From Austria 2007

I get these email updates from a team that is leading the Serve The City movement at a global, macro level. The last email had some pretty neat updates including:

: Vienna - to say that an ongoing relationship has happened since people first took elderly people on an outing to the zoo during the STC day
: Vienna - Lady whose old cinema was cleaned up in Vienna last year has now opened it up free to Christian groups and bands

Those were both groups that took part in Vienna Day last year at Connect. See the picture in this post for the team in the first item.

[Related: I Am I Need]

Leader Share - Risk

SPACE believes two things about risk. Number one - the leaders of tomorrow have to be willing to sacrifice and risk in order for mankind to have a chance. Number two - many times, we learn to truly walk with Jesus when we are way out on a limb.

From MichelleK’s SPACE 2008 Leader Application [posted here with permission]:

Q: Describe the riskiest - but not necessarily successful - endeavor you have ever attempted. [Question taken from the IMN]

A: So this one time I had a crazy leader called Tony….We were in this foreign city called Vienna after a two-hour bus ride from Sopron, and he handed us bus passes and told us to join a group of adults and follow them wherever they were serving. I attached my self to a group of people that I had never met before and spent an hour or so traversing the city with hopes of finding the movie theater we were supposed to clean. We found it, and I tried as hard as I could to make myself useful. I ended up getting into some pretty cool conversations with missionaries. Long story short, I managed to meet up with my team at the end of the day for some good story swapping on the Danube. … And that’s about as risky as it gets for me thus far.

And Michelle says thus far...... haha...

Photo: MichelleK's team in Vienna, Austria, August 2007. She is 5th from the right in the red.

In Hungary, I Asked...

I Am I Need

As you might have imagined, SPACE makes lots of new friends every summer, and this summer was no exception. One of our new friends, SDoyle, was in town this weekend, in town from Brussels, Belgium. He is a church planter with CAI, assisting in an expression of church called The Well. [Some of you might remember the stats on Brussels - mix of French and Flemish, 150,000 people, a third are immigrants, hq of the EU.] We first met at Connect in Hungary when a bunch of our team realized this S's wife graduated from the same high school some of our kids went to and that her hometown is indeed Ellicott City.

We saw S Friday night when he stopped over to hang out at one of the CpR Fridays and a few us got coffee with him on Saturday morning. I've said this from the beginning of SPACE - SPACE only exists as one component of the student ministry and only because our students are of such high quality. It was neat for one of our SPACE friends to see a bigger picture of GCC and her students.

S is also really involved in an international movement called Serve The City, an offshoot of CAI that focuses on serving the marginalized and needy in a specific city. The idea is to serve those who need it, not because they are a spiritual project, but because they are human. I anticipate that one of these years, a SPACE team will assist with a Serve The City. Think of Mission Advance, but seven days long, dozens of service projects, hundreds of workers, and thousands being helped.

The embedded video below is entitled "I Am I Need" and was from one of the STCs in Brussels. The church of the future is a community based on cause.


Photo: EllyK, TriciaB, MichelleK and SDoyle. And my kids in the background...

Spirit of Collaboration

SAdams, Organizational Partnering Catalyst for Christian Associates, crashed at the international SPACE office earlier this week. He's been doing an East Coast tour building and strengthening relationships between CAI and churches and other like-minded organizations, including meeting some of the GCC MTF. S and I first connected when we were working out logistics for our Hungary 2007 team to serve at Connect, their annual staff conference. He's also been doing fun Shengri-La stuff, like going Ghosting; dinner at the Inner Harbor; and conversations that included processing this summer, leadership development, the apostolic and staffing a surf shack in Uruguay [Besides a focus on Europe, CAI is also doing a bit in Latin America.] If I was going to be a full time cross cultural worker, CAI would be on the very short list of organizations I would be applying to.

Collaboration is a big thing that S is working on for possibilities between churches and CAI and it could look something like:

: Short Term
- Serve the City teams - addressing practical needs in a city, particularly those of the poor and marginalized
- Discovery trips - exposure to the emerging culture of Europe, learning about the development of postmodernism and its implications for ministry
- Exploration teams - exploring new cities for potential church planting through demographic research, strategic contacts, and prayerwalking [I would *love* to take students on something like this.]
- Extension teams - extending the impact of an existing missional initiative or church through special projects, outreach events, training, etc.

: Cross Training
- leadership exchanges for training in spiritual formation, leadership development, impacting the city, church planting and more
- idea exchanges and dialogues on innovative missional practices
- mentoring, coaching and interning of emerging leaders

If you are interested in learning more about those opportunities in Europe or high impact churches in Europe's urban centers, email or comment and I can put you in direct contact with S. I don't have first dibs on the surf shack. Yet.

Photo: iChatting with his kids.

Mission Trip Quotes - Ice Age 2

Some quotes from Ice Age The Meltdown and real life scenarios where they could have been used.

[Sid, talking about the vulture who is predicting doomsday.]
"He must have been a real pleasure to have in class."
Me, about TFS, who went on a 15 minute rant about how he hates United Airlines, unbeknownst that two United pilots were sitting behind us on the shuttle bus, Brasil, 2005.

[Manny thinks he might be the last mammoth.]
"Look at the bright side - you have us."
Me to my many teams, many times, referring to the leaders as "us."

[Cholly as he breaks wind on Sid.}
"My stomach hates me," and "Don't that put the stink in extinction."
Me and infectious diarrhea in the Dominican Republic, 1993.

"This is too hot. The ice age is too cold. What will it take to make you happy?"
Multiple scenarios huh?

"There are whole continents moving faster than you."
Our whole team through the palace tour after flying all night to Austria, 2007.

"From now on, land safe, water not safe."
After two hours paddling up a river in a dugout canoe, outside of Kribi, Cameroon, 2006.

"Making friends everywhere you go."
After sharing the Gospel with a Pygmy Indian tribal chief, translating from English to French to a tribal dialect and back, outside of Kribi, Cameroon, 2006.

[Sid, arriving at the Fire King place]
"Who is your decorator, this is nice!"
Arrival at our four star hotel resort in Sopron, Hungary, 2007.

[Sid, after all the little sloths tie him up.]
"This is either really good or really bad."
Finding out our team had been bumped off of our flight to Brasil, 2005. [Turned out to be good.]

And some other gems I'm sure you could work in to your experiences:
[Sid to Manny after Manny makes him stop singing songs about extinction.]
"Ok... someone doesn't like the classics."

[Sid says to Manny, "You might be the only two mammoths left."]
"I'm sorry, when did i join this dating service?"

"Can we slow down a little. I'm dying here. It was just a figure of speech! [after seeing the vultures]"

"One truly is the loneliest number."

The Essential 3 ::: Hungary 2007

In the summer of 2007, I helped lead a team of students to serve with Christian Associates International, helping to put on a kids program during their annual staff conference called Connect. Connect is a meeting point for their worldwide staff and is a homecoming of sorts where staff reconnect, introspect and get invested in. Connect serves to vitally recharge and re-energize church planting families that have served in their respective environments and contexts. Let's visit the 3 essential questions in light of this experience.

1. Am I planning to have an impact that lasts for 500 years?
Aside from the given of impacting the missionary kids, our interaction with the missionary families had a huge impact as well. I know all of our team was affected by hanging around the crazies - the ones that are brave and daring enough to leave everything behind to live in a foreign culture so that Jesus would be proclaimed. Like most missionary families I meet, in some ways they are normal and just like us. In other ways, they aren't normal at all. Living a life of intentionality is not commonplace. The members of this team saw Europe's need, spent quality time with families interacting about God's mission in the world and continue to envision a different future for themselves - and for mankind.

2. Can both host and teams trust each other because we are partners?
Our initial contact with CAI was through a GCC family that eventually ended up on the mission field serving with CAI. So based on that context, we already had somewhat of a partnership from an organizational [church:mission agency] level but not personal. Of course, that partnership deepened to the personal level as we prepared. The culmination of that partnership was a week of kids program that ran extremely well in both the logistics and overall ethos of the week. One other thing worth noting - SPACE and CAI share a lot of the same values - experimentation, personal leadership development and risky innovation.

3. How will I engage the culture?
The difference between American and European culture is not great. In addition to the similarities, staying in a hotel that was very American with a lot of other Americans made engaging with the culture more difficult. Out team made the most of non conference times, such as time before and after the conference in Vienna and Munich and a morning touring the city of Sopron [where our hotel was located], which provided some observations in culture. This experience required a bit more ingenuity when it came to making sure our team engaged context and culture.

Photos: Team reflection, Vienna, by RobynB; the fire tower, Sopron, Hungary, by ErinOB.

Orbiters at Work

Goodwin's expectation principle: "A potential leader tends to rise to the level of genuine expectancy of a leader he or she respects." via Bobby Clinton.

Whether interns respect me or not, I have the highest expectations for them. Knowing what they know and having experienced what they have experienced, their responsibility, impact and influence on the nations is limitless.



EllyK was the perfect person to spend one-on-one time with Nast, a three year old adopted girl who only spoke Russian. Any time there was the threat of having to be around only English speakers, she freaked and went into meltdown mode. EllyK - empathy - spent hours rebuilding and reshaping, creating safety and connection - ideation - distractions via swings, bubbles and walks in the woods.

In it's most desperate hour, the world needs you.

Photos: 2007-2008 Orbiters TriciaB and EllyK.

Hungary Images

Placeholder post for images.

Hungary and Me

Like the past summer SPACE teams I have led, this experience was majorly impactful as well. I feel like I'm continuing to learn about myself, leadership and the world that God has called us to help serve. This summer was no different - I'm a different person because I went. And like every summer, what a privilege.

Here are some personal highlights:
:: The Fam
Having my family on the team was definitely a different dynamic. Most apparent was just needing to give some attention and time to D and the girls - not a bad thing at all. We did a stellar job in the selection and identification phase for this leader team and they were awesome, especially when I needed to bail a little bit - like the evening in Munich. And each one of the team members really just loved my family so much during the week, which was awesome for me to see. My fam was truly a part of the team, not just along for the ride.

There were certainly times I did feel the pressure between leading the team and being a husband and father, but that pressure was worth it. We all fell in love with Europe [what's not to love?], K continued to exercise her heart for others, and Em's first missional experience was in the context of serving those who serve. And of course, D was a glue that held both our family and the team together in so many ways. I believe, like we hoped when we planned this, that this experience was a milestone in our girls' lives.

:: Europe and CAI
I continue to be astounded at Europe's need and continue to have the highest admiration for families that leave everything behind to see humanity rescued. Like previous years, connecting with these kinds of families has been a great experience. CAI seems like a great community and many of their values resonate with me, most specifically - empowerment, experimentation and the development of leadership. If Europe is on your mind, you should check CAI out. And all the families made a huge impact on us. We know we were there to serve them, but their hospitality, openness, honesty and willingness to share their experiences with us was a profound blessing.

:: Sending
I think this team of students may do it. It's always hard to compare teams and trips, but I see a glimmer in the eyes of these students that I have not seen in others. A glimmer and shine that reflects both the world in need and the light inside. Only time and their resolve will tell, but when they depart - in order to restore, renew and rescue humanity - I will be sad in the moment and ecstatic in the future.

And that is why we - you and I - do this.

Related: - D's post about the team and my photos

Song-Skit-Students

I think I mentioned before we left that our whole piece of the children's program was created by our students. Theme, craft rotations, teachings via the short dramas, all of it was their creation. Some of the actual craft assemblies were the adults but overall, it was really our students. I've never seen a team put it all together like this one.

THE BEST SONG EVER
By Tricia and Elly
To the tune of Do-Re-Mi

We are here to watch your kids
And we are really excited
We have come from Baltimore Maryland
A long long way to fly
So sit back and relax
And enjoy your time here
We are here to serve you
All fifteen of us

Deanna, the mother of Katie and Emily
Kt, she's young but mature
Em, she's bubbly and outgoing
Sven, he's lived in lots of places
Emilie, she goes to college on the west coast
Michelle, she likes to play field hockey
Lindsey, she likes to rock climb
And Trevin's really good at soccer

Tricia, at home she is a lifeguard
Elly, it's her summer job as well
Greg, he is a high school math teacher
Robyn, she takes really good pictures
Erin, she works at our church
Leslie, she's training for a marathon
Tony, the leader of us all
And we are the Hungary team!

A snippet from one of the skits, all written by RobynB.

Sven: *looks around* Okay….now that I’ve forgiven Lindsey… how do I find this treasure. *looks at kids* Do you know where the treasure is? *improvise here, going off of their reactions, just don’t find it right away. Eventually, you find the cross first, not the treasure* Hey, a cross! This is to remind me about forgiveness! *looks back at kids* What? The treasure’s over here? *finds it..* X marks the spot….*ponders* Hey! Cross marks the spot! *opens the chest….and just stares at it for a few moments* It’s not gold at all! *looks at kids* Look! *pulls things from chest, the key heart, the patch, the compass, the cross* Love…Kindness…Patience! A new compass! …And forgiveness! *holds them up, shows them to the kids, finds something else in the chest, a paper and he reads it: * Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven… *realizing* For where your treasure is…*looks up* there your heart will be also! I…I think I get it! Love, kindness, patience, forgiveness…these treasures are way better than gold!

*Everyone comes out that he’s met on his journey.*

Tricia: Hey, Pirate Sven. Did you find your treasure?

Sven: *turns excitedly* Yeah, Tricia, I did! Look! *shows her* Love!

Tricia: *laughs*

Sven: *to Elly* And, Elly, look! Kindness! Like the Good Samaritan!!

Elly: That’s great, Pirate Sven!

Sven: *to Michelle* Michelle! Patience! And Lindsey, I got a new compass! And, *holds up cross* Forgiveness! These are the real treasures, not gold!

*All four girls smile excitedly and congratulate him…*

Parrot: RAWK! Well done, Pirate Sven! You realized the treasures God wants you to have!

Sven: Polly Parrot! Thank you for all your help! This is awesome! *turns to kids* Look, mateys! I found me treasure!! Now you should search for yours! Love, kindness, patience, forgiveness! God will give you all these things! And you can give them to others! Arrrrrr, where your treasure is, there your heart will be also! *looks back at everyone else* Come on, guys! Let’s share the treasures! *they…all…go off stage happily?*

Hungary Brain Dump

absolutely no rhyme or reason to this deluge of information - except to motivate you...

:: For a global missions org like CAI, even the kids ministry team needs to be at the top of their game.
identification/selection and preparation in both ministry skills and the big picture of affecting humanity

:: Debriefing in Munich
should have listened to D
ended up at a hotel too far in the suburbs
too much travel time to get into the city and landed too late in the day
team [minus Shengri-Las] still went into downtown Munich but it was a long day
and I left my wallet on an unattended cafe table for 20 minutes in the Munich airport.

:: CAI
organic, experimental, low-hierarchy, almost solely church planting, lots of tattoos
cool, young, hip missionaries, emerging culture

:: CAI internships - Brussels
either for post high school or post college
post high school - spend 3 months in Bible college in Europe - good time to acclimate to European culture
focused on action, experimental, etc. very well thought out
team leaders were youth pastors in the US and then in Europe before CAI
about Brussels - mix of French and Flemish
150,000 people, a third are immigrants
hq of the EU

:: Worship
in the sessions brought tears to my eyes every time - i have no idea why

:: CAI process
If you are not already living intentionally, being on staff won't make a difference.
Process

:: Europe
.05% in France are evangelical
Most people that come from Perspectives are very focused on the 10/40 window and Europe gets lost.
You have made it through your first year on the field, describe it. "Brutal." - Megan

:: Leadership
Everyone can be a leader - everyone can have influence over at least one more person.
Fuller's MA in Global Leadership sounds great if you are in your twenties or thirties

:: Say What?
There was a missions org in the conference center ending their conference as ours was beginning. They were your parents missionaries... and their conference [nor any of their conferences] did not accommodate any children. Not everything that falls under the label of "Missions" is inherently good or right.

Photos: Pirate Sven and EllyK, some of the girls and TriciaB and RobynB's VBS group.

Vienna Day

Vienna Day was a pretty cool experience. Kudos to the leadership team of CAI for dreaming huge. The overall idea was to send the whole conference - kids and all - into Vienna to work with on-the-ground, local outreach and service projects.

Some of the projects included:
- taking the elderly on a stroll around the zoo [this one is my favorite]
- ad hoc soccer and basketball games in the city
- street outreach with drama and music
- cleaning up a youth center
- refurbishing an old home for the elderly
[I'm sure there are more projects, I couldn't find my list.]

From a logistics point of view, think Mission Advance*400. [MPM, you would haved loved this.] 300 people, kids care at a local church [families had the option of taking their kids on projects or leaving them at a church], team leaders all with detailed directions, public transit tickets, bag lunches for everyone, 6 coach buses, BBQ dinner at a park when it's all done, and then getting everyone back home.

Our team's original plan was for all of us to hang at the church. About a month before the conference, one of our contacts had the brilliant idea of sending us out with specific families on their projects to help with their kids - a sort of babysitter for the day. Of course, we thought it was a fantastic idea. As Vienna Day got closer, the idea got nixed. But then at the last minute, our contact pulled some strings and each one of our students go to go out.

If you gathered a group of your most intentional and missional friends for a week long party, most of them wouldn't be content to just sit around the whole time, would they? That is the essence of Vienna Day.

Photostream from the day here.

Leading with a 3 year old

TS: I'm a really good team player when I am in charge.
ES: I'm a really good team player too when you are in charge.

Our biggest issue from the Hungary experience was difficulty working with another team. Two issues were very different styles of leadership from the point leaders and differing expectations of capacity and skill between teams. Both of these aspects could only have been worked out when the teams were brought together.

The quoted exchange above is a true one, I actually said that. Realizing that teams take on the persona of their leader [no matter what kind of team], I know that some of the difficulty in working with another team could have been something that I projected. And I know that if I'm a good team player only when I'm in charge, working with me could be like working with a 3 year old. It's something I need to be keenly aware of.

In the end though, once everyone got into their groove and over their jet lag, a lot of grace was given on both sides. We also experienced the 'cause creates community' idea, since our team had a bit more to concentrate on than just trying to get along with each other and this team was one of the most cohesive that I've helped lead, probably for that very reason. All of us together - the CalifTeam, us and the two fabulous ladies from Boston - shaped and molded a fantastic environment for the kids of CAI.

Photo: A photo of some StrengthsFinder scribble. [More on this later, but CAI has a team of missional consultants from LeadershipVision that come to every conference as well as visiting specific projects to work with their teams.]

Hungary Overall Schedule

Thursday am - land in Vienna, check into Hotel Delta, meet CalifTeam, walk the promenade down the street from our hotel - need to remember to buy the girls flat water.
Thursday aft and eve - bus tour of Vienna - amazing - dinner in First District, around the corner from the opera house - girls go to opera with CalifTeam.
Friday am - our team minus the Sheng women go to Belvedere Palace before it is open, take shuttle from Vienna into Sopron, new passport stamp.
Friday pm - first kids club - spur of the moment, no real program
Sat am - kids club - same ad hoc make it up as you go
Sat aft - kids club - I snuck into one of the sessions
Sat eve - dinner with LeadershipVision guy - what the heck. If I could have a dinner like this once a year, I would be set.
Sun am - worship with preconference, and then kids club
Sun pm - first kids club with whole conference
Mon - Vienna day - amazing
Tues - Sopron with our team in the morning, kids club aft and first pirate sven in the evening.
Wed - kids all day morning aft night
Thurs - breakfast with missions pastor from CT, kids morning and after, dinner with team leaders from Brussels to talk about internship process and strucutre with CAI
Fri - kids morning, clean in aft, last sven in evening
Sat - departure in the am - land in Munich mid afternoon, team dinner in Erding and rest of the team goes into downtown Munich
Sun - home

Pre Conference Session Notes

Church Planting and Movement Making
Martin Robinson
[Notes from the one session I snuck in to]

::::
- Tear Fund research in the UK
important not to talk ourselves into insignificance
53% of UK claim to be Christians - all is not lost in Europe
- unusual situation in London [or all capital cities in Europe] - immigration
more than 50% of population is ethnic
minorities are not going away
- Christian vs. secular - not very much overlap
- Spirituality yes, church no
- consumer challenge
- challenge of youth
- churches are not connected with local communities
although ethnic churches seem to do a better job at this
- reinvention of the workplace
industrialization is coming to an end
- church plant
renewal of the church
redefinition of mainstream
experiment
ancient-future

Problems
- reproducing old models of church
- rearranging the kingdom - transfer growth is not going to do it
- movement creation - plant churches vs. plant a movement
- creation of intentional missionary movement
cultural exegesis
coaching/mentoring
spiritual direction
most church planters are isolated and lonely

Concerns
- Fresh expressions of church or mission
- mission is very hard work
- act quickly in relation to youth
- initiatives are no substitute for long term
- we've lost the skills to create viable communities of disciples [vs. members]

Key Issues
- cultural exegesis
- thought tribes [Driscoll]
- value tribes
- experience tribes
- high and popular culture - philosophy/thought and pop cultural are now deeply connected - think The Matrix and deep philosophy

- Listening
- Interpret
- Doing missional theology
- Reshaping
- Receptivity is a function of God conversations
Based on prayer and the miraculous
- Europe - there is an absence of a God-consciousness
- people of peace - Luke 10

Org Capacities
- constant relationship building - we keep people too busy
- evangelistic structures - build open communities
- discipleship capacity
- rapid mobilization
- sit light to buildings but remember sacred spaces - important to Europeans
- leadership development of the non-professional
::::

I asked the speaker the following questions [with the answers following them.]
- What is the most successful movement off the top of your head, religious or not?
The underground church in China.
- You spoke about the short window for youth in the UK. What would you do about that?
Partner with existing churches that have influence in the local, public schools. Public schools are asking for people to come in to the schools for service projects, etc.

Travel Logistics

Here is a glimpse into our travel logistics for the Hungary team. Thankfully, not all of this was something I had to plan and confirm.

private cars : Columbia to Dulles airport
air : Dulles to Vienna Austria
shuttle bus : Vienna Austria airport to Vienna Austria hotel
shuttle bus : Vienna Austria airport to Sopron Hungary
shuttle bus : Sopron Hungary to Vienna church for Vienna day
public tram, subway, bus : teams travel in Vienna Austria during Vienna day
shuttle bus : Vienna Austria to Sopron Hungary
shuttle bus : Sopron Hungary to Vienna Austria airport
air : Vienna Austria to Munich Germany
shuttle bus : Munich Germany airport to Erdin Germany hotel
public bus : Erdin Germany hotel to train station
public train : train station to downtown Munich
taxi : train station to hotel
shuttle bus : hotel to Munich airport
air : Munich Germany to Dulles
private cars : Dulles to Columbia

The Gospel moves...

Photo: Our team either arriving or leaving...Hotel Delta, Vienna, Austria.

Ah Home

Fantastic trip. Will tell you more about it this week. Thanks to those of you that were following along and praying via the blog.

Conference Over

The conference officially ended tonight. Like any last night on a mission trip, emotions are high and the team is proud of the work they did here. They and you, certainly have a right to be proud - they went out of their way to serve and bless.

Tomorrow is a quick hop to Munich, debriefing there and spending the night. Sunday we fly home to the US. All in all, it's been a very positive experience. Probably no updates until we get home and then I have a lot of processing to do.

Friday morning

One full day left. We depart for Vienna Saturday morning at 9. Kids VBS this morning, clean up pack this afternoon, and one more Pirate Sven this evening. The team is still doing amazingly well. Michelle is totally back in the groove.

TriciaB is looking over my shoulder and says hi.