Connections during COVID: New campus chaplain charts intentional path in virtual world

Decena’s parents immigrated from the Philippines and raised Decena and his two brothers in Orange County, Calif. He attended Orangewood Adventist Academy where he first met his wife, Heidi, and graduated in 2002 from Pacific Union College with a bachelor’s degree in theology. This October he completed a Master of Arts in Pastoral Ministry from Andrews University. He, Heidi and their sons Aidan, age 12 and Luke, 15 now live in Canyon Lake, Calif.

Decena recently spoke with La Sierra’s public relations office about his efforts to forge connections virtually as well as technology-based plans underway that will function as a valuable student support resource going forward. He also spoke about his views on spirituality and faith development, the spiritual needs and views of today’s young people, and ways he keeps his own faith strong.

La Sierra PR:From your perspective and based on your experience, are young people searching for spirituality, for God, in this environment? What are they looking for and how can that need be met?

Pastor Decena: That is a really big question. I do think spirituality figures into their constellation of needs. I think it's definitely there. But I don't know if they would necessarily articulate it in that way. I think a lot of younger folks are really looking to connect with purpose and meaning. I think historically we've looked to spirituality to help frame some of that purpose and some of that meaning. I do think COVID presents kind of an interesting challenge and I think we're all experiencing spirituality a little bit differently because of the situation we're in.

I think they're really cynical right now from the [perspective of] does religion, does spirituality make a difference in real life because they see so much suffering. Christian spirituality really seeks to answer the big questions, and it also deals with suffering, but I think that the big challenge is that young people are so good at uncovering hypocrisy within the church or complacency, areas where we don't live out what we say. And so I think that's where a lot of the cynicism comes from.

One of the things I've gone back to is early in my ministry, I had a chance to experience [a] program for pastors here in the Southeastern California Conference and one of the most useful tools that they taught me, is this idea of the whole person filter. What makes us a whole person are these five aspects -- physical, mental, social, emotional, and spiritual. So the idea is when I interact with students, I'm trying to answer these questions – how is this person doing in these ways? And so this idea of being spiritually strong I think is actually connected to this idea of a whole person filter, where each of these plays a role with each other.

La Sierra PR:The Spiritual Life office currently provides weekly chapels on YouTube, Friday evening worship on Instagram, group meetings on Zoom. Do you have other things you're working on in terms of programming and outreach?

Pastor Decena: The heart of the challenge that not only I face, but I think that Spiritual Life faces is really just making meaningful connections, and I think there's this moment right now for students where there are a lot of concerns. I want to connect with students as much as I can just so I can see where they are, you know, to establish a baseline. We've actually been in conversation with OACS (Office of Academic & Career Services) about some of the systems that they use [in which] students will interact through an app called Navigate.

It's a platform where we can really prioritize communicating with students.

La Sierra PR:When did you know it was your calling to be a pastor? What was the impetus for that inspiration?

Pastor Decena: It was during college for me and it was one of those moments. I was an undecided major so I was just kind of taking a bunch of general classes trying to figure out what I really wanted to do. And when I was a sophomore at Pacific Union College the religious vice president at the time asked me to speak for Week of Prayer, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to do it. I mean who really wants to speak in front of people? I actually got really worried.

But then I called up a former youth pastor and I asked him, ‘should I do it?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, you should, because by doing that you'll help clarify what you believe.’ That was actually really great wisdom that I've taken with me. So anytime anyone asks me if they should speak, I always say yes, if for no other reason for that reason, it will help you in your own process. So I spoke and I was really nervous about it, and then afterward I got [positive] feedback from friends and I realized at that moment I was actually wired to be a pastor.

I still get nervous when I speak, I think most of us do. I realized that my personality and my talents and my burdens all kind of lined up with pastoral ministry, the things I thought were really important.

"...that's my personal mission statement, to teach people how to do the things that Jesus taught." Pastor Jason Decena, La Sierra University Campus Chaplain

La Sierra PR:What is the underlying philosophy that guides you in how you interact with students, that directs what you decide to do?

Pastor Decena: A couple years ago I came up with a personal mission statement. One of my favorite Christian thinkers is Dallas Willard. He was hosting a breakfast for pastors and at this breakfast he posited a question to the whole group: he asked what if, when people talked about your church they said they would go there to learn how to do the things that Jesus taught … like, loving your enemies and praying for people who persecute you. I thought, wow, that would be incredible [if] your purpose is so singular, that if you want to learn how to do those things, go to that place. So that's my personal mission statement, to teach people how to do the things that Jesus taught.

I have these notebooks [and] on the first page that's what it says, [to] teach people to do the things that Jesus taught, just as a reminder so when I'm reading notes or whatever I'll see it. And the last page is the question, did I teach people to do the things that Jesus taught?

La Sierra PR:Have there been any defining moments in your own life that challenged your spirituality and how did you deal with it? Do you think people need to have dramatic experiences in order to grow spiritually?

Pastor Decena: You know, for all intents and purposes, I was kind of a goody two-shoes all the way through. A lot of times people will have these stories. There was this one student that I worked with [who] was a meth addict and just had an incredible story of deliverance. Then another student came up to him and said, ‘I wish I had your story,’ because for her it was so dramatic and it was just such an incredible testimony about God's power. …we haven't been able to really connect our story with God's larger story and so we think, oh, we need the dramatic to really show what's possible. I think that's a failure of the church to be able to connect people with [the idea that] God is actually doing a bigger thing, [and] you don't actually have to really make bad choices in life to connect, you can avoid all that. Eugene Peterson wrote a book called “Long Obedience in the Same Direction.” And I do feel like that's kind of been my process.

La Sierra PR:Who have been some of your key mentors in life and key influencers?

Pastor Decena: So I'm a big-time Lakers fan and Dodgers fan and you know they just won the championships. The [announcers] for both of those teams, Chick Hearn for the Lakers and Vin Scully for the Dodgers, kind of became my grandfather figures. Both of them were recognized as the voices of their sports and what made [them] so good was [their] objectivity. So sometimes it'd be late in the game and the Lakers might appear to be on the brink of winning after having played a terrible game. But Chick would tell you, ‘they might win this, but they don't deserve to,’ and that kind of objectivity really helped shape my thinking for life and for faith.

I think how I hold my fandom is similar to how I hold my faith because if the church or Adventism deserves critique, I feel like that's actually a way to express affection and loyalty. Because if you hold somebody accountable, then you actually care about that person's outcome. Otherwise, why issue an opinion? 

I would say authors [whose books] I read [are mentors] and I would put Dallas Willard at the top. He's my favorite Christian thinker. There are others that have been really influential like Eugene Peterson [and] C.S. Lewis.

When I was at PUC as the worship pastor, I had a network of mentors. The lead pastor Tim Mitchell was a really profound mentor for me. I learned an awful lot about how to be a servant leader from him. Then there were other people who were just on another level as far as radical compassion.

"...how I stay spiritually strong is being open to the possibility that God may try [to] speak into my life at any given moment." - Pastor Jason Decena

La Sierra PR:How do you maintain your own spirituality and connection with God?

Pastor Decena: One of the most seminal books for my spiritual experience has been the book “Hearing God” by Dallas Willard. And what he talks about in this book is that we were created to hear God. And so I asked the question, ‘well, how do we hear God, like I don't hear him?’ And in this book [Willard] talks about how we hear God …through our own thoughts, the still small voice that resonates as true. And that is the primary way that God speaks to us. You read Scripture, and then you think your thoughts, and that's actually how God is interacting with us and speaking to us.

So some of my spiritual practices are reading scripture, or reading spiritual books or having spiritual conversations with people. And I think part of the key is really just being cognizant of that reality. So how I stay spiritually strong is being open to the possibility that God may try [to] speak into my life at any given moment, even from unexpected places like my own kids. Sometimes they'll say true things, which could be God speaking into my life if I'm willing to listen to it.