Welcoming back Shannon

Shannon is on the left here and we had a little Ember contingent welcome her back from Arizona as we planned for a little leadership outing. By all accounts, her time with Amadeo was incredible. She hugely blessed their community and her time there was significant in her journey as well. Every person we have sent there has had a similar experience.

During her welcome back, we had her walk through a few simple decompression exercises that we've used with great success:
+ your trip summarized on a 3x5 index card.
+ your trip summarized in 20 seconds, 2 minutes, and 20 minutes [this one is just an outline]
+ a list of people you met and want to continue to remember, and why.
Great fun for me was hearing some of our guides suggest the 3rd one when I didn't exactly have one more planned - they get it!

Shannon's holy discontent has become more clarified from her time at Amadeo - to build discipling cultures. Watch this one...

"When I was in high school, just a few months ago…"

This is Shannon Linden, on the platform at Amadeo Church, outside of Phoenix, where she taught last Sunday during all 3 morning services. For those of you that might not know, Ben Cloud started Amadeo 9 years ago. Prior to that, he was a youth pastor that was an expert and hosting and sending students from and to the ends of the earth when I met him and I'm proud to say that we met each other on the Internet. The Ember Cast has partnered with Amadeo multiple times and we were thrilled that Shannon engaged with Amadeo for a gap semester experience.

Some of you might cringe at the thought of an eighteen year old teaching on a Sunday morning. Others of you might disagree with having a female in the front. Still others might despise both facts. This post [or blog for that matter] is not for you.

Shannon was one of our ProtoGuides last year and she's got a fantastic heart for the future of the Church and an iron will and commitment that helps keep her moving in Kingdom directions. We are thrilled at her direction and trajectory - the Kingdom will be rich because of her efforts over a lifetime. Ember will continue to resource Shannon the best that we can, like many of the emerging global leaders that we work with.

I'm infinitely grateful for places like Amadeo and leaders like Ben Cloud. Communities that host young people like this are rare. It is not an easy task to host a young person for a season, give them solid teaching and modeling about discipleship, putting them to work in significant and meaningful venues, and letting them stretch and contribute to your local and global efforts. Opening your pulpit to them is unheard of. At press time, you can find her talk on the sidebar on the right of this page.

We love you Amadeo Church. Thanks for taking such good care of Shannon and throwing fire with her.

Update: Here is the permalink to the message.

ProtoGuide to AZ

In 2013, Ember helped facilitate a student team from Grace, our home church, to serve and work with Amadeo Church, in Queen Creek, AZ. Amadeo's lead pastor Ben Cloud was one of my first missions friends that I met on the Internet in 2005 and this team happened to be an amazing collection of all girls.

Two years later, I'm delighted to tell you that one of those team members, Shannon Linden, is going to spend a few months serving with Amadeo in a gap semester, starting this coming September. Shannon graduates from high school in a few weeks and has a heart for service, community impact and church planting. She's also been one of our ProtoGuides this year and we have absolutely loved working with her.

The Ember Cast exist to help these kinds of relationships and experiences flourish. Combine passionate emerging global student leaders with the most adventurous, innovative and creative leaders that we know and you will get why we do what we do - we throw fire.