Our daughter is finishing her third year at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California, and she has taken full advantage of many of the off-campus programs, spending a semester in San Francisco and a semester unplugged in Oregon. Each one of these off-campus programs is limited to no more than twenty students, and so relationships are formed. In talking to Barrett, it was pretty obvious that these communities of relationships are enormously important, and entering back into the main campus with many students, her concern was whether she would continue to find that kind of community within a larger context.

What amazes me is these communities are not just about relationships; Barrett also defines them as her faith communities. These groups wrestle with the issues of faith and theology, of who God is and how their faith applies to their culture and the injustices around them. I love to hear her talk about that.

Not only do Barrett and her peers form communities of relationships and faith communities, but there is adventure in her generation that is very compelling. They want to experience things. I think that just gives us a great opportunity to build systems that allows this generation to express themselves in practical ways as they share the good news of our Lord Jesus Christ.