Momentum Mag

Momentum Magazine - a online magazine to help believers passionately, quickly, and effectively reach the least-reached 27% of our world.

Katrina Grace

No, its not the name of a new baby... Pastor Mark talked on Sunday about GCC teaming up with a church just north of NOLA to help with the recovery effort.  The pastor there was actually a guy that D and I know from our old church in Silver Spring, MD.  Anyway, Stephen and his wife are the point people for the partnership and have started a blog for all the info and connections.  katrinagrace.blogspot.com

independence day

Today, September 7, is Independence Day in Brasil.

Mozambique

A short post I read about Mozambique here from a series of posts about the House Church Conference.  Some interesting items:
- After a 40 days of rain and 40 nights of rain. Half of Mozambique was destroyed by flood waters.
- The entire nation of Mozambique is coming to God.
- 53 people to his knowledge have been raised from the dead in Mozambique.

Via Andrew

SPACE blast off 2005-2006

We have a pool party (of all things) on Friday night with the SPACE crew kids - and some new invitees.  This is the blast off, kick off, jump start, lets roll, gentlemen start your engines, etc. time where we start things off  for the school year.  I'm pretty excited about it.  We have a big group of kids that have said they want to be involved and loads of energy and momentum left over from the summer.

Of course, one of the goals is to give these kids some kind of vision for their involvement.  And more than a vision, I think.  It is also giving them a jolt of confidence.  "You are key in another person's life.  You can make a difference.  You can contribute to something much larger than yourself.  You can lead your peers to live life missionally."  That idea is more than just vision.  It's a shared value that is not just taught or spoken.  It's a spontaneous pattern that we are trying to reproduce in these students.

Here is my post from last year's SPACE crew start up get together.

Here is to the next 1000

Well this is my 1000th post!  Hard to believe.  I've been spending the last few days thinking about what I would write in this post.  And the best thing I could come up with is to chronicle some history of this blog and the connections that it has helped me make, literally all over the world.  So, here it goes.

Nov 20, 2002 - The very first post.  I had no idea what I was doing.  This was when I was a dteam leader and my guys were in the Fall semester of their senior year. I contemplated using the blog as a means to get info out to them about events, Bible studies, etc.  But I didn't because I didn't really want a lot of people reading it at that point.
Spring, 2003 - Still using it as a personal journal, keeping notes and links there but really for my own purposes and such.
Fall, 2003 - SPACE starts.  I start using the blog as a means to write follow up info and acting like people read it.
Spring, 2004 - Blogger users get gmail accounts.  Everything we hoped it would be and more.
Nov 2004 - I meet a blogger for the first time.  Will and I meet for lunch.  A little strange meeting someone you know a lot about but never met face to face.  But Will is a great guy so it was really cool.  Funny thing, now I would think nothing of meeting a blogger face to face.  (Will used to live in MD but now is in KY going to seminary)

Somewhere in here, there are other very cool connections made:
- PM and I connect from our blogs.
- Dennis and I connect via 'youth group looking' photos on Flickr. 
- Jeremy and I connect from our blogs.
- I somehow find an old friend from a previous church where we used to do ministry together and reconnect with John Mark.
- There are, of course, others.  Nels, Scott, Rodney, Amy, David T(Revolution), David T(Long Beach), Jason, Lon, Pete, Stephen, Emilyg_123 , Marc, Steve, Sivin, Lu, wow what a fun list!
Thanks to all of you that have connected!  (Tell me please if I missed you...)

April 2005 - I comment on Alex's blog.  And he comments a response back to me that speaks life into me.  I can still remember being totally captivated by his response.  First time for a blog comment to speak right into my soul.  (If you want, here is the link.)
Summer 2005 - Fly out to meet for the first time and work with PM.  I have progressed - lunch with a blogger was weird, flying across the country to meet a blogger isn't.  My good friend MM starts a blog.
Summer 2005 - Use the blog for real time updates (especially for parents) for an overseas mission team.
Fall 2005 - Two of my leader team (LB and FZ) from the mission trip set up their own blogs.  I follow college kids ( ELB and KT) as they leave home for the first time.  One of my dteam guys is in China (sort of a blog but no RSS feed).  People from where we visited this summer read and comment on our blogs.  I make my SPACE intern start one and tell her that this will be a primary medium for her and I to interact about her reading assignments (and more.)

So, thats the gist of 1000 posts.  Some really good friends across the globe.  Loads and loads of fun stories.  Connecting in a really cool medium.  And lots of dialogue as we believe the next generation is going to change the world.

LC speaking outline

I get the privilege of speaking in Light Company (our middle school ministry) this Sunday.  I say privilege because it is really true - the people that speak to our students are carefully filtered.  So privilege because I'm certainly not all that.

Also, its a real privilege because I know - for certain - that I will make an impact on these kids.  Not just from what I say, but because of what we (the SPACE crew) are doing.  We are creating a culture of mission and service.  We are engaging students to give intentionally and sacrificially.  We are shaping and molding the perceptions of middle schoolers.  We are modelling to them that it is cool to go out and serve, that speaking another language is very cool, that engaging someone from another culture is not dorky.  

We are creating a mindset that there is not a youth ministry at GCC without SPACE.  The current 8th graders have never known a Light Company without a SPACE.  They don't realize that there were a lot of middle schoolers that went through LC without "The Bus That Rakes" or that there have only ever been two LC mission trips.  That is huge.

More than ever, I see Sunday as not just a talk, but creating and shaping an environment for growth.  The worship music, the lighting, the video and pictures, the whole atmosphere, the rapport, the dreaming and praying behind the whole morning, it all comes together for an environment.  Hopefully its an environment where God draws hearts.

It will also be a fun morning because in addition to highlighting some of the high school summer team members, there will be 3 middle schoolers that will stand up and talk about their experiences this summer.  There hasn't really been an opportunity for them to talk about their trip at all this summer, and having them upfront conveys the importance of what we did to the middle school community.

Here is my very rough outline.

Intro - Gen 12 - vessel to be blessed/to bless others
Where I Went was Different - teams
How the world really looks - me
Impact on me - teams
How I Made a Difference - teams

If you are around GCC on Sunday, LC is 2nd service (9:45) at the Warehouse.  Just be forewarned, it is middle school.

Katrina PeopleFinder

Got an extra hour or two?  Can you cut and paste?  I'm thinking I'm going to do this for an hour tonight.  Help consolidate the loads of lists of people that are missing or found.  For instructions, click here.

Misc Sunday links

Dan Kimball (who wrote the book The Emerging Church) has a great post about the role of apologetics in our postmodern culture.  Very articulate with some very, very good points.  You would like it.

Phil posts about organic versus chemical growth.

Ryan posts about teaching mission strategy at Fuller, where "a strategy would be more influenced by the biblical narrative than by the latest business guru."  Cool.

1 month

1 month ago today, I was in Brasil.  One of the things I have learned is that we all come off spiritual high experiences and think irrationally.  I told the team they need to wait 1 month before thinking realistically and seriously about their future involvement with the ministry there, going back, etc.  We all make so many grandiose plans right after a profound experience like that.  It's difficult to ride the emotions yet stay to the convictions.  So to my team that reads this, you can start thinking about it again today.

Moravians

When I took Perspectives, they told us many of the Moraravian missionaries would pack a coffin and fill it with their personal items - because they knew they would never come home.  Steve Addision gives a good case study about the Moravian mission movement.  Note:
- "relative lack of concern with training, finances, or structure"
- a prayer vigil that lasted for over 100 years continuously
- 2000 people being sent out in 150 years

people of peace

Mark posts about disciple-making movements here.  I loved the way he talked about 'evangelism':
What Jesus taught his disciples is to simply ask God to lead them to the right people, so called 'people or houses of peace' who are ready to receive the Kingdom. Not everyone is ripe to be harvested, so don't force yourself or others into an artificial approach. Rather 'gossip' the gospel ("hey, listen to this") and bring God into the conversation in a low-key way by sharing a story of what happened to you or a friend of yours. If something resonates with them, they will pursue the conversation, otherwise drop it.
It also made me think a bit more about this idea of 'people of peace', which I had really only heard first from The Shaping of Things to Come.

(Related topic:  I had been posting my thoughts from the book (like here) and would have continued, except I felt really compelled to leave my copy with GMcM when we were in Brasil.  I'm sure he is going to love it.  One thing we don't totally understand is how our overseas families don't have access to a lot of church stuff we take for granted, like books.  GMcM told me that every time he comes to the US, he buys two years worth of books.)

This requires a bit more thinking.  And probably a change in the way that we relate to people around us that have yet to see the kingdom.

deep belief

"But the trouble with deep belief is that it costs something.  And there is something inside me, some selfish beast of a subtle thing that doesn't like the truth at all because it carries responsibility, and if I actually believe these things I have to do something about them.  It is so, so cumbersome to believe anything." - Blue Like Jazz


Does belief always cost us something? Is there a fine line between deep and shallow belief, where the depth makes us behave differently?

Corp America donates

My company started a 2-1 match for Katrina via the Red Cross.  I'm proud to say that this morning, there were over $400,000 raised from employees and more than $800,000 in matching funds.  That is cool.  Rudy writes about Desire Street Ministries, right in NO.  The Shengs are giving a little bit to both.

student teams and disasters

When the Tsunami hit, I had a few people ask me if I thought about taking a team there to help.  No.  Same answer when it comes to New Orleans.  Now, I realize that I might be the minority when it comes to this opinion.  And I'm okay with that.

Right after the Tsunami hit, we had a team from GCC go to Southern India to help a church planter.  They had planned this trip way before the disaster.  As soon as the tsunami hit, I was secretly against them going.  If anyone asked me for my opinion, I would have told them.  I'm glad no one asked because they had a really good trip. 

There are contexts where student teams are great.  Disaster relief situations are not one of those contexts.  You will:
- Expose your kids to a lot of death, destruction, disease, etc.  Disaster environments are environments where people can barely live.  Think post traumatic syndrome. 
- Spend a lot of time and money that could otherwise be used for daily needs for people already stricken.  It is far more efficient to give that money to people and organizations that are already on the ground working the relief. 
- Probably get in the way of a lot of professional people that train all their lives for situations like this.  Those people are the professionals.

So, just in case you asked.  (Sometimes I know I should keep my mouth shut.)

Steve is going

My blog friend Steve Watson is going to NO.  He writes about preparation and the actual going.  Blessings on you Steve.

Cuba and hurricanes

less than 2 months ago, cuba was able to move 1.7 million people on short notice.
the whole civil defense is embedded in the community to begin with.  people know ahead of time where they are to go.
they come to your door and knock, and tell you, evacuation is coming, then they come and tell you, now.  
if no electricity, they have runners who communicate from a headquarters to central locations what is to be done.  
the country's leaders go on TV and take charge. but not only the leaders are speaking. the TV weatherpeople are knowledgeable. and the population is well educated about hurricanes.
they not only evacuate. it's arranged beforehand where they will go, who has family where. not only pickup is organized, delivery of people is organized.
merely sticking them in a stadium is unthinkable. shelters all have medical personnel, from the neighborhood. they have family doctors in cuba (!), who evacuate together with the neighborhood, and already know who, for example, needs insulin.
if they evacuate to a countryside high school -- a last resort -- they have dormitories there.  
they also have veterinarians and they evacuate animals. they begin evacuating immediately, and also evacuate TV sets and refrigerators, so that people aren't relucatant to leave because people might steal their stuff.
it's not throwing money at the problem.  it's not financial capital, it's social capital. the u.s. in this sense has zero social capital.
dealing with hurricanes in cuba, as compared with how it's done in the u.s., is similar to the differences in how they deal with medicine. it's not reactive; it's proactive. they act as early as possible. the u.s. doesn't have civil defense, it has civil *reaction.*

from BoingBoing and more from this article on the BBC

Pager update

Good news about my pager (I think.)  It dried out and now works.  Corporate America is overjoyed.  One of my dozens of cousins says that you can put your pager/phone in a sock with a load of clothing in the dryer for 10 minutes.

Bibles to NOLA

Thomas Nelson Publishers is donating 100,000 Bibles to NOLA and approved a matching gift for employees that donate funds. Read more from the CEO himself here.