Why should I come to City on a Hill?

Welcome to my little corner of this website. If you’re here, chances are you’re checking out the City on a Hill conference. I hope that you’re able to find all of the information that you need, and I hope that you’ll apply for the conference. It really is a great experience, as our 240 alumni will attest. In fact, just this past weekend, I had a great time getting together and hanging out with about 20 alums from several different classes here in Lincoln.

Most of what you’ll find on the site is “official” info about the conference, but let me make my informal case for why you should apply to City on a Hill. Many programs like this (and we’ve done it in the past) like to use fear to encourage participation. You’ll hear stats about how terrible things are for Christian young people or how anti-Christian the culture is and other scary scenarios. And don’t get me wrong…there’s some scary stuff out there.

But what if things were fine out there? What if crime was down, revival was breaking out in Nebraska, America and the world? What if the Christian worldview suddenly became prevalent on the campus of every public school and college in America? Would programs like City on a Hill become obsolete? I don’t think so.

At City on a Hill, we cast a vision for life that is centered on God. What kinds of joy, pleasure and fulfillment can be found when we center our lives on him? How satisfying is it to discover that following Christ is not only a way to escape God’s judgment, but also the key to happy life? Not happy in the sense that you’ll never have any problems and spend all of your time loafing on the beach, but happy in the sense that you’re fulfilling the purpose for which you’ve been created.

In your week at City on a Hill, you will discover that God has a purpose and a plan for all aspects of life, and you have a part to play in his plan. We hope to see you there. Please send me a note to jjspringer@familyfirst.org, or call me at 402-435-3210 if you’d like to learn more. I can’t wait to meet you!

2007 recap

Hello! If you’re here, I suspect it’s because you’re trying to learn a little about City on a Hill 2008, and you were curious about the “Director’s Commentary” site. If you browse a bit, you’ll see that this is the first post I’ve put up in several months.

There are a couple reasons that I haven’t posted for awhile. One is obvious…if you look at my comment counts, you’ll see that this is a bit of a lonely place. But since you’re here, feel free to post a comment!

And in case you like to lurk here but not actually leave your footprints, here’s a brief recap of 2007:

Spring:
Carol and I received our foster care license and did some short term care (respite) for some other foster parents.
I took a trip to Colorado Springs for work and discovered (among other things) why people love Chick-Fil-A so much.
Carol and I went down to Kansas City to see the Royals beat the Red Sox on opening day. It was not a sign of things to come for either team.

Summer:
City on a Hill was a great experience again. Forty-one very cool high school students spent a week with us getting an intense education in the Christian worldview. We made lots of friends and had a blast.
We bought a new house so that we would have more space to take in foster kids.
I spent two weeks at Biola University working on my M.A. in Christian Apologetics.
I went to a conference in Connecticut for Acton Institute and met some great people and learned a lot about the intersection of economics and the Christian worldview. While I was there, I also received some life-changing news, as…
Carol and I took in four foster kids that are still with us. They’re siblings (5 year old boy, 3 year old girl, 2 year old girl, and 9 month old girl) They’re a lot of fun most of the time, but some nights you can’t pay ‘em to go to sleep. So I show up at Family First looking like I could use a nap. They’re still with us, and we thank God for the experience that we’ve had with them.

Fall:
I survived my last full semester of grad school. I just have three hours of work in spring ’08 and I’ll be done!
We sold the old house (actually this occurred on 1/3/08)
I caught a hot dog at the NU-KSU game!