#nofilter".
In our lives we tend to have a much higher view of ourselves than realize, especially when we as Christians keep in perspective the character to which God has called us. It's certainly not easy to admit that we're probably much more sinful than we imagine. We don't really know who we are, and don't know who defines us. But we're not without hope and guidance as to our true identify, found in Christ. The book of Ephesians provides a wealth of truths where we can root our identities. Our identities are "either found in Christ, or found in worldly passions, which is at its root, idolatry." These are exactly the types of issues that Json addresses, specifically in his song "Identity".
Identity is something that is increasingly being compared and used to attribute value to our lives. We're increasingly made aware of how we don't measure up or compare to others. Jai sings during the chorus, "Who loves me? Who cares for me? I wonder these questions as I sit and stare at reflections of all my imperfections. I'm glad you see beauty. You love me." That's where our identity is found; in our Creator. We know he created us and declared good his creation. We've all got God-bestowed dignity, beauty, value and worth. It's too often that we forget this truth, and look elsewhere to find our identity.
