Other Service Opportunities
There are countless ways to integrate social justice and service into our lives. LMU Campus Ministry encourages students to be people for others by seek their own manner and way of embodying our universal call to act justly and walk humbly with others and our God. The LMU Social Justice Ministry & Service Office offers a variety of simple, yet concrete service possibilities and act for justice and peace.
We invite you to get involved… we welcome your enthusiasm, passion, questions, and longing for a more peaceful and just world. We challenge you to get involved and to become an active leader in the LMU community. AND IF these programs are not for you, we encourage you to look deeply into your own heart and challenge you to seek out other local service and justice opportunities like those listed below…
Justice Speakers
The Office of Social Justice Ministry continually sponsors and supports a variety of justice speakers and events throughout the school year in collaboration with other campus groups, departments, and organizations. We encourage you to join the HRC Facebook group for regular updates of up-coming speakers and events.
Juvenile Hall/Prison Ministry
The Office of Social Justice Ministry supports LMU Seniors to get involve in direct restorative justice ministry through the Office of Restorative Justice at the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Students together with a Justice Minister or a diocesan chaplain have visited and accompanied juveniles at Center Juvenile Hall. This is a specialized ministry in which we encourage you to stop in our Campus Ministry offices for more information.
Inculturation & Faith Exposure Trips
Coordinated with the Native American Student Association (NASA) and other Campus Ministry staff, the Office of Social Justice Ministry has also sought out additional opportunities and new programs designed to promote deeper cross-cultural awareness and inter/inculturated faith experiences for LMU students. In 2009, a group of students celebrated the Easter Triduum at the inculturated services of the Pasqua Yaqui (a Native American community near Tuscon, AZ). Through this first-hand learning experience, students are immersed in a unique diverse context in which they were forced to “be”… to be open to the other and be present to a new experience. The Yaqui trip challenged students to let go of their stereotypes or generalizations about Native Americans. They were forced to examine and participate in a new culture while also re-examining themselves, culture, history, their understanding of the Catholic Faith, and the injustices facing native American communities like the Yaqui Nation today.
Justice & Christian Life Communities (CLC’s)
The Office of Social Justice Ministry seeks to foster and promote Christian Life Communities committed to a life and faith rooted in justice, peace, and service. Student leaders and the Coordinator for Social Justice Ministry offers discussion/reflection sessions for your CLC group on prayer, Catholic Social Teaching, simplified life styles, and intentional theological reflection rooted in social analysis and the scriptures. We also offer simple acts of service for your CLC group. We also invite non-CLC members, to help form a social justice intentional reflection CLC group. We believe that all of us can come to discover our deepest selves, build personal relationships with others, and grow closer to God through the integration of our faith with justice, peace, and service.
The Alternative Break Program is designed to promote service and cultural exchange on the local, national, and international level through hands-on, community based learning. These service and immersion trips are coordinated by the Center for Service & Action (CSA). LMU Campus Ministry supports and encourages students to participate in these wonderful learning and service opportunities in which students are immersed in diverse contexts with concrete challenges that heighten social awareness and inspire lifelong social action. Various Campus Ministers have served as staff members/participants on AB trips, and are working to collaborate more closely on future joint CSA/Campus Ministry trips for the coming year including possible trips to the Jesuit – KINO Border Initiative and/or a trip to Asia.
The center was established to educate and form men and women with and for others, especially with and for the disadvantaged and the oppressed. Through direct personal contact between students and the marginalized in service experiences, we foster a solidarity with the poor that will lead to intellectual inquiry, moral reflection and social action.
Doing community service doesn’t have to end after you graduate college. Coordinated by Alumni Relations, Alumni for Others is a service program for LMU alumni, family and friends that allows you to continue to give back. Whether it’s building a house in Tijuana, renovating an inner-city Catholic school or tutoring 8th grade students, there is a project for you. In addition to the service projects, participants are guided through reflection questions about their experience and how being a person for others can become a part of their everyday life. Reunite with other alumni, meet new friends or bring your family while helping to make a difference!
Some alumni service opportunities include, among others, Loaves and Fishes Soup Kitchen Shopping Days, tutoring of 8th graders for High School Placement Exam-Los Angeles, and the St. Peter’s Indian Mission School Community Service Project in Arizona. Please visit the Alumni for Others website for detailed information and program registration.