Call Me Census Man

I'm taking a Population Dynamics class--demography. It's a little hard to sit through for an hour and a half (anything is hard for me to sit through that long), but the information is interesting. For example, did you realize the world's population did not pass 1 billion until 1804. Then it only took 123 years to reach 2 billion. The 3rd bill came 33 years later, 4th only 14 years after that, then it took 13 years to hit 5, and 12 more (in 1999) to surpass 6 billion; the expected 7th billion is expected in the next three years or so.

Anyways, our professor has mentioned several times that one of the UTSA staff members has been selected to head the Census Bureau. Steve Murdock is the:

• Department of Demography and Organization Studies
• Chair Institute for Demographic and Socioeconomic Research
• Dir. Texas State Data Center, Dir. State Demographer of Texas

He did a presentation at this year's Bishop's Convocation at Mt. Wesley. I thought he seemed like a good guy; passionate about his work. Essentially he told us that Texas now is the model state for the rest of the country in the next 20-50 years, with regards to population.

The point for us what that there are people moving into our communities that we, as the church, need to be ready to minister to. Many of those people will have no knowledge of our heritage, both as CHRISTians and as Methodists. Many of them will be from completely different backgrounds than most of us are accustomed to. Yea, so we're really going to be able to test our open hearts/doors/minds vision.

The presentation (despite all the #s) was impressive. Am I part of the issue? Another TX area that was showing high population growth was where we just moved from, the Rio Grande Valley. I do recall the years we lived there hearing how it was the fastest growing region in the U.S.

I've always remembered the Steve Martin movie The Jerk; imagine Steve Martin saying "I was born a poor black child." My mom's family is from Louisiana, all Anglo. My dad's side is all Hispanic. All my best friends were black, even the first girl that caught my eye back in elementary was black. So, here I am a mixed White/Hispanic guy living in what you would call a black community. At first I believe I thought I was confused. That mix helped shape my love for culture though. It's the reason (besides my love for God) that I love people so much. Yes, even you!

Here's some Steve Murdock information:
Steve Murdock UTSA bio
SA Express News article

Stay blessed...john