Friday Burn

::: Over The Past 150 Years, There Has Been A Profound Shift In What Humans Do With Their Time
You won't like the answer.
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::: Four Myths of Global Leadership
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::: How Ikea Took Over the World

The company, for example, did a study of 8,292 people in eight cities, examining morning routines. People are the fastest out the door in Shanghai (56 minutes) and the slowest in Mumbai (2 hours, 24 minutes), where they’re also the kings of the snooze (58% hit the button at least once). New Yorkers and Stockholmers are the most likely to work in their bathrooms (16%). But regardless of city, women spend more time than men picking out their outfit for the day, a process many find stressful.

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::: 5 Global Cities of the Future
Link via Alex McManus

::: Many of our churches are almost out of time to be a church of its times and for its times. Len Sweet

Photo: Amadeo Church, summer 2010.

Perspectives - Lesson 10 - Resources

I just finished teaching Lesson 10 for Perspectives for two classes earlier this week and this was the pile of books I brought for some resources. Long time readers know that besides Jesus, Perspectives changed everything for me. Each one of these books is fantastic.

Church in the Making
Youth Ministry in a Post Christian World
Movements that Changed the World
Tradecraft
The Forgotten Ways
The Short Term Missions Workbook
* all of these links are to The Ember Cast's Amazon Smile page

Get in touch if you want a copy of my class slides.

Prague - Mtg #2

Frameworks:
- third culture kids
- geography
- spiritual, cultural and fun elements
- itineary

Creating this is going to be quite the experience.

Friday Burn

::: Poor Kids of Silicon Valley
Stunning series about child poverty.

"America has the developed world's second highest rate of childhood poverty."

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::: Where the migrants go, in one map.
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::: Making Disciples, Not Hunting Them Down
Heidi Scanlon, NCC's pastor of prayer, and her ground rules for discipleship.
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::: Engineering a Mass Transit App for a City Without Mass Transit

In Nairobi, private car ownership isn’t the norm: the bulk of its citizens rely on public transit. But when Nairobi’s formal bus system collapsed in the 1990s, the government failed to do anything about it.
So without a formal urban planning strategy, an enterprising group of Kenyans sought to fill the void.
The result was a crazy, lawless, and über-popular mode of transportation: the Kenyan Matatu.

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::: Fortune sides with him who dares. - Virgil via @dancumberland

Photo: Tess and Katie, Curtis Bay, Baltimore. March 2015.

The Advantage of Princesses

One of our hopes in raising our kids around faith based global work is that they would engage it as they got older and they wouldn't resent it later. So far, I think, it has worked. They've been on lots of planes. They gravitate towards people that like airports. They have heard stories from countless young people who have gone far away at God's leading and then come home and had dinner at our house. They love adventure. They are willing to go at the slightest invitation.

Ben Arment writes about the advantage of princes, "They grew up in the castle. They understood how the kingdom was run. Leading an empire is no big deal to them because they grew up watching it being done. It has nothing to do with their capabilities. It has everything to do with their conditioning." Certainly, we don't live in a castle, but the principle holds true.

Our oldest daughter, Katie, is spearheading a showing of the human trafficking documentary called In Plain Sight. It's going to be hosted at Grace Community Church in Fulton, MD, the evening of April 11. We are proud of her for using her passion, network and gifts in this area this year and are excited to see how the event turns out. Pretty good for a 17 year old. Let me know if you are interested - would love to see you there.

Update - RSVP here.

Ember Curtis Bay

I love being around people that have started things from nothing and naturally, The Ember Cast has gravitated towards this as well. One thing that makes us unique is our ability to expose emerging global student leaders to the type of people that have done these kinds of things - creative, innovative and entrepreneurial to the core. Gospel centered missional leaders of the future will need to have the skill to find a way or make a way. Last Saturday, we had the privilege of seeing lots of this kind of thing.

DK [ProtoGuide 2013] and Wendy Usher [AZ 2013] have worked with us for a few years and we love the leadership they are providing at their respective colleges. On Saturday, they brought a bunch of their friends to serve at a service day hosted by Ember.

We worked with The Well in Curtis Bay and got to know Mandy Memmel, the founder and executive director. The Well is primarily a resource for women living in Curtis Bay but talk to Mandy and you'll find a catalytic leader that is hoping to change the very culture of their community by helping the women that live there first.

DK brought about 20 college students, which is no small feat. She's been making Ember proud by working on Towson Cru's service team, heading up community outreach initiatives for their community.

Wendy Usher has been working with an after school club of sorts with some kids from her community. Recently she has pivoted that into a mentorship type agreement and has found a small group of college students willing to serve and lead and tutor these kids. In a bold move, she brought 6 volunteers and 10 of these kids in her mentorship initiative to Curtis Bay this weekend. I know you might be thinking of the liability issues in this - trust me, I know. But besides that, exposing kids that are served every week to getting outside of themselves to serve others is a huge win and Wendy and her team pulled it off.

Getting high school kids involved in service projects is almost never a bad thing. But don't forget that somewhere in the past, God birthed a vision in someone. You really win when this person who found a way or made a way shares their passion with your students.

Absolutely loved every piece of this day including the fact that it was our first Prague team excursion. And The Well has one of the most organized clothing closet I have ever seen, accomplished by someone in their mentorship program.

Friday Burn

::: Your Guide to Slang in Other Countries
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::: The World's Top Missionary Sending Country
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::: A Quarter of a Million People Use an App to Brush Their Teeth
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::: People Respond to Forward Motion
Classic Seth Godin.
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::: Great leaders don't put out fires. They fill buckets. - @csfguy

Photo: Train, Brussels, Belgium. June 2012.

Prague Leader #1

In the summer of 2013, I met Tess, who, having just come home from Brussels with a team that was working with Serve the City, was interested in how Ember could resource her to do more of the same. It was the perfect project for us - a passionate emerging global student leader and an opportunity to dream and imagine something for the future.

The original intent was for Tess to return to Brussels to work on something else, but instead, she came with us to Aix last summer. We are glad she did.

She's joining us again this summer for Prague and we are thrilled. Her first significant contribution: help raise the bar on support letters.

Photo: Tess, second from the left.

Ember in Curtis Bay This Sat

Ember is hosting a service learning opportunity with a community development nonprofit in Curtis Bay this Saturday. I'm thrilled because we get to work with DK and Wendy Usher again this weekend. Both have been pillars of community impact projects at their respective colleges and it's great to keep up with them and see how their leadership is catalyzing their peers. They have both been involved with us for a few years and it's our privilege to serve with them.

Wendy's also been involved with some after school kids clubs in her community and this weekend, she's bringing some of the kids she's been serving so that they can participate in serving others. I'm thrilled for Ember to have a small part of this and excited to see how it will work out.

Leading community impact stuff like this can be easy. Developing catalytic leaders can be more difficult but the thrill is worth it.

Friday Burn

::: Quiz - Ending Global Poverty and Hunger
I didn't do that well either...
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::: 28 Stealworthy Productivity Tips
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::: Growth in US Passport Holders
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Photo: Ice, Charleston, SC. Feb 2015.

Tales to Tell

There are distant shores still unreached.
New friendships yet to be realized.
And brave stories still to be lived.
So go find them.
Take the long way.
Cross oceans.
Cross continents.
And make it epic.
For regret feeds on the weak.
Bones heal. Sunburns fade. Money is spent.
And miles are left behind.
But having a tale to tell is something you can never lose.
Odysseys Await.

Seen at the Sperry store, Charleston, SC.

Trips With Dad - 2015 #1

At the end of 2014, I found myself slightly disappointed in my abilities as a father for that year. I decided to be a little more intentional with time with my immediate family members, culminating in a decision to take each one of my kids [and my wife] on a trip, just the two of us, in 2015. This was the first of these.

Deanna and I escaped the snow for a few days to Charleston, SC. Her sister had gone to college here so we had spent a good amount of time here when we were dating and have always loved the city. Warm, coastal, and southern - what is not to love.

+ Boone Hall plantation, just outside of Charleston, is a fun visit to check out plantation life. The best thing here was a live presentation about Gullah culture, the slave culture that migrated from West Africa. Super great presentation. You can save yourself a couple bucks if you get tickets for the plantation at the Charleston Visitor Center in the city.
+ We stayed in Charleston one night and then a few nights on Isle of Palms, your perfect little beach town. Our hotel was walking distance to the beach, little local restaurants and the VFW.
+ We also spent one afternoon at Tybee Island, outside of Savannah, visiting with my brother in law, sister in law and my niece and nephew.
+ I got my I Love Small Waves shirt at Half Moon Outfitters, a Charleston institution.

I deem this one a success.

Happy birthday Deanna

More so now than ever before, she embodies the pioneer spirit. Whether it is travelling, like we are now, raising our girls to engage the world, catalyzing the next generation of global leaders, or dealing with diabetes, her mindset is "with Jesus, let's find a way or make a way."

Happy birthday. Love.

2015 Missions Baseline Questions

Ember uses a generic application for all our ProtoGuides and summer teams. Included in this application is a section called "Missions Baseline" which is used to gauge an applicant's knowledge on some basic missions concepts. We've used this for a number of years and, of course, keep refining our application. The application is not a simple, fill out your name, address, your salvation story and why you want to go on a summer team. Instead, it is designed to require some significant effort.

Here are the questions from our baseline section this year. The ideal is that we compare what they know before and after their experience. And our hope is that they get some real life understanding of these ideas.

Describe what a person of peace is.
Describe what an indigenous leader is. Why are these leaders so important?
Describe the tension between social justice and evangelism.
What is cultural distance and provide an example.
Describe an example of contextualization.
Name a modern day example of a movement.
The name of a person that you are discipling.
The name of a person that is discipling you.
Describe something you have helped catalyze.
Describe a unique, important, modern day global phenomenon.

Students are fully capable of understanding each and every one of these ideas. In fact, teach them these ideas well enough and you might have a global catalyst on your hands. [If you steal them, and you are more than welcome to, just let me know how you use them.]

Thank You, Board of Director, Dale Swinburne

In February of 2007, I met Dale Swinburne at a gathering in Florida hosted by Alex McManus. I had connected with Dale a few months before that on social media and heard great things about him. Meeting him face to face validated those things - he was an expert at the StrengthsFinder psychometric, he was passionate about building teams and leaders and he had a view of the world that clicked with mine. Although Dale lived about 20 minutes from me, it took going to Florida to actually meet him face to face.

In 2010, I asked Dale to join my team on the Board of Directors for The Ember Cast, a new student missions organization I was launching. We had spent some time together since 2007 and I was always impressed by his integrity and his deep longing for the Church to be an unstoppable force. His time on the Board has been a huge investment in our students, various teams and especially me. Some of his contributions have included:
- Multiple deep StrengthsFinder learning sessions with individuals and teams. He is the best I know at this and his expertise has consistently erupted better performance from each Ember team he has worked with.
- In discussions about various core competencies of Ember, Dale liked to ask, 'Are we giving them what they think they want or what we think they need?' This key question has always reminded me to consider the obscure alternatives when we try to meet our clients needs right now and in the future.
- Two of his daughters, Emily and Gwen, were a part of Ember's 2010 AZ experience. It was an integral summer for us as an organization because it was the first Ember summer team ever. Emily also served as a fantastic guide for us in 2012. Dale and his wife Jen have always embraced Ember with their family.
- I will always remember the story of him meeting with one of the spiritual mentors in both of our lives and that mentor asking, 'How many people at your church are coming to know Jesus per second?' That is the kind of view about Church that Dale and I share.

As of last week, Dale's time on the board of directors has come to an end and I'm immensely grateful. His time on the board and his investment in me as a leader and a friend have been invaluable. Thank you Dale - you have impacted the future in more ways than you know.

Photo: SF session, Dale, JTimmons, ARotolo. 2010.

Friday Burn

::: A Counter Cultural Approach to Poverty Alleviation

In reality, the evidence suggests that the vast majority of the reductions in poverty have been due to the spread of one of America’s greatest inventions: rapid economic growth based on the expansion of capitalism. Indeed, economists and policy makers believe that further reductions in global poverty will require poor countries to continue to adopt the policies and institutions that have enabled the United States to sustain high rates of economic growth and material prosperity. In essence, the goal is to turn Bangladesh into America.

And this should give Christians serious pause.

Fantastic read.
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::: Charity: Water and Google Work on Remote Sensor Technology
And then they make the software and hardware plans available to anyone. If you've been here for a while you know how I love Charity: Water. And you should know that the nonprofit sector is ripe for technologists.
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::: Map - If the Size of Countries Reflected their Populations
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::: An African-American youth worker told me that when he meets with donors, he speaks "Caucasian." He shaves, wears khakis, and says "AWESOME!" - @DavidLivermore

Photo - Teal Rapp, director of recruiting for Christian Associates. Les Baux, France. July 2014.

Announcing Ember Prague 2015

Today, I am thrilled to announce The Ember Cast's first 2015 summer project. We are putting together a team to travel to Prague this summer to work with Christian Associates. The specific project is to run their middle/high school program during their annual worldwide staff conference. Christian Associates is an organization we love - they have a deep creative and entrepreneurial ethos and they embody the concept of missional imagination. If you've been around here long, you know that we served with student teams at these conferences in 2007 and 2008 and CA was a partner with us for the last two summers in Aix-en-Provence, France.

Camp Juice is the name of their middle/high school program and we will be hanging with a very unique blend of teenager - think a set of third culture kids whose parents are involved in the non mainstream activity of starting new faith communities or some kind of nonprofit or social enterprise. We have a few ideas that we think are pretty non mainstream as well, which should be interesting. I'll be the first to admit that this whole project is a pretty big stretch for me - I've never done anything like this before. It's a good reach though and I'm excited as our team comes together for the dreaming, planning and execution of this.

Not only do we hope our students dream big in executing Camp Juice, there is a pretty unique bigger context at work as well. We will have a team of students who are already mostly interested in the many facets of global missions, world cultures, nonprofit and social good and Gospel centered leadership. And they'll be gathered with a few hundred adults who are already doing these kinds of things in environments all over the globe. Although this shapes up to be quite a catalytic experience, our hope is of course that through this experience, Jesus continues to lead and guide their lives.

Thanks in advance for your support for this project.

Upcoming Ember Engagements

Here are some upcoming Ember events that some of you might be interested in. If you have ever wondered about what we do, why we do it, if we are any good at our core competencies, or what does it take to run student service/mission/leadership projects, these might be a good opportunity to come and learn. We don't usually open up availability for people to join us in this manner, but get in touch for more specifics if you are interested.

March 7 - Baltimore, MD
We are hosting two sets of college students to serve with a community development org in Curtis Bay. The most interesting thing about this experience is that Wendy, who we have worked with lots and who also runs a few after school programs in Salisbury, is bringing some of the kids that she serves so that those kids can be involved in serving someone else.

April 14 - Location - TBD
We are helping facilitate an overnight service and culture experience with a small group of high school students. This will involve some real time cultural observation and engagement and a service project in an urban environment.

May 29 and 30 - Columbia, MD
We are helping run a series of student missions leader and team preparation sessions for a local church. Their student missions experiences will comprise 4 teams and over 50 students and leaders.

Contact - tonytsheng AT theembercast.org if interested.

Friday Burn

::: The Crisis Text Line
Fantastic read about teenagers, texting and how it all comes together in The Crisis Text Line, the first and only national, 24/7 crisis-intervention hotline to conduct its conversations exclusively by text message. Must read if you work with students.
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::: East Asia's Massive Urban Growth
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::: 8 Ted Talks to Watch Before You Speak
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::: Diagnosing HIV with a smartphone
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::: If you blow it at home, you’ve blown it as a leader. >> Leadership begins at home - @ToddAdkins

Photo: Paris, 2013.

Welcome Home JT

Loved catching up with JTimmons, who you might remember helped with Ember 14X as the first leg of his 5 leg journey around the world. His jaunts also included Greece, Turkey, Nepal, and China and we loved being a small part of his quest as he sought how the Lord might use him in another culture. John's spirit of adventure will continue to inspire all of us.

Watch this guy and I don't know either about my hair.