The New Conspirators - What's Best?

Christian parents want what's best for their kids. No problem there. However, because of the huge influence of modern culture, most parents tend to define "what's best" primarily in economic terms. As we have worked on college campuses, the number-one barrier students report that restraints them from going into missions, believe it or not, is their Christian parents. The message is, "I did not spend $80 thousand on your education for you to head off to a refugee project in Ethiopia. You get your career under way, buy your home, your car, start investing in retirement accounts, and then after you are established, you can visit mission projects in Africa during your vacation."- Tom Sine, The New Conspirators

Certainly, this is what I did. But that doesn't mean that is what you should do. Just don't bring up my name when you talk to your parents about it.

Fast becoming a book that I will start recommending to most SPACE people, The New Conspirators covers concepts such as missional, monastic, mosaic, and emerging communities of faith; the impact of various stratas of economic classes; indigenous, sustainable and holistic ministry; technology; the global poor; global cultures - all wrapped around mission in the future. Sounds good huh?

SPACE Archives - Leadership Survey - Summer 2003

From the pre SPACE archives, circa 2003.

Results from a leadership survey [from Kouzes and Posner - some of the best leadership material out there - if you can take some of their surveys in working teams, do it] at job 1.2.

Looking at the bottom 10 least frequent behaviors [the ones for improvement...] - either my Futuristic StrengthsFinder results are way off base or I was REALLY imagining my future somewhere else. You decide.

Planning for Mission Advance 08

We are starting to put the plans together for Mission Advance 2008, while we make sure the Silent Auction gets executed well. Mission Advance [our all team pre-field preparation weekend] is probably one of my absolute favorite ideas about SPACE ever. It's a ton of work and we are totally fried at the end of it, but it's probably the best thing we do in relation to effort to result. Our efforts result in strong teams and strong teams result in a positive impact on the field, good connection with hosts and students that know how to work with others while living in different culture and doing things they have never done before. Those results are worth the effort.

Mission Advance has been very dynamic for the past few years. 2006 was our first year when we took all the teams to the beach for the weekend, because we had some extra money in the budget from the year before. 2007 found us more local and able to serve with a local service project with one of our SPACE friends, Colleen. That year, we also tried a talent stage on Friday evening to engage broader parts of the community. This year will find us local again and MPM is running point with a different kind of element for Friday night.

We've got a lot more help on the logistics side this year too, which is a huge, huge relief. One of our great SPACE parents is running point for food, which is going to be a great project. And you know teenagers - they like to eat.

The various elements include:
- a session doing team initiatives and with some lessons on team work.
- various workshops with seasoned mission team leaders.
- a community impact project.
- spending a little over 24 hours with your team.
- sometime worshiping together as a community and blessing each other's teams.

Like every year, it's going to take a lot of work, but be well worth it.

SPACE Archives - Decompression - Summer 1993

I've been digging through lots of good stuff and lots of junk that have collected in the international office for the past few years. Expect more fun stuff from the SPACE archives.

In this case, a pre-SPACE scanned document from one of my mentors in 1993 about a structured decompression. We successfully used quite a few of those upon returning with my team from the Dominican Republic in the summer of 1993. As always, use what you want.

Do You Have a Webcam?

Meet Hungary Leader - Leslie

Leslie has traveled with me every summer since SPACE's inception. Our first summer together was in NYC when, still as a high school student, she got to see the global mix of cultures that is New York, as well as see LL Cool J live in concert. Since then she has seen a lot of the world and it’s been our joy to continue to send her to places we aren’t able to go to. Yesterday, she finished a Discipleship Training School that included San Francisco, Turkey and Italy and is now getting ready to move into the old international SPACE office to spend the summer with our family while working here in Howard County.

She's an intellecting, high-achieving, empathetic, developer - meaning she’s going to dream up really sensitive ways to grow our team members, making sure the plans are well thought out and are sure to get done. Don’t be scared if you are on the receiving end of this – I’m very much looking forward to watching her share her life and what she has done in the past few months with the team.

She’s got a heart for Europe and the Hungary trip this summer will continue to forge the desire for those that haven’t yet heard. Our best odds [yours and mine] are to send someone like Leslie far and away when we can, so she can create more people like her.

Leslie has led on Brasil2005, Cameroon2006, and Hungary2007.

Photo: Leslie [on the right] in front of Aya Sofia, Istanbul, Turkey, April 2008.

2008 Funding

Our funding is absolutely our biggest challenge this year. Growth in the sizes and quantities of our teams means higher levels of support [we are seeing about a 20% growth in the number of students and leaders]. In addition to numerical growth, we have three overseas teams - the most we have ever had in a summer. In combination with the global food crisis, the decline of the dollar versus the euro and the cost of fuel, we've got some significant challenges. All in all, a best picture budget is about $170,000 to fund all these teams. Believe me, I know it's an insane amount of money. We have been very careful to ask our 3 essential questions for each team for this summer.

The rational tells us that the odds are against us. Instead, I like this quote from Neil Cole via

"He will not place the order and then not pay the bill."

[Lots of interesting topics covered in the comments like tentmakers, bi-vocational pastors, full time ministry, etc.]

We really do believe that God has led us to these partnerships and teams this summer and that He has gone before us preparing hearts and setting environments for our teams to make an impact.

Besides the standard mission support letter to well connected people that would love to support those students, teams are being ultra-creative for fundraising this year. These include hosting restaurant nights, bake sales, car window washes, supporting a marathon. But by far, our newest fare into the unknown is hosting a silent auction - where local business can donate items to be auctioned off for the benefit of SPACE teams. We are combining the actual evening of the auction with an ice cream social and it's our attempt to engage a larger community that might be interested in supporting SPACE. If you are in the area, we would love to see you for ice cream and perhaps there might be an item or service you might be interested in bidding on. We've also posted all the items up for bid on this site here.

Oh. And we are praying. Like mad. And we would love you to pray like mad with us too. That would be really cool.

What The World Eats Followup

Many of you probably saw the original "What The World Eats." Here is an interesting follow up Q&A with the authors via Freakonomics.

Global tidbits include:

+ Mongolia is more urban now than rural.

+ Q If you were president, what one step would you take/ policy would you implement to help resolve the global food crisis?
...if one of us were president, the biggest changes we would make regarding food and nutrition would be to reform farm subsidies in the U.S., and to send cash to pay for world food aid grown by growers nearer to the areas that need it rather than send food grown in the United States.

+Q: Is Coca-Cola really as globally pervasive as people say?
A: Sure it is; Coca-Cola is everywhere, and Pepsi is nearly as far-reaching.
It's almost refreshing to be in countries that serve the Arab cola alternatives. People in Mexico drink the most Coke - the country has the highest per capita consumption of Coca-Cola in the world.

Somewhere along the lines someone told me that the Gospel goes as Coke goes but I haven't been able to find any anecdotal evidence of that.

Dear SPACE Parents

Here is an email letter followup I sent out to all of our SPACE parents after we hosted a quick parents meeting last Sunday. Some of you might be interested if you deal with students, parents, mission teams, budgets... ok enough...

HI SPACE parents,

Thanks to those of you that were in attendance at our parents meeting on Sunday. Here is a quick recap of the information I went over. Feel free to pass this on to those I may have missed.

+ Summer Team Leaders
I'm overjoyed to tell you that our summer team leaders have a retention rate of 85% this summer - meaning that 85% of team leaders have been either a leader or participant on a previous SPACE experience. We know that the more experience our leaders have with global cultures, working with students and serving in different contexts, the stronger our teams will be. Choosing team leaders is the most intentional decision we make, based on strengths, fit and experience.

+ Support Status
Current Support as of 5/15/2008
Baltimore – XX/3600 – 2%
NOLA – 5500/14000 – 50%
England – 200/28000 – 2.5%
Cameroon – 4000/51200 – 10%
Hungary – 20334/71500 – 30%
Total budget – 34,603/170,000 – 20% [estimated budget - will fluctuate once teams hit the field and there is a significant amount of support letters that have just gone out in the mail...]

This is our most ambitious summer with more students involved in teams than ever and a larger budget due to 3 overseas teams, cost of oil, 2 teams to Europe and the global food crisis. We know that the only way these teams are viable is if God provides so we are all praying for support. Team leaders are challenging and encouraging the students to pray for support - it would be fun for you to do that with your kids too.

As an effort to engage a broader community, SPACE is hosting a Silent Auction/Ice Cream social. Products or services can be donated to SPACE to help raise support. If you know a local business that might be interested in donating, please let me know. We could also use help that evening and could use items for a bake sale if you are interested.

Friday June 6th
Maryland Piano Studio
6pm - 8pm
Website for donations: http://space2008auctions.blogspot.com
Directions

+ Mission Advance
Mission Advance is our weekend where all the summer teams come together for team building, mission trip workshops and a community service project. Mission Advance starts Friday June 20 at 7pm and ends Saturday June 21 at 8pm and will be using the Warehouse as a base of operations. We could use help from parents for food for the
weekend, including donations, setup, etc. VK is coordinator for that effort - contact her if you are interested in helping. Our goal for the weekend is to
architect an environment where teams grow, get to know each other better and serve together all in an effort to ensure that they hit the field as strong as possible.

I know thats a long email. To summarize:
- Know a business that can donate a product or service for a SPACE silent auction? Let me know. We would love to see you there - feel free to pass the event info on to anyone else that might be interested in getting to know SPACE a little better.
- Interested in helping provide some food for Mission Advance? Let VK know.

Thanks to each of you for being willing to send your students out this summer. We do this because we are convinced that your kids will mark human history. Our job is to help them do it.

- tony sheng
http://tonytsheng.blogspot.com

Hosting Cameroon

This is SPACE's good friend PT and I. He is the country director for Cameroon for The Navigators and a good friend of the Nens and served as one of our team's hosts when we were there in 2006. The term "host" is a large understatement given American's idea of host versus Cameroonian's idea of host. But our team will find that out this coming summer. He was in town recently and met with our 2008 team, giving them a little bit of an overview of the culture and environment they will find themselves in this summer.

In 2006, our team helped start the first ever high school Navigator small groups in Yaounde, the capital city, ever. Keyword - ever. The big deal is not about our team, but about helping start specific environments for students to gather, connect, have fun and transform into something more. It's really fun for me to tell you that the majority of those groups are still meeting today.

This summer's team is also going to start something new. The Navigators run a country wide conference every summer and there has never been a great opportunity for all families to come - mainly due to the lack of a kids program. So our team is going to run that, allowing husbands and wives to attend sessions together. Like in 2006, the service this team does is going to last for a while.

If you are going to go to Africa, this is a great way to go. A host family that used to live where you live and understands all the cultural adjustments; a committed and top notch, indigenous, local ministry team on the ground; and great opportunities to ignite and pass on relationships and opportunities for the long term. Hosts that we trust, a solid indigenous team, and catalytic opportunities - these are all elements that make long term impact truly viable.

Meet Hungary Leader - RachelJ

I'm going to spend the next few Fridays introducing you to our Hungary leaders. In 500 years, you'll say I told you so.

Meet RachelJ.
Rachel is our newest SPACE friend, literally. We met her this past January when she came to the area to hang out with her college roommate, ESunde. Most of the SPACE peeps connected immediately and we decided to give her a formal invitation to the Hungary lead team because we saw intention, a servant's heart and a love of adventure and the unknown. [Read how our invitation and her acceptance was confirmed too.]

She represents a few experimental questions, such as:
+ How can a brand new leader to SPACE contribute to leadership movement right from the start?
+ How can we maximize initial trip travel time to get Rachel well connected to the rest of the team?
+ Will Rachel's northwest network help expand SPACE and how we serve students and youthworkers?

Rachel's got leadership experience in Mexico and Honduras, having been on a few mission trips with her home church in Washington State. She's a strong developer through and through, meaning that it won't be hard for her to think of new and fun exciting projects for team members whether she knows that them well or not.

Photo: Rachel in NYC - Winter Expedition 2008.

Wednesday RocketFuel

::: Gladwell on invention and innovation [a must read]
visiting topics such as :
+ the puzzling phenomenon of soldiers in Iraq who survive a bomb blast only to die a few days later of a stroke. Some think it's a shock wave, penetrating the soldiers' helmets and surging through their brains.

+ you can track moving things by counting wing beats. So you could build a mosquito fence and clear an entire area. [say for malaria]

+ stopping hurricanes - the waves in the ocean have energy, and you use that to lower the temperature differential.

+ what if you slid a tiny filter into a blood vessel of a cancer patient? "You don't have to intercept very much of the blood for it to work," Wood went on. "Maybe one ten-thousandth of it.
Link via kottke


::: Lifechurch.tv, Granger Community Church and the church planting piece of OnePrayer
Funding 500 church plants in 4 countries in one weekend.
Link


::: What 100,000 people means in US terms.
Link
By the way:
Baltimore - 651,154
Washington DC - 588,292

TSheng's txting fun

SPACE's customers

Long time readers know that every few months I go sit in on a Missions Task Force [MTF] meeting, the body of people charged with all missions all the time at Grace. One of the unique things about SPACE is that we have very tight integration with the MTF - they are constantly in the loop as we dream, plan and execute. Prime example - since this particular summer has some ridiculously audacious support goals, they were our last milestone sounding board before we pulled the trigger for our teams.

Every meeting with them is so affirming, I always say that they are SPACE's biggest fans. But in a weird way, they are also SPACE's best customers. We deliver to them - just like parents, students, and our partners around the world - a way to make the future different. And they receive our "product" with open arms, always saying, "We want more."

It reminds me a recent Seth Godin quote, "Your best customers are worth far more than your average customers."

Thinking About Disaster Relief

No doubt, a lot of us have been monitoring the Myanmar situation. In general, I've got mixed feelings about disaster relief. Within my circles, I know lots of people that would drop everything to be part of the rescue. That's really admirable, passion like that is contagious and we are called to be a part of rescuing humanity. On the flip side, disaster relief is so complex, I have to think that unless you have some really specific training and expertise, you are just going to be in the way. Passion is great, but it doesn't replace understanding what needs to happen in a situation like Myanmar or Katrina or the tsunami - safe disposal of the bodies, water treatment, reconstruction, distribution of food and water, grief and stress counseling. This also requires understanding the macro picture of this situation - resource poor localities, a very different form of government, the context of people related to the ladder of economic development. Of course, these lists can go on and on.

In other words, I would probably advocate only the well trained go into a situation like that, while the rest of us who are passionate about mankind continue to pray, watch and send - specifically sending the right people. But what I'm also saying is that if you feel yourself drawn towards situations like this, go get some experience. Buy a water filter and figure out how to use it. Take a class in post traumatic stress. Invent large scale logistical problems with your friends for fun and profit. Get a degree in international development or medicine. Then the next time, and there certainly will be a next time, go with the confidence that you've got something that will really help.

Some current resources with regard to Myanmar:
Comments on where to give at TallSkinnyKiwi
Rudy on WorldVision, where he serves as a board member. [Rudy also hosted our SPACE 2006 LA team.]
Joel Vestal from ServLife

Mothers Day 2008

Happy Mothers Day D. Love.

Rotating Headers

This blog now has rotating headers. I can't tell you how fun that is for me. It might be fun for you too. F5 to see some of your favorite SPACE teams. Yet another moment of nerdery.

Here is the collection of them all.

Nice and Little

I want two things that are mutually opposed - I want to live a nice little life, and I want to play an important role in God's kingdom.- John Eldredge, Walking with God

Small World or...

The Seattle pair of ESunde and RachelJ and I had another Skype video chat this evening. This time their webcam worked - lots of fun.

Some of you remember reading about RachelJ, who is roommates with ESunde. She came out during the winter and hung out with some SPACE peeps, including traveling to NYC with us. Being a great fit, we invited her to help lead on the Hungary team. Of course, it was quite a decision for her, deciding whether she would connect with a team on the other side of the country and all that.

Shortly after she made a commitment, she lined up a job as a nanny for this coming summer. And wouldn't you know it, the family she is working for spent a year living in .... Sopron, Hungary.

Small world or God moving into human history?

SPACE Core Score - Summer 2008

From Marcus Buckingham:

+ What Is Our Core Score?
By zeroing in on one core score leaders brought clarity to their people.
Ideally, this score will be a leading indicator of success, such as employee engagement or employee safety or crime, rather than a trailing indicator, such as sales or profit or tax revenues, but from the perspective of your followers, what matters most is that it's clear.

One of the metrics SPACE measures is how many leaders are returning to SPACE. If they have participated in a previous SPACE experience - either as a leader or student, it is scored. It matters because the more expertise, experience and context our summer team leaders have, the better the odds of their success. Our choices in leadership are about the most intentional thing we do and it's a choice we make matter.

Here is that particular core score for this summer's leader teams.
: Baltimore - 5 out of 6 == 83%
: Cameroon - 5 out of 5 == 100%
: Hungary - 6 out of 8 == 75%
: NOLA - 6 out of 9 == 66%
: England - 5 out of 6 == 83%
+ Total - 29/34 - 85%

Compare this to the score from Summer 2007 -- 65%

Who Does What

A lot of leadership is observation. Who does what, when do they do it and why do they do it? When you leave the team to figure out something on their own, who takes charge, speaks up, organizes the rest. And who sits back and keeps quiet? And why? When your own seven year old falls down and needs some help, who picks her up and carries her the rest of the way home? And why?

Of course, the next step for you as a leader is to engage them at the next level. How can you make their experience move them to the next step of initiative, influence and impact?

2008 Hungary #3

We had our third formal Hungary 2008 team meeting this past weekend. This particular all-day event included the following parts:
- Blind Volleyball - We went down to the park in my neighborhood and played blind volleyball for about 15 minutes. Blind volleyball is when there is a tarp or something laying over the net so you can't see the other team. The overall idea was to get them to understand that this summer, and some of life, is moving and acting when you don't have all of the information. Even though you can't see what's coming next clearly, you still have to move. Get used to it, friends.
- Program Development - At this stage, we are still very much in the midst of ideation as the program pieces develop. So far, we have a big idea theme along with team breakouts to develop specific pieces as much as we can. These breakouts include a teaching team, a skit/video team, crafts and opening and closing ceremonies. Similar to last year, most of the elements have been developed by the students on the team - we have given it to them and they have run with it. It's going to be pretty amazing.
- Lunch
- Window Wash Fundraiser - we did a fundraiser where we washed windows at a gas station. If people wanted to donate, they could but we made sure we told them they certainly didn't have to. Lots of fun conversations and people encouraging our team. We raised a nice bit of support.

Related:
Hungary 2007 - Meeting #3
Cameroon 2006 - Meeting #3
Brasil 2005 - Meeting #3

Friday RocketFuel

::: Thinking about the Peace Corps?
Two insightful articles about culture, sustainability and impact related to the Peace Corps.
1
2
Interesting anecdote, one of my friends says his experience is that a lot of Peace Corps people finish out their careers as lawyers.


::: A Daily Big Idea
Some of the recent ones:

The rise of social networks has cheapened what it means to be "friends" with someone.
All innovation is fueled by the theft of intellectual property.
An entrepreneurial environment is the best way to foster high performance.

Link from Fast Company.


::: Making the World Human Again
Alex McManus's new book. Preorder here.

Lying to Myself

This is about the time of year where part of me tries to convince the whole of me to give it a rest. To shut it down, walk away, finalize the experiment to see how self sustaining it really is. To see what would happen to SPACE if I were to take a sabbatical. I use the word sabbatical because it implies taking a pause and then coming back. But that part of me is lying. Once it convinces me to leave, it's a done deal.

This certainly was the case last year - after a very busy Spring and early summer of initiating and launching teams and a fabulous weekend of Mission Advance, I told myself I was done. And then the ridiculous happened - I visited our at-that-time freshmen team working with Chain Reaction in Baltimore. And the part of me that was trying to do the convincing gave up, right then and there. I saw hope. I saw purpose. I saw the future. And I decided we weren't done yet.

I don't think you should feel like your SPACE team has the overdramatic responsibility for the future of me. That would be just silly. Like most people, I go through waves of certainty and uncertainty, low risk and high risk, loud and quiet. Those waves are anchored by the truth of who Jesus is my life and what kind of God uses people like me. But, your SPACE team certainly has the not-so-overdramatic responsibility for the future of humanity.

That's how to not to lie to yourself.

Photo: Last summer's SPACE 2007 Baltimore team.

What Time Is It There?

Pulling teams of high school kids together in disturbia is hard enough. Right now, I've got three leaders spread across multiple time zones. I haven't seen one of them since January. But they are doing it - living life while dropping in to culture after culture, blessing and serving those close and far away from home. Technology now allows us to stay in touch, even when we have sent them to where they need to be.

Photo: Skype chat with ESunde and RachelJ. [Their video wasn't working...]

Tony Campolo and Macro Economics

Jeremy gave me a copy of Deep Justice in a Broken World and I've been skimming it. Full review and notes coming soon. In the meantime, from Tony Campolo...

I think youth pastors are sometimes afraid and unable to recognize that there needs to be structural change in order for there to be social justice. It's not enough to work on the micro level. When youth ministers go to a third-world country, it is important for them to see the ways the political, social and economic structures on the macro level create and maintain poverty.

And

I find most youth workers haven't a clue as to what macro economics are all about, and how macro economic factors create the poverty in third-world countries. They don't understand why third-world peoples are angry with Americans.

And

Point blank, I'm not impressed with youth workers. I find that just like teenagers, they don't know what is going on in the world. Youth ministry is far too often a matter of fun and games. When I go to youth ministry conferences, I sometimes get depressed because I find that youth workers are primarily interested in techniques. They seldom want to deal with the issues. They often evade the hard-nosed facts of what's going on in the world.
As a matter of fact, I think MTV may do more to help kids become sensitive to the needs of the world than youth workers. If you're asking me who is who is more likely turning young people on to poverty issues, I'll have to say it's Bono of U2 rather than youth workers. Youth workers are pressurized into maximizing big turn outs at the youth gatherings at their churches, and that doesn't usually come by making kids sensitive to the needs of the poor and the oppressed. That's a very sad thing, indeed.

+ Reading The End of Poverty [notes] was the first thing that ever exposed me to economic structures and how they impact poverty.
+ Does this validate my fascination with MTV?
+ Even though he doesn't mean it, I think he's saying something about the system of youth ministry too.
+ If you are a youth worker, what do you think?

World Malaria Day 2008

Today is World Malaria Day. If you are a long time reader, you know that this blog has talked about malaria a bunch of times before and you already know that it is a global issue that is totally preventable with the right kind of investment.

I'll quote Jeffrey Sachs once again:

300 million sleeping sites in Africa that need protection from malaria
anti-malaria bed net costs $5 and last five years - $1 a year
multiple kids sleep under one
total investment - $1.5B for 5 years
the most amazing bargain of our time

Two ways to make a difference right now:

+1 United Nations Foundation - http://www.nothingbutnets.net
+2 Compassion and Youth Specialties - http://biteback.net

One of the tenets of this blog is to motivate you to do something and it would be fun that if you are a part of SPACE and feel compelled enough about this issue, that you give to one of those movements linked above. It's $10 meaning that you could forgo the movies once this weekend. And in light of all the support raising you are involved in right now for your summer teams, it's a little counterintuitive. But that's the Gospel, right. If you give, leave a comment.

300 million sleeping sites. minus what SPACE does.

Oh and thinking about a career in the biological sciences? How about becoming an expert in malaria?

Europe - Death and Resurrection

From the newsletter of Jeff Fountain, director of YWAM Europe - referring to Philip Jenkins' God's Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe's Religious Crisis:

::: A persistent undercurrent of spirituality remains among old-stock Europeans, expressed in 'surprisingly medieval forms of devotion' such as pilgrimage, which is enjoying widespread revival as a spiritual exercise. Devotion among youth is evidenced by the 100,000 youth visiting Taizé each summer, the one million attending World Youth Day in Cologne in 2005, and engagement in many new movements both Catholic and Protestant including Focolare, the Alpha movement, ProChrist, the Thomas Mass for contemporary 'doubters', Soul Survivor... and on the list goes.

::: Immigration into Europe is usually associated with Islam, but many immigrants are Christians, a major factor in the shape of tomorrow's Christianity. Not only will the high birth rate among the rapidly-expanding immigrant churches boost the Christian figures, but these new Europeans are turning Catholic, protestant and charismatic-Pentecostal churches into centres of vibrant and colourful worship and witness. Of Britain's ten largest churches, four are pastored by Africans. Europe's largest church, in Kiev, is pastored by a Nigerian.

::: In short, Islam's encounter with Europe is likely to create an ever-more adaptable form of faith that can cope with social change without compromising basic beliefs. At the same time, and contrary to expectation, Christianity is surviving amid 'Eurosecularity' and could well emerge stronger for the challenge.

::: [Phillip] Jenkins suggest that perhaps the best indicator that Christianity is
about to revive is a widespread conviction that the religion is doomed or in its closing days. After all, he reminds his readers, the Christian faith is all about death and resurrection. The quote heading the last chapter reads: "If you are the type of person who buys stocks and bonds, I'd buy Christianity. The price now is very low... it has to go up."

For more [although this issue isn't online yet] see http://www.ywam.eu/weeklyword/2008/

Better Than Reform School

One guiding principle for SPACE summer experiences is that they are not meant [in the wise words of a well-seasoned mission pastor I heard one time] to be reform school. Meaning, we expect a certain baseline of maturity and growth for the students that are involved on our teams. That isn't to say that everyone has to be perfect, but it's not summer camp and we aren't a babysitting service. Along with a lot of praying and listening, we use student applications, small group leader opinions and employer/teacher references to make what are sometimes very difficult decisions with regard to who is in and who is not.

There are certain times when we will take on a student even though there might be some small issues - it's a bit of risk on the part of the team leadership [like the whole trip has 0 element of risk in it..] And in these cases, we explicitly raise our expectations, because sometimes, you get what you expect. We have the resources, the context and the determination to work deeper with these specific students. Most of our team leaders are student small group leaders who work with these kids every week during the school year. They see them in their home culture and have deep ties with them, many of them lasting most of the high school years. And these leaders desire the very best for their students and willingly sacrifice for them.

Most recently, I've come alongside a few leader teams that went out of their way to work with some particular students. On the surface, it means putting together a very informal growth path and executing that plan within the relationship. As opposed to a one-sided-measure-up-or-else ultimatum, this requires a commitment from both parties - the leader team and the student. The leaders commit something to the student - let us help you grow. And the student commits to the leaders - I will try my best. All with multi-faceted contexts - a summer team, a leader-student relationship, and a youth ministry.

This is why SPACE is a component of a local youth ministry.

[Side note: Find someone with a Developer Strengths Finder theme to help you with this. It is why they exist. This summer, around 50% of our leaders have this theme.]

Tuesday RocketFuel

::: Coaching Convictions
+ People are more like Acorns, not Empty Buckets.
view people as full of God-given potential, rather than as empty buckets waiting to be filled.
+ Discovery learning, not merely "downloading information," leads to genuine growth.
+ Statistics show that 70% of the time, the solution for an issue is within the person we are developing. They don't need someone to give an answer, they need help in discovering what God has already put into them.
Link to Simply Coaching [PDF] via Steve Addison


::: Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone
Link


::: BioFuels and The World's Poor
World cereal stocks are at an all-time low, food-aid programmes have run out of money and millions face starvation. Yet wealthy countries persist with plans to use grain for petrol.
Link

Hungary Mid April Update

We had another fun meeting with the 2008 Hungary team this afternoon. Really amazing team - so talented, energetic and ready to serve. Here are a few highlights of where this team is at currently:

- Finances : About 10%
- Program : We have outlined the overall theme of the kids program. We have also identified specific elements and how they will fit together. The next step is putting some of that on paper [for example: what crafts for what days/video storyline on this day to fit with this topic, etc.]
- Travel : With 26 people, it's going to be interesting. But we have our initial lodging in Vienna booked - Vienna City Hostel.
- Various : Sending invitations to the CAI kids in advance possibly, a few souvenirs for them to take home, working on some team fundraisers like window washing and a restaurant night and our all SPACE silent auction
- I'm also working with each of the adult leaders on some bigger picture things - either helping to prepare and expand SPACE for the future and/or making some serious investments in this particular team. This is a big difference from last year and although last year's team was great, I'm much more intentional about this element for this coming summer. Tell you more about that later too, but this is one of the parts that I love.
- The biggest challenge I'm running into this summer, with this team and all of our teams, is empowering others. Giving permission and authority to others doesn't ever seem to get any easier, but you don't have a choice.

Photo: 23 of the 26 members on Hungary 2008.

Decompressing a Vacation

Well, we had a phenomenal time in Key West, it was really a lot of fun and a nice break. D's got the whole travelogue here.

In random order...
- there are 42 bridges from Key Largo to Key West.
- in real life, the blue water looks just like it does in the movies.
- people in Miami are more into cars than I expected or knew.
- a one bedroom apartment in downtown Key West costs ~$1800 a month to rent.
- Google shows 196 churches in Key West for 25,478 people. About 130 people per church.
- Key West is 90 miles from Cuba.

Key West Action Shots

[RSS readers, click to see the pictures on the actual post.]

Supporting SPACE

Of course, every summer, we have a huge number of people that support our summer teams. None of these teams are viable without friends, family, and partners within our networks that pray for and financially support our teams.

This year, in order to make it a bit easier for those that feel led to help with finances, we have two methods for electronic giving. The first is via a PayPal account. If you give this way, it comes to our direct account - therefore this is not tax deductible. Click on the "Donate" button, which will take you to PayPal information for our personal account.

The second way is to give via our the electronic giving vendor that our church uses. Click the icon to give to one of our SPACE teams, which will take you to eGive's page for donations to Grace Community Church. After entering the appropriate donor and bank information, fill in the amount for "Short Term Missions" and specify for "SPACE Hungary - Shengs". Or you can give to any of our other teams :
2008 - Baltimore
2008 - Cameroon
2008 - England
2008 - NYC
Just fill in the appropriate team after where it says "Short Term Missions."

Thank you for supporting SPACE. Of course, you know you are supporting students getting to serve and bless in other contexts. You are also supporting the real time lab of global mission, students and leadership. Expect that your investment will certainly multiply and know that we are so, so appreciative!

RSS readers, there is some embedded java script. Or something.

[PS - We think we got all the links correct. Please double check the info before you submit and let us know if something doesn't look quite right.]

Friday RocketFuel

::: John Eldredge's blog
Link via Ben Arment
Starting next week, I'm growing Eldredge hair.


::: Tim Keller on Cities

+ The Grace OF the City -
God says that the city is a gift of God for humanity
+ The Grace IN the City -
4 orders in humanity - Economic, Cultural, Residential, Political/Legal
Cities - all together
Suburbs - all segregated
+ Grace FOR the City....
NYC - it's expensive... Across the Hudson River, you keep 12% more of your income. Most people are here to USE the city... Which means REVOLVING door....
You have to have the grace to care about the city instead of your name. Default of your heart is to make a name....

From the Q conference, via Scott Hodge


::: Profile of Larry Brilliant, head of Google.org

In Brilliant's view, what the planet needs today is not simply the invention of a cleaner way to generate energy or better schools in developing nations but a transformation of human consciousness. "It's a matter of human will," he says. "And that's where my optimism comes from, because I've seen awful things that were solved by the projection of a positive, and I would say loving, human will."

Link


::: The Lord's Boot Camp
CBS does an expose on Teen Missions this coming Saturday night. I'm going to have to get a copy of this to watch.
Link via Bob Carlton
[Related: My time at Teen Missions, June 2004]

Not Enough Time for Perfection

Every summer [or practically all the time depending on how you look at it], we make some mistakes. Sometimes logistics, sometimes staffing, sometimes bad decisions. I spent a little bit of time last week trying to fix a potentially bad decision, working through it with a fabulous group of leaders. Not the first time, certainly not the last.

I like to think that we have open lines of communication so that our leaders and our students are free to tell us when we have messed up. If you are a student, your leader would love to talk with you. If you are a team leader, I would love to talk with you. We won't be offended and will try to fix it as best we can. I also like to think that we are trying to learn from our mistakes too. So when we mess up, because we are learning, I will listen to my wife about the specific hotel we should stay in. [Hi D!]

But the big one here is that we shouldn't be afraid to fail. It's okay and even preferable to try something that hasn't been tried before, to pursue it when we aren't sure of the outcome, to move forward with an amount of uncertainty. What we are doing requires us to go at a certain rate of momentum and that brings a bit of ambiguity. And that is the point of where we really learn. Because the world can't afford for you and I to sit around until our plans are perfect.

Meet The Mega Region

You've undoubtedly heard of the mega-city, especially if you are a regular reader. Now, faithful reader, I introduce you to the mega-region.

Mega-regions are integrated sets of cities and their surrounding suburban hinterlands across which labor and capital can be reallocated at very low cost. The 40 that we will identify here all have economies on the scale of $100 billion or more. Similarly, the 40th largest nation in terms of GDP also has an economy of about $100 billion.
The mega-regions of today perform functions that are somewhat similar to those of the great cities of the past - massing together talent, productive capability, innovation and markets. But they do this on a far larger scale. Furthermore, while cities in the past were part of national systems, globalization has exposed them to world-wide competition. As the distribution of economic activity has gone global, the city-system has also become global - meaning that cities compete now on a global terrain. Urban mega-regions are coming to relate to the global economy in much the same way that metropolitan regions relate to national economies.
Unlike mega-cities, which are termed as such simply for the size of their populations, mega-regions are by definition places that claim large populations, large markets, significant economic capacity, substantial innovative activity, and highly skilled talent.
If we take the largest mega-regions in terms of population, the world's 10 biggest are home to roughly 666 million people or 10.5 percent of world population; the top 20 comprise close to 1.1 billion people, 17 percent of the world total; while the top 40 are home to 1.5 billion people, 23 percent of global population.

- Richard Florida, Who's Your City? : How the Creative Economy Is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life

Before the Bridge

While driving to CT for the SPACE Winter Expedition this past January, we watched the film "The Guardian." If you've seen the movie, you know it's a modern day paradigm for rescuing the lost [So Others May Live.] Sacrifice is also one of the themes in the movie and as we drove over The Tappan Zee bridge, we discussed the question, "how much would you sacrifice for someone else? " I mentioned the story of Daniel Santos, who jumped off the bridge after a woman who tried to commit suicide, jumping 140 feet into the Hudson River. [When I told the story, I got the height of the bridge wrong.]

Just last week, two people jumped off the bridge to commit suicide, within one hour of each other. Both died at the scene.

"So far nothing has helped make it [the bridge] less alluring to would-be suicides. Four suicide hot line telephones were installed last year, on both ends of the bridge. None have been used."

Only 1 Hour?

"I tell my staff if they are not praying for an hour a day about their ministries to let me know and I will hire someone who will." – Francis Chan

MegaSPACE

D and I have been pondering our context of a "megachurch" for a long while now. Sam Metcalf's post Megachurches reminded me again of some of our thinking.

+ A megachurch is defined as a church having around 2,000 people for worship in a typical week.
+ Megachurches represent one half of one percent of all religious congregations in the United States.
+ There are 1250 megachurches out of 320,000 Christian congregations, comprising 4.5 million attendees every week.
+ Only about 30% of the North American population is within reach of the institutional/traditional/attractional church and an even smaller percentage of that would ever meaningfully connect with a megachurch. [- Alan Hirsch]

If you are a part of SPACE, the above describes your context too. With that, there are some things that we can do that other churches cannot do. This summer is a good example - over 30 leaders, over 100 students, a projected budget of over $150,000 - larger than the average church in America.

You also should know:
+ your church experience is very, very unique.
+ it's so unique that other expressions of Church may seem really odd to you, but are in fact, just as valid.
+ when you leave SPACE, you won't find another Grace Community Church. Instead, your experience in researching, finding and being involved in a new community will be enlightening, stretching and very healthy.
+ The 30% reachability threshold mentioned above is troubling. But it doesn't mean you have to accept it.

Thursday RocketFuel

::: Paris or London
Link
via The Where Blog


::: Steve Jobs on
focus, finding talent and planning
Link
via The Practice of Leadership


::: What Every American Should Know About the Middle East
Link
via Kottke

Global Poverty Tidbits

I picked up this series of articles about ending global poverty somewhere. Below are some of the interesting tidbits. If these interest you too, make sure to check out the whole series of articles.

:: In 1981, 1.5 billion people survived on less than $1 a day, according to World Bank household surveys. By 2001, that number had dropped 27 percent, to just over 1 billion. That means well over 400 million people no longer face the lethal burden of extreme poverty.

:: While humanitarian assistance has saved millions, consider this startling conclusion from a recent study by the Center for Global Development: When aid rises to 8 percent of a recipient nation's gross domestic product, it has zero effect on economic growth. Above that, it has a negative effect.

:: The world's richest 500 individuals have the same income as the poorest half-billion.

:: Change from within must be driven by brave people in the country, to assure the relevance, acceptance, and success of any assistance or reform.

:: Abolishing all barriers to trade in goods and services could increase global income by $2.8 trillion and lift 320 million people out of poverty by 2015, according to a 2002 World Bank statement.

:: From 1981 to 2001, 400 million people there lifted themselves out of extreme poverty. Their numbers as a share of population fell from 53 to just 8 percent. Effectively, 80 percent of the world's progress in ending abject poverty has happened in China, independent of foreign aid.

[Related - my series of notes from The End of Poverty.]

State of Christianity - 2008

The State of Christianity, a yearly run of statistics from the Center for the Study of Global Christianity. For those of you that love data, this should make your week.

See the 2008 one page report here. Below are some of the fun ones I've been tracking [although I'm missing some of the years.]

Global Population:
1900 - 1,619,625,000
1970 - 3,692,495,000
2000 - 6,070,581,000
2005 - 6,453,628,000
2006 - 6,529,426,000
2008 - 6,691,484,000

Urban dwellers
1900 - 232,695,000
1970 - 1,362,295,000
2000 - 2,878,861,000
2005 - 3,158,016,000
2006 - 3,252,255,000
2008 - 3,368,561,000

Nonliterates
1900 - 777,475,000
1970 - 836,256,000
2000 - 990,317,000
2005 - 1,078,271,000
2006 - 1,095,879,000
2008 - 1,094,278,000

Metropolises (over 100,000 population)
1900 - 300
1970 - 2,400
2000 - 4,050
2005 - 4,500
2006 - 4,500
2008 - 4,700

Megacities (over 1 million population)
1900 - 20
1970 - 161
2000 - 402
2005 - 440
2006 - 450
2008 - 470

Urban poor
1900 - 100 million
1970 - 650 million
2000 - 1,400 million
2006 - 1,680 million
2008 - 1,790 million

Urban slumdwellers
1900 - 20 million
1970 - 260 million
2000 - 700 million
2005 - 830 million
2006 - 850 million
2008 - 910 million

Average Christian martyrs per year
1900 - 34,400
1970 - 377,000
2000 - 160,000
2005 - 169,000
2008 - 175,000

Unevangelized population
1900 - 879,672,000
1970 - 1,638,575,000
2000 - 1,722,254,000
2008 - 1,871,208,000

Unevangelized as % of world
1900 - 54.3
1970 - 44.3
2000 - 28.3
2008 - 28.0

SPACE 08 Leader Lunch

This past Saturday, we hosted a SPACE Leader Lunch for our summer team leaders. The overarching goal was to gel some teams together and invest in their leadership,

These leaders represent all five of our summer teams - middle school, Baltimore, New Orleans, England, Cameroon and Hungary. Almost 100% of these leaders also serve within our youth ministry in other capacities - most of them helping lead weekly small groups for students. As a ministry, we are very blessed. First, because we have such great leaders. Passionate, loving, generous, and teachable, all of them love students because it's built into their DNA. Secondly, we are blessed because the powers that be allow something like SPACE to build synergy across multiple elements of the student ministry. And of course, you know the rule about being blessed - you must then be a blessing.

Our discussion points included an introduction to Strengths Finder and sharing about their strengths [describe a time when you were operating in a strength, predict/identify a theme in another person on your team]. We also utilized "The 8 Great Questions" and "Your Mission Experience as a Treasure Hunt" principles from The Short Term Missions Workbook [one of the must-have resources if you help out with mission teams.] This was all done within the context of their leadership teams, hopefully helping people understand each other better as they seek to serve this summer and beyond.

For the perspective of this summer, we did a gathering like this so that our teams are adequately prepared to be enormous blessings to others. For the rest of the perspective, we do this because our students and leaders will make all the difference in the world.

Enormously Capable

"There is nothing with which every man is so afraid as getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming."

- Soren Kierkegaard, as quoted by John Wood in Leaving Microsoft To Change The World - An Entrepreneur's Odyssey to Educate the World's Children.

Our 2008 Missions Support Letter

Make sure you put in your supporter's letter that you blessed many families in immeasurable ways. Let them know that your team invested not only their time and resources, but their whole hearts to serve the families of Christian Associates. We are so grateful for all that your supporters have given so that we could be blessed!
~MR, serving in France

Dear friends, family, faithful supporters and anyone else who is receiving this!

It has been nearly a year since we initiated realizing a dream of ours – to serve Christ together as a family in some capacity outside of the US, our comfort zone. Many of you, I’m sure, remember receiving our letter last year, maybe wondering if we were out of our minds! If that’s what you were thinking, you may wonder again as we are hoping to return this year in the same capacity as last only with the added responsibility of being the sole team in charge of providing a full fledged children’s program for this amazing group of church planters in Europe.

Our trip last year was a growing and learning experience in so many ways. We had opportunities to connect with families who had given up their comfy homes in the US to serve in some of the most spiritually darkened places in Europe. We learned of the struggles they had adjusting to new cultures, languages, and the obvious disdain for America amidst the Iraq war. But even more apparent to us was the effect this had on their children, referred to as third culture kids, as they try to comprehend the passion their parents have for the lost in Europe as that relates to their roots, their socialization and their futures. Providing a short escape from the often stressful and uncertain lives of church planters was so much more important, and took so many various forms, than any of us had realized.

This summer, as part of SPACE [Students Prepared to Act for Christ’s Empire] - Grace's student ministry mission component, we are returning to serve in Sopron, Hungary during Christian Associates International annual staff conference. We will be traveling from July 22 to August 3 with a total team of 26 students and leaders, architecting an experience for the kids of CAI staff. While the opportunity to serve CAI and their kids is immensely rewarding, we also know that this environment is a real time laboratory for our students to learn about global cultures, leadership development and creating Kingdom threads out of nothing.

Of course, we can't do this all alone and we would love your prayers and financial support. You can pray for our leadership, that the students on our team would create the future and that our children would continue to live lives bigger than themselves. You could also pray for our other SPACE teams for this summer – Baltimore, New Orleans, England and Cameroon. Financially, we need to raise $10,000 for our family of four and your financial support would also be a huge blessing. There are two ways you can financially support our team. First, you may send a check in the enclosed envelope with the response card. Please make checks payable to Grace Community Church and in the note section please specify, "SPACE Hungary - Shengs". You may also contribute via the Internet, by clicking the "Online Giving!" link at the top of the Grace Church webpage - http://www.gcconline.org. Click the "eGive" link and after entering the appropriate donor and bank information, fill in the amount for "Short Term Missions" and specify for "SPACE Hungary - Shengs".

Thank you so much for your support and prayers. We have huge expectations for this team traveling to Hungary with us – that they will serve and sacrifice for many this summer and that the spiritual climate of Europe will be different because of many of them.

I don't know if y'all realize just how much you give to us in coming to serve. Our first year, we were beaten down, discouraged, frustrated, humbled and broken. We were also grown, stretched, challenged and provided for in ways we could never imagine. The gift you gave us was a chance to process this stuff for significant periods of time, knowing our kids were entertained, safe and above all LOVED. It's hard to express how much the week at conference means to us-how much we look forward to it each year. Knowing that there are people there who believe in what we are doing and are willing to encourage us in that is amazing. THANK YOU!!!!!

~MR

Related: Historical Mission Support Letters [2007, 2006, 2005]

Leading to Irrelevance

"My defintion of a great team is one that continues to function when the leader goes down, like I did on Everest. The leader's role is to pick a team, train them, and then make himself irrelevant."

- Pasquale Scaturro, modern day explorer, as quoted in Outside Magazine, April 2008. One of his conquests includes the first, full descent of the Nile River, from its Blue Nile source in the mountains of Ethiopia to its terminus just north of Rosetta, Egypt. The 3,260 mile, four month trip included threats such as:
- Class IV and V rapids of the upper Blue Nile, where two capsizes forced one team member to quit the expedition.
- Deadly crocodiles and hippos.
- Arrests by Ethiopian and Egyptian militia.
- Gunfire from Sudanese bandits.
- Extreme temperatures.
- Violent sandstorms.
- Exposure to malaria.

Hungary 2008 Adult Lead Team

Here are some quick introductions to the adult leader team for this coming summer. We also have a huge group of student leaders - graduating seniors that we are bringing on to help us lead and empower - tell you more about them later. Like every summer, I'm thrilled to be working with this group of people. When we recruit leaders, we look for trustworthiness, character and cross cultural experience. And they have to be fun. You will hear plenty more about these guys and gals, and not just from me.

D - my bride. You know her.

ESunde - our first SPACE intern in 2005-2006 and she's stuck with us ever since, leading on Cameroon 2006 and Hungary 2007.

LB - she's currently right now traipsing across the world in Asia and Europe with a YWAM DTS. Leadership experience includes Cameroon 2006 and Hungary 2007.

ErinOB - also returning from Hungary 2007. She will be the sole leader that will continue from Hungary direct to Cameroon this summer and it will be an awesome experience. A little manic, but awesome nontheless.

New to SPACE this year, sort of... - KevGN and his wife KeelyN - KevGN was actually one of my Dteam boys, long before the idea of SPACE ever existed. In many ways, he and his peers were the first [or second] iteration of student mission experiments, since I dragged him and his friends through a variety of different mission experiences before the medium called SPACE. Those fun times included three days of giving money away to new friends on the boardwalk of Ocean City, Maryland; and 11 days in New York City. The trip to NY was one of my all time favorites, when we introduced suburban kids to Harlem and when Kev introduced me to Avril Lavigne. KevGN has also been to Kazakhstan and Turkey. KeelyN has several years of cross cultural experience too, including serving two summers in a row in France [see her 2005 blog]. Oh, and they are newlyweds and will be celebrating their one year anniversary with all their new friends and teammates in Hungary.

Finally, last but not least, RachelJ. RachelJ is good friends with ESunde and is joining us all the way from Seattle. She was with us for the NYC Expedition and showed us her heart for serving and students. Another key barometer was that she was thrilled at the idea of writing "Ask Me About the 10-40 window" on one of the SPACE interns car windows. This is her first SPACE team, but she's been to Mexico and Honduras serving before.

Yup, a great team. Envy me.

Good Friday RocketFuel

::: Vision Trekk
You might hear a lot more about this in the future.
Link


::: Resumes
Solid tips on writing one. Link
Or, you may really not need one. Link
PS - I love writing recommendation letters.


::: Gorbachev's faith
Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet Communist leader, has acknowledged his Christian faith for the first time in a surprise visit to the tomb of St Francis of Assisi.
Link


::: Illinois students and global missionaries
Link
Hope you don't mind, I've given Evan some of your links....

If They Follow You Around

Two repeatable and predictable gauges for when people are ready to go to the next level are availability and curiosity. If they show up whenever you are moving the cause forward, they might be ready. If they ask deep questions, listen whenever you talk [whether you know what you are saying or not], and take a lot of notes, they might be ready.

Who around you is showing up all the time? And who is asking some good questions?

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]

2008 Spring Retreat

We had a great time on the CpR retreat this past weekend at NorthBay. My workshop actually went swimmingly well and most of that was because things just happened to click when I was giving my talk. Sometimes, you are on and sometimes not. This time, the Ghost decided to impart. It was a lot of fun and I'm hopeful that it gave students some good things to think about relating to understanding and engaging culture. [Related - my speaking notes.]

By far though, my favorite time of the weekend was when one of our favorite people - TriciaB [one of the 07-08 interns] - got baptized in the Bay. Memorable elements included the cold, murky water of the Chesapeake Bay; 300 friends gathered on the beach; hearing her talk about why Jesus is all; and listening to her friends share about her obvious impact to those around her. At the essence, it was a community sharing about one of their own that blesses those they don't know, all for the sake of One. Congrats Tricia!

[Update - here is the embedded video. How cool is that]

Decompressing Culture - CpR Spring 2008 Retreat Notes

+ 1 == Create
Describe a time when you created something from nothing.
What was the idea, how did you do it, and what was the outcome.

Western Christianity has largely given up on creating culture - instead we are
hiding from it.
The Christian ghetto - books, music, film, bookstores = its unbiblical
God the Creator created you to be creative
You have the ability to mold and shape culture.

Some examples:
: Genesis Adam naming the animals an expression of culture Gen 2:19
: S in Cameroon corruption at every level decided she would not bribe went without a paycheck for 2 years she is changing the culture
: William Carey - created culture in India. Translated the Bible into 34 languages, compiled language dictionaries, started 100 schools for girls, started Horticultural society, professor at college, printed first Indian newspaper, started savings accounts for farmers, helped lead ban against burning of widows. He shaped culture and he did it because he wanted to make the future different.

+ 2 == Engage
Engage the culture
Not about hiding from it
Tools for Engagement
: redemptive analogy
Acts 17
: seek out understanding other cultures
find someone that doesn't look like you and ask them about their background
: language - common language creates culture
StrengthsFinder - common words that describe what you are good at - now everyone understands
JOY in worship - no rule that says when a worship song comes on with the word JOY in it, you scream it
changing the definitions of words
: get involved in people's lives that are outside the Church
don't think that because you now pop culture, that you are engaging culture
you have to invest in people outside of the church for that
if you are not involved in those outside the church, you are not engaging culture.

+3 == Possibility
Agent of change
Catalyst
Risk taker
Shepherd -> King - David
Slave -> Queen - Esther
prosecution to church planter - Paul
The Scriptures are the epitome of POSSIBILITY
What do you create from the possibilities

: Surf church in Portugal
: Aix-en-Provence - south of France, ran a kids camp with 70 kids in an area where half a percent are evangelical
: 14 year old in Malawi that built a windmill for his family - from spare parts and plans he found in an old library book

+4 == back to Create
Creating something from nothing - but it marks human history
Will you do whatever it takes?
In the end, a culture that's trying to kill you really has nothing on you.
Mt 9 - not the healthy but the sick

Pre Weekend Ramblings

In no particular order:

- We are joining the high school [CpR] retreat this weekend, for just Saturday night and Sunday morning. It should be a lot of fun. I've had a no-retreat policy for the past few years [every since I spent about a month away from home in calendar year 2005 for this SPACE hobby] unless I'm doing something to help significantly. I'm running a small workshop on Saturday evening. I needed some creative inspiration so I just went for a drive. [Actually, this article about Ben Saunders - arctic explorer is some good inspiration too.]

- We've taken some extra time to get some clarity on our Hungary team budget for this summer. Although our personal family's support letter is written and printed, our team's letters are on hold until we get some firm info. Have you stayed with a large group of students in Vienna [not Virginia but Austria] or Paris [not Texas but France] ? If so, you and I need to talk.

- I celebrated one full year with Corp1.3 this past week. It's been amazing all the new skills I have picked up in one year, and not all of them were purely technical. For instance, I never uttered the word 'customer' before this job. I hope you think that's odd too, because we ALL should be thinking about 'customers.' [Oh, and I think I've gained 10 pounds in the past year too.]

- D and I have all of our logistics booked for 4 days in the Florida keys in a few weeks. We are celebrating our 15 oops 14 [thanks amy!] year anniversary early since we'll be in Hungary on the actual day. Our kids are celebrating with us by staying home. HA.

Have a great weekend!

Phrases We Try Not to Use

- short term.
- here, let me give you this tract.
- culture doesn't really matter.
- i'm not going into the city. cities are too big, too scary and too irrelevant.
- she has 0 leadership potential.
- let's buy a program book for it.
- why use the internets?

Wednesday RocketFuel

::: Tim Keller speaks at Google
Tim Keller, pastor at Redeemer Pres in NYC.
Link


::: What Books Should You Read on Africa?
Link


::: What Microloans Miss
The vast majority of microfinance projects have only one paid employee: the owner. But businesses that can generate jobs for others are the best hope of any country trying to put a serious dent in its poverty rate.
Link

Understanding Polytheism from Your 10 Year Old

Huh? [Click for full size image]

First 2008 Hungary team meeting

Some shots from our first 2008 Hungary team meeting. This team is comprised of 26[!] people, a lot of them returning from last year - lots of energy, excitement and ideas. At this point in the process, for this specific trip, a lot of the task is just getting thoughts down on paper.

We covered the big picture stuff like Why Europe, overview of CAI and why this team looks the way it does. We also started to plan for the tactical pieces of the children's ministry, including the overall theme [this is a really good one - tell you later] and elements that will be structured within that theme.

If the future were left up to anybody, I would bet on them.

I Think God Could Deflate the Euro

Our Hungary team is busy writing their support letters for this summer, except for one vital piece of information - overall cost. One of our contacts at Christian Associates and I talked earlier this week about some estimated costs and frankly, the cost estimate has left me in a funk. The gist is that the American dollar continues to decline in value in Europe - one American dollar buys less and less. I realize it's not that big of a deal in the overall scheme of my life - we have quite a few friends serving in Europe for a lifetime and for them, it's exponentially worse. Even so, it's got me second guessing this summer's plan.

On one hand, even though the cost per person is significantly higher, we've also got a larger team and therefore a bigger pool of people that are potentially interested in supporting the team. Every year, we get more and more kids on teams and this year is also reflective of that growth. On the other hand, funding is not infinite, there are only so many dollars out there. Or are there? And we've got three summer teams this summer, two to Europe. Budget-wise, this summer looks like double last summer - that's not exactly spare change.

In the end though, and I said this to a few people last year too, part of this whole deal is trying to do something so risky that it will only work when God comes through. If we could do it on our own, we would be short cutting this experience of risk and faith, and it wouldn't be worth it. So, it's with these ideas in my head and that pit in my stomach that we move forward. For those of you that might feel compelled to pray for our teams and/or give, contact me and I'll make sure we get you all the information.

I'm sure this won't be the last of those I'm-going-to-throw-up feelings. We haven't bought any plane tickets yet...

A Student Ministry Global Catalyst's Guide to TED2008

Some of you have probably been following TED 2008 which just finished last week. I followed it too and, like with every TED conference, there is a lot of inspiration for those of you out to make a difference. Here are some of my favorite inspirations and a bit about why:

::: Idea: A car that drives itself.
The Chevy Tahoe named "Boss" can drive itself through a sixty mile urban course.
Think about - the engineering innovation and what it means for a future that is more and more urban. And us Americans, dang, we just love our cars don't we?
Link

::: Idea: How do we give credible hope to the billion poorest people in the world?

We need compassion, because a billion people are living in societies that have not offered credible hope. But we need enlightened self interest because "if economic divergence continues, combined with global integration, it will build a nightmare for our children."

Related: The Bottom Billion. [I think I need to read this.]
Think about - how some of you will be intimately involved providing hope to the poor.
Link

::: Idea: Leaders exude passion.
Ben Zander on music, passion and vision:

He tells the story of critiquing a performer - "You're on both buttocks. You need to play on one buttock." An entrepreneur watching the class told him later he'd re-tooled his entire business to "a one buttock venture"...
Throwing down a challenge, he tells us he's not leaving until we all love classical music. A leader can do this because he truly believes others will believe his vision.

Think about - how passion transcends disciplines, cultures and domains of expertise.
Link

::: Idea: Deep sea exploration and going where no one has gone before. [Does this remind some of you of H2.08?]
Robert Ballard on deep sea exploration:

Ballard now has an amazing new ship, the Okeonos Explorer - it's explicitly chartered to "go where no one has gone before." It will explore the US seas, especially the "Western Territorial Trust", our Pacific territories. "We don't know what we'll find, so run it like a nuclear sub, or a hospital", with teams working 24/7 connected to the ship via the internet, running on Internet 2, connected by 10 gigabits of bandwidth.

Think about - building such a craft and the bravery, resolve and audacity it takes to go where no one has gone before.
Link

::: Idea: More college and high schoolers are involved in anti-genocide movements now than there were for anti-apartheid.
Samantha Power on genocide:

In this century, we have an anti-genocide movement, a student movement that has appeared "almost out of nowhere." There are more people involved on high school and college campuses that is now "bigger than the anti-apartheid movement." The goal of this movement is to raise the political cost for not standing up against genocide.

Think about - how young people have a much more deep tie between belief and action.
Link

::: Idea: A catalog of all human cultures
Bob Geldof to catalog significant human culture:

Now, he has another Africa-focused project, and he wants some help. He tells us of a trip to Niger, talking to an elder, who tell him "18 months ago, there were 300 languages here."
"Separate, complete cultures. They're gone. I never heard those languages, but I already miss them. It's in these ways that the lights of human genius wink out."
So Geldof is proposing "a great mapping to be undertaken. I'm going to log all of us. I'm going to take a snapshot of now." He proposes making 900 half-hour films of 900 different cultural groups.

Think about - wow.
Link

All links from Ethan Zuckerman's crazy real time blogging of the conference. Thanks Ethan!

Wednesday RocketFuel

::: 21 world accents in 2:30

via Kottke


::: The Ambitions Index

- 54 percent of 8-12 year olds and and 66 percent of 13-21 year olds want to "Travel the world."**
- 46 percent of 8-12 year olds and 59 percent of 13-21 year olds want to "Speak another language" **
- 40 percent of 8-12 year olds and 36 percent of 13-21 year olds want to "Invent something"
- 40 percent of 8-12 year olds and 42 percent of 13-21 year olds want to "See a rainforest"
- 28 percent of 8-12 year olds and 26 percent of 13-21 year olds want to "Fly a plane"
- 26 percent of 8-12 year olds and 20 percent of 13-21 year olds want to "Be in the Guiness Book of World Records"
- 24 percent of 8-12 year olds and 21 percent of 13-21 year olds want to "Go to Mars" **
- 18 percent of 8-12 year olds and 30 percent of 13-21 year olds want to try "Bungee jumping"
- 16 percent of 8-12 year olds and 31 percent of 13-21 year olds want to "Sky dive"
- 20 percent of 8-12 year olds and 28 percent of 13-21 year olds want to go "Whitewater rafting"
- 16 percent of 8-12 year olds and 23 percent of 13-21 year olds want to "Climb a Mountain"
- 15 percent of 8-12 year olds and 42 percent of 13-21 year olds want to "Live in another country." **
- 11 percent of 8-12 year olds and 12 percent of 13-21 year olds want to "Bike across country"
- 11 percent of 8-12 year olds and 20 percent of 13-21 year olds want to "Backpack across country"
- 9 percent of 8-12 year olds and 19 percent of 13-21 year olds want to "Run a marathon"
- 6 percent of 8-12 year olds and 10 percent of 13-21 year olds want to "Finish a triathlon"

**You know, SPACE can help you! [OK, so maybe not on the Mars one, yet...]
Link via ysmarko


::: My Husband Wants to be a Church Planter
Uh, no, not my husband. But since SPACE is somehow primarily women [but we are going to change that this summer], this might be useful to some of them in the future... If I approve of their suitors.
Link [pdf] via Lon

The 03 - Four and a half Later

This is the 03 guys, four and a half years after graduation, gathered at the B's wedding this past weekend. [Picture was not great quality]

Lots of fun to catch up with all of them. They are all involved in serving in some capacity - leading worship, researching alternative energy, national security, high school education, the performing arts. Living intentionally takes all forms.

5

We've done a lot in 5 years, but I still don't know why.

Congrats to JAB and FZ!

D and I were involved in a wedding bash over the weekend for old friends JAB and FZ. Long time readers will recognize the names from the 2005Brasil team. Some of you may also remember that JAB was in the Dteam that I helped led from 1999-2003.

D and I also had the fun privilege of facilitating their pre-marriage counseling. They were definitely our guinea pigs while we were definitely too young to be at this stage in life. In either case, it was a lot of fun talking about marriage with them because we know them well, they are good friends and I've dragged them around the world with me. Part of the benefit of us being their therapists was that I got to say a blessing and charge to them as part of the ceremony. "Fun" for my nerves but worth it.

Another fun bit from their reception - all the money that would have been spent on wedding favors was instead given to AIDS relief in Africa. They are a couple that knows that their responsibility is to humanity, because of their compassion for the world and their love for the Father.

[Photo stolen from JWhitt]