You Understand

Give me a man in love; he knows what I mean. Give me one who yearns; give me one who is hungry; give me one far away in this desert, who is thirsty and sighs for the spring of the Eternal Country. Give me that sort of man; he knows what I mean. But if I speak to a cold man, he just doesn't know what I am talking about. - Quoted by Muggeridge in A Third Testament - John Eldredge, The Journey of Desire

The Front Yard of

the international SPACE office...

Fun with Em

Freedom to Allow and Promote

A mentor is someone who helps a protégé in some very practical ways: by giving timely advice that encourages the protégé; by risking his or her own reputation in backing the protégé; by bridging between the protégé and needed resources; by modeling and setting expectations that challenge the protégé; by giving literary information that open perspectives for the protégé; by giving financially, sometimes sacrificially to further the protégé's ministry; by co-ministering in order to increase the credibility, status and prestige of the protégé; and by having the freedom to allow and even promote the protégé beyond the mentor's own level of leadership.

- Bobby Clinton in The Making of a Leader

Remember SPACE people - you are *supposed* to do more than SPACE imagines.

Jan Launch

Fun times yesterday with some 9th graders, their leaders and some special guests.

Quick tour of ministry sites:
- Maple Lawn - the housing development across the street from GCC
- FISH - a homeless soup kitchen in downtown Laurel - about 10 minutes from GCC
- the Mall [yes, the Mall was, and is, a site of ministry]


More details:
Group 1 assembled doggie poop stations for the development. The intent was also to set them up in the specified locations throughout a few of the parks in the development, but it ended up being too cold for that. This group also made bag lunches to give away.

Group 2 drove around to various hotels to collect soap and shampoo, also to give away to the homeless soup kitchen. Then they did a culture survey at the Mall similar to this one. [1 hour is a good timeframe for this.]

Both groups then met at FISH to drop off the lunches and toiletries. Unfortunately, no one was there. It was neat to see the groups together and also to give a sense for how close the homeless shelter - and the issue of homelessness - actually was.

The goals were to send them out, impact some strangers and show them that they can do something like this by themselves. It will be fun to have this class around for the next four years.

SPACE Jan 2007 Update

"I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that he didn't trust me so much." - Mother Teresa

Hi SPACE friends,

Thanks so much for your thoughts and prayers as we endeavor to shape and mold students for mission in the present, to the future and for the nations. After a really fun and busy summer [sending 5 student teams and around 55 students and leaders], we've had a quiet Fall and are reengaged for 2007. Here are some quick updates.

::: Pray for --
- Jan 20 - This Saturday we will take a small group of students and do a few community service projects - one of them taking place in the community [Maple Lawn Farms] across the street from Grace's building. Pray for a good long term relationship and impact.
- Summer plans - We are starting the ball rolling for our summer teams. This includes plans and partnerships with GCC family and friends both near and far, recruiting and lining up leader teams and then the assembling of teams. Pray for strategic opportunities and the right mix of experienced and talented leadership.

::: Thankful for --
- One of our long term Dteam leaders and friend of SPACE is going to jump in and help be a logistics coordinator for our summer teams. His help will be huge as he assists with travel logistics, tracking support raising and helping prepare our teams for their summer trips. Matt is his name.
- We will be doing the seemingly annual Sheng Orlando Winter Escape in the middle of February. Our time will be split between me attending a conference called Humana2.0 [www.fight4humanity.com] and DisneyWorld, of course! We are looking forward to the time away, being in Florida in February and having one of our SPACE team come with me to the conference.

Thanks for being with us right in the mix of this uncanny intersection of students, culture and mission. We so appreciate your prayers for these students, the future they are creating and all the potential and passion that God entrusts them [and all of us] with.

- tony
http://tonytsheng.blogspot.com

Urban - Suburban Partnerships

Jeremy has been posting some notes from the Urbnet Summit. [Part 1, 2 and 3.] I specifically appreciated these notes from part 3:

Few real relationships with urban and suburban
· Scale of 1-10, the number is 3
· Expectation that urban should/must adapt to suburban way of doing things

BUT, our goal should be to Build Bridges that facilitate meaningful, reciprocal relationships

· Requires being in the room — and staying there — and having the hard conversations required to rebuild fractured relationships
· Cultivate (Rhythm) Relationships (by spending time with each other)
· Resources (calls into the city for help with “urban issues”)
· Responsibilities to understand each other’s worlds
· We need to think through how to interact with suburban churches and why do we want to work with them outside of the stereotypes.
· We in the city interact cross culturally all the time. God is equipping urban America due to the diversity that already exists in the city not the suburbs. Is there something we can offer to help get this issue out?
· Why do suburban churches outreach in the city but not vice versa?

Here are some thoughts I had to follow up with his notes:

- He mentions the expectation "that urban should/must adapt to suburban way of doing things." Context and culture are significant - and that expectation needs to be tempered. Cross cultural workers know from the beginning that context matters - urban and suburban cultures are vastly different. It is indeed not a one-size/one-model fits all.

- I love the idea that urban churches should outreach in the suburbs. That is very cool and I would love to see something like that happen. Any tangible ideas out there?

- "We in the city interact cross culturally all the time. Maybe the cities are one of the best places to find cross cultural workers and trainers.

- "God is equipping urban America due to the diversity that already exists in the city not the suburbs." No doubt, the global and urban migration is huge and represents an amazing opportunity to reach proximities of the world that could never be impacted before. But suburban diversity is certainly changing as well. Our suburbs might be unique but there is a huge blend of cultures in Howard County - take a deep look the next time you are at the Mall or at a public school. I imagine other suburbs that are co-located with large metropolitan areas are also seeing the same kind of change in ethnicity.

Related: SPACE activity on culture in our mall - Fall 2006.
Related: I have put some notes together for a potential breakout session entitled "Leading Out of the Global Matrix - World Cultures and Why Leaders Should Care" designed to engage suburban leaders in culture and context.

Transferrable

We [LB, TriciaB and I] had a great time last night hanging out with AMoser - who just got back from India for three months with AIM. One concrete goal as a mobilizer is to let these people just talk. When you meet with someone who has come back from the field, give them a lot of room and time just to tell stories. They want to share and not many of their friends or family will listen for more than 15 minutes or so. We heard some fantastic stories about orphanages, the Taj Mahal, Indian boys singing "Indescribable", and praying with a lonely woman in a leper colony while holding on to what used to be her hands. We were richer from listening.

The other goal of our time was to try to transfer some stuff from Adventures. But we must keep in mind that context and culture are significant. Here are some principles that were reinforced for me:

::: Team training is vital.
AIM does a training camp for all teams - her particular trip was there for 5 days before departure. Team building, group dynamics, specific ministry task training is included. It also sounded like they try to make the living quarters pretty rough on purpose - [reminds me of Teen Missions Boot Camp]. One example - a shower is a stick in a field with a tarp over it and a garden hose laying on the grass. Preparing the teams are important, including preparing them for living conditions. In our context, we don't necessarily want or need to make the team training in our own version of Hades, but we don't send teams out to live among the worlds poorest of the poor. At least not yet.

::: Team leadership is fundamental.
Her team was composed of 11 girls, 4 guys and 3 leaders - all of whom had significant overseas, cross-cultural experience. Two out of the three had done something with AIM before. The application process to be a team member is lengthy, including a 10 page application and a series of phone interviews. I imagine the leadership candidate process to be even more detailed. It sounded like AIM leadership knew all these three leaders very well.

::: Go with the Ghost.
Each team member has time during the day designated for 'personal ministry time.' The gist is that it is a daily, scheduled time that team members can use as the Spirit leads them for their own personal ministry. Go deeper with a neighbor, spend time with someone you met at the market, go and seek relationships in the culture. Team members are not under any pressure but know that there is time specifically for this. And they probably realize that if they don't take advantage of this time, it will be their loss. I like the added dimension of the unknown, non-programmatic, do-as-you-are-led aspect.

Photo: AMoser in India.

Fun Times for an Extrovert

Tuesday's schedule:
- 8.45 conference with one of our kids' teachers [actually not that fun - if you don't already know, the Sheng's are not morning people]
- day job until sometime in the early evening
- meet up with the Orbiters, LB and our suburban development contact for one of the community projects for Jan 20th launch
- meet up with AMoser who is back from India - goal is to see what could be transferable from Adventures to SPACE
- meet up with a college freshman for some mission coaching

Not fun just because I'm an extrovert, but because these conversations are future focused with an end goal of helping send more students.

Tuesday Potpourri

::: Teen Boom is Worldwide

While much has been made of the United States' population hitting 300 million this year, international demographers are worrying about economic, cultural and political implications of a population boom among the world's youth.

Also:
- Nearly half of all unemployment in the world is among young people.
- 500,000 young people under the age of 18 are recruited by military and paramilitary groups. Some 300,000 have been involved in armed conflict in more than 30 countries.
- 13 million adolescents give birth each year.
- Young people account for nearly half of all new HIV infections.
- The vast majority of the world's teenagers don't have access to television.
Link via BoingBoing



::: Mike Frost and the future

"...in a sense, I come from your future. I know how much worse things can get for the American church. Your country has begun the same slide into secularisation that Australia has been experiencing. Our decline began earlier than yours and has advanced more quickly. As a result, Australian missional church leaders have had to discover incarnational principles as a matter of life or death. We think we've learned a thing or two that many American church leaders have been insulated from needing to know. But the day is coming for you."

Link via Fred Peatross


::: The movement of the Gypsies

In Spain gypsies represent only 2% of the population but they have by far the largest evangelical movement with over 600 churches and 60,000 adherents. Throughout Europe there are over half a million gypsie believers.

More from Steve Addison. One of my Perspectives instructors in 2003 was getting ready to leave the US to be a missionary to Gypsies in Europe - the first time I had ever heard of a missionary to Gypsies.

Update: CousinSteve emails, "I recently met a fellow Columbia International University (CIU) alumnus who just left with his family for Europe to work with the gypsies. At CIU we were frequently exposed to the work of missionaries evangelizing the gypsies of Europe."

Perspectives - Grace Comm Church, Fulton, MD - Spring 2007

For those of you that might be interested in the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement class - held at GCC this Spring - starting tonight. Here is the outline. Be careful, it will change everything.

Perspectives Study Program
Washington Baltimore Center for World Mission
Grace Community Church , Fulton, MD
Spring 2007

Date Lesson Title Instructor
1/15/07 1 The Living God is a Missionary God Mark Scott
1/22/07 2 The Story of His Glory Shawn Wolf
1/29/07 3 Your Kingdom Come Mark Harlan
2/5/07 4 Mandate to the Nations Keith Swartley
2/12/07 5 Unleashing the Gospel Craig Bean
2/19/07 6 The Expansion of the World Christian Movement John Bush
2/26/07 7/8 Eras of Mission History/Pioneers of the Movement Fran Patt
Mid Term Exam Distributed
3/5/07 Interactive Lesson
Mid Term Exam Due
3/12/07 9 The Task Remaining Joe Steinitz
3/19/07 10 How Shall They Hear? Dan Shaw
3/26/07 11 Building Bridges of Love Dave Fritz
4/2/07 12 Christian Community Development Ruth Calver
4/9/07 Easter Break
4/16/07 13 The Spontaneous Multiplication of Churches Joe Suozzo
4/22/07 Patrick Johnstone at Grace Fellowship Church, Timmonium
4/23/07 14 Pioneer Church Planting Karen Michener
4/30/07 15 World Christian Partnership Scott Buresh
Project Due. Final Exam Distributed
5/7/07 Final Class
Final Exam Due

Summer 2007 Structure

Some of you long time readers have read about our structure around the summer teams. I want to give you a quick update in light of some things that I am trying to improve on for this coming summer.

The goal is that SPACE has the most *minimal* structure that we need in order to send students out. We aren't looking for a lot of red tape but we need to ensure that we have the processes we need to do a good job - in the areas of finances, training, quality leadership and making sure no kids get left in an airport somewhere. Too much structure and we can't move fast enough.

Here are some areas of structure in light of this coming summer:

::: Approvals
All of our trips need approval from GCC's Missions Task Force as well as the Director of Youth Ministries/Senior High Pastor. For this year, any overseas summer team needs to have their plans submitted to the MTF by mid-January [hey! don't laugh.] This earlier time frame was set forth because we didn't want to be on the short end financially as teams were getting ready to hit the field, which is what happened last summer. The MTF also submits our plans to the Elders for their approval and I get approval from our Senior High Pastor. And yes, I have been busy - there are some very exciting plans afoot - tell you more about those later.

It's fabulous to have multiple checkpoints along the way - with people that both know what they are doing and care about what we are doing. And in the past, we have had voices along the way question and push back and we have listened - for the better.

As a related note, any mission funding that goes through GCC needs to get approval from the Elders.

::: Logistics Coordinator
MPM, who comments on here as "Matt", has come onboard to help SPACE teams this summer as the logistics coordinator. MPM will get engaged with each team once their team leaders are put together. From there, he will assist with support letters, travel logistics, tracking support [which is a huge task!], team preparation and I'm sure a whole host of other both mundane and vital tasks. This will be a huge help to us and if you know MPM, you know his heart for students and the world and you know that he has the Arranger strength - an uncanny flexibility to put disparate things in the right places and order. But better than all of that - he must and he knows that we must.

::: Support Tracking
Like I said - huge. Support will be tracked weekly and updates will be sent directly to team members via email instead of being filtered through team leaders. Team leaders will also get their team status, but last year, we didn't get the info to team members timely enough. This is also a big one because of the extreme sensitivity of donor information.

::: Applications
I've added some romance language into both our leader and student applications [links to both at the top right]. No, the applications aren't in Spanish or French.... Instead, the applications include very specific clauses about relationships - with team members and with host ministries. I hope it's clear enough this year, and we will keep revising it each year.

::: Mission Advance
Yup, we are doing it again. I'm sure it's going to be a lot of chaos to get there but it will totally be worth it to mold these teams together. The date is set and I have reserved at least one vehicle.

::: TriciaB and EllyK
TriciaB and EllyK, two of our team members from my Cameroon team [and on the DC team last year] are jumping in starting in January to help with SPACE. We are calling them SPACE orbiters - and their help is going to be huge. We are looking to them to help gather momentum with their friends and students that we don't know - yet.

In light of all that, some of the potential plans we have for this summer are pretty cool. The past three summers have surpassed each one before it in momentum and impact - I'm scared but excited to think this summer might continue the trend.

Reclaim Time - Reclaim Life

From ChangeThis 30.03 -- Stuart R. Levine has 11 of his 100 rules for changing your life and making more of your work/life balance. Here are the first three - which I found very practical.

::: #1 - I got it.

As soon as you understand exactly what someone is explaining, tell them in one way or another, "I got it." Doing so frees them to move on and cover more ground. Similarly, if someone else says "I got it" to you when you’re explaining a point, stop.

::: #2 - You're killing me.

What do you do if you’ve said "I got it" to the person addressing you and they keep right on talking? You feel trapped. You know the clock is ticking. This is the third time you’ve heard the story. Everyone in the room is already in what I call "violent agreement." Instead of getting angry or giving up, look at the other person, laugh, and say, "You’re killing me. I’ve got the point. Let's move on."

::: #3 - Close the loop.

Have you ever had a test at your physician's office, and the nurse said, "We'll call you if there's a problem"? Two weeks later—and still no call. You begin to wonder, "What if they lost the blood sample? How can I be sure everything's okay?" When people don't close the loop, they leave the other person hanging. Not only is it distracting, it can subtly erode the relationship. Anyone can follow up. It's a simple matter of being conscientious and disciplined.
- Respond to invitations and meeting requests promptly. It's a lot easier for others to plan an event when they know who's coming.
- When you receive details or specifics, acknowledge them. When you receive a question by phone or e-mail, answer it or forward it to the person who can. Acknowledge your action with the person who raised the question. A simple e-mail reply saying, "Got your message, see you there" will eliminate any confusion or uncertainty over whether you received the e-mail and were able to attend the event.

Never let yourself be known as someone who leaves other people hanging. Once that label gets applied, it's hard to shake. On the other hand, when you consistently close the loop, you build a reputation as a dependable professional.

I'm going to try to concentrate on these three, especially #3. So if you get in touch with me and I don't respond, that would be bad.

ChangeThis has some great stuff in regards to leadership, media, innovation, creativity and thinking.

Six

Em turns 6 today. An amazing character with: a love for almost any kind of animal, a song in her head that she and a few others hear, and a rhythym that gets others moving. Continue to move the world Em.

Inspired

Here is what has been inspiring me of late. The innovation, creativity, style and messages - amazing. 2007 is going to be a fantastic year, I'm sure of it.

Mini Sloths - Ice Age 2
One of my favorite scenes from the movie.


Church Marketing Labs - an interactive flickr pool for church graphic designers. One of my favorite recent images.











The iPhone

We've got the multi-touch screen, miniaturization, OS X in a mobile device, precision enclosures, three advanced sensors, desktop class applications, and the widescreen video iPod. We filed for over 200 patents for all the inventions in iPhone and we intend to protect them.

Mosaic's 2006 recap video

[RSS readers - there is some embedded video in this post]

Who Inspires You?

"Nobody inspires you more than the person who speaks to the greatness within you." - from the Leading Blog

:: In 1988, when I was a freshmen in college, I met the leader of a national student ministry and spent about 30 minutes with him in light conversation. At the end of our time, he invited me on a month long missions experience to China. To my regret, I didn't take advantage of the opportunity. But his invitation was inspiring and challenging. And scary - could a 30 minute conversation give someone the knowledge of the impact I could make in the world?

:: One of my mentors once said to me, "You would be the perfect person if you drank coffee."

:: "Tony, Perspectives and Origins. That tells me a lot about you. You've been blessed with a very big picture of things. Lead on."

Who speaks to the greatness within you?

Appetite for the Word

"Leaders need to be aware of indicators of those who have an appetite for the Word (such as marked Bible, ordering and using tapes, buying Bible study books, attendance at Bible studies, producing or written studies, etc.)"
- Bobby Clinton in The Making of a Leader

Is this "appetite for the Word" an indicator you engage as you develop leaders? How do you make your emerging leaders hungry?

Cost of Bibles

Last week, while on the way home from Georgia, we stopped overnight in Smithfield, North Carolina. There is a great Sleep Inn Super8 there that we have stayed at before, since it is about half way for the trip. It also has an indoor pool that always screams my children's names. Co-located with the hotel, interestingly enough, is a huge outlet mall. It's got a good selection of all the stores you would be interested in - you know Nike, Bass, The Gap, and .... The Bible Outlet!!

I got some great deals there including The Journey of Desire for $6 and a church planting book for $8. So I thought it was a real Bible outlet - you know where you could get a Bible at a discount price. Not so. When we checked the price on a Bible that D liked, it was astonishing $55.95!! Huh?

We really need to think about this. More than half of the world lives on less than $2 a day and someone wants to charge a months pay for the word of God... Something doesn't seem quite right here...

And let's not even talk about the parts of the world that don't even have their own Bible in their own language yet...[Related post]

Awareness, Needs and the Status Quo

Leaders must raise awareness of needs, challenge potential leaders concerning those needs, and release those potential leaders to solve them.
Leaders need to be aware that those who often engage in self-initiated projects do so to correct the status quo and often do so in an abrasive way.

- Bobby Clinton in The Making of a Leader

My thoughts:
- I hope I wasn't too abrasive when SPACE started.
- Regarding the status quo - "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Einstein
- Sometimes, these awareness of needs are going to come from the bottom up, rather than the top down, like the quote reflects. In fact, maybe an indication of some serious leadership initiative is when those emerging leaders recognize an awareness of needs and they take it upon themselves to meet the need. Then all you have to do is release them.

Your thoughts?

Summer 2007 on Plates

Jan 1, 2007 included for me:
- cleaning up some files on a hard drive
- backing up some important other files onto another hard drive [you should do this too]
- cleaning and getting ready for a Cam team reunion
- having the Cam team reunion [great to see everyone that could make it]
- getting feedback for some summer ideas from some people that know where we have been and where we are going [literally as well as figuratively]

Photo: My summer strategy on paper plates. [Note that last year I used an Excel matrix and didn't have it ready until Feb 16. I've been busy...]