The Zone Gathering

Llobrera, a leader in our social justice ministries, is in the center of the spotlight today. Joseph has been a great addition to our leadership team, and he really puts feet to his faith. His group, Living Out Social Justice, is always out changing the community by painting schools, cleaning rivers, and being the hands and feet of Jesus to the people around them.

Today, we talk with Joseph about life, ministry, and Aggie football.
How long have you attended NCC? What brought you to NCC?
I first attended NCC almost three years ago (September 2003). In typical NCC fashion, I was invited by a international student from Bulgaria attending Columbia College (in South Carolina) who was in DC interning at my organization that summer.

Tell us a little about the small groups and/or ministries that you lead and how that experience has impacted you.
I’m currently leading the Living out Social Justice group that meets on Thursday evenings. The group includes core members that were part of the first social justice (and post-modernism!) group John Hasler kicked off in the spring of 2005, plus some awesome additions. Leading the group has been such a blessing for me, giving me a glimpse of how God’s heart for justice and compassion is manifest in the passions I see in the group. It’s about learning more of God’s nature even as we learn about practical ways to care for each other and for others in the community. As Pastor Mark said in a recent sermon, knowing is doing and doing is knowing. Or as James 2 puts it, faith and works are two sides of the same coin. So we are constantly challenged to live out the compassion, love and righteousness that God expects from His children, not just to read and talk about it. Secondly, as a leader of a social justice group, it has been a privilege to watch the social justice community at NCC grow over the past year. I know God has and will continue to do great things through this community! Finally, it’s been fun doing community service projects shoulder to shoulder with good friends, repainting classrooms, harvesting farm produce for local soup kitchens, jumping into canoes and cleaning up riverside litter along the Anacostia, and packing meals for InService and for Food and Friends.

Where can you be found on Sunday mornings?
Union Station (I help out with Production every other week).

When did you start following Christ and what have been some of the spiritual turning points in your life?
God blessed me with parents that are both committed followers of Christ and raised their children in a loving, Godly environment. However, growing up, church felt very much like a chore, something that the entire family had to do on Sunday mornings. When I left for college, I de-churched since I really hadn’t claimed my family’s faith as my own in any substantive way. It was only several years later that I reconnected. I became part of the InterVarsity grad student fellowship at the University of Washington and for the first time, became a part of a community of believers and realized how important community support and accountability are to personal spiritual growth. Another turning point was Inward Bound 2004. Up to that point, I had just been a back-row, in the shadows NCCer, trying to maintain a low-profile. But that retreat really empowered me to step out and be a more active member of NCC.

Tell us a little about your background.
I was born in the Philippines, grew up long enough in College Station TX to have an irrational allegiance to Aggie football, spent my middle school and high school years in Manila Philippines, got my bachelors in Mathematics and in Urban Studies from Brown University, worked in DC for two years at the Health Policy Center of the Urban Institute, lived in Seattle for two years while going to grad school at the University of Washington, and then moved back to DC where I have been for four years now. I have a younger brother who lives with his wife in Brooklyn. My parents live in Amherst, MA. I love heading there for the Christmas holidays, since the probability of having a white Christmas in New England is infinitely better than it was when we lived in the Philippines and in Texas.

What is your favorite Scripture passage?
I love the sense of destiny, rebirth, hope and God’s sovereignty in Isaiah 43:19. “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.” I have the tendency to think of creation only in terms of The Creation in Genesis, but this verse reminds me that God is continually in the act of creating, healing, and restoring, and redeeming.

What are your favorite books?
Recent books that have left an impression: The God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy), The Life of Pi (Yann Martel), Pursuit of God (AW Tozer). I’m currently reading a fascinating book on how our food is grown called The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan. I’ve also started a book entitled Ministries of Mercy: The Call of the Jericho Road by Timothy Keller.

What are your favorite movies?
Almost Famous, Rushmore, Groundhog Day, Grosse Point Blank, Donnie Darko, the Lord of the Rings trilogy are some of the ones that come to mind.

What is your favorite fast food?
I’m vegetarian so that limits the options somewhat. I don’t know if it qualifies, but I love carry-out mushroom and olive pizza from Vace in Cleveland Park. General Tso’s Surprise from Sunflower Restaurant in Vienna has faux “chicken” nuggets that are better than McDonald’s chicken mcnuggets with barbeque sauce, in my opinion. I do remember enjoying sandwiches from NCC staple Chic-fil-A when I was younger. That and Church’s Chicken and Long John Silver’s.

What is something that most people at NCC would not know about you?
I’m afraid of goodbyes (they are either sad or awkward), I have a deeply buried Texan drawl (which resurfaces from time to time), I received a Masters degree in Geography without a single map in my thesis (don’t ask me what all the capitals of the world are either).

Tell us a little about your day job. What is your dream job?
I am a number-crunching research associate at a nonprofit called the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, working on Food Stamp policy and low-income housing policy. My dream job? I would love to run a place that is part-restaurant, part community center. The menu would be all about inexpensive, nutritious, and locally produced Asian fusion cuisine. It would have cooking/nutrition classes for the community and would be connected to local farms so that customers could help harvest produce for the restaurant if they wanted to (and get credit towards their purchase at the restaurant while they’re at it).

Who is your hero? (besides Jesus or any other member of the Trinity)
Like some of the others in previous Spotlights, I don’t really have specific heroes. I just enjoy hearing or reading about everyday people - people like you and me - that take a step out of the ordinary and accomplishing something extraordinary out of love for or in service of someone else.

What do you do in your free time?
In terms of activities, I love inline/ice skating/hockey, cycling, soccer, taking photos, cooking (and eating out), and hanging out with friends. At home, I enjoy reading, watching movies, Los Angeles Kings hockey, Texas A&M football (both teams that will one day have their day, but not anytime soon).

In NCC:THE MOVIE who would play you? Who would play Pastor Mark?
For Pastor Mark, it would have to be Christopher Walken (in the “Guess what? I got a fever. And the only prescription…is more cowbell!” SNL skit mode or the “Weapon of Choice” music/dance video mode). Since Alan Alvarez went with Ernie Reyes Jr, I’d have to go with only other Filipino-American actor I know - Dante Basco (of “Biker Boyz” fame) - to play me.

What is your favorite Pastor Markism?
I love it when he punctuates a story or anecdote with “That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” and gets his whole upper body and arms into it like a hip-hop move.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 25th, 2006 at 9:56 am and is filed under News and Updates, Small Group Leaders, Spotlights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.