Instead

SPACE started in the Fall of 2003 as a pilot idea. Most of us were actually okay if the whole thing didn't last past one school year. This summer marks our fourth summer in resourcing, catalyzing and mobilizing students and below is a sample of some of the sketchy ideas we have toyed with. I'm pretty sure a lot of people are glad we didn't execute on some of these ideas:

1. Sending a team somewhere overseas that didn't have the full approval/blessing of the director of youth ministries.
Relevant point in the dialog: "You know, they kidnap people in that country..."
[Instead, we found another option that had people on the ground that we knew well.]

2. Driving empty strollers around the Mall to celebrate Sanctity of Life Sunday.
[Instead, we took a team of students to volunteer at a pregnancy crisis center.]

3. Kicking off two team members from an overseas team who decided to start dating after they had both been accepted on the team but before the team got to the field.
[Instead, we sat them down and gave them very clear guidelines, which they followed until a dog bit one of them - extenuating circumstance but hey it was a missions trip...]

4. Saying no - to risk, to people we had never met face to face, to taking students literally and figuratively to a place where they had never been before.
[Instead, we said yes with good reason to opportunities that were strategically with friends of like mind.]

Photo: The first SPACE team ever - middle school team serving at CMTS, Bernville, PA. [A DC team and a NYC team were later that summer.]