Ember's End of Summer Gathering

Ember's end of summer gathering was a few weeks ago and we try to do this every summer if we can. It's a time when we try to gather whoever is around to talk about what kinds of missions adventures they were a part of over the summer. It's always filled with amazing young people and it's always an evening that is way too short. This summer's crowd included people that went to Argentina, Ghana, Belgium + The Netherlands + Germany [that was me], China, Baltimore and New Orleans. Fantastic group of people.

Below are some of the missions concepts that were brought up. Like we always say, show a high school student the way the world really looks and maybe they can make some significant decisions for a career to make a difference.

Unreached people groups - europe
Urban migration – china
Underground churches and leadership development – china
Cultures that are task vs relationship driven – argentina
Economic ladder via farming – ghana
Yield in crops, subsistence vs mechanized farming – ghana
The explosion of the early church and the church in china – china
Serve with people who are already doing something – Baltimore
Every person was asked What is next?
The Jesus film - china

Hello SeptEmber

+ I took 3 weeks off this summer from the day job, meaning my vacation balance went into the negative. The 3 weeks were a week in Orlando with the fam, a week in Brussels with a team from Grace and a week in Queen Creek AZ with Ember. Sometimes, it all works out.
+ This summer was 13,000 air miles [which is a lot for me], 6 flights, 7 trains, lots of cars.
+ Funest summer of my life - I loved every moment.
+ DK is our Ember intern for the fall - her missions reading started yesterday.
+ We hosted an end of summer Ember gathering and just like always, it was too short and filled with amazing people. Will post some notes from that later.
+ Our kids spent a week without us this summer, which is not that unusual. Kt was in Baltimore for a week. Em was at Camp Sandy Cove. Both had great experiences.
+ Kt had a great time in Baltimore with STC Baltimore. One of her items of feedback was that she wanted to not only serve with her leaders but to really know their story and be taught by them. I think this is a universal desire and our mission trips should seek to meet this need.
+ Ember has some small projects lined up for the Fall. Every year is unpredictable but true to form, some cool opportunities are possible.
+ New website - www.theembercast.org. Would love to hear your feedback. My favorite - the pictures.

BRU and AZ favorites

Click to enlaaaaaaaarge.

Also, I'm starting my annual blog sabbatical a little early. It's been a bit crazy since I returned. I'm also writing a report about our time in Europe, contact me if you would like a copy. See you in September.

AZ 2012 wrap up

Here's a few insights I'm reminded of as I think about our week with Amadeo:

- We need all kinds of churches to reach all kinds of people. If you've followed along for a while, you know Amadeo is 6 years old, pretty organic and very community impact focused. Ben is an amazing leader - highly creative, willing to risk, sold out to serve his community, pioneering and has a great deal of missional imagination. Our experience focused on two goals - helping catalyze some spiritual movement in their community and giving some students an experience to learn from Ben. This experience fulfilled both fantastically.
- Ben has created a culture of prayer in his community. Just like in 2010, it's inspiring.
- Unlike many mission teams I have led, it didn't seem like we spent all of our time in 'ministry.' Instead, it was a very laid back schedule, which seems odd for a 'missions trip.' Ember is moving in this meaning that these summer experiences look less like normal mission trips and more like leadership labs. That is a good tension we are moving towards.
- Distributed mission teams can work but it takes more concentration on logistics. In this case, ORapp's flights lined up well with ours including being in the same terminal. For minors that are flying to meet us, we should be more careful rather than leave it to chance. [Ask our daughter K about the guy she sat next to on the flight home - he had just been released from jail.] In the even more collaborative future, this will become standard. And I loved being able to do this together with a great missionary family.
- Amadeo and Ember have benefited from the value of long term relationships - the time span on this one is 7 years and counting. Excited to see what's next.
- From a conversation with Zak and Kat about another ministry they dropped in on a few weeks ago as part of their nationwide tour: Your 'ministry activities' must be simple and reproducible enough so that a person who works a normal job can do it.

More pictures of our time here.

AZ - Redemptive Analogies Session

On Monday evening in AZ, I facilitated a short discussion on redemptive analogies with the Amadeo youth group. In case you were interested, here's some links:

Children of Men
ET
I am Legend
Wide Awake, Katy Perry

Remember, a redemptive analogy is a story that is parallel to the Gospel and is well known in the culture. Today, our predominant media is film, and with students, a case could be made that it's youtube.

AZ - Friday

Spent the day at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, which is always a great time.

Matt did a session at lunch, my notes are below. And again, content that not many high school kids are hearing.

Evening was the coffee house - some very talented and artistic students. Love that. More recap later.

matt
passion
fishing
disciples fishimg to kill time
zak and kat uniqieness
mt 4
mt 22 - the greatest commandmemt
is your passion about loving god
what direction are you going
actively participate in finding your passion
time
try diff things
diff service churches
what interests you
its not cheating if you are good at it
ask god for great opps
ask him that you wont miss great opportinitoes
dont be afraid to try strike out
just move fwd
talk to people you trust about your ideas
some might help you
process
make a plan
execute it with god
talk about it with god how is it going

combat the nonreasons
comfort
its not that bad
other people i work with are great
who is going to catch these fish if i dont

AZ - Thursday

Last day of kids mini camp was today. Dea and I got to have breakfast with Ben and Mandy. Zak and Kat taught a session today [notes] Ben and Mandy also spent a good amount of time with Zak and Kat today. Water slide was of course a big hit this time again.

Cookout this evening at the house we are staying in. Tomorrow we go to Tucson for the day for a desert museum. The week has gone by fast. Somehow Ember mission trips have great food.

AZ - Transference and Replication

Zak and Kat taught on the concepts of transference and replication, all within the context of investing in others and creating disciples.

The discipleship square:
D1: I do, you watch
D2: I do, you help
D3: You do, I help
D4: You do, I watch
It is a simple paradigm for the transference of information. In other words, you best learn something when it is modeled and you do it for yourself.

Multiplication/replication - Jesus spoke to a lot of crowds but invested himself mostly in the disciples that could in turn teach others. 2nd, 3rd and 4th generations.

As you probably know, I love this kind of stuff and firmly believe that students can and should be engaged in these kinds of concepts. There are simply not enough youth workers coaching this kind of stuff with our students. They are not too young and are fully capable of engaging this kind of material. Lots of good discussion about this stuff today, including lots of expanding on the example of people learning to make coffee and then teaching others to do it. The coffee example is indigenous to Amadeo.

AZ 2012 - Missiological Concepts

Your middle and high school students are fully capable of understanding these concepts. You will set your students up for success in cross cultural leadership ff you teach them the theory and then take them out to see these ideas lived out.

- contextualization
- cultural distance
- redemptive analogy
- indigenous
- person of peace

We used these for AZ 2012 and in the midst of that, had a great sidebar conversation about diversity in churches, the church homogenous unit principle and how those things relate to new churches. Like I said, your students are fully capable.

Note that I'm not that artistic. You don't need to be either.

AZ - Wednesday

Mens breakfast with breakfast burritos. Morning devotionals with 2 chapters from Love Does and other Scriptures and questions. Morning session on missiological tools. Lunch, games, water slides and movie with the kids for the mini kids camp. We did worked on some yard projects at Bill's house and then had dinner there. Ended the night with a pool party at one of Amadeo's elders house.

Bill has served on Ben's teams for since somewhere around 2004, originally hosting students at a drop in center and then transitioning with Ben to help in whatever capacity as they started Amadeo. He is in a wheelchair but continues to cook dinner for students and apartment complexes as well as make a mean espresso.

AZ - Tuesday

This morning was some prayer walking in around the old downtown section of Queen Creek, looking at past, existing and future businesses and talking through some of those business relationships Amadeo has. The prayer walk was a combination of a city tour, cultural observation and listening to Ben's missional imagination.

The afternoon was our first kids mini club day, including lunch, crafts, games and a movie. Lots of fun. The evening was spent visiting a small group that was just starting and prayer walking that neighborhood. This included stopping in front of every house in the area to pray for the people that lived there. Ben prays. A lot.

Decompression with our team tonight was great. They are all learning a ton and watching a very creative, pioneering leader. Great fun for me to see that they are learning what I hoped and imagined they would.

UPDATE - I forgot to write that we also worked with Restore, which is the food pantry that spun off from Amadeo. We sorted food to be placed in the pantry and then created food boxes to be given to people. Every Tuesday, Restore uses one room of the community center for people to show up to get a food box. This week, they also gave out info and scholarships for people to bring their kids back to mini camp this week.

Reflections - 2012 Belgium

I consider my time in Europe last week to be extremely valuable on a lot of levels - for our vision team from Grace, for my role with Ember and how we could possibly continue to help student mission ventures and personally, as a futuristic developer. Here's a few quick reflections:

+ Our time worshipping with the Flemish speaking church was just fun. It gave me a new appreciation for what spiritual communities look like in a city that is unreached. Certainly it was one morning with one faith community, but if that was any representation of other Christ followers, there is a vibrancy and hunger that's captivating.

+ I'm still inspired from our time with the team in Bielefeld, Germany. I don't want to sound old, but those leaders look so so young. And that's the gist - four 27 year olds who started a new church to reach their friends and change their whole city. They are serving and being released with an organization with some solid leadership development process and a history of provable results. They are indigenous and have an inherent understanding of their context. They are wholly committed - all in - and believe that they can transform their city on the way to changing the world. It might be tempting for us to help encourage or fund or support them. Those all might be possible or we may just need to cheer them on as we get out of their way.

+ 40% of the population of Brussels leaves the city every year. As Carlton Deal said we should see this as growing and sending them instead of a loss due to transition. Highly applicable to our suburbs outside of DC.

+ STC Brussels is on to something - it is a clear example of the flip between believe->belong versus belong->believe. I had a very spiritual conversation with a very kind Italian middle aged woman who was in Brussels because of her work with the EU. She wasn't interested in church at all, but came to STC because she cared about her community and wanted to serve her city.

+ Leadership in trios - groups of 3 leaders that work together.

+ What is God's mission for this city and how can we align ourselves with that?

AZ - Monday

Some intros to Amadeo context this morning. We also passed out some flyers inviting people in the neighborhood to the kids drop in that the church is hosting starting tomorrow, Wed and Thursday.

Ben taught this afternoon on intercessory healing prayer. This evening was a youth specific gathering, where there was some worship, prayer and I did a little talk on stories and redemptive analogies.

A very low key missions trip, which is counter intuitive to a lot of what we do missions-wise.

AZ - Sunday

Two services at Amadeo Church this morning. A very refreshing honest community. And every time we are here, we hear Ben say that this church exists to bless the community. Z and K were brought on stage to hear about their stories which was fun and they totally felt welcomed. We handed out some free pool stuff at a local pool and then had some sessions on the Kingdom, the story of Amadeo and Ember.

Our team is having lots of fun - as always Ben is a great host and our team is learning from his entrepreneurial, globally connected, high risk style.

Still a Good Idea

I'm leaving with an Ember team for Queen Creek, AZ later today. It's been kind of a whirlwind between returning from Europe earlier this week and AZ today. Jet lag, re-entry eating, a swim meet for my kids, and getting a few hours in at the day job to burn as little vacation time as possible - I thought it was a good idea at the time.

Actually, I still think it's a good idea. There is a small group of students that are going to have the trajectory of their lives clarified through this experience and it's Ember's responsibility to catalyze that as best we can. If it means slugging through jet lag to get on another plane a few days later to eventually watch these kids impact human history, well you agree - that's a small price to pay.

Thanks for thinking of us this week as we serve with some leaders that are sold out to bring the love of God to their community.

BRU - The Grand Place

The Grand Place. Voted the most beautiful European city square. Every other year, they line up the center with a huge flower carpet. Belgians love their flowers. It is a stunning sight, obviously the photo doesn't do it justice.

BRU - church buildings

We went in a good number of old church buildings. Almost all of them did not have a faith community to speak of. One of our hosts said that even though you hear church bells ringing all the time, they are museum pieces.

This was a church in Leiden, The Netherlands, that was only used for weddings.

BRU - coverings

There is more observable religious diversity in Brussels than probably most places in the US. We noticed a lot of head coverings in Brussels, like this one in an old church, but not so much in Leiden or Bielefeld. Mohammad has been the most popular boys name in Belgium for the past few years. Brussels will be the first EU city to be majority Muslim if current trends continue. And not such a great idea to ask two Muslim ladies, "Where is the City2 Mall?" No, nothing bad happened, but you would think I would know better.

BRU - Daily Debrief

We had multiple times where we as a team decompressed what we observed. Some days, we did this more than once, some days we didn't at all. We used these four questions to frame our discussion:
- What did you observe? [fact]
- What does that tell you about the culture? [meaning]
- What could that mean for partnership? [joining]
- What does that project for the future in the United States? [futuristic]

Photo: Overlooking the Marollen neighborhood, from the Palace of Justice, which was the largest building constructed in the 19th century.

Brussels - Tuesday

Last full day back in Brussels where we spent time taking a rest day, seeing the sights and both formally and informally decompressing ideas about what we have seen. Lots more to say at a later time. Carver and I fly home tomorrow, the rest of the team the day after.

Here's some stuff off the top of my head:
- the tasks of a vision trip are much more complex than a missions trip - lots of layers, complexities.
- there is lots of cool stuff going on in this part of the world. we all leave definitely inspired about what could be possible.
- this was a very fun team to work and observe with. they all have lots of gifts, talents and experiences that add value to each of us and our task before us. that's not ordinary.

Monday - Bielefeld

Manuel Pohl, lead pastor for ICF Bielefeld, 27 years old, married, no kids. Been in existence for one year, 40-50 people in the community.
Bielefeld - small to medium sized city, 200,000 people, 20,000 university students, city is growing, no tourists come here. Many German Russians eventually settle here, biggest church is Russian - 4000 people. Insulated culture - not interested in even making eye contact with other people.
People get married and have children later. German birthrate [1.7] is true, Turkish are having lots more babies than Germans. 120 churches in the city, 15 or 20 are growing, 20,000 are churched.

We do church for our friends, not to please other churches.
a lifestyle of Vision + Fellowship + Action = anything is possible.
6 values
- at the heart beat of time
- excited about life
- experience fellowship
- developing potential
- giving the very best
- nothing is impossible

Haven't seen many teams this young that have such a passion for reaching their city.

ICF - Leiden - Arie Spannderman

Arie
vision of young generation, 1000 people, church that plants churches, first plant in 5 years - healthy things reproduce
principles the same but church in European style - celebration, style, quality, creative
VIP lifestyle - if a person is a VIP for God, they should be a VIP for us as well
looks for in leaders: chemistry, charisma, potential, obedience to God
you need an open feedback culture
Attending church every week is a big commitment for Europeans
classify themselves as an early adopter church
At the heart beat of time - you are at the heart of people like Jesus wanted.

Lieden -Sunday

we took a train today to lieden netherlands to meet up with a church plant there from the icf movement. they were incredibly hospitable which included lunch a walking tour of the city center, dinner and a qa session with their lead planter arie.

lieden is a small university town of about 200000 people, 10 minutes away from the north sea.

icf started in zurich and has been exploding new churches all across europe. the most intriguing core value of theirs: 'at the heartbeat of time.'

church was two celebrations this evening at 5and 7pm staged in a community theater. they also set up a lounge with drinks to try and build community. very young gathering with high energy worship.

more on arie later.

Brussels - Saturday

Very rough notes from a vision team I am participating on to research possible partnerships in Europe for my church.

church service in the am - church svc with a flemish comm. profound to worship with a community in an unreached city. makes church in the us look dead

STC Brussels - kick off day
Marolles neighborhood - poorer and more marginalized
the Palace of Justice over looks this neighborhood
clean up day - meant to clean but also to have a presence
"We weren't just picking up trash, we were ______"

Carlton and Shannon Deal
[who I met in 2007]
church:
1 - faith - believe
2 - community - belong
3 - mission - purpose
mission first - STC

all expressions of The Well - once a month
different expressions - other three times
trio of leaders - equipping normal people - church in the neighborhoods
worship expressions - 3 per week
practice expressions - 9
like to meet in public space - 15-40 people
learning reproducibility

we have no back row
what is god's mission of this city? we should align with that.

lots of friendship needs - 25% muslim, 10% growth in 8 years, 2030 - first EU city to be majority Muslim
higher percentage of Christians than other cities - 10% - due to migration, African, Brasilian, etc Christians
gather and scatter
40% of population leaves every year - see this as growing and sending them
STC has partnerships with Intl Bacc schools for service requirements
Very uncommon for Belgians to talk about faith in public.
Belgian kids have off of school every Wed aft.

Some pictures here.

Brussels - Friday

Very rough notes from a vision team I am participating on to research possible partnerships in Europe for my church.

1.1M people
.2 to .5% evangelical
center of Europe

Dan - EFCA, Global Reach, Serve the Church, pastors an Armenian church.
avg size of a church here 30-50 people.
The Church has let them down or they hate the church.
tons of ethnic churches in Brussels.
200 people in a French speaking Belgian church - that is a megachurch here.
lots of Buddhism, mysticism, fortune tellers.
Pockets of neighborhoods here:
Morrocon
Turkish
Polish
Itailians are everywhere

downtown - mostly business, govt offices
new business - out by airport, near new NATO offices
no God consciousness
Belgians love flowers - flower carpet in the grand square every other year.

Scott - EFCA, Global Reach, pastors a Flemish church.
Flanders area of Brussels is #1 in suicide rate in Western Europe.
There are church bells going off all the time but they are just museum pieces.

Olivier - church planter, 60 people.
his church hosted Willow's leadership summit the last 3 years.
Some people have started using 'CC' - code for Christian community, instead of the word church
'Gospel' is a nonthreatening word here. They only know it as Gospel music.
Volunteerism is not a big value in Europe.
2 Christian bookstores here in Brussels - combined the size of a small restaurant. Avg cost of a book is 30E.

Better practice our team is thinking through - every city we send a team to has an Advance Vision team go - scout, meet with people, prayer walk.

Some pictures here.

Friday Burn

::: The Worlds Most Difficult Languages
Link


::: The World in 2050
Link via Alex McManus


::: Impatience and Cross-Cultural don't work well together
Link


::: Prometheus and high performance teams
I can tell you what you need, for what it's worth: You need one person who's good at solving problems, someone who has ideas, because problems always come up. You need one person who's good at human relations, who can keep the group functioning together. You need one person who's kind of a functionary, who'll implement and get things done. And you need a leader type will push for results.
Link

Photo: Ember guides, metro, Washington DC, April 2012, via Amy

Ember Impact Coaching - Fall 2012

Ember has some availability for our Impact Coaching process for Fall 2012. We'll cover topics such as: Missions Philosophy, Context, Core Missions Concepts, Current Global Missions Issues, Mission Mantras, and Tactical Leadership. It's all with the backdrop of helping you be a better catalyst and helping you catalyze your students to be catalysts too.

More info here. Get in touch if you are interested.

2012 Brussels team

Here's the 2012 Brussels team. From the left, Wayne, Lisa, Kristen, Ken, Alex, Carver, moi.

Thanks for praying for our team. Please pray for clarity, discernment and learning postures for all of us. Additionally, I'll be doing some thinking in these filters: symbols, heros, structure, concepts, context and execution.

Real Catalysts Release

Ember's primary paradigm is to function as 'catalysts' and if we've done it right, we've not only sparked something in others, our guides might also be drawn towards other global leadership projects. If this happens, you'll figure out quickly if you are a real catalyst or not. Real catalysts release their resources when the timing is right.

Trevin [he's got a good streak of posts on his blog too] was our first official guide and he's contributed to lots of significant student missions projects with us. Late last week, he landed in Ghana where he's serving with a small microfarming organization for 6 weeks as a trial run to see if this fits for a long term opportunity. We are certainly proud of him for landing this opportunity - all of his background and training and passion seems to have prepared him for this next season.

Of course, it's bittersweet too. Releasing your best is never easy or fun. You now have a leadership gap. You are not sure how to execute your next set of projects. A big set of organizational wisdom walks out the door. But on the flip side, you have made room for someone else. Your organization grows outside your walls. And, hopefully, most obvious after you get over it, Jesus did a fantastical job of releasing people so that they could mark human history.

Friday Burn

::: 3 Ways to Kill a Youth Ministry
Great stuff, like always, from Dan.
Link


::: The 2012 Failed States Index
Required reading for global leaders.
Link


::: Mastery and Originality
Link


::: Facebook's Most Checked In Landmarks
Link


Photo: Decompression, Philly, Nov 2011.

Final Brussels Prep Meeting

+ Logistics: airport, packing, who is going where when, credit cards, passports, schedules, cell phone expectations

+ Goals - what are you trying to learn when we have time with ministry leaders
- vision
- passion
- how can we help
- lessons learned - what did and did not work
- demographics - current and target
- how can we encourage them
- how they think
- consistent and repeatable behaviors and why

+ Values - GRACE's core values and how they fit

+ GRACE's strengths - what does GRACE do well and can those things transfer to partnerships

+ Schedule intentional processing time for our team, 2 or 3 times a day after a significant time
- include a set of consistent questions that we work through each time.

For those of you that might not know, this is a vision team that is going to Brussels next week to explore possibilities for partnerships for our church. Not your standard missions trip.

Photo: Kristen our leader on the left, Wayne one of the team, on the right.

[Related: 2012AZ mtg #1, 2008Hungary mtg #3, 2007Hungary mtg #3, 2006Cameroon mtg #3, 2005Brasil mtg #1.]

Creative Revenue Plan Update

For those of you that have been tracking with the Creative Revenue Plan, here's one success story. DeannaK decided to take babysitting jobs for her Plan to help fund Ember AZ 2012 and here are the results:

$800 - total goal
$850 - total raised - 106% of goal
$180 - raised from Plan - 22%
$670 - raised from support letters - 78%

The initial idea also included bringing in some training in business skills to our teams. That didn't happen this summer but we'll try that again next time. My personal Plan didn't go quite as expected either, but that's okay. We knew these would be experiments that might flop.

Based on positive feedback from some career missions thought leaders, DeannaK's results and the nature of creative access being a requirement for future missionaries, we are going to keep continuing this in the future.

Friday Burn

::: 10 traits of innovative leaders
Link via @robjacobs_


::: Growing obesity - a global tipping point
Link
Growing obesity in poorer countries is a sign of a historic global tipping point: After millennia when the biggest food-related threat to humanity was the risk of having too little, the 21st century is one where the fear is having too much.
via @JWTIntelligence


::: The birth rate in the 25 countries of the European Union is now 1.56 live births per female
Link
...while in the US the birth rate is 2.09, right around the replacement fertility rate of 2.1. Some countries are at critically low levels: Slovakia, Poland, and Romania have birth rates less than 1.3, with Germany at 1.32. In the absence of immigration, the population of these countries will drop in half approximately every generation.
via @drantbradley

::: When people are financially invested, they want a return. When people are emotionally invested, they want to contribute @simonsinek


::: "I will go anywhere, provided it be forward." -David Livingstone via @slgutierrez

Photo: LexiPapp guiding.

Jello Nite 2012

For close to a decade and a half, GRACE's student ministry has hosted Jello Nite for middle school, coinciding with the end of school. Big field, teams by grade, bags of jello. Tim Jones is to thank for this.

Our kids were both in it this year, Em going into 6th grade, Kt in her last one as an outgoing 8th grader. This also marks the first time both our kids are in 'youth group.'

Missionary Kids on Mission

Some of Ember's most innovative ideas come from ... my wife. Like this one - inviting missionary kids to join us on a state side leadership experience. Because we have some capacity on the AZ team this year, we've invited a select group of missionary kids to join us. And one has said yes, which is thrilling. [And when I say kids, I mean students.]

These students we invited had all grown up in other cultures - they are true third culture kids. Their families have worked in the church planting/leadership arena, so they've already been exposed to global leadership at a very tangible, primal level. They know what risk, liminality and being on the move is like.

I'm thrilled at being able to serve some of our friends' kids like this. Not only do I think it's a great experience for them, I'm certain they bring a ton of experience, perspective and grit to our team and to the AZ experience as a whole - they will make the whole thing better. We didn't get all of them this time... yet.

Part of why Ember exists was to be a medium for us to try untested ideas about preparing students for global leadership - ideas similar to this one. In some circles, those ideas get rejected. Around here, we love to try them.

Friday Burn

::: Why Youth Ministries Are Not Working in America
Link


::: Are you a Plan B Leader
Link via @rob jacobs_


::: The idea that an infusion of hope can make a big difference to the lives of wretchedly poor people sounds like something dreamed up by a well-meaning activist or a tub-thumping politician.
Link via @peterkgreer


::: The DNA of Idea Execution
Link

Photo: Past SPACE/Ember interns, January 2011.

Kt - 8th grade

K finishes 8th grade - two 'graduations' in two days. We are proud and blessed parents.

Em - 5th grade

Our Em finishes 5th grade this week. Bittersweet as we leave a great elementary school behind. Proud of you Em!

Ember AZ 12 - Mtg 2

Our 2nd meeting - the bulk of which was spent taking and talking through the Myers Briggs Type Indicator personality test. It's my fave. We almost always use this with teams including talking through the 4 pairs, how each can affect teams that work together and charting everyone's types with everyone else so that each person walks away with a chart.

We also talked about:
- cultural distance and how that is relevant to both every day mission and new faith communities
- one person leaving our team for an epic opportunity
- we swapped him for a middle school girl
[tell you more about both of these later]
- creative revenue plan updates
- some logistics and ministry tasks we are all preparing for

[Related: AZ 12 Meeting #1]

RIP Phoebe

Yesterday, we said goodbye to our sweet little dog Phoebe. She was such a great personality, really. The dog I always wanted.

[Related: Welcome home Phoebe]

Global Vision Team - Belgium

I'm traveling to Belgium in late June on a vision team with some global strategy leaders with GRACE. Our purpose is to scout out some faith communities, ministries and social enterprises for some potential long term partnerships as part of GRACE's efforts to in Europe. This partnership also has some specifics like focusing on the emerging generation, being involved in a church planting movement and helping us learn about post-Christian culture. I'm excited to both go there and to participate on a team like this - I've never been on a vision team before but read lots of vision team reports. It's a unique purpose that requires some interesting skills so I'm looking forward to learning a lot.

The first part of something like this is similar to traveling for other reason - check out the demographics. For instance, Brussels has a population 1.8M with a population density of 16857/sq mile. Compare that with where you live [DC is 617K and 10065/sq mile; Baltimore is 619K : 7671/sq mile.]

But what we are going to be doing is a lot of observing and discerning. Here's some of the big things I'm thinking through:
cultural icons - symbols; heros; organizational, environmental and physical structures - what do these things tell us about the culture.
concepts, context and execution - which of these are transferable and which ones aren't and why not.
handles - where can people step in and tangibly get involved.
serving vs. systems - like handles, getting people involved in serving is easier than systems for serving.
reciprocity - can we go to them is a simple question. can we host them in our context is much more complex.

Here's some vision-type stuff I've been reading of late.
Observing Tokyo
Edinburgh, Scotland

2012 on the move

Some of Ember's tribe on the move because of mission this summer and fall. And you have to know that they were like this before they got involved with Ember. We are just privileged to serve with them.

Trevin - serving with the Ember AZ 2012 team; Queen Creek, AZ.
TayEst - starting a job with Teach for America in the fall; Baltimore, Merryland.
Lexi - currently in East Asia.
Kristen - leading a vision team to Brussels [that I am on] at the end of June, recently started a job with Grassroots; Brussels, Belgium and Columbia, Merryland.
Andrew - serving this summer again with First Love; East Africa.
John - takes on a outreach/missions coord volunteer job this fall with his college ministry; Harrisonburg, VA.
Michelle - starting a job in quantitative economics and statistics with Ernest and Young; Washington, DC.
Erinmoy - serving on a short term missions team as an occupational therapist; Domincan Republic.
Caroline - finishing a season of training as a midwife with YWAM; Australia and Uganda.
Katie - Ember Cast spawn - Ember AZ 2012 team and a week with STC; Queen Creek, AZ and Baltimore, Merryland.

Note some of the very specific tangible skills some of these fine young people have developed, that helps them be on mission.

[Related: 2011 on the move ]

Friday Burn

:::The biggest story in development - child mortality rates fall in African countries
Link
16 of the 20 African countries which have had detailed surveys of living conditions since 2005 reported falls in their child-mortality rates (this rate is the number of deaths of children under five per 1,000 live births). Twelve had falls of over 4.4% a year... Three countries—Senegal, Rwanda and Kenya—have seen falls of more than 8% a year, almost twice the MDG rate and enough to halve child mortality in about a decade.


::: Buy in vs Weigh In
Link


::: Open Seattle - a grassroots youth conference from the Youth Cartel
Link


::: Leadership classes don’t harm leaders, they just don’t produce leaders
Link
So here’s my plea to church leaders; let’s stop pouring time and resources into leadership training classes. Let’s pull the plug; stop the madness. The more time we waste herding people into class rooms and force feeding them leadership platitudes the less time we have to actually discover and develop and deploy leaders.
[Someone I worked with wanted to emulate the Seacoast model]

::: Instead of how is your church the question is how is my city - @BrianHook1

::: More people have become followers of Jesus Christ in Iran in the last ten years than in the previous 1000 years combined.... - @TLubinus

::: "Consider how hard it is to change yourself and you'll understand what little chance you have of changing others." JM Braude - @sarahsmusic

Photo: Ember guides and spawn at Grace Leadership Collective, January 2012.

Fall 2012 Internships Available

I'm still convinced there are global leadership concepts that youth pastors and the like can't, won't or are unable to teach to their students - concepts that are key for helping inform leaders in the near and far future. That's why Ember offers internships for high school students.

Past students have been involved in things like: DC ServeFest; In Service homeless ministry with National Community Church; Iraqi Christmas Festival; CRM church planting roundtable; Sunday Breakfast Mission - Philadelphia; Catalyst One Day leadership conference; The Bridge, Silver Spring; The M Conference, Detroit; Humana 2008, Orlando; Urban Youth Worker Institute; Stop Hunger Now food packing event; gatherings with various vocational missionaries from around the world; global missions experiences in New York, Phoenix, Hungary, and Cameroon.

We still have room and these can be done virtually. More info, apply here.

Ember AZ 12 - first team meeting

Our first Arizona meeting was this past weekend. With a young married couple, one high school senior, one just graduated college young adult, one Ember board member, and all 4 Shengs, it's a small and eclectic team. [But we've got some other things in the works...]

After our time together, I'm even more confident that God has placed each person on this team for a specific reason and for His specific time in history. Our hope is that some amazing things happen in Queen Creek AZ and to us because of this investment.

Here's some of the things we talked through:
+ the paradigm of a catalyst
+ the history of working with Ben Cloud
+ person of peace [part of our preassessment]
+ some admin stuff - meetings, travel logistics, etc.
+ blood sugar sensitive dessert

If you are in charge of a short term student team this summer, I'm sincerely hope you are preparing them. One of the reasons The Ember Cast exists is to help leaders do this.

[Related: 2010AZ mtg #3,
2008Hungary mtg #3,
2007Hungary mtg #3,
2006Cameroon mtg #3
2005Brasil mtg #1]

Friday Burn

::: 5 tips to mobilize teenagers
Link via @pauldz


::: Is a company that gives away profits really a social enterprise?
Link


::: The High Cost of Bad Hiring
Link via tony morgan


::: Why the Leadership Movement is Leaving Your Church Leaderless
Link


Photo: Ember guides celebrating summer projects, August 2011.

Poverty, Stewardship, Potential

"The idealization of poverty is one of the most dangerous illusions of Christians in the contemporary world. Stewardship - which requires possessions and includes giving - is the true spiritual discipline in relation to wealth." - Dallas Willard

JM sent this quote to me in an email [used with permission] conversation related to this: I meet a lot of suburban students that want to be poor. In most cases, this is an incorrect posture for future ministry. Willard nails it spot on with stewardship and I would throw in the concept of potential in there as well.

Mothers Day 2012

Creative Revenue - Myers Briggs sessions

Ember believes that missionaries of the future will rely on a 'portfolio of revenue.' [credit for this term goes to Ben Arment.] In other words, they will need to actually make some money outside of personal donations. As part of this summer, our team is required to dream and execute a Creative Revenue Plan - a way to make some income based on their talents and gifts. This unique income will go directly towards the funding of their missions experience. Prayer and financial support letters are also required.

My Creative Revenue Plan is as follows:
+ I will offer a single, informal Myers Briggs Type Indicator session to individuals or teams. The MBTI is a well known personality test that organizes people into 16 different personality types, based on the temperaments of 4 domains. In this highly interactive session, we will cover individuals and their types as well as how the types interact in your specific context, including your organizations goals, structure and culture.
+ The session will last no more than 2 and a half hours.
+ 100% of this goes to supporting Ember's Arizona 2012 team.
+ Rates are as follows: $50 per person for 1-5 people, $25 per person for 6-10 people. Payments are to be paid to The Ember Cast, Inc. More than 10? Let's talk. tonytsheng @ theembercast.org
+ I will provide all handouts for you and your team.
+ Participants will take the test in advance - the session will only interact with people who have completed the test.
+ Locations for these sessions must be in either Maryland or Washington, DC. Outside of these areas and still interested? Let's talk. tonytsheng @ theembercast.org
+ Although I'm not officially certified as an MBTI practitioner, I've walked hundreds of people through this personality assessment in over 20 years of working with the test. It's one of my favorite things to do with teams. The test you will take is not official, but will still score with a high degree of accuracy.

If this doesn't work, my Creative Revenue Plan B has to do with a power washer, sandals and a bathing suit. Plan C may have to do with some creative, strategic technology work.

Friday Burn

::: Population densities around the world
Link


::: Mark Zuckerberg and his transformation to a CEO
Link
My take aways: Vision, communication, staffing


::: Next generation workplace technology
Link via Rex Miller

::: It's a core value when you are willing to be punished for it. - @patricklencioni

::: I'd rather have a couple ideas that fail than a faith that won't try - @bobgoff

Photo: Ember Orlando, July 2011. Me, Trevin Hoekzema, and Chris Marsden.

My 2012 Missions Support Letter

"To know the will of God, we need an open Bible and an open map." – William Carey

A few months ago, I worked with some student mission leaders and gave them the paradigm of being a mapmaker. One step further than Mr. Carey, this idea conveyed that in times of constant, disruptive change, you could learn to read a map or you could learn to make your own maps. This summer, I have the opportunity to be involved in two interesting projects that fall under the mapmaker paradigm.

Most of you know about my little student missions nonprofit called The Ember Cast. I'll be helping lead a team with Ember to Queen Creek, AZ, working with my friend Ben Cloud and Amadeo Church. The team will see up close how a relatively new church works, learn about starting a new ministry in some detailed sessions with Ben and contribute to some community impact projects that form a structure that allow our team to be catalysts for what God may do in the Amadeo community. Ministry activities include serving with ReStore, their food and clothing pantry; Friends Feeding Friends, their homeless ministry; and various other community projects. Most or all of the Sheng's will probably participate on this team as well and this trip is July 7-16. My grand hope for this team of leaders and students is that this experience propels them on a trajectory where instead of reading maps, they start making their own.

The second project is with Grace Community Church, our home church. I have been invited to be on a 'vision' team, which will scout out the possibilities of some potential ministry partnerships in Brussels, Belgium as part of Grace's long term global strategy. Our team will have meetings with a variety of ministry leaders and will be observing, listening and discerning from June 28 to July 4. Our hope is that this experience helps set up a clear map with regards to potential partnerships for Grace in Europe.

We welcome and thank you for your prayers for both of these experiences. If you feel led, I'm raising 50% of support for both trips. The support target for Ember 2012 AZ is $1500 [for all the Shengs] and the support target for Brussels is also $1500. Unfortunately, support for both organizations must be kept independent, so that requires two separate donations if you give to both.

Ember believes that missionaries of the future will rely on a 'portfolio of revenue.' In other words, they will need to actually make some money outside of personal donations. As part of this summer, each person, including me, is asked to dream and execute a 'Creative Revenue Plan.' My Creative Revenue Plan involves providing one teaching session on the Myers Briggs Type Indicator personality assessment for interested individuals and teams. We will walk through each person's results, talk about how it fits with a team and discuss the assessment in the context of their organizations goals, structure and culture. All proceeds will go to supporting the Ember 2012 AZ team. If this is something you or someone you know might be interested in, please let me know.

Get in touch if you want to send financial support. If you are local and want to donate, let me know and I will come buy you lunch. Please make sure your checks are payable to either The Ember Cast, Inc., or Grace Community Church, depending on which project you feel led to support.

You may also contribute online to The Ember Cast. Online donations are done via amazon.com - be aware that Amazon takes 2.9% + .30 for each donation. The Ember Cast is a registered 501c3 nonprofit and you will receive a receipt for your donation approximately 6 weeks after your donation is received. The Ember Cast reserves the right to re-direct your support in the case that the person you are supporting is 100% funded. However, 100% of donations go to catalyzing global student leaders. Your donation is very, very much appreciated.

As always, thank you for your long standing passion for student missions. I'm convinced, like you are, that we need more global leaders than ever and that those leaders come out of students who are poised right now to make a difference in our world. I will be sure to tell you not only how we make maps this summer but how we make mapmakers that go on to mark human history. Thanks again for your support and prayers!

[Related: 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011 Mission Support Letters]

Friday Burn

::: Student Debt is Killing the Church
5. Student Debt Squelches Ecclesial Entrepreneurship.
Link via Rudy


::: Religious Census in Orlando
Surprising. And you know how much the Shengs love Orlando...
Link via Jon Tyson


::: Why It's Hard to Invest in Exponential Growth
Link

Photo: Ember guides Emily Swinburne and TayEst, Philly, November 2011.

Book Notes - I Will Teach You to be Rich

If you are under the age of 30 and have never read anything about managing finances, you should read this book. Although this may seem like a slightly off-topic post for this blog, I think it's relevant because:
1 - In my context [suburban, affluent, missions mobilizing] finances are very relevant.
2 - I meet a lot of suburban students that want to be poor. In most cases, this is an incorrect posture for future ministry. [I should probably unpack this idea huh.] Finances is an integral part of this decision.

Instead of notes from the book, a few things I learned and are doing.

1 - Credit Score
Instead of the standard get a budget, track your expenses, emergency fund, 401k, etc. [If you don't know what any of those terms mean and you are over 20 years old, you should be embarrassed. Please get some financial education.] The book opens with the topic of credit score. Simply put, getting the best credit score will save you tens of thousands of dollars over your lifetime. Part of this is paying off your credit card balances in full every month, which means having self discipline when it comes to spending. No one talks about credit score when they teach you about finances.

What I did: increased overall credit limit on our primary credit card, because credit score is related to credit utilization.

2 - Automatic Payments
Pay yourself first - take money out of your paycheck first, putting it into a savings account. Systematize paying your bills.

What I did: Start paying fixed costs [cable, internet, phone, utilities] on a credit card. First, I put these onto a card that gets airline miles. [Our primary credit card gets points for a 529 college fund for our children.] Secondly, this helps build credit history, related to credit score.

3 - Bargain Shop
What I did: Researched lowering fixed costs [cable, internet, phone].

4 - Reallocate 401K funds
Yeah yeah - this is a middle aged man point. But whatever. If you have a job that offers a 401K, sign up for it - this is called paying yourself first.
Lots more on the I Will Teach You to be Rich blog.

Exploring A Different Youth Retreat Model

This post is not meant to denigrate anyone - just food for thought. My daughter just got back from a retreat and had a great time. =)

For twenty years, I've been a youth ministry volunteer and the primary model of taking your youth group away in the fall and spring has not changed. I've served at them, overseeing cabins of students, I've spoken at a few of them, I have helped plan them. The very name that we call it, "retreat", communicates the paradigm - we take kids away to rest and relax. With the most missional minded generation ever, we should be exploring a different model.

Most of the great youth pastors I know serve in the context of believing their students can change the world. A high school student can exert influence, start a micro business, create a ministry from scratch, lead others to a richer, more sacrificial life. They know that kids should 'live on mission.' But when it comes to dreaming and planning times away with their students - almost 48 hours of life on life - they choose a paradigm that says 'live to rest.'

Jesus primary model of discipleship was on mission, on the move, for the sake of others. They certainly rested, but it wasn't until after there was some ministry breakthrough. They worshipped when they had returned from living life on the edge.

Elements of this model would include: teaching on catalytic leadership, some nontoxic charity service project and hyper worship - worship after you and your best friends have seen God come through in a big way. This type of weekend takes different kinds of planning. And of course, the term 'retreat' never, ever gets used.

If this sounds interesting to you, Ember would love to help you explore it.

Friday Burn

::: The next generation of anti-malaria efforts
An insecticide-treated wall lining for the interior of homes - think of aesthetically pleasing wallpaper. Link


::: 30 ways to love your city
Link via The Upstream Collective



::: Fascinating article about Homeboy Industries
Link
See the progression from self to serving to systems...?


::: Olympic athletes also fundraise
Link
This is creative revenue.

::: The Christian faith never exists except as 'translated' into a culture. -David Bosch @dansadlier

::: There is not one demon in the universe who is an atheist - Wayne Cordiero @alanhirsch

::: Live the kind of faith that ought to require seatbelts @bobgoff

Photo: Ember guides, helping prep short term student teams, April 2012.

AZ Part 3 of X

Part 1. Part 2. We do part 3 this summer.

Ember ethos - part 2

+ When we put a high school student into a leadership role that could be tenuous, we lean towards more, not less, risk and we communicate that to student.
+ Guides are given honest, relevant feedback about their performance right after a project they have been involved in. This feedback is meant to be near real time and is saved as lessons learned.
+ All leaders involved in a project decompress a project right when it is over. We remind everyone about the concept of unfiltered debate before the conversation - so we talk about the good, bad and the ugly on purpose and without making it personal. [Jim Collins]
+ Sometimes our Guides lead people who are much older. Sometimes they will be lead by someone much younger.

I'm more convinced than ever that the organization structure and values of a team are just as important as the character and passion of the people involved. I have the privilege of helping define a culture for an organization that I would want to work for.

Related: Ember ethos part 1

Friday Burn

::: JK Rowling's plot notes from Harry Potter
Link
via Ben Arment


::: Releasing Your Disciples
Most churches don't focus on disciple-making and if disciples do rise up from within their congregation, they don't release them. Instead, you see disciples tethered to the home church, defining the kingdom in terms of the needs of their own metroplex and local congregation.
Link


::: Who and How Often
Entreprenuers guide - Who to keep in touch with and how often
Link via Praxis

::: In times of rapid change, experience could be your worst enemy. - Paul Getty via Alan Hirsch

Photo:Carolyn [2011-2012 intern], Carver [2011-2012 Ember Impact Coaching participant], Matt [church planter, The Well Silver Spring], Chinatown, DC.

Detailed Short Term Mission Team Preps

Had a fantastical time with Ember guides facilitating a short term mission prep experience this past weekend. Here's the big picture on some of the values, activities, working documents and systems behind this training experience for the student teams at GRACE [my home church.] As always, feel free to steal what you can contextualize.

Friday night was a leader only experience - participants were leaders that were leading various student mission trips this summer - Uganda, New Orleans and Baltimore. The targeted concepts included navigation, team work, and an urban/cultural immersion. As our Ember team prepared, we landed on the idea of having the leaders travel to multiple locations in Washington DC and doing some kind of learning exercise at each location. Each location was distinctly different in cultural context, a key to this experience. Another key to this exercise was also done in the context of being a 'mapmaker' - you can be taught how to engage a specific culture or you can learn how to navigate cultures and make your own maps.

Leader teams departed right from the church with a set of minimal instructions and made their way to the first destination where our guides met them. From there, our guides traveled with them to the next 2 destinations, observing and debriefing when appropriate, and then all teams met back at Union Station to talk about the whole evening. This included conversations about being sent and being God's people on the move, being a mapmaker and different facets of teamwork. There is no better place to talk about movement than Union Station.

Saturday included a general mixer, some team building exercises and a series of quick 10 minute teaching rotations on sharing your story, global world realities, case studies in culture and contextualization and movement thinking. We wanted teams to experience working together as well as get some informal teaching. The more teams spend together before they hit the mission field, the better. The team building activities are always a big hit - high school kids should learn by doing.

From an Ember guide perspective, the working documents needed for this project included: instructions for Friday night activity [just enough directions - not too many], a debriefing how-to guide, and instructions for each of the team building activities. Regardless of the documents, each guide needed to be 100% engaged - observing the leader teams working [or not working] together or how teams did the team building activities, etc.

Our 6 Ember guides did amazing [amy, trevin, lexi, carolyn, kristen.] They navigated the unknown, improvised when needed and engaged every leader and student to think about the values each activity tried to impart. I'm not only proud of the work they did, but I'm proud of the culture of Ember that they are propagating. They trust each other which provides the foundation for unfiltered debate as we evaluate the event. Our evaluation was over lunch right after the event ended. An added plus if you are a guide: I write a feedback letter to every guide after every event where they have served.

See some pictures here. If you are involved with student mission teams and are interested in missions team preps, get in touch.

[Related: Mission Advancing, NY Mission Cast, Mission Preps with Bay Area]

Praxis Labs Culmination Event

I attended the Praxis Labs Accelerator Culmination event [Easter Monday #2] and dragged Trevin Hoekzema along. It was quite an event and I'm really glad I went. 10 startup social entrepreneurs gave their 5 minute pitches to the audience, we heard from a panel of the accelerator's advisors and we voted for 3 finalists on who should get $100K in capital funding. Lots of elements from this evening embodies the 21st century missionary. Some notes from the advisor panel below. I'm also writing a report for Ember's board of directors. Let me know if you would like a copy of that [tonytsheng AT theembercast.org].

Henry Kaestner
God centered organization - faith, family, work, fitness in that order - Bandwidth.com has those very public values.
Important traits of leaders: why they do it and can they articulate the reasons why

Managing growth and scaling and organizational culture:
It is one thing to acquire and retain customers
another issue to retain employees
employee retention speaks directly about the culture of the org
how committed are the founders to creating the culture of the org - this is done with input and intention
culture is defined at the early steps of an org

Steve Graves
scalability - better reason to scale than 'just because i can'
launch -> prove -> scale
you can skip the prove step with lots of resources - money, network, etc.
why do we scale? should we scale?
we must prove the right things, especially as people of faith
feed and nurture the person and the org
there is a composite score of life - husband, father, employee, neighbor
you must manage and lead yourself in multiple roles
live a life of healthy grace - juggle - realistic expectations

Josh Kwan
past investing has been based on guilt or feeling good about ourselves
calling, purpose, accomplishing impact - asking tough questions
social entrepreneurs are the 21st century missionary <<-- this is why I went

Friday Burn

::: The 5 Biggest Mistakes I Made During My First Year on the Mission Field
Link via Larry


::: 21 tips for traveling the world
Link via Chris Guillebeau


::: America's most important airport cities
Link

::: The day will come when an intelligent machine will replace the pastor & 'feeling' shepherded, the church will not know the difference. @skye_jethani

See all the Burn posts here.

Photo: Ember guides with Patrick Donohue, second from the left, Serve the City Baltimore, March 2012

Easter Monday #1

Joshua Symonette [that's him standing in the blue] and I first became friends during a Vision Trek guide training weekend in Green Lake Wisconsin in 2008. He's the best example that I know of a leadership maven and he seems to know every ministry leader in DC.

On Easter Monday, Joshua hosted a small gathering of DC ministry leaders around the topic of diversity. Not only diversity of race, but of economic class, thought, and experience. It is undoubtedly an important topic for the Church today.

Loved some of the discussion which included ideas like: the default behavior of Christian leaders should be risk which includes crossing certain lines; the phone book of the leader tells you how diverse they really are; and the impact of the collaboration between Run DMC and Aerosmith for the remix of Walk This Way.

PS - Joshua has his own wiki page too.

The Mission Book

Larry McCrary is one of the creators of The Upstream Collective, a different kind of missions organization that exists "to see churches think and act like missionaries." Larry connected me to some great folks for a little project I was working on a few months ago and recently asked me to write a little contribution to The Mission Book.

Short term mission teams are notoriously under prepared. They don't understand how to navigate cultures, they don't know their teammates well enough and they wear the same t-shirts in the airport. Some say that 50% of short term mission teams do detriment to the visibility of long term missionaries - I believe that to be true. I also believe this is easily fixed.

We've had a great deal of success in focusing on three concepts when helping missions teams prepare: serving, movement and awareness. And when you work on these three, you get a team, not just collection of people going somewhere together.

Read more of my entry here.

Maps

This weekend, Ember helps make mapmakers from maps.

Friday Burn

::: Did You Like Church?
Like we repeatedly say in our services, "We're not trying to impress you, we don't care if you enjoyed the service, we only care if it changes your life."
Link


::: Global Patent Applications
Link


::: How Much Do You Read?
33% of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.
42% of college graduates never read another book after college.
80% of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.
70% of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
57% of new books are not read to completion.
Link


::: 12 cities. Urban areas. Saddleback.
Link


::: 6 Powerful Web Tools
Especially number 2 - web photo editing
Link via Dawn Nicole Baldwin

See all the Burn posts here.

Photo: Ember guides and friends [and wife], STC Baltimore. July 2011, Patterson Park Pagoda, Baltimore.

Missionary and Third Culture Kids

One of our good Ember friends is collecting some advice and tidbits for a friend who is moving to another culture to teach missionary and third culture kids. If you've got some experience in this arena, like you are a parent of some TCKs, or you have taught them, or you grew up as one, I know Emily would love to hear your advice in 3 sentences. Or pick your brain. Leave a comment or contact info.

Thanks!!

Perspectives - Don Richardson

Don Richardson spoke at a Perspectives class last week and I dragged some of our Ember team to it. It was every bit what we expected - great content from a global missions patriarch. Don also coined the term 'redemptive analogy' that I use all the time. Below are some of my notes. Long time readers know that Perspectives started all this silly student missions stuff in the spring of 2003. [If you knew that date, you HAVE been reading a long time...]

For the Sawi, treachery was their highest value. Judas emerges as a hero.
When people live as tribes, tribialism prevails. You only care about yourself.
Cultural compasses:
Indian prophecy of an upside down tree.
Chinese encoding of characters.
Extended family - peace through a new birth.
Abstract concept of new birth.
Jesus spat - nothing related to Jewish culture. He didn't have to use saliva to heal. Marilyn Lazlo - Wycliffe translator and the tribe that related to Jesus healing with saliva. Did God look 2000 years in the future to this tribe?
Could there be some details in the Scriptures not for you but for someone else.
People say missionaries shouldn't go to unreached tribes because they ruin a culutre. This assumes no one else will go - evil corporations, political commercial etc.
87 tribes went extinct in 57 years.
Survivor International - anti missionary organization.
Polygamy - older men sacrifice their daughters to increase their harem. Young men take daughters and leave to different villages. 90% of violence within clans are due to polygamy.
Tribes were addicted to soap and salt.
Missionarys are the object of novelty. Young single men gravitate towards the missionary, while older men feel slighted. Missionary becomes a bad influence in the eyes of elders. Must find a way for the elders to know they matter.
Animistic societies - if people die, its witchcraft. Someone needs to be blamed, who is guilty. Quota of pain - antiBiblical.
Natural symbols suggesting eternal life. Lizard sheds skin. Caterpillar into butterfly.
3 measures of exponential growth - 1st 250 years after Pentecost, the early church
# of believers
# of ecclesia - households
# of culturs in which there were churches
The creeds are missionless. They were written during a dead time for the Church.

Also, there were probably 50-60 people there, lots of different ethnicities. The average age was probably 50, there were maybe 5 high school or college students, I brought 3 of them.

April Kindling

+ Our summer Ember projects are finally starting to take some shape. Lots of adjustment and pushing and pulling.
+ Doing lots of planning for a short term student missions prep engagement. 3 hours on evening with team leaders and 4 hours the next day with leaders and students. Seems like a sweet spot for Ember as well as a conviction - most short term teams seem like they could have done just about anything and been better prepared.
+ Watch for signs of some Creative Revenue Plans coming very soon. Our teams are pretty behind in terms of financial milestones, but we'll give it a shot anyway.
+ The futurist in me is already thinking about Fall 2012. One emerging theme is reproduction.
+ Deanna has lost almost 40 pounds now. The discipline she has shown through this has been incredible. Our 11 year old Em got glasses. I got some lotion for a rash.
+ Reading Mike Breen, Jon Tyson and Vince Antonucci. If that doesn't slam the status quo, I don't know what does.