Ready for a vacation

Well we are ready. I'm not answering my cell phone for a while. And I'm sure people will manage. And someone is at my house just so you know. Here is the to-do list as of the past few weeks. Most of it has been quite worth it.

X DC - MR - CSM drop in?
X find DC mini vans
X cam visa - notarized letter from parents
X cam visa - letter from church
X team pictures to church office
X merge packet to jess w
X merge registration
X MMaloy JGuy Rmsings Mission Advance prep
X Cam team shot info faxed to Mary
X SPACE mission advance updated info sheet
X SPACE projected payment info to accountant
X find Mission Advance worship leader
X Drop visa batch#1
X LC moms - drinks for Mission Advance help
X list of families for Taiwan host to EOBrn
X projected church van need to SM
X DWoo - Merge guys paperwork
X meet with LB - funding and visas for next week
X input checks for this week
X input checks for last last week
X send out team financial reports
X write my personal thank you cards
X follow up with visa guy on status of first batch
mission adv finance close
X cam DI stuffs
X cam next mtg schedule
X RB LA release
X pay mission advance "citation" if that is what you call it
X swim across the pool for the first time
find student for merge team opening

See you in mid July. Might be some posts that are prewritten and published with a simple click before lounging at the pool. Or might not be.

Planning for Mission Advance 2007

This week, D and I have been doing some thinking and planning for Mission Advance. Yes, that same project that last year seemed to invite total chaos and constant rain, yes that one there. But we feel good about it this year. Well, better about it this year. It is the right thing to do and we've made it an element of all summer teams for this year, starting from the time the trips have been made public.

We've also been talking a lot about reinvention, innovation and change for SPACE, not because we want to change it, but because it almost has to. And to that end, Mission Advance is going to be quite different this year. Changing something is difficult but we have to get to the point where we are willing to risk what we have already achieved. It was new last year and good. It might be better this year. Or not. But we will give it a go. I'm excited to tell you more soon.

Mission Advance is a weekend where we take all of our collective summer teams away for the weekend together. The weekend's primary goals are to focus teams on working together, getting to know one another, and going through some informal missions and cultural training. Of course, the bigger picture is that we are architecting an experience based on movement [because the Gospel moves], teams [we do it together] and risk [because we don't always know for sure].

[Related: September thoughts after last summer and Mission Advance 2006]

Dear SPACE Parents

Here is an email letter followup I sent out to all of our SPACE parents after we hosted a quick parents meeting last Sunday. Some of you might be interested if you deal with students, parents, mission teams, budgets... ok enough...

HI SPACE parents,

Thanks to those of you that were in attendance at our parents meeting on Sunday. Here is a quick recap of the information I went over. Feel free to pass this on to those I may have missed.

+ Summer Team Leaders
I'm overjoyed to tell you that our summer team leaders have a retention rate of 85% this summer - meaning that 85% of team leaders have been either a leader or participant on a previous SPACE experience. We know that the more experience our leaders have with global cultures, working with students and serving in different contexts, the stronger our teams will be. Choosing team leaders is the most intentional decision we make, based on strengths, fit and experience.

+ Support Status
Current Support as of 5/15/2008
Baltimore – XX/3600 – 2%
NOLA – 5500/14000 – 50%
England – 200/28000 – 2.5%
Cameroon – 4000/51200 – 10%
Hungary – 20334/71500 – 30%
Total budget – 34,603/170,000 – 20% [estimated budget - will fluctuate once teams hit the field and there is a significant amount of support letters that have just gone out in the mail...]

This is our most ambitious summer with more students involved in teams than ever and a larger budget due to 3 overseas teams, cost of oil, 2 teams to Europe and the global food crisis. We know that the only way these teams are viable is if God provides so we are all praying for support. Team leaders are challenging and encouraging the students to pray for support - it would be fun for you to do that with your kids too.

As an effort to engage a broader community, SPACE is hosting a Silent Auction/Ice Cream social. Products or services can be donated to SPACE to help raise support. If you know a local business that might be interested in donating, please let me know. We could also use help that evening and could use items for a bake sale if you are interested.

Friday June 6th
Maryland Piano Studio
6pm - 8pm
Website for donations: http://space2008auctions.blogspot.com
Directions

+ Mission Advance
Mission Advance is our weekend where all the summer teams come together for team building, mission trip workshops and a community service project. Mission Advance starts Friday June 20 at 7pm and ends Saturday June 21 at 8pm and will be using the Warehouse as a base of operations. We could use help from parents for food for the
weekend, including donations, setup, etc. VK is coordinator for that effort - contact her if you are interested in helping. Our goal for the weekend is to
architect an environment where teams grow, get to know each other better and serve together all in an effort to ensure that they hit the field as strong as possible.

I know thats a long email. To summarize:
- Know a business that can donate a product or service for a SPACE silent auction? Let me know. We would love to see you there - feel free to pass the event info on to anyone else that might be interested in getting to know SPACE a little better.
- Interested in helping provide some food for Mission Advance? Let VK know.

Thanks to each of you for being willing to send your students out this summer. We do this because we are convinced that your kids will mark human history. Our job is to help them do it.

- tony sheng
http://tonytsheng.blogspot.com

Planning for Mission Advance 08

We are starting to put the plans together for Mission Advance 2008, while we make sure the Silent Auction gets executed well. Mission Advance [our all team pre-field preparation weekend] is probably one of my absolute favorite ideas about SPACE ever. It's a ton of work and we are totally fried at the end of it, but it's probably the best thing we do in relation to effort to result. Our efforts result in strong teams and strong teams result in a positive impact on the field, good connection with hosts and students that know how to work with others while living in different culture and doing things they have never done before. Those results are worth the effort.

Mission Advance has been very dynamic for the past few years. 2006 was our first year when we took all the teams to the beach for the weekend, because we had some extra money in the budget from the year before. 2007 found us more local and able to serve with a local service project with one of our SPACE friends, Colleen. That year, we also tried a talent stage on Friday evening to engage broader parts of the community. This year will find us local again and MPM is running point with a different kind of element for Friday night.

We've got a lot more help on the logistics side this year too, which is a huge, huge relief. One of our great SPACE parents is running point for food, which is going to be a great project. And you know teenagers - they like to eat.

The various elements include:
- a session doing team initiatives and with some lessons on team work.
- various workshops with seasoned mission team leaders.
- a community impact project.
- spending a little over 24 hours with your team.
- sometime worshiping together as a community and blessing each other's teams.

Like every year, it's going to take a lot of work, but be well worth it.

SPACE 2006 summer mission teams

**note - sorry to you all the read this via newsreaders - since the post keeps getting updated...

** Middle School **
Introduction
Come and join other students from LC and impact more than yourself. LC will be going on a service oriented weekend to work and serve Christian Missionary Technical Services, a GCC supported missions support organization located in Bernsville, PA. (www.cmtsministries.org)
CMTS serves missionaries around the world in three unique ways:
- A furlough loaner car program that provides transportation for missionaries for short term.
- A car purchase program that provides a buying service for used vehicles and procurement.
- By purchase or donation, of hospital, kitchen, office and shop equipment, and other specially needed items and assistance in the shipment of these goods overseas.

While at CMTS, you will be serving them in a variety of tangible ways, which may include:
- washing and detailing cars and trucks
- landscaping and general yard work
- painting and cleaning
This is not a retreat, but a significant opportunity to bless one of our own missionaries on our way as we impact the world.

Specific Dates
Departure Friday July 14 – 8.30am
Return Sunday July 16 - 3pm
Transportation via cars and church van.

Lead Team
more info to come

Lodging
Dorm style rooms on the property of CMTS.

Packing List
Bible and notebook
modest clothing
modest swimsuit
bathroom stuff
beach towel
closed toe shoes
work gloves
hat
water bottle
sleeping bag
pillow


What Next?
1. Fill out and turn in your SPACE 2006 summer missions application by April 16th.
2. Include a $30 fee payable to Grace Community Church.
3. Attend SPACE Mission Advance from June 23rd to June 25th. More details will be forthcoming, attendance is mandatory.

Questions?
N Lindner
T Sheng


** 9th grade **
Sonlife's Merge conference
On the campus of JHU, Baltimore - July 16-21, 2006
More details about applications, raising support, leader team and other info to be posted here soon.
Attend SPACE Mission Advance from June 23rd to June 25th. More details will be forthcoming, attendance is mandatory.


** 10th grade **
There is a team going to CSM-DC from the 10th grade from July 16- 22. (This team is closed.)
Attend SPACE Mission Advance from June 23rd to June 25th. More details will be forthcoming, attendance is mandatory.


** 11th grade **
Intro
The junior SPACE summer missions team will be traveling to Los Angeles, California for a week to work with Harambee Ministries. Enclosed are all the pertinent details and timeline for the trip.

Host Ministry
Harambee Ministries based in Pasadena, California, outside of Los Angeles. The mission of Harambee Ministries is to promote indigenous leadership development in northwest Pasadena and beyond. Their ministries include Harambee Preparatory School, an after school program, Junior Staff, Summer Day Camp and Harambee Pre-School. Summer teams that help there have the opportunity to be involved in activities such as: serving the local homeless, kids and park ministry, light work projects on the property and generally loving our neighbors in Northwest Pasadena. The team will also interact with Harambee staff and learn about Harambee’s history and philosophy while being challenged about the Christian’s responsibility in the city, among the poor, and toward reconciliation. Los Angeles also forms the environment and context for serving in a true melting pot of world cultures. Much more info can be found at Harambee's website. The executive director of Harambee is a friend of Tony Sheng, the SPACE coordinator.

Dates:
Departure on Sunday July 23, early or mid day.
Return on Saturday July 29, late.
More specific departure and return info will be distributed once the team is assembled.

Leader Team:
MC Cortez, J Schad, Joyce B, E Grabau will serve the team as the leaders. These four individuals have over 15 years of aggregate youth ministry experience as well as substantial cross-cultural ministry experience.

Cost and Team Size:
Approximately $500 per person. More details about the cost will be available once the team is assembled. You will be required to raise both prayer and financial support and your leaders will be assisting you in doing this. This team is limited to sixteen students and four leaders.

Important Dates:
3/26 11:59pm – Your SPACE mission trip application due. If you don’t have one, see one of the leaders. You must apply for a spot on the team.
4/2 – Final team decided upon. You will be notified via email or phone about your team status.
Mid April – More details about support raising, team preparation and team meetings will be forthcoming in mid April.
Attend SPACE Mission Advance from June 23rd to June 25th. More details will be forthcoming, attendance is mandatory.
Questions:
Get in touch with one of the team leaders.

This post will be updated as more information becomes available.
Questions? Get in touch via email or comments.

Technorati Tags:: S.P.A.C.E, student+missions

Preparing to advance

This is a busy week around the international SPACE office. We are preparing for the second annual Mission Advance weekend - the weekend where all teams come together for some missions prep. We still believe it's a great idea and this weekend is a great venue for making sure that we send teams that are well prepared, from tactical ministry skills, to knowing their teams well and being ready to engage new and different cultures.

Even though we did it last year, this year will still be a much different challenge. There is the standard challenges of masses of people - food and lodging. In this case, we've got some people helping behind the scenes for food and lodging will be a mini tent city on the church property [taken down before the wedding starts...]

Two other interesting challenges - The Axis, our talent and variety stage on Friday evening. And all of Mission Advance will be traveling to downtown Baltimore to help serve an 'Adopt a Block' event that one of our good SPACE friends from GCC is trying to catalyze. There are going to be quite a few of our kids sharing their story this weekend - either in a suburban youth church or on the street.

We have also invited some special guests to be with us this weekend just like last year:
N and B Rmsing - who used to live in Tanzania;
AMoser who calls India a second home and her session entitled, "Alyssa's Tour of the World" [I wrote about her here] ;
D and J Helger who run Nav Youth here in Howard County;
MPM, our logistics coordinator - these four will be running some special mission/culture workshops,
and Amy M, wife of MPM who will be running some team building activities.

I'm excited about this weekend. I have a feeling there are going to be some significant moments this weekend - groups of people that transform from individuals into teams, kids blessing strangers from vastly different cultures and some students deciding to go whenever and wherever God calls.

Photo: Mission Advance 2006

SPACE Mission Advance 2006

I'm back from Mission Advance 2006. There is so much to tell, but although exhausting as it was, it was definitely worth it.

Goals
The two big goals for the weekend was to have the teams bond together by spending time together and give the students a bit of preparation about culture, teams and their summer trips. Every piece of the weekend was centered around these two goals.

Schedule
Fri 09.30p arrive
Fri 10.00p intro and worship
Fri 10.30p team time
Fri 11.00p snack
Sat 12.30a lights out
Sat 09.00a breakfast
Sat 10.00a team build 1
Sat 11.00a team build 2
Sat 12.30p lunch
Sat 02.00p team build 3
Sat 03.30p free time
Sat 06.00p dinner
Sat 07.30p mission workshops
Sat 09.00p worship
Sat 10.00p snack
Sat 11.00p leader mtg
Sat 12.00a lights out
Sun 08.30p breakfast
Sun 10.00p close
Sun 11.00p depart

Team Building
Team Building 1 was a sand castle contest between four summer teams. Each team was given a bucket filled with random, obscure objects that D and I got from the dollar store. Their objective was to build a sandcastle using those objects. The activity was meant to be fun and light-hearted, to get teams working together and give them a bit of time on the beach. It went really well. The leaders decided to just let the students do the activity together while the leaders formed their own team and built their own castle. This was fun for the leaders, although it didn't give them the opportunity to observe how their teams were working [or not working] together. I didn't think about it, but I should have made sure they were watching their teams.
Team Building 2 was having the teams go through an activity called Lost At Sea. Some of you may have seen this before. It's an exercise in decision making and the intention is to show how working as a team usually results in better decision making compared to making the decision by yourself. Most teams enjoyed it although since this was a sit down exercise, we probably could have had more fun doing another interactive, outside activity. See www.training-manager.co.uk/documents/TMSS-LostatSeaExercise.pdf for the whole exercise.
Team Building 3 was meant to get the teams out on the boardwalk of Rehoboth Beach, doing some kind of light service project outside of camp, and taking some risks as a team. The ideas included filling up parking meters with some change that were close to expiring, serving and blessing some kids and families at Rehoboth Beach's Fun Land by giving them some free tokens, picking up some trash at the beach, and starting a soccer or volleyball game with some strangers on the beach. The Cam team played skeeball most of the time [no, not really.] Actually, we had an intersting discussion about who on the boardwalk would be a 'person of peace.' Most of these ideas worked well, but the weather was overcast and rainy. Fun Land was definitely a great place to see kids serve people they didn't know.

MMaloy told this story at dinner:
"Some guy was playing a game and his game finished. Someone from our team came and gave him a token to put into his game. His game finished again and someone else from oru team gave him another token. "This is the second person that has done this to me today!" "

Mission Workshops
JGuy - the ideas of obedience, prayer and trust on your missions trip.
MMaloy - how do you define success on your missions trip.
N and B Rmsing - culture - what is it and how can do we relate to it.
They were all excellent and the students appreciated the different topics and perspectives. The timeslot, being late in the day, was not optimal, but that was due to a last minute logistics change.

Lodging
Cape Henlopen State Parks, in the youth group camping section.

Weather
The weather had some fun with us this weekend. Ideally, a weekend without rain would have been perfect. But Sunday was literally washed out, with rain and thunderstorms all night long Saturday night and flash flooding warnings during our whole drive home. In fact, part of the trip home was driven through a quarter mile of highway with water 2-3 feet deep.
I had been planning a kind of send off thing for the leaders to be part of on Sunday morning. It would have involved leaders annointing there students with a drop of oil on their foreheads and praying over the students as we worshipped on the beach, with no rain. Unfortunately, it didn't stop raining and our worship leader broke a string on his guitar. So that plan fizzled.

Reflections
"I think this was my summer missions trip." - D [whose help in the kitchen was immense.]
"Adaptability is what it is all about." - N Rmsing

My two favorite parts - the mission workshops and our short leader gathering Sat night. I loved being able to bring some guys and gals with some good expertise and giving them a chance to share with these students. And I loved being able to share and hang with these leaders. Again, I can't tell these guys and gals enough how much I appreciate what they are going to do this summer.

Photos: All of SPACE Mission Advance; the Baltimore Merge team; the LC team during one of the workshops; the LA team admist the floods; most of the summer leaders. More photos at my 20060623missionadvance tag.

Technorati tags:: student+missions

Post Mission Advance Audio

This is ELB [Lynn], one of our NYC team leaders, on the left. She and her friend SS are telling a bit of their story at the block party that all of Mission Advance went to this past weekend. I interviewed Lynn last night during an NYC team fundraiser at a local restaurant. Take a listen as she talks more about Mission Advance 2007. [Caution - the audio is really loud for some reason...]




[feed readers - there is embedded audio in this post]

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.]

Mission Advance 1.1

D and I have had lots of ideas floating around our heads this weekend about SPACE for this year. It's been both surprising and interesting to me. By the end of the summer, I was pretty toasted and unrealistically wondering what viability SPACE really had left in it. In other words, it was a phenomenal summer but I was pretty spent.

This weekend was definitely a rebound. The meeting I had on Saturday was so energizing and a lot of thinking has been catalyzed because of those discussions. So, here is the first piece of some of it.

If we have enough viable summer teams this summer, we are going to do Mission Advance again. Call me crazy but I'm not. During the actual weekend, some people heard me mutter that I would never do it again. But I was dead wrong and it only took 3 months for me to really see it clearly. [Pass the word on to other people that I was wrong....]

Here are some expanded thoughts about the weekend:
- Everyone involved loves the idea of teams going away together to get to know each other and that will continue to be one of the central goals. The other goals also remain the same [some missions prep topics, some kind of community impact, formal and informal group building and dynamics.]
- We will strive to make the destination every year different - build the unknown to make it more fun and different - much of the same feeling that you get on a missions trip.
- We will toy around with the idea of doing Mission Advance in an urban setting.
- We will make it a hard requirement for team members and leaders - ie if you can't go on the weekend, you can't go on the actual summer team.
- We will attempt to get some students involved in facilitating one of the discussion/workshop pieces.
- I will ask for more help for the weekend and I will ask a lot earlier.

SPACE Mission Advance

[This is very, very rough...]

SPACE Mission Advance is a weekend fully devoted to prepare you for your summer mission experience. You will find yourselves tossed into a grand epic sometime this summer. And this weekend will help give you the heart and soul to weather the mission, fighting against the forces of good and evil.

This weekend will be about both preparation and building. We will prepare you for your summer mission experience which will include conversation around culture, mission and the state of the world. We will also build your team as you travel, learn, and relax together and work on an outreach experience to impact Rehoboth Beach as a team.

This opportunity will be an integral part of your growth as a SPACE summer missionary. You will not want to miss it.

Find the logistical details below.

Packing List:
clothing for a weekend (no tank tops)
sleeping bag and pillow
a modest swim suit
beach towel
bathroom stuffs
Bible and notebook
surf and/or boogie board
some extra cash for food on the way there and back and on the boardwalk

Cell phones and personal music players are allowed, but you may be asked to put them away at certain times throughout the weekend. Illegal items are not allowed.

Times and Location:
We will be departing GCC on Friday 6/23 at 5pm.
We will be returning to GCC on Sunday 6/25 at 2pm.
Cape Henlopen State Park, about 20 minutes outside of Rehoboth Beach
We will travel via private cars, all cars will be driven by a SPACE adult leader.

Cost:
$35 - payable to Grace Community Church
Payment, signed permission form and copy of health id card are due on 6/10.

Technorati tags:: student+missions

Advance

Eleven years ago, we executed a student missions preparation weekend based on a few simple ideas. First, make teams travel some short distance before their actual trip. Second, give them a chance to interact with some missions practitioners. In late June of 2006, Mission Advance was born at Cape Henlopen, DE, USA. I still have the fondest memories of that weekend - sending teams to the boardwalk to serve, the sandcastle building contest, how it rained for 16 hours straight, being one of the last cars allowed to leave the eastern shore. Ah the memories.

The idea of Mission Advance [not retreat] still lives with The Ember Cast. It is one of our core distinctives - this ability and availability to facilitate a preparation weekend with student teams around some of these ideas that are still important when it comes to student missions.

We do it again this coming weekend with one of our clients. Lots of students, team building, and missions practitioners. After this kind of morning, the Ember Italy team takes a little field trip. The best thing about Ember Advance is that you could do the same thing with your teams.

Photo: Ember BOD Joyce, 3rd from the left. June 2006, Bridgeville, DE.

Preparing to Prepare

Some Ember guides and I had our first planning session to prepare for some short term missions training. This one looks similar to, from many moons ago, Mission Advance, one of my favorite experiences ever. Similar in that we will be on the move for some of the time, the experience will be focused on building teams and adaptability will be required for everyone, including our team that runs the whole show.

The majority of short term mission teams are vastly unprepared, mostly because they don't take the time to prepare to function together as a team. Fix that singular issue and you've fixed 50% of the issues.

Some of the values we are trying to deliver via this experience include adaptability, flexibility, embracing chaos and servant leadership. Oh yeah, we are going to throw in some of our favorites too.

[Related: Mission Advance 2006, 2007, 2008, NY 2009 Mission Cast, Missions Prep with Bay Area]

Preparation and Effectiveness

Two of our teams have gone and now come back, both of them returning this past weekend. Like any anxious parent with kids overseas, I'm relieved that they are back home with no major issues. This past week, I've gotten some awesome feedback about both teams. They have said things like "a joy to work with," "so well prepared, "and "to be commended for their maturity, their servants hearts and teachable spirits." When 60% of all short term mission trips do detriment to their host missionaries, feedback like that means we have a lot to be proud of. Not that it is all about SPACE, since if you know some of our students, you know that they were quality people long before SPACE got a hold of them for this summer.

We all know - in just about every venue of life - the better prepared you are, the more effective you will be. Student missions fits with that principle just like playing basketball, singing an opera or building a redundant web farm. We stress some pretty unconventional things with regards to our summer teams, Mission Advance being one of them. The primary reason is so that our teams are effective in the field. The rest is icing on the cake.

Photo: TriciaB working at building a team - Mission Advance 2007.

Mission Advance 2007

Quite a weekend with our summer teams. Once again, our goals were to train, inspire, and tightly gel teams. Thanks to those of you that were praying for our weekend and thanks to all of those that made it happen, from help with the food prep, all the acts for The Axis, and the workshop leaders. A lot of people were instrumental to pulling it all off - and that is the way it should be.

Here are the tactical elements in case some of you were interested:

- The Axis - SPACE's first talent and variety stage - designed to encourage, inspire and build support. We made a little bit of support from that, but it was more about that.

- Camping in tents on the church property. My favorite part about camping was being able to stuff my air mattress into my seventeen year old still-in-great-shape North Face VE-23 tent. My second favorite part were the sprinklers going off at 8am on the girls that kept me up all night. But hey, no hard feelings now... As you can imagine, this was the element that contributed most to the out-of-routine, get just a tad uncomfortable. I think it worked for most, me included.

- Team building initiatives with Amy M. One principle I asked her to stress was the idea of sacrificing for the team. During that initiative, I was the most guilty of trying to win instead of sacrificing for the team. Hmm...

- Serving and hanging out at an Adopt A Block party in downtown Baltimore. Our teams were also rotated through doing some minor clean up in the host church there and some of them got to share their story as well as do a short drama for the party. And yes, there was a dance party. Taking all of our teams there contributed a huge element to the weekend - we act on what we believe. Thanks to Colleen for hosting us to serve. [Her story is going matter more and more to Baltimore.]

- Mission workshops including principles about team unity; cultural aspects versus Biblical principles; sharing the Gospel without speaking and relational initiative. All of them from people that, once again, act, were great.

- Two separate blocks of team time.

- Heartbleeding worship with friends that are working to make a difference.

The album [from my M page] is below. [Feed readers will have to open the source post.]


Related: Mission Advance 2006

Future Casting

In the spring of 2005, I created a student missions training single day event and made it a non-negotiable for all student mission team members and leaders. During the event, we created environments for teams to work together and we brought in facilitators to cover specific missions concepts. The following year, we expanded on the idea and took 70 leaders and students away for the weekend to make the experience even more intense. We called it Mission Advance. Mission Advance, in that form, continued to run for the next two years after that. Even now in that same faith community, they still run an event very similar and our Ember team has been honored to be a part of it. A personal best decision with lots of help from lots of people.

In September of 2005, a high school student took the brave initiative and took me up on an experimental leadership opportunity: a student missions leadership internship. It was a pipeline before we realized it and it created momentum and a system for identifying and catalyzing future leaders. Even now, I'm amazed at how many high caliber leaders and influencers do not think about this important concept. It is a tragic omission.

In the spring of 2006, 7 years ago this month, I bought 30 copies of Now Discover Your Strengths and gave copies to specific people and implored them to take the StrengthsFinder assessment. I funded the purchase through some leftover student missions money in an account I had freedom to use. If you haven't noticed, StrengthsFinder has recently become a staple among many leadership development people. Getting this was not my idea, I stole it from Mosaic and one of their leadership development initiatives. One of the best "catalyzing talent" decisions I've made.

Back in those days, the gaps we needed to fill in our student missions environment were: a leadership pipeline, assessment based leadership development and missions team training. My mentor Alex McManus talks about the idea of desynchronization - there are some ideas that hit people at different times and people change at desynchronized times. I submit that some of these ideas might still be ahead of their time.

What is futuristic right now for student missions? Ember is working on it.

My Sunday At Church

Sort of typical summer Sunday morning at church:
- show up for LC parents meeting, but a bit late. Have K meander around the Warehouse as long as she doesn't leave. Meeting ran out of time - no time for SPACE. Oh well.
- talk to a parent of two middle schoolers going on our LC trip. Parents have loads of cross cultural experience, including Teen Missions and growing up in Africa. Ding ding. Talk to them for a few minutes about our ideas of progression and strategy. Need to follow up with them for future Mission Advances - like that's going to happen.
- run into three 03 guys. All are doing really well. Especially TP - which has been a series of posts by himself. I can't tell you how good this news is - he looked absolutely fantastic. What can I say - it's the Developer strength in me.
- take K to class - move up Sunday, she is now in 3rd grade.
- back to Warehouse. LB and I collate all the visa materials - ones that are ready, ones that are not. She doesn't mind walking around with passports - she has more guts than me.
- introduce our potential NYC transplantee to some SPACE people.
- talk to our Senior High Admin about a venture with an overseas youth missions org, long story. Wish we could be better equipped, involved, partnered up.
- talk to our Senior High Pastor about projected church van use. The church van was on fire last Friday. Goodbye old green friend.
- collected one person's paperwork for Mission Advance - not due until next Sunday, but one is a good start.
- reviewed on LA team member's support letter. Not in the mail yet I guess?
- picked up more summer support donations.
- went to listen to Senior High Pastor SM talk during high school service. He showed pictures of real demon possessed people. Go SM, go!
- followed up an invitation to someone to lead worship at Mission Advance. She can't do it.
Busy, busy.

The afternoon was lighter. Bob Evans, Staples and Borders and then dinner at Grandpas and Grannys with K.

Photo: In homage to our old green church van, the rear and front of it the last time I drove it after successfully parallel parking it in NYC [with a spotter of course]

Technorati tags:: student+missions

Summer Missions Prep

Some of you probably have some short term missions plans starting to gel - the Super Bowl is over after all. Let me encourage you - first, your plans will probably change. Second, invest a lot of energy in preparing your teams.

Short term teams are notorious for being under-prepared. My three big areas to prepare in? Ministry skills [skills based on what you are actually there to do], missions inspiration [big picture of the world and why we are going there] and building a high performance team.

Ember might be involved in helping some teams prepare for the summer - as we started to think about some of that kind of planning, it reminded me of one of the biggest successes in my previous student missions role - the success known as Mission Advance, a 24 hour immersive experience involving all three of those above.

I'm also reminded that preparing our teams requires innovation and creativity - it doesn't and shouldn't look the same each year. In fact, one of our crazy ideas would have been to run Mission Advance in a urban context: transporting suburban students to the city, with a service project, ministry skills training and facilitators helping the team leaders. Context and culture lessons would have been front and center. That idea is free - take it and run with it if you want. [Here are some other ideas you might want to try.]

If you're interested in picking some of Ember's expertise in training student missions teams, comment or email. We would love to help your students get ready to shape human history.

Pray for Mission Advance

Well, we are almost ready to go for Mission Advance. It is sort of coming along nicely.

Here are a few things we would love for you to pray about:
- safety in getting 58 or so people down to the beach and back.
- for good weather - some of our team stuff is going to be outside - and, of course, we need good weather because we are going to the beach...
- for the team leaders - that they make the most of their time with their teams
- for two students and their job situations - that they are able to go because I really want them there.

As always, we really appreciate your praying for us.

Photo: The Cam team got shots on Tuesday. Most of their arms fell off that night.

Technorati tags:: student+missions

Old Headers

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

East Africa Response
+
+
+
+
+
Ember Darley Park, March 2012
+
+
+
+
+

+
+
+
+
+

+
+
+
+
+

+
+
+
+
+

+
+
+
+
+