CRM, Metcalf, Hirsch

A cool new mission geek blog appeared a few weeks ago - Under the Iceberg, by Sam Metcalf, president of Church Resource Ministries. This post references some time CRM spent with Alan Hirsch, one of the authors of The Shaping of Things to Come. I know, I know, I write about it a lot.

Anyway:

The West has complicated the church and made discipleship simple.
China has a simplified the church and made discipleship complicated.
Good disciples produce good leaders.

Apostolic leadership draws out the innate leadership in all of us. The management of meaning is an apostolic function.

Read more here.

How many DVD players?

The church will never rise to be that which she is called to be without clearly seeing how darkness has fallen upon the earth and devours her children.

- Alex McManus on Darkness

D and I watched Born into Brothels last night. As she writes, it took us a while to figure out that subtitles were indeed included, since our DVD player didn't show them for one reason or another. [See this link about 3/4 of the way down the page, but I'm still confused.] We got the subtitles after we played the movie in another DVD player. The film is as good as people say it is, and you should watch the special feature of them reconnecting after three years.

It didn't seem quite right to be watching a reality in another part of the world where kids that are the same age as my kids are slaves, live in abject poverty and have little hope - and I simply go get another DVD player from another room in the house...

The dichotomy there requires us to act. And to act fast. Our time with the next generation is running out. To prepare them and prepare them well, to reach into the darkness and pull the world out, time will not wait.

Pics from CpR Sunday

Worship.


CortR sharing. She did an awesome job sharing about the winter expedition.


One cool thing I got to do this morning - be with the band in one of the back rooms while they prayed before they opened the doors.

One cool thing I noticed this morning - all during worship, some students move around, get together with their friends, and embrace them while they pray over them.

Pottery and Proximity

We had a fun time yesterday morning visiting The Studio at Fulton, which is a small, cute pottery studio right around the corner from us, just now under new management. The new management, interestingly enough is KJones, the oldest daughter of my youth pastor, RJones. KJones was actually on two of my first mission teams in 1992 and 1993, when I ran two teams under the summer Mission Possible program at Forcey Memorial Church. The first summer was absolutely the best job I've ever had. The second summer would have ranked up there had I not gotten infectious diarrhea in the DR. But that nontheless was a very valuable experience for me and I still look back on it fondly for what I learned through it.

The Studio is very very cool. It's got all the concepts of a proximity space and will be fun to see what kind of impact the Studio makes in our community.

If you live in Howard County and need a place for doing arts and crafts, kids parties or a place to do pottery, look up the Studio. You can tell KJones I sent you.

Calvin's birthday!

Well, ok, Calvin is our dog. But hes been a good friend to me, and moreso to E. E adores him, talks to him, and likes to tie him up in the kitchen. Funny. That is K and Calvin with a 'candle' made of dog treats and peanut butter.

The root of all holiness is

Faithful obedience to God is vital, but it is not all God draws us to. It is not sufficient for our healing, no more than doing the laundry is sufficient for a marriage. And it will not be enough in the long run to carry us through. The persecuted Church is vast today. More Christians are being martyred in our lifetime than in any other time in church history. It is not obedience that is carrying our brothers and sisters -- unwavering, steadfast, eye ablaze -- to their deaths. It is holy, fierce passion. Hearts afire.
For the root of all holiness is Romance.

- John and Stasi Eldredge, Captivating

Yup, its a book for women.

CpR this sunday

If you are going to be at CpR this Sunday, here is something to look forward to, in addition to the awesome worship, fun and engaging talk and new and old friends: CortR will be sharing about our SPACE expedition.

She told me yesterday that she is a bit nervous but knows it is something she has to do. True that, huh?

I'm excited about this - even if its only for less than 2 minutes. For her to share and be up front. For the rest of our high school community to hear some stories of one of their own. Not so SPACE gets some exposure from the front, but that one of our students made an impact by taking some initiative, risking and blessing and that SPACE provided that environment for her.

We are also announcing the junior summer trip.

Old Headers

2006Cameroon team, Paris France Europe, August 2006
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2006Cameroon team, Kribi Cameroon Africa, August 2006
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SPACE 2006 Cameroon team, Kribi Cameroon Africa, August 2006
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SPACE Mission Advance 2006, Eastern Shore MD USA, June 2006
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EmGberg from the SPACE 2005 Brasil team, Londrina Brasil S.A., August 2005
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SPACE Mission Advance 2007, Fulton MD USA, June 2007
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SPACE 2007 Hungary team, Vienna Austria Europe, August 2007
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SPACE 2007 Hungary team, Vienna subway, Vienna Austria Europe, August 2007
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The Sheng girls, Munich Airport, Munich Germany Europe, August 2007
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SPACE 2007 Hungary team, Vienna Austria Europe, August 2007
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Humana2.08, Orlando FL USA, Feb 2008
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TriciaB's baptism, North Bay MD USA, March 2008
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SPACE 2008 Hungary team prep, Columbia MD USA, April 2008
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SPACE prayer gathering, Fulton MD USA, June 2008
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SPACE Hungary 2008 team, Sopron, Hungary, Europe. July 2008.
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Salisbury Cru, Nov 2008
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SPACE Hungary 2008 team, reunion, Ellicott City, MD, USA. January 2009.
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NYC, March 2009
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Ember Philly Cast
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The Grand Canyon, Ember Arizona
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Salisbury Uni, Nov 2010
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East Africa Response
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Ember Darley Park, March 2012

Wireless Networking in the Developing World

A whole downloadable book, under Creative Commons License, for people to build their own wireless networks, for very little cost in developing nations. Very cool.

Alas, the two chapters on Networking were more instructive than almost anything else I remember from my graduate degree in computer science. (The anything being the great Mahjong games on those high end SGI workstations.)

Link here. Maybe if you are traveling anytime soon, print a copy out just in case you meet someone that you could give it to.

HT - BoingBoing

Chp 7 - How To Nurture the Adolescent Moral Self

My notes from Shaping the Spiritual Life of Students. Very, very good book. This is a good chapter although there are many in this book.

To be authentic, spiritual caregivers must begin by acknowledging that there is no fail-proof method for making an adolescent develop the moral self we desire. Spiritual caregivers, if they are honest with themselves, realize this foundational truth - adults are not ultimately in control of the process of an adolescent's moral development.

Three Rs of moral development:
relationship, reasoning and responsibility taking
spiritual caregivers can take responsibility for:
- discerning deficits that disable the adolescent's moral maturity
- partnering with God in praying with and nurturing those areas of need
- creating environments that will foster maturity of the adolescents moral self

relationship - the tractor-beam of attachment
All persons will find ways to attach themselves to others - even if it requires violating a previously held moral conviction. Once an adolescent chooses compromise, a negative cycle of moral disintegration is set in motion. Over time, the compromising behaviors have a way of reshaping beliefs; the inconsistency between conviction and behavior often leads to a rationalized change in conviction.
Authentic spiritual attachment with God and his people, in fact, is the only love that can overcome the powerful enticements of postmodern pseudo-attachments.

reasoning - the why behind the boundaries
When two-year olds say no, they are finding out that they are separate human beings from their parents, with separate wills and separate opinions. Though most Christian parents have been trained to balk at this concept, it is our job to help them to develop a strong no. They are going to need a strong when they are fourteen years old and someone wants to be sexually intimate with them or shoves a bottle of alcohol in their hand. Our job is to recognize opportunities for them to exercise their no - not to strip them of their will in the name of maintaining authority as a parent. - Jeff VanVonderen _Families Where Grace Is In Place_

Families and ministry environments that clearly establish boundaries in connection with attachment create the best possible environment for the formation of a mature moral self.

The greater the boundary deficit in an adolescent's life, the greater the need for consistent guidance and feedback from a spiritual caregiver.

Adolescence is the greenhouse for the growth of healthy moral minds capable of withstanding the harsh elements of a sensate culture.

responsibility taking - rooted in personal value and efficacy
With identity formation in high gear, the need to feel successful, to enjoy achievements, and to be celebrated takes on epic proportions.
Students who fail to gain an emerging sense of value and efficacy thus have the double damnation of not being able to accept themselves and not being hopeful that they can choose to be anyone different.

The Intersection of the three Rs
From Moral Belief to Moral Action
1 - What do I believe - A sense of moral conviction is involved - it would be wrong to keep money that was not mine
2 - Am I responsible for acting on that belief in this situation? - sense of moral responsibility - I should give back the hundred dollars I found
3 - What will I choose to do based upon my belief - An ideological moral commitment provides guidance - tomorrow I am going to turn in the money
4 - What do I do at the moment when a behavioral response is required? - moral choice is made - When I hand the wallet, I include the money

Restoration - case study - travis and sarah
pay attention to relational deficits
invest in the development of executive skills that may need to be strengthened (competencies required to turn moral commitments into moral choices)
communication, time management, delayed gratification, goal setting, managing emotions

I loved that quote about helping kids develop a strong no. It's a good one huh?

Meeting List

I mentioned before how much fun I'm having trying to recruit summer team leaders. It really has been a lot of fun. Just for my own sanity, I'm listing the meetings that I've had in the past few weeks:

Tue intern meet
Wed NLind meet
Thu EmGberg meet
Tue MCCorts phone
Thu JScd meet
Thu MLSchw meet
Tue EGrab meet
[SPACE winter expedition]
Tue 10th parents meet
Tue 11th lead meet

Add to this the day job and I'm pretty beat. I desperately need some time with my kids. No more meetings this week. But also, I can't help but be so so so excited about these summer teams.

And one other side note - if I could do anything else, I would. If I could get away from this missions stuff, if there was any way that I could possibly just ignore it, I would. But I can't. Instead, what an awesome privilege I get to send students all over the map.

SPACE 2006 11th grade missions

Tonight, we launched a team for the 11th grade. The big picture here is for a team to go and serve within the KatrinaGrace partnership. At least that is the intent. The first part of this was getting the right leader team together, and this team is really good.

JScd - went to Guatemala last year on a team of young adults from GCC. Future youth pastor.
EGrab - from the mighty 03 Dteam that I led.
MCCorts - has already been to the KatrinaGrace sites once. Was a leader for a SPACE DC team in 2004, and a leader for the Trinidad team last summer.
JBourq - one of the regular SPACE leaders.

I'm fanatically excited about this team of leaders. Each of them bring so many talents to the table and I think its a really well balanced team in terms of temperment, strengths, relational ability, hearts of service and love for students. I would love to take the credit for it, but God put them together.

There are many fluid details with the trip right now but the leader team was the most important to get together. If the details don't line up, maybe we send them somewhere else.

Voxtropolis

I got a Voxtropolis account today. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it since there are over 1300 posts that I have here on blogger. But if you are thinking about blogging and wondering on which platform, Vox is pretty cool. It's still in beta though.

The coolest thing, after I posted my first post, there were 4 people who left comments welcoming me - people who I know online already. What a welcome huh?

Perspectives #3

I went to class #3 of Perspectives tonight because D had just gotten home and was too tired to sit in class. I was her official scribe.

It was phenomenal, as usual. I took some notes on the class material, but the speaker, who lived this incredible life in and out of Iran [he was one of the last American missionaries to leave before the revolution in the late 70s] did this whole thing about Iran, which was just nuts. That's the thing about the course, they bring these mission freaks you would never ever meet, and the stories they tell about the Gospel just about bring you to tears.

one couple starts a house church in Tehran 1 year ago
in one year, there are now 28 house churches, 600 believers

If you understand the humor of a culture, you fully understand that culture.

100 million speakers of Persian in the world

Iran - 99.5% Muslim
Christianity has been there since the day of Pentecost
In the 5th century, Iran sent Christian missionaries to China
Islam came and crushed Christianity since then
1860 - 1979 - all Christian witness produced only 3000 Christians in the whole country
1979 - now - growth of over 1M Christians
one person coming to Christ every minute in Iran
over 400 churches in Western Europe are now mosques

difference in the last 25 years?
#1 - The Word of God in Persian
The Bible in the native tongue does miracles
#2 - The Islamic revolution

At the end, a few Iranian Christians were there to share. One young woman got up and told her testimony in Persian - what a beautiful language. The story, writing about it here wouldn't even be right. Anyway, they were from the Iranian Christian Church of DC.

Mission geeking it up.

SPACE winter expedition

Our first annual SPACE winter expedition was this weekend. The goal was two-fold. First, to take some of our core SPACE kids away and invest in them. This included the ideas of just spending time with them and getting them to bond. The second goal was to work with a homeless ministry and for these kids to hear from a family friend of ours about what it takes to be successful in this kind of ministry for the long haul. Of course, if you know me, my inherent goal along with those two was something along the lines of empowering some missionaries, church planters, artists and revolutionaries. You know, a goal that is more shallow and whimsy.

Logistically, we took them to Bridgeport, CT. Our family friend works with Pivot Ministries in Bridgeport, and we had a free place to stay at the Madre's, in nearby Fairfield. It was cool to bring these students up to my mother-in-laws with a good complement of me still seeing the fam a little bit while helping provide an experience for these students.

Here is what the overall weekend looked like schedule-wise:
F 5.00-11.00 - drive from MD to CT
F 11.30-midnight - tour of Bridgeport and Fairfield from D, touching the water in the Long Island Sound - key idea here was to get used to the context of a new place
S 7.30-4.30 breakfast, painting and late lunch at Pivot. They also did a little praise and worship at the end, where the residents sang some praise songs and gave a few quick testimonies.
S 4.30-6.30 - rest, cleanup, snack at the Madres
S 7.00-10.00 - End of the Spear movie. Incredible. A must see. The rating of PG-13 is on, just a tad bit of violence in there. The yellow plane under the backdrop of the Amazon forest is both visually stunning, if not a bit symbolic.
S 10.00-11.00 - debrief at a local New England diner. Two key ideas included:
- context and culture are important, in all manner of settings, whether it is in a different city, with your friends at school or when you live in another country.
- you meet very few people that live life with intention like Nate Saint and his mission of reaching the Waodani people.
Sun - 10.00 - church at Black Rock Congregational Church, a huge mission sending church. However, we missed the high school service, which was the original intention. It worked out fine though.
Sun - 11.30 - drive home, via Philly where JBourq has the best place for cheesesteaks.

A few other impressions:
- There were about 5 or 6 residents of Pivot that helped us paint all day long. It was really cool to actually make a connection with some of them, hearing their stories, working alongside with them. Context and connection made an impact on our students.
- As you might have read before, it was just me and another guy, TyRass. Even for a guy that lives with all girls, at times it was a little touch and go. No, seriously, it was a great group of kids. They loved each other and served on a team together that totally blessed others.
- I should try and do a better job of preparing the leaders. I need to try and give them some tangible details with the goal of empowering them to actively lead. Not quite sure what that looks like specifically.
- SPACE winter expeditions - a great experience. Well worth repeating in our toolkit of mobilizing students.

More pictures here.

Shoutout to TriciaB

Just got back from the SPACE winter expedition. More on that later. In the meantime, since TriciaB loves to read this blog, this shoutout is for you!

Some book quotes

Some interesting quotes from Shaping the Spiritual Lives of Students:

Youth ministry is a womb, an incubation ward for potential God-bearers as they ponder and struggle with the news that God is crazy in love with them, would die for them, and in fact, has. What youth need more than gung-ho adults are Godbearing adults, people whose own yes to God has transformed them into messengers of the gospel. - Kenda Creasy Dean and Ron Foster, "The Godbearing Life"

If youth workers could ever have ignored popular culture, they no longer have that luxury. Professional and lay youth workers find themselves trying to communicate with people from an alien culture. Youth ministry has become a missionary activity to an adolescent subculture shaped by the media and other popular culture. - Quentin Schultze

Our churches are marked by a pervasive generational discontinuity that encourages adults and adolescents to live in distinct cultural enclaves. The sociocultural magnetic pull to remain in generational groupings is so strong that only the most intentional efforts lead to authentic intergenerational relationships. Dramatic cultural shifts, as described throughout this chapter, accelerate the widening gap. Adults and adolescents not only have fewer shared experiences but also have fewer common categories for interpreting experiences. The millennial generation is more experiential, synthetic, syncretistic, visual, diverse and intercultural than its modern predecessors. Churches, homes and organizations that include adults spiritual caregivers and adolescents are truly bicultural contexts.
The spiritual caregiver and adolescent relationship should thus be considered an intercultural as well as intergenerational friendship.

Particular of note, the elements of cross cultural mission in the quotes above. If you could, say a quick prayer for us as we spend all weekend with some awesome kids from this alien culture... Alien or not, they are going to make an impact on the world.

The best banana

Relevant Magazine has daily dispatches from a writer who is on a week long trip in the Dominican Republic traveling with Healing Waters International, a nonprofit ministry which installs water purification systems in developing countries where clean drinking water is a big problem. Jason writes:

And let me tell you this: You haven’t eaten a banana until you’ve devoured a fresh one in the Dominican inland mountains, surrounded by old friends you met two days ago and new friends you met an hour ago, hanging out on a dusty street in front of the home of a grateful father who finally has healthy kids and an amoeba-free belly and a new job dispensing clean water to his friends and neighbors.

Best freakin’ banana I’ve ever had.

Cool series of articles, reminds me of my time in the Dominican Republic in 1994. I was certainly a victim of unclean drinking water. Not pretty.

Some cool elements of mission in Jason's story including assisting and growing local, indigenous leadership; meeting a huge tangible need like clean water; vision of community impact.

Day 4 here. Links to the previous days dispatches are also at the top of the article.

Fusion 15.5 podcast

Fusion 15.5, the young adult ministry at GCC, has a podcast. Subscribe here. TJ is one of my favorite speakers.

Post SPACE fun ideas

SPACE is really only supposed to care for students that are still in high school or younger. So the summer after kids graduate from high school really isn't a part of SPACE's responsibility, although I have helped out with a few teams of kids that age. That is always a fun treat for me. It's that whole ongoing relationship thing that we as youthworkers need to work hard at maintaining and balancing. Give them enough freedom but still be a part of their lives.

What is also pretty fun is to think about what some of the kids can do post-high school. Recently, I have run into three pretty cool mission internship things that incorporate social justice, living in community, and learning through experience. In other words, I want someone I know to do one of these things so that I can live vicariously through them. Ha.

Anyway, here they are. I've added just a bit of detail about what I know of them. But if you are college or even post-college age and are interested in a missions internship, some of these might be worth checking out. Alternatively, I might try to coerce you into one of these so you can come back and tell me some great stories.

YWAM Discpleship Training School
of course
all over the world
3 months of classroom study
2 months of in the field on a missions trip

Nieucommunities, run by CRM
Glasgow, South Africa and Vancouver. A 42 week long internship. CRM looks like a top notch organization. Their collective staff has 1100 years of aggregate missions experience. Steve Addision - whose blog is a must read - is on staff with CRM.

The International Express
NYC, run in combination with YWAM DTS and Urban Impact NY
Same length as a normal DTS, 3 months classroom and 2 months in the field. Specifically located in NYC, targetting UPGs in the city. I've been with Urban Impact and I know they are above board.

Forge
The two guys that wrote The Shaping of Things to Come created Forge. Enough said.

I'm sure there are plenty more out there. Reading about some of those opportunities got me really excited. The future is to be created.

Slightly related - in a few weeks, I'll do my annual round up of summer mission opportunities with agencies specific for students.

I was tagged

EmGberg tagged me...so here it goes.
5 weird things about me:

1 - When I go to sleep, I like to rub my feet together a lot. Like a cricket, sort of.
2 - Right after I fall asleep, my whole body spasms. Or so I'm told.
3 - I like to drink a glass of orange juice almost every night before I go to bed.
4 - I once went 4 weeks without taking a shower at summer camp. But I did go in the pool.
5 - I gave my wife a swiss army knife the night we got engaged.

I tag: D, LB, PM, Dennis, and FZ.

SPACE expedition

Here is the rough idea:

- F 4:00pm - depart MD
- F 9:00pm - arrive CT
- F late eve - quick orientation, make lunches for Sat, Why
- S 8:15am - leave for East Bridgeport, yo
- S 3:00pm - finish, back home, clean up
- S 5:30pm - dinner
- S 7:30pm - EoS event
- S 10:00pm - recap, debrief
- S 10:30am - church
- S noon - depart CT

Left for me to do:
- Pick up church van - Thurs evening
- Small discussion points for Fri eve and Sat eve
- Figure out grocery lists for food
- Get ready to spend the weekend with all girls except for TyRass - maybe we sleep on the deck

SPACE January 2005 Prayer Update

"If you want to win this world to Christ, you are going to have to sit in the smoking section." - Neil Cole, _Organic Church_

Dear SPACE friends,
Happy New Year and thank you for continuing to think and pray for SPACE - the missions and service component of Grace Community Church's youth ministry. Here is a quick update on whats going on with our students.

- A weekend expedition with some of our core students this coming weekend (Jan 21) serving with a homeless ministry in Bridgeport, CT.
. Pray for our two goals of investing into these kids and them learning about homeless missions over the long haul.

- Planning for a senior weekend - a time where we can take our graduating seniors on a short missional weekend that will deal with culture, service and mission.
. Pray for the seniors that will be going on this as well as our SPACE intern, Emilie, who is putting this together as her senior internship project.

- Planning for our summer mission teams.
So far, we have two teams up that are gearing up:
. a high school team serving with the Center for Student Missions in DC
. a middle school team gathering team members to serve with Christian Missionary Technical Services in PA.
We also have a few more teams that are still in the embryonic stages, hopefully being birthed in the next few weeks. Pray for all of our teams, the students and leaders on them and our early summer team prep sessions. Praise God for some phenomenal leaders that have stepped up to sacrifice, lead and grow these students this summer.
Also pray for a potential follow up opportunity from one of the teams from last summer. More on that as it develops.

Thanks again for partnering with us as we build leaders and disciples who are ready to sit in the 'smoking sections' in order to win more people to Jesus.

(For more real time updates, feel free to check out my blog at tonytsheng.blogspot.com)
- tony

Reverse Missions

I just got off skype with my good friend GMcM. For those of you new here, the McMs are a GCC family that live in Brasil and hosted a student team in the summer of 2005.

There is a small possibility that some of the students we met and befriended last summer are going to come to the US this coming summer. GMcM and I were laying out some of the initial ground work for something like that to happen. Think reverse missions trip. Some common components we are shooting for include a service project of some sort, elements of US culture, and of course US fun. For the last element - US fun - I'm thinking monster truck show. (That was a joke.)

D is loving Perspectives - good news for me. Tonight her speaker was some phenomenal missions nut case - like they all are - and has a job where tons of high ranking people from the 10/40 window come and live with him for months at a time, allowing him to build deep friendships with them. Or something like that. Anyway, same idea - reverse missions trip. And one more - the idea of global migration - masses of people moving into the cities, like NYC and DC.

This is the logical next step from our trip last summer. Long term relationship, partnering with GCC families overseas, you know the drill. Would be really cool if it comes together. If you've got some ideas or if you are interested in helping out, get in touch with me. Man, I miss the McMs.

Photo: Some of our team at a soccer game. Londrina lost. GMcM is on the left.

Ticked

I had lunch with an 03 guy last week. It was fun. During the conversation, we talked a little bit about the proportions of guys from our Dteam who still follow Jesus. Not exactly A+. Or B. Maybe not even C. I know I've said it before, but I think its really important to measure numbers, not in terms of overall size but how many kids come out of our ministries and are still disciples. (Tangent 1 - Maybe we need to ask how many are disciples in the first place. And maybe whether we are really building disciples or if we are doing something else in the first place. Yeah, another time. Tangent 2 - Maybe we need to ask ourselves if we are really multiplying leaders that are disciples. Maybe disciple=leader.)

Sometimes I think about the guys that have given up on Jesus. These guys, we gave them a lot. A fantastic youth ministry that incorporated not only a huge mass of students in corporate worship but also small groups - one that (at least I felt) was a pretty tight group of guys, and that consistently opened the Scriptures every week. Opportunities to be involved in the ministry of reaching out to their friends, not just spectator religion. A few really cool summer mission opportunities. A few leaders that were pretty whacked, but still cared enough about each and every one of them to both listen to them and attempt to lead, challenge and implore them.

At times, I don't know what more we could have done. Sure I've heard the horror stories about various shallow and bad excuses for youth ministries. Ones that play BuckBuck all the time. Ones where the youth pastor passionately and authentically falls in love with a student. I honestly don't think that is where we are at.

Are we really winning kids to Jesus? Are we doing the job? Is it working? Are we winning this culture?

YWAM's season of sorrow

Since November, there have been fourteen YWAM'ers that have died around the world. What the heck... Read more here.

January Fluff

This entry is total fluff. Oh well, here is what is on my mind.

I worked all night Saturday night. In contrast to our 30-some-hour marathon in October, things went brilliantly. It was a nice change of pace. I think my team proved to everyone - most importantly, ourselves - that we could take on some very complex work and still put it all successfully. OH how I wish I could write much more about work on this blog, but I'm sure that would not be wise at all. Suffice to say there are many *unbelievable* stories coming out of corporate America in the past few weeks - and not about missions - and maybe one day I will be able to tell them.

Pastor Mark did his one man monologue of a court apprentice from King Xerxes this morning, walking through the book of Esther. Phenomenal. It was the second time I have seen it, but it was just as good as before. As good as it was, I still did fall asleep for a few minutes during it since I went to church after working and a shower. Get the mp3 here (although right now the page is outdated), but only good for a week.

I've spent the past two weeks having lots of conversations with potential SPACE summer team leaders. It's been an absolute blast. We've talked about a lot of fun and interesting things. I haven't had quite this focus in the past two years of SPACE's existence at this time in the year. Instead, I think this year, we are on to something - focus on summer leadership starting in January. Very fun and good responses. Looking forward to telling you more about more summer teams soon.

Very, very fun birthday party for Em on Saturday with 12 of her five year old friends. Em is a total character for sure.

Photo: The Dora lake for the party in our living room

JF's mentor paper

JF, one of the GCC youth min interns (who I wrote about here), wrote a paper entiteld "The Impact of Youth Ministry on Teen Culture." If you are interested in the paper, let me know.

In the paper, she comments on music, films, relationships and television. One other interesting thing to note is that this paper is unapologetic about Christianity - written in a public school. Go JF!

What do you think? How have you seen youth ministry impact culture? Are we really making a difference in the culture at large?

European Spiritual Estimate

Marc posts about his involvement and the results of the European Spiritual Estimate. Some really detailed information here about Europe's spiritual state.

- 72.7% of Europeans would be culturally affiliated with Christianity.
- However, only 4.12% are Christians that are actively concerned about the spiritual condition of their friends and neighbors.
- only one church for every 19,920 Europeans with one new church planted for every 318 existing churches

Image: Survey by country of Gospel oriented Christians. Note the scale at the bottom of the map, click for larger image.

SPACE 2006 10th grade missions

Tonight, the SPACEintern and I met up with MLSchw, who is leading our 2nd missions trip for the summer (so far at least). This team consists of 20 current 10th graders and leaders and will be going to Washington, DC with the Center for Student Missions.

Even though DC is relatively in our backyard, we have sent teams to CSM-DC 5 or 6 times before with great success. The students get to understand some of the social issues in and around DC, they live in the city amongst different cultures and they get to make an impact in both serving and relating. All in all, a good trip.

CSM does most everything for you logistics-wise, including sending their own leaders with you. And MLSchw has been on this trip 2 or 3 times, at least once as a high schooler and at least once as a leader. Surrounding her is a strong leader team, most of whom are Dteam leaders with this grade. Long time readers will know my ideas about why I'm such an advocate of our own leaders leading our own students in these kinds of experiences (versus farming kids out to other more generic missions organizations.) Of course, the main reason being that our kids can process the experience so much better in the context of a leader that they know well and that continues to stay involved with them long after they have been home.

In terms of our idea of mission progression, CSM is a great start for the younger high school kids. It takes them out of their own comfort zone for a little bit. It is an intense trip, but still good for formation of worldviews that include culture and context as well as engaging the desire of younger students to make a difference in the world.

So far, that is two trips for the summer that are officially up and running. I'll tell you about some more of them in a little bit.

Big Chicken

Last night, we went to the Mall to have dinner because that's where Em wanted to go for her birthday. As we walked into the Mall from the parking lot, a car full of high schoolers went driving by with three of them standing up outside the sunroof screaming and laughing.

K: "They are so cool."
Me: "No they aren't."
D: "That is so totally dangerous"
D: "You could get your head cut off"
Me: "The car could stop abruptly and you could fall out, roll off the hood and get run over."
After a few seconds, D and I both look at each other and D says, "We aren't exactly raising barbarians are we?"

I'm not afraid to admit that I'm a big chicken. "Big" being the operative word. What I know and what I do are different. I'm hesitant right now at pursuing another possibility for a missions experience this summer, because I think I'm too scared to go.

Try making a slight adjustment from "how could God use me?" to "what kind of God could use me?" If your answer is "a great God" then it's no longer about you and me but about Him. Rememer whether we think too much of ourselves or too little, we are thinking of ourselves. The prescription for this is serving others without thought to ourselves. Perseverance in this kind of service concludes in a leadership that is characterized by an "absence of self". That is one working definition of courage: not the absence of fear, but the absence of self. When the self is absent then there is no more thought about overconfidence or insecurity. We act on our faith in Him. link

2005 in cities

Fun meme from Kottke

Your 2005 in cities
Orlando, FL
Fairfield, CT
Goshen, VA
New York, NY
Hilton Head, SC
Savannah, GA
Gilbert, AZ
Bernsville, PA
Dulles, VA
Londrina, Brasil
Hagerstown, MD
York, PA

Your turn now, and leave a comment if you do it.

Resource - Organizations Working with Domestic Unreached

Here are some links that I got in an email from the Caleb Project regarding Domestic Unreached missional organizations. The list was actually built from feedback from a previous email where the Practical Mobilization author asked for reader recommendations about organizations that specifically try to work with unreached people groups that live in the US.

This list is a huge resource for me (and hopefully you) because exposure to domestic, unreached people groups can be such a powerful, motivating and rich experience for our students. This type of trip is still fairly inexpensive, students still have a handle on their own culture and these types of ministries probably love it when American students come to help out. Additionally, our students learn first hand about concepts like global migration and the 10-40 window and get totally immersed in another culture for a short time.

Domestic, unreached people group ministry should be a foundation of how we step students through progressive mission experiences. Ideally, this should fit after our students are exposed to some solid 'sharing of their faith training' but before we look to send them overseas. This was also the type of thing I was looking for specifically in LA last spring. So I was overjoyed to get the email.

Here is the list, edited specific to ones that I might do more research on:
*Urban Impact NY
(I took a team here in 2004, my summary)
*Persian World Outreach
"They gladly welcome people thinking of heading to Iran and Afganistan to plug into their Persian church plants here in the U.S. to learn the culture and confirm God's leading."
*Target Teams
Work with Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhists in Philadelphia.
*City Team Ministries
Work with various ethnic groups in Northern California, Portland, Seattle, and Philadelphia.

See the whole list and write up email here.

Misc Tuesday Links

**from the MacWorld keynote with Steve Jobs
Apple sold the equivalent of 100 iPods every minute during the 4th quarter of 2005. What the heck?

**Some key Perspectives readings online here from the US Center for World Mission
PS - D liked the class last night a lot

**The top three unreached, unengaged people groups by people group count
1. India
total population: 1.1B
unengaged, unreached people groups: 310
unengaged, unreached population: 385M

2. Sudan
total population: 44M
unengaged, unreached people groups: 35
unengaged, unreached population: 15M

3. China
total population: 1.3B
unengaged, unreached people groups: 21
unengaged, unreached population: 11M
The whole writeup and charts from this months issue of Mission Frontiers

Happy 5 to Em!

Today is Em's 5th birthday. Happy Birthday Em!

To those of you that know Em, you know that she loves:
- any kind of animal, except for snakes, which she is allergic to.
- her dog. Both her stuffed dog, named "doggie", and her real dog named "Calvin."
- to dance and sing, on or off key.
- Dora.
- anything to do with princesses.
- the summer time. She spent all day yesterday running around the house in a bathing suit.

Also, Em:
- Has an uncanny sense of comedic timing. We think she was born for the stage.
- Is our affectionate one. She loves to cuddle.
- Likes gadgets. She has always loved to play with my cell phone or pager.

Happy Birthday Em! May God continue to mold and align your heart with His heart so that you love and sacrifice for the world (and animals) around you.

Love, Dad

No Europe

KMcN and I have had recurring conversations over the past 18 months or so about a SPACE team visiting and serving with them. He and his family are in Western Europe and have been there for a little over a year. The very cool thing is that they are originally from GCC, having spent a little time in Charlotte getting some training before going over to Europe. This was a distinct possibility for one of our teams this coming summer.

I got an email from him this morning saying that this summer wouldn't quite work out. That's too bad but I'm not incredibly disappointed. Here is why:

- Long term.
We are looking at something long term - just like they are. They are not in Europe for a few months, they are there for the long haul. Similarly, when we look at our SPACE teams, we need to focus on long term when we can. Not our teams being there necessarily, but a serving opportunity in the context of a long term relationship. Why do I know its going to be long term? Because they are a GCC supported family. Serving a family sent out from our church makes a big difference because we know them, have known them, and will certainly know them in the future. So a team won't go this year, but maybe in the future. I know the opportunity is not a flash in the pan.

- Partnership.
I've said this to KMcN, and many, many others - "Only if us coming will really help you." Setting up a team to serve based on a partnership, versus a one-sided perspective, is a really important aspect. Therefore, when the time is right for both of us, then we can move forward.

- Connection.
Since they are from GCC, we know them. And they know us. They know our context, where we live, the kinds of culture and worldview we live with everyday.

So maybe not this summer. But maybe in the future - a future where we both will be involved in each other's ministries.

Perspectives Introduction

We are convinced that God has a "world-sized" role for every Christian in His global purpose. Whether people go to distant countries or stay at home is a secondary issue. The primary issue is what most people are hungry to discover: vision to live a life of purpose. Discovering that vision makes this course valuable, and perhaps crucial, for any Christian.

- from the introduction to Perspectives. Exciting times here since D starts the class tomorrow night, along with at least three four other good friends/graduated Dteam/youth min people. I took the class in the Spring of 2003. After 15 years of working with students, that class made me re-think almost literally everything I thought about youth ministry. I'm excited to see how these four five people - and more - will be affected.

Saying No

I don't like to say no. Most of the time, saying no makes me feel bad. I got a call today to ask me to do something ministry-wise, sort of. And I said no. And I feel bad. But not bad enough to say yes.

Context matters - in just about everything. This task was nothing to do with my ministry gifts or passions. I think that the only reason that I was asked was because it was convenient and my faithfulness has been proven - both really good things. Being dependable is a really good attribute to have. Now that I think of it, I'm usually flattered at being asked to do something too. So flattery and feeling bad. Interesting combination.

Continuing on with context, I can understand having to do something because no one else will do it, or no one thinks of doing it. Being a person that must makes sense to me. I would say yes if I was part of a church plant where only a small number of people were responsible for a lot. I would say yes if I was working in another culture where Jesus followers number only in the hundreds, among the masses that have never heard Jesus name. But I do say yes when it comes to taking students places so they can understand the world first hand.

In my context, last Sunday saw probably 2000 people attend two GCC services in the morning. Surely, someone else may be tons more interested in this task then me. And I bet their interest in students is conversely the exact opposite of mine.

I think we all need to hear that it is okay to say no when the fit is not quite right. Especially from ourselves.

The Greatest Missiologist

You'd find that there are people in every one of these organizations who were influenced directly by Ralph Winter. That's what I told Ralph Winter about a year ago. I wrote him a letter because he is sick. I said, "Ralph, I know that you would say the world's greatest missiologist in the 20 century was Donald McGavern, because he was your mentor. But I want to tell you that I think it's you. It's you, because your ideas have been some of the most original, and besides being the most original, you have put it on track. You formed the organizations that caused people to focus on finishing. You focused on people groups instead of nations or geographic regions, and set the stage for actually breaking up the job into pieces and getting those people groups adopted by churches around the world."

Also in the interview:
- There are roughly 97,000 Western missionaries and about 101,000 non-Westerners working cross culturally.
The US is no longer the biggest country sending missionaries into other cultures.
- gap of the excluded middle
- trajectory into business as a missions involvement

Read the whole thing here.

A new to me youth ministry book

I've been digesting a new youth ministry book that I got for Christmas - more on that in a second. I realized that I don't have a lot of youth ministry books. I know there are tons out there and I'm sure most of them are really good. I just don't have a lot, and I'm thinking right now, "Thats kind of strange."

Here is what I do have though:
- The Youth Leaders Source Book
- Intensive Care
- Real Teens
- The Youth Builder

I know, I know. They are all pretty old and outdated. But hey, I'm 36. Feel free to leave a comment about books that you love and would recommend.

About that other book that I'm digesting - Shaping the Spiritual Lives of Students. It is tremendous. I don't have enough good things to say about it. I've read it once through and am going back through now writing in the book. Round three will have me typing in notes so I have an electronic copy. It *is* that good. Here are some of the key ideas:
- being a spiritual caregiver to students - not just about programs, laser tag and worship concerts
- pacing (active, engaged listening) and leading (speaking life and truth into students) and the theology behind the two pieces
- speaking truth and dealing with confrontation
- "How to Nurture the Adolescent Moral Self" (if the title of that chapter sounds cool to you, you [1]-are pretty weird and I can relate, [2]-need to read this book)
- analysis of early, middle and late adolescence

The book is easy reading with some great stories and examples as well as clear thinking and challenge about being a spiritual caregiver to students in our culture today. I'll be posting some notes from the book eventually.

Mission Maker Magazine

I don't know much about it other than this:

Designed for Mission Trainers, Mission Educators, Mission Senders, Mission Receivers, Mission Goers, Mission Service & Equipment Suppliers, Mission College & University Candidates!
Engaging, Useful Editorial Focusing on Strategic Partnerships, Mission Initiatives, Medical Issues,Global Issues, Mission Sending, Short-Term Mission, Mission Training and Equipping and more!

But you can order a free copy when it comes out in October of 2006 here. The magazine has also connected with Urbana 06.

2006 LC missions beginnings

I'm happy to report that one of our trips for this summer is officially off the ground. Happy is not quite the right way to put it - I'm actually ecstatic. And not just because its one trip that is starting to come together - that in itself is always fun. (That is two trips so far for the summer, I haven't written about the other one yet.)

In this case, I have handed off one of the leadership of our middle school (Light Company) trip to NLind. She has been on the middle school trip both times we have done it previously. She works with middle schoolers every week (*and* she loves them.) The first summer we did this trip, she got shocked by an electric fence. Last summer, she also went to Uganda for two weeks, in addition to being a leader for the middle school trip. I believe that God has got a grip on her heart for reaching the nations and involving middle schoolers in the process. One of my meetings this week was with her and she told me she's been thinking about this trip ever since it ended last summer.

This trip is the first one (of many in the future, I hope) that I have handed off. The specifics and principles came together in our first year of SPACE, so the trip is kind of synonymous with the beginnings of SPACE. It reminds me a lot of a cool experiment with middle schoolers gone right. So it's tons of fun for me to see it get handed off, especially to a leader that has been around right from the beginning.

A few items that I jotted down as we set about getting this off the ground.

Must haves:
- exposure to the world
- exposure to someone that is counter culture
- hard work - get the kids tired so leaders aren't running after them 24x7
- nothing glamorous about it - kids don't go because its inherently cool
- first look at missions
- balance between open (prebeliever) and some level of emotional maturity - can take anyone that wants to serve but the trip is not a day camp or reform school
- partnership with a GCC supported ministry - connection with GCC as a whole

Next steps:
- build a leader team
- contact CMTS to set a date
- parents meeting
- set dates for applications/deposits to be due

This older post from Marko is pretty insightful from his perspective for mission trips with middle schoolers.

Photo: NLind on the right, mowing some grass, from summer 2005.