Because Everything Matters: An Interview With CCO President Dan Dupee

This past summer I had the privilege of interviewing Dan Dupee, President and CEO of the Coalition for Christian Outreach (CCO). The CCO, which has been recognized for ten years in a row as a Best Christian Workplace, hosts the annual Jubilee Conference which challenges students and professionals to consider how to integrate faith into their everyday lives.

The theme of this year’s conference is Everything Matters. David Kinnaman, author of You Lost Me: Why Young Christians are Leaving the Church, will be among the speakers at this year’s conference. Jubilee will be held February 17-19, 2012, at the Westin Convention Center in Pittsburgh, PA.

Because Dupee’s story illustrates the kind of life-transforming impact the Jubilee conference has on those who attend, I thought I would include some excerpts from my interview with him here.

How did you first become connected with the CCO?

Through my brother who came to work for the CCO in 1974. He was a Christian; at that point I wasn’t.  He worked for a college in western Pennsylvania—Thiel College. I had met some of the people he worked with and, during my freshman year of college, he sent me some stuff on something called the Jubilee Conference. I wish I could remember exactly why I wanted to go. It wasn’t that easy traveling from Ohio Wesleyan, but I found myself volunteering at Jubilee, registering people who had been shut out from their workshops; and I still wasn’t even a Christian.

At The Jubilee Conference I began to understand what was at the center of what it means to be a Christian. At Jubilee there was a speaker named Tom Skinner. Everything he said was formed in the context of the Kingdom of God. His contention was that Jesus had an agenda, and His agenda was the kingdom. He really blew away what I thought it meant to be a Christian—every idea:  being a good person, or trying by our own efforts to be what God wanted.

I had competing ideas about the Kingdom. Jubilee was a coming together of things. I had grown up in church, enough to inoculate me, and needed to have the gospel defined. The things I saw the label Christianity being placed on didn’t connect with the experience I was having growing up.

What Tom Skinner developed was right out of scripture and compelling:  The cost of the kingdom, total surrender, forgiveness, being made new.  I still remember these words from Tom, describing the gospel:

Jesus Christ in you, living through you, with no help or assistance from you, because God doesn’t need your help to be God.

I’m just so grateful for that experience. I liked and trusted my brother, but I could have passed on going to Jubilee.

Tell me about the Jubilee conference.

Jubilee is a catalytic experience that really causes students to change. It opens students’ eyes to the breadth of the Kingdom of God.

As you look back on your involvement with the CCO over the years, what has been most surprising to you?

This is the kind of surprise you can live with. The whole world is a very different place than it was thirty years ago. In our world, in the United States entering the twenty-first century, there is not a Christian consensus. There is a lot of polarization between people of faith. We’re in a post-Christian phase.

The environment is very much like what existed in the Book of Acts. Given the way people are digging into their beliefs as adults, I’m surprised on a regular basis by the openness of college students to the gospel. There’s a thing happening on college campuses that is really surprising and really refreshing.

What’s the most important thing people should know about the ministry of the CCO?

If you can reach a college student with the gospel, with the message of the kingdom, you can change the world.

Everything Matters:The Jubilee conference and Jubilee Professional will be held February 17-19, 2012 at the Westin Convention Center in Pittsburgh. Approximately 3,000 college students from nearly 100 college campuses will be asked to consider the connection between faith and work.

Registration information for Jubilee

Registration information for Jubilee Professional (Those registering here for Jubilee Professional can also purchase, at a special rate, a weekend pass for the Jubilee Conference)

A Place I Don't Know

My name is Nancy, and I’m a recovering planner.

With a flip of a page, my calendar tells me it’s time to get back to real life or something like it. On my way to drop off my car for servicing this morning, I saw naked, discarded Christmas trees lining city streets.  I stopped behind yellow buses returning children to school as adults resumed normal work routines. I’m sitting at my computer, trying to get back into my writing pattern, watching my cursor blink, and wondering what to say about the activities of the past few weeks or about my plans for the New Year.

Because I thoroughly enjoyed my break from blogging over Christmas. And I have no idea what to expect in the year ahead.

I like having a plan and knowing what to expect. Life, for me, slips into a sweet spot when I’ve got it organized with calendars, lists, and spreadsheets. When my husband takes me out on one of his death-defying hikes over and through mountain passes, I like seeing the map and knowing how much further the climb is to our destination.

I don’t really have a plan for this year. Most years I’ve had specific tasks to accomplish, goals to work toward, or milestones to commemorate: home schooling my kids, visiting colleges and filling out applications, celebrating graduations, planning a wedding. This year I flipped open my new calendar only to be greeted by a succession of blank pages. I think I’d like to linger a little while longer in the warm glittering joy of Christmas rather than confront the harsh, cold reality of blank calendar pages.

One of the highlights of the past few weeks, in addition to having my children home for Christmas, was seeing them reunited with old friends. My son and his friends compared experiences from their first semesters in college. They discussed the quality of the food in their respective cafeterias. Some reported that they loved their schools and could hardly wait to get back. Others said the first semester had beaten them up pretty badly; the transition was harder than they expected. Several, after choosing a particular school because of a specific major offered, found themselves intrigued by a completely different program of study. A few wondered whether or not they were on the right path and how their classroom experience might possibly ever translate into anything in the real world.

I want to tell my son and his friends that they’ll be okay; they’ll figure things out. Although life may feel uncertain at the moment, I’m confident God has created and gifted each of them for His purposes. I trust that, by His Spirit, He will equip them to discern His calling on their lives. But I don’t really live that way. I want a plan, a step-by-step, connect-the-dots, turn-by-turn GPS leading me to a certain destination by a certain date, world without end, amen.

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. Hebrews 11:8, ESV

I understand the value of planning. I know I’ve been the recipient of many good things because my husband is exceptionally gifted at the whole long-range thinking and planning thing. But I also know how tempting it is for me to look for comfort and security in making and having a plan. I’ve witnessed enough of my own fears and frustrations when I’ve seen my plans go astray. Or completely blow up in my face.

So I’m entering the New Year, trying to make peace with uncertainty. I’ve got some ideas, some plans; some goals, but I’m trying to hold them loosely. I’ll keep writing, keep trying to respond to the blinking cursor. But in the year ahead I want to be open to where God is leading, even if it’s to a place I don’t know.

Rejoining Jen and the sisterhood:

Chili Madness (Or, How to Get a New England Presbyterian To Shout, "Yee-Haw!")

You want us to do what?

My church had begun partnering with a ministry at the nearby university, and the campus minister was looking for someone to organize a lunch to welcome students at the beginning of the school year. My family and I had traveled out West not long before, and had visited a church on the Sunday of their annual Chili Cook-Off. The event was more fun than any church potluck we’d ever attended. My husband and I knew we needed to introduce to this little slice of Wild West fun to our congregation back home so, when it came time to organize the welcome back event, I pitched the idea.

As I began describing the concept to folks in my church I was met, almost universally, with quizzical looks and blank stares. Without a single word, the expressions on my fellow church members’ faces betrayed unspoken heartfelt objections:

“We’re New Englanders. We eat clam chowder.”

“And we’re Presbyterians. Why would we do that?”

“Trust me,” I told them. “It’ll be fun.”

And I don’t even like chili.

One of the moms said she didn’t think the idea would work because her family didn’t like chili. She asked if she could bring a crockpot full of macaroni and cheese instead. I said, “Sure. As long as you give it some kind of chili name, you can bring anything you want.”

She called her entry, Meatless, Beanless, Cheesy, Noodle Chili.

One of the perks of being the instigator for events at my church is that I get to make up rules as I go. And, of all the events I’ve ever organized for the church, Chili Cook-Off is by far the easiest. (Just don’t tell them that. They think I work really hard at it.) I buy a whole bunch of cornbread from the bakery at the local supermarket, some really big bags of salad and some dressing; and sour cream, cheddar cheese, chips, and salsa. I ask folks from the congregation to sign up to bring salad ingredients (whatever vegetables are threatening to overrun their gardens) and twelve packs of soda, juice, or water. I either order a cake for dessert or have someone pick up ingredients to make ice cream sundaes.

Chili, obviously, is the main dish on the menu. Each year I get roughly two dozen people to enter, competing for top honors in the categories, of hottest, most unusual, and best overall chili. I ask folks to bring their chili in crockpots which are then placed on tables lining the walls in the fellowship hall. The first year we tried this event, I was a little afraid that plugging them all in at the same time might cause the power grid on the eastern seaboard to shut down.

For some reason, the men in my church always seem to be the first to sign up for Chili Cook-Off. Perhaps it’s because competition is hard-wired into their DNA, or maybe it’s because they think playing with hot, spicy chili peppers is manly, the men seem eager to show off their culinary chops. Those who attend Chili Cook-Off have the opportunity to sample a wide variety of offerings. There are spicy chilies and mild ones; vegetarian and venison and wild turkey chilies; ones made with beans, and ones made without. We’ve had Texas-style, Cincinnati-style, and sweet, southern chili. One year we even had a gumbo-style oyster chili.

Naming one’s chili seems to have turned into its own form of competition. Recent titles have included: Cry Twice Chili, Dragon’s Breath, The Heat of the Moment, Poultry Gone Wild, Deacon Harmon’s Hellfire and Brimstone Chili, and Jazzy Giraffe Chili. I was assured no giraffes were harmed in the making of that last one. This year, I awarded a special judge’s discretion honor to our church’s new campus minister for his entry, The Reflux Capacitor.

Because we are a congregation of Presbyterians we like to do things decently and in order, except on Chili Cook-Off Sunday. Although the names of the chili makers are kept confidential, quite a bit of lobbying, bribery, and arm-twisting takes place during the event. Some folks decorate their chili display areas, trying to entice people to sample their chili.

I hear tales of ballot-stuffing, toward which I turn a blind eye. The award for best overall chili always seems to go to the chili maker having the largest family in the congregation. The past couple of years, however, I decided to exercise sovereign rule over the contest, awarding “The Clean Spoon” recognition to the chili maker whose crockpot was cleaned out first. The objective, as I remind everyone, is to have fun and feed as many college students and fellow church members as simply as possible.

We have been doing Chili Cook-Off for five years now and, unless I decide to hightail it to the Wild West hill country, I may be organizing this event for years yet to come. Folks have started dressing up in Stetsons, bandanas, and cowboy boots. I wander around in and my flashing chili pepper necklace making sure folks are getting enough to eat, introducing themselves to the students, and periodically shouting, “Yee-Haw!” We listen to cheesy cowboy music, give away prizes like bottles of sarsaparilla and rolls of antacids, and laugh ourselves silly.  This past year, I made the elders wear sheriff badges so the students would be able to identify those in church leadership. Actually I asked them and they agreed, because I’m sort of big and scary, and they’ve pretty much given up on getting me to run off and join the Methodists.

And while I may make jokes about being a Presbyterian, and do ridiculous things like making the elders wear sheriff badges, I'm quite serious about my love for my church. There my soul has been nourished throughout my adult life by the thoughtful and careful exposition of God’s word. The men behind those silly badges are serious ones who love Christ and His church, and who are committed to her peace and purity. It is my privilege to introduce college students to this body of fellow believers, whether I like chili or not.

Can somebody out there give me a “Yee-Haw"?

(Chili banner and cheesy cowboy music, provided by my two-headed brother Chaz)

Joining Laura at The Wellspring: