Mission Advance 2008

Mission Advance was again this year an awesome experience. Long time readers will know that it is an experience architected on movement [because the Gospel moves], teams [we do it together] and risk [because we don't always know for sure]. It's a weekend that includes elements such as team building activities, a community impact project, and workshops from experienced practitioners in global missions. We were wildly successful again this year - kids were saying that this year was better than ever. From a leadership perspective, we brought in the right people to run elements aligned with their talents, experience and gifting.

This list of people includes:
- VK : a SPACE mom, who brought in a whole group of adults to take care of all of our food needs. This entailed snacks, drinks, lunches that could be eaten on the go, and an awesome taco dinner.
- MPM and AWolf : who ran our Friday night element, including a lot of time praying both individually and praying for teams and some really fantastic worship. One of my favorite memories from this weekend will be holding Em in my arms, worshiping together with this song - one of those dad moments.
- AmyM : one of the masters at building activities that help teams grow and learn about real life. This year, she took the idea of "moving forward in ambiguous and dynamic situations" and ran with it. WOW moment for me - I thought [to myself luckily] one of the activities was totally unprepared and too on-the-fly. Little did I know, that was the exact point.
- ColleenS : Our host at Charm City Church, we served by hanging out at their annual Block Party, mostly helping with crafts and kids activities.
- Karen Michener, P&SWatson, LeslieB : all who ran interactive workshops based on their missions experience and background. These are people that are doing it, not just talking about it. I just wish that I could have heard them all.

A few things that really struck me from this weekend:
- We all should be experience artisans. Not my idea, but his. And I think he would agree that it was really His. We can all create experiences from the perspective of designers and artists, not administrators and managers.
- We've got latent talents in our community that are untapped.
- Favorite new moment - anointing. [And no, not my original idea either.]
- SPACE is serving some phenomenal students. But you and I already knew that.

Photos: Pre-team building, K and a friend at the block party, VK anointing and praying over TriciaB.

More pictures here.

[Related: Mission Advance 2006 and 2007.]