more SPACE 2

I didn't really capture all of what I was thinking or feeling in the last post. So I need, more for just me, to write about it again.
This is the second year that we have done this big experiement, this thing called SPACE. Last year went so incredibly well, we had some really great community service days (called Launches), they were implemented so well. Even more significant, they just had some great thinking behind them. There was serious purpose, intention and just enough craziness, it was so so magnificent. Then came the summer, which also had some great things, including mission team prep meetings, raising support, and the actual trips themselves. When the rest of the youth team was getting ready for the school year to start, I felt like I was just almost done resting.
When this year started, we had one team meeting. We had a few ideas on the table, but nothing seriously groundbreaking or cool and suave, different from last year. And then we had a few schedule conflicts, so we couldn't even get a second meeting. We lost a bit of momentum.
But Friday changed all of that. I printed out a schedule of dates and things we wanted to do. I also had the title as "The Meat is in the Street" which I got off of PM's blog post yesterday. And I started our meeting talking about that phrase, to frame the purpose of our being there, and then telling a story about Wimber (the one of him in the plane seeing a woman's name on the forehead of the guy sitting across the aisle from him.) We also had three new members to the team, and they brought some energy and excitement with them as well. A sophomore and two juniors. And, we had something set for our first launch, not just a date. Having a date but not having any plans drained our energy. It gave me a sense of dread for about three weeks.
It's interesting to see how this year will play out, having been pretty succesful for the first year of this thing, a first year we called a 'pilot' year.
I still love to tell people its just a big experiment. But what I'm seeing more and more, is that there should not be an experiment to see if students will engage in service and mission opportunities. It is not an experiment that will fail because this generation of students today will serve the community and others. They have hearts that are drawn towards a holistic, integrated faith that inherently values serving out of their belief system.