Most summers I move for two weeks. I live in Tacoma (or occasionally Portland) with a group of students from throughout the Northwest. We sleep on floors, eat on about $5 a day, work with the poor and, pray and study scripture like they are the most precious gifts in the world. Our cellphones live in boxes, unused and ignored, and our laptops stay home.

It is a beautiful experience that I am once again recruiting for. When I try to invite people, I am constantly struck at the disconnect between how good summit is, and how difficult it is to articulate its value. I am convinced that summit will be the best, most valuable and yes, the most fun two weeks of any student's summer. However, it never sounds like it will be. It just sounds hard. Scary. Financially irresponsible. Semesters are always long and summit sounds like it will only make them longer.

Here's the thing though...it's the best thing that I know how to offer students. Yes, it screws with the trajectory of students lives, but it screws with them for the better. Conferences are great, but like Peter, James and John, we can't live on the mountain with Jesus, Moses and Elijah. Summit offers an alternate way to live. Summit asks students to choose between the best the world has to offer and what the Kingdom offers.

Summit may give students stiff backs, caffeine headaches and uncomfortable scriptures, but it also creates soft hearts, clear vision and the dream of a different world.

I am aware this sounds idealistic. In reality, it is difficult to go every single year. Every year two weeks of rest sounds so good. Two weeks of quiet and privacy sounds wonderful. At home, I rarely have to decide how much our team can spare for the homeless man at the door. I rarely pray for strangers or clean empty bottles and needles from an abandoned apartment. Rarely do I need to look into the eyes of a child how who is bitter against all men, because they remind him of his father.

I often have students (usually around their junior year) start to question the value of conferences. They question whether their experiences there make any difference in the "real world". My retort is simple; where God is active is the realist of all worlds. It is what we usually call the real world that blinds and numbs us. The real world is where Super Bowl winners matter more than famine in Africa. The real world is where it makes sense to not actively love someone, because that act of love might be offensive.

What makes Summit good and the lifestyle it teaches us necessary, is that it trains us live in the actual real world, not the facsimile that we (by which of course, I mean "I") become subtly seduced by.

So if you are reading this and you are a supporter or friend of InterVarsity, I ask that you would pray for those considering coming to Tacoma and Portland this summer. Additionally, if you are interested in helping financially support students attending summit, please contact me.

If you are a student...please come! Take the risk. Jesus said that He came so that "they may have life and have it to the full" (John 10:10). Faith is an adventure, please don't settle for less.

Finally, if you are a student who has stumbled upon this blog who is not a follower of Jesus, I want to invite you to come as well. The Christian faith cannot be understood in books alone. It cannot be evaluated from the outside. If you have any curiosity about the faith that your friends seem to so deeply believe in, please come where it is embodied. You will make the project better and I believe that Jesus would love to show you his face within community and among the poor.