Post Sabbatical 2018

Ember things:
Provide a daily devotional for summer teams while on the experience.
Include a Code of Conduct within the team application so that this is understood at the inception of the project.
Dig into the possibilities of partnering with the Greece ministry from this summer in a deeper way.
2019 will probably look different because of a Sheng family trip.
Small pivot for yearly operations to run September - August.
I wrote a small report about the Ember IG team. Request access by clicking this.
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I have felt a bit uninformed about the general LGBT issue and specifically the implications for church and nonprofit organizational culture so I spent time in some books and listening to some messages on the topic. Ping if you have something interesting or want to know my resources.
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If you are in ministry today, you have likely been impacted by Willow Creek Church and the way they have innovated for decades. In case you missed it, they were/are in the midst of a leadership crisis and decided to continue on with the Global Leadership Summit anyway. Erwin McManus' talk at the Summit, within the context of this crisis, was profound and powerful. Although I didn't attend the Summit, I listened to it multiple times after buying the audio messages. Unfortunately, they are no longer selling audio downloads of the messages.
"I had the genetic makeup of a coward. What you fear has mastery of your life. If you are afraid of heights, you stay low. If you are afraid of crowds, you stay alone. What you fear establishes the boundaries of your freedom. And that is the beautiful thing. It is only in relationship to God, where the Scripture says, "Perfect love casts out all fear," when God is the only one that you live in relationship to in fear, it is only God that sets you free and sets you free in His love. Every other master that controls you by fear is a cruel master and will steal your life away."
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Mark Batterson spoke a 3 part series on a theology of the city and how National Community Church will impact Washington DC for the next 70 years. Inspiring and challenging - would we all learn to dream like they do.
"If we get this right, we create a prototype for the urban church. Church as usual is not going to get us where we need to go. We cannot build spaces that get used one or two times a week. There are ways to do Church that no one has thought of yet."
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I gave up Coca Cola and french fries except for once a week. I started playing a little bit of racquetball but it's only been a week. My cholesterol was out the roof.
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Katie finished a 6 week internship in Dehli at end of August and flew directly back to school. Her internship was focused on analyzing whether giving preschoolers some advance education tips help them do better when they get to school. We are spending some time in SoCal in the next few days looking at colleges with Emily. In 11 months, Dea and I will be empty nesters. We have a Southwest Companion pass that will last through the end of 2019 and are looking to capitalize on it.