Jessica Robbins is our newest staff member at CrossWalk. She is the new Director of Spiritual Nurture. This interview was recently conducted by Cheryl Lake regarding her life and passion for our new children’s, family and adult minitries-The Vine
Tell me about your life before you came to CrossWalk.
I was born in Colorado and moved to Oregon with my family when I was eight years old. I met my husband, Gary in Milo Adventist Academy, and I went to Columbia Union College. CUC is where my adventures in ministry begin. There I was able to see how a youth group is formed, nurtured, and grown. Even though Sligo is a large church, there were only about 20 youth coming. By the time we graduated from CUC, however, there were 150 to 200 youth coming each week. It was an amazing growth process, not only for the youth group, but for myself as well. I also became involved on campus and in community service activities at CUC. My junior year, I became the student chaplain for the campus. Then, my senior year I was director for Community Church coordinating speakers and music. In December of 2000, Gary and I were married. We thought we had the rest of our lives mapped out: Gary was going through the interviewing and admissions process to come to Loma Linda’s Marriage and Family Therapy program and I was applying to teach at several schools. But God suddenly interrupted out plans and we felt called to teach English and Bible in Korea, as missionaries. So six weeks before graduation we were on a mad dash to get all of the paper work fi lled out, passports, plane tickets, and visas. It was a real leap of faith for Gary and I, but it was one of the best and most life-changing decisions we have ever made. In July of last year we returned to the States and moved to California in August. Gary started at Loma Linda and I began substitute teaching. My substitute teaching actually turned into a long term job as one of the 3rd grade teachers at La Sierra Academy. Gary and I spent the fi rst couple of months church-hopping around the area looking for a church we could call home. When we came to CrossWalk we felt this was the place for us. I got involved with the leadership team. In the past, I’ve been involved in ministry a lot and I’ve always loved it, and I knew that involvement was integral to my whole spiritual experience but I always thought it would be a side thing, and not a career decision.
Can you explain what Spiritual Nurture is?
Spiritual Nurture is something that’s for everybody. For ordinary people, children, adults, families, students. And it is not just for each group of people, separated, nurturing themselves; it’s for everybody together. I think the goal is to fi nd a viable process, and a plan, a place where they can be nurtured. A community. We think of it as a School of the Gospel for the whole church family. We want CrossWalk to be an inclusive inter-generational community. It’s something that we feel is indispensable. It was indispensable in the Bible. Each of us can and must learn from people who are different from us, younger and older than us. An experience with people outside of your immediate circle of friends and peers is a mark of healthy spiritual environment. Your comfort zone starts to expand and you start to include more and more people. You learn to love better. A peer group is obviously valuable and important, but we also want to introduce opportunities for everyone to get to know and interact with people different than themselves. This will spill over to other areas of our lives. We will be able to embrace people of diverse cultures, convictions, life experiences, and economic statuses. This process is lifechanging, and such communities are scarce in this society.
How did you decide to apply for this job?
I feel that it’s something God has lead me to. Maybe the reason I have hesitated to get involved in ministry as a career was because before coming to CrossWalk I couldn’t fi nd something that matched what I was excited about. When people were talking about this job and they talked to me about it and I interviewed for it, I felt that there was this spine-tingling connection. It was just so right. It seems that everything, all my past experiences in ministry and having the educational background has gotten me ready for this. Looking back it seems that God had prepared me for this job and prepared this job for me and when we met it was breath-taking. It’s exhilarating to be at a church that’s growing and expanding. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity that someone can be a part of something like this.
Where do you see the program going? What are your plans?
I would like this program to be a place where people feel comfortable, maybe comfortable isn’t the right word, when you’re growing and stretching you’re not always comfortable, but a place that’s safe. A safe place to hear a life-stretching message. A place where people feel safe to come and learn about their spirituality and, most importantly, practice it. Especially out there in their daily lives. I want them to learn how to nurture themselves, their children, their fellow believers; not just to look to themselves and their own experience, but to what God is doing in the world around them. The Vine should be that safe place where people can come and be supported and challenged at the same time. It’s a place where parents can fi nd support and resources how to deal with their children in certain situations and certain ages and where young married couples can fi nd support and even mentoring from other people and the same with singles and children and elderly. I think it’s important for children to see people besides their parents modeling the values because a lot of times, especially when you’re a teenager you think your parents are crazy and don’t know what they’re talking about. I believe The Vine will bring everyone closer together.
How will the program actually look?
We’re still working on it. I want people to come in and have a shared interaction time, have some type of activity, or a speaker, or worshipping time as a whole group and then break into peer groups to have a time to refl ect and through group processes apply what they are learning, more developmentally geared. And then also there will be days when just parents meet or single adults meet, or any other group, to deal with their specifi c needs. I think it’s going to be like Thomas Edison when he invented the light bulb, I think he tried 1,200 times, or something like that, to get it right. He didn’t feel that the experiments were a waste of his time but rather steps to his ultimate accomplishment. I think that The Vine is in a similar situation; we’re working on a new invention in ministry. I don’t think that the fi rst time, or the fi rst month or the fi rst year is going to be something that’s just perfect. We aren’t striving for perfection, but we are striving for something authentic, relevant and Biblical; keep on changing and growing just as people grow and our experience grows. What people come to in September isn’t going to be the same thing they come to in December. Our “family” is going to stretch, grow, and develop as we learn Jesus’ ways together.
On August 2, Jessica will be leading an afternoon workshop on our new program—The Vine.
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