School of the Cross Master's Commission...
I took the name of this page from a Bible story (Luke 10:38-47). My time in this crazy but blessed city was an awesome time to sit at the Master's feet and learn.

Houston, Texas, U.S.A. Between my sophomore and junior years at OU, I attended a discipleship school called the School of the Cross Master's Commission, a discipleship school (something like a Bible school but more hands on and with stricter rules). It was a big change from my time at the University and Chi Alpha. (I nearly drove some of my friends in Houston crazy talking about OU and XA all the time.) The question that you are probably wondering right now is why would a Sooner (OU's mascot) suddenly leave the blessed land of red dirt (something Oklahoma is famous for) and go to Texas? Well I have short story to tell you why...

As you may have read, I spent two years with Chi Alpha, and somehow, during both springbreaks, I ended up in Houston for inner city missions trip at the Downtown Church and School of the Cross (SOC). Well the second time down there, during one of our prayer times, I wondered off to be alone in one of the Sunday School rooms, the Rainbow's classroom for those of you who know what I am talking about. For over the past several months, I had been praying, "Not my will, but thine be done." As I prayed that day, it was almost as if God reached out and held a platter in front of me as I knelt at the only chair there in that small room. The School of the Cross was on that platter, and I just sat there dumbfounded for a few minutes. After several minutes I started to pray again, and it was as if God went "uh-humm" to my spirit and reminded me about the platter he was holding out for me. Stunned again, this time I managed to say, "Yes, Lord" or something to that effect.

It was a good but tough year. The ten (or eleven depending on what part of the year) of us lived beside an old church in Houston's First Ward, a Hispanic barrio. The building that we actually lived in used to be the church's Sunday School building until the church had closed and then the building was converted into the dorms for the School of the Cross when the Downtown Church was given the property. Sometimes, it was real easy to beat our head together, but we all learned some about human interactions.

Although Master's Commissions are usually very, very evangelism focused, that year SOC was going through some heavy transition, and most of our focus was on guess what? Servanthood! The church that ran the school was moving from the inner city to the suburbs, and so I was privileged to be able to help move the church twice in one school year. Also we didn't get to really know the people in the First Ward because we were always helping at the church or doing something. Still I can say that it was pretty cool to follow God's direction and come to Houston, to sit at Jesus' feet, and to get to know him better. As the slogan for Jesus Awareness Week at OU said one year, "It's all in who you know."