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
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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