Momentum of Teams

In June of 1993, two student mission teams left for six week trips. One team was spending six weeks with six different mission experiences, ranging from service projects, backyard Bible clubs, and inner city camps. My team would eventually spend close to four weeks in the Dominican Republic. Both teams spent the first and last week together, working as a collective team. The first week was spent working on various work projects getting a summer camp ready for the season, while the last week was meant as a relaxing week at the beach doing open air evangelism. You know how open air evangelism can be so calming and relaxing.

The summer of 1993 was definitely a significant life event for me. I led a team for the second time. I had to integrate leading my team along with working with another team - and my then-girlfriend was a leader on that team [that's us 2nd and 3rd from the right]. Our teams did preparation together, as well as those first and last weeks together. I traveled to another country, really lived in another culture, saw real poverty first hand, got sick and was quite uncomfortable.

One of the rewarding things that summer was seeing two teams leave together for different localities. It ingrained on me the idea of momentum of teams during the mission preparation phase.

Technorati tags:: student+missions

Misc Thursday

** Introduction to Church Planting post from IMN blog. Notice the deep level of content and dialogue in the comments.


** Sam Metcalf writes about a contemporary rich young ruler experience, and again, has an interesting discussion in the comments.


** The 15 best skylines in the world. Via Jordon.


** Census data combined with Google maps. Via Parke.

Technorati Tags:: International Mentoring Network

Kt's favorites

Sport: jump rope
Movie: Yours Mine and Ours
Cartoon: Spongebob Squarepants
Toy: toy laptop
Book: Magic Treehouse
Song: I'll Fly Away
School subject: Math
Clothes: Jeans
Pajamas: Nightgowns
Color: Rainbow
Food: Grilled Cheese
Animal: Dolphin
Vacation: Connecticut
Hobbies: computer
Dessert: lots of them - choc chip cookies
Places to go: Savannah
Park: Animal Kingdom
Park Activity: Jungle Gym
Preacher: Pastor Tim
Bible characters: Mary, the mother of jesus
Holidays: birthday
Day: Saturday
Prayer request: friendships
People: Abby
Boyfriend: Alex (don't worry, she doesn't quite understand that she has to wait until she is 21.)

Here are Ems.

Cam 2006 - Leader Team

I think we've gotten the leader team straight now. It's good news. Good group of people.

- LB returns.
- NLind, who was a leader on the LC team last summer, joins this team. She will be great to have along since she went to Uganda last summer - so she knows when its time to run from the rhinos. She is also heading up the LC team this summer.
- the SPACEintern gets to take it to the next level.
- We bring on GMurak, a new leader.

I realize that its a really good idea to have another male leader to rely on. Not that this group of female leaders couldn't do a tremendous job by themselves - it's just a good idea. It's a safe bet that I spend about 1/10 of the time sick. What can I say, I'm fragile.

Speaking of the intern, the past few summers, I have invited special graduating Seniors (ones who have literally *just* finished high school) to be leaders with my team. In essence, these are SPACE poster children. They have invested a lot, understand what we are trying to do, and have stepped up to lead and serve. I know it is a risky thing since these students go from peers to leaders within the span of a few weeks. That separation can be tricky, on both the new leader's part as well as the rest of the students.

But I'm willing to take the risk for a few reasons. First, it is rather self-serving. We need more leaders and this provides a good opportunity to grow them from people we already admire and love. It also shows that we are serious about recognizing commitment, leadership and serving. The ones that make the investment and are serious about it are asked to take the next step. And finally, I would like to believe that traveling under my leadership is a fantastic experience. I mean, the 90% of the time when I'm not sick. The other 10%, well thats probably up to debate.

Technorati Tags::S.P.A.C.E, Cameroon, student+missions

1984

On March 28, 1984, I asked Jesus to be my best friend. It has been an absolute exhilarating ride since then. This picture is a picture of the first Bible I ever had. The summer after my decision that March, I went on summer staff at Hemlock Wilderness Brigade Camp, a foundational experience where I served and worked with a bunch of other Christian young men, in the wilds of West Virginia. That summer, I also took part in a week long wilderness canoeing trip to Ontario, Canada. Also foundational since I wasn't a very good swimmer. My first Bible spent a little bit of time in the Canadian water.

Jesus, you have been, and continue to be real.

Freedom and Hope

This post is mostly for me.... because I can't get the Palmer family out of my head.


1.
From a scene in V for Vendetta [spoiler alert]:

INTERROGATOR
We'd like you to sign that for us, Miss Hammond. Where we've put the little cross.

She blinks.

EVEY
No.

INTERROGATOR
As you wish.

Rossiter begins unbuckling Evey's restraints.

INTERROGATOR
Escort Miss Hammond back to her cell, Rossiter, where she will wait while you arrange a wet detail of six men.

He forces Evey to her feet.

INTERROGATOR
Then take her out behind the chemical sheds and shoot her.

INT. CELL

The door opens behind Evey as she rereads Valerie's letter for the last time.

ROSSITER
It's time, unless you want to change your mind.

She holds the tattered piece of toilet paper to her chest.

ROSSITER
Sign that statement. You could be
out inside three years. Perhaps
they'd find you a job with the
Finger.

Evey closes her eyes.

EVEY
Thank you but I'd rather die behind
the chemical sheds.

Her last words hang in the air.

ROSSITER
Then there's nothing left to
threaten you with, is there? You
are free.

2.

I guess what I really want to say is just this: be hopeul. Don't stop fighting. On some level this thing is bigger than all of us. It's not about having a wife die of cancer at 26, and then 2 years later getting the same terminal illness. It's not about me and how I fight this disease or how our little family walks through it. The bigger picture is the battle against sickness and death that we all face because we live in a broken world. But it's even more about the Kingdom that has broken in and offers us a chance at relief from that disease. It offers health and victory where before there was none. There is hope in the midst of hopelessness. Death is not where we lose; the onset of hopelessness is the great defeater. So allow hope to rise up within you. And when it seems that hopefulness is the least appropriate response in this situation, let it rise up even more. Whisper your hope when you lie down at night; scream your hope when you wake in the morning. Live your hope as if it is the one and only thing that sustains you in this ravaged world. You will not be disappointed. - Palmer

3.
Matt 16
24Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.

How Do People Do This?

I've been skimming along with a pastor-type guy in Columbus, Ohio via his blog. Mark Palmer. It's absolutely tragic. In April of 2003, his wife Jennifer was diagnosed with stomach cancer. link

By August 2003, she had passed away, leaving him and their young son, Micah. link

His first night alone

What he read at her service

In Nov of 2004, he remarried.

In Jan of 2005, they found a tumor in his lower back. Turns out to be rectal cancer. link

He passed away this morning, two days after his son turned 4. It doesn't even seem right does it.

A poem he posted shortly after Jennifer passed away.

Extinguish my eyes, I'll go on seeing you,
Seal my ears, I'll go on hearing you,
And without feet, I can make my way to you,
Without a mouth, I can swear your name.

Break off my arms, and I will take hold of you with my heart
as with a hand.
Stop my heart, and my brain will start to beat.
And if you consume my brain with fire,
I will feel you burn in every drop of my blood.
- from the Book of Hours: Love Poems To God

Mission Trip Advice - #4

This is the fourth in a series of posts entitled "Mission Trip Advice." [Post #1, #2, and #3 in the series.] So you have signed up to go on a mission trip, and maybe you don't know exactly what to expect. And you are maybe looking for some advice. What is one piece of advice that experts could give you?

Andrew Jones is another blog that I love to read. Andrew is the Project Director for the Boaz Project. His team is developing a support structure for church in the emerging culture. His blog is about God, spirituality, new media and new expressions of church.

Andrew's advice:

travel light.
jesus advice in luke 10 is still applicable - dont take extra
dont take fancy shoes, brand name clothes. dont take church programs or systems that work in USA.
do take your bible
do take a small digital camera for telling the story later
your american phones by and large will not work in Europe
internet cafes will be your friend.
be a pilgrim. learn along the way. take stuff as well as giving stuff. pilgrimage is different than colonial style mission trips. learn the posture of a pilgrim.
enjoy. it may be one of the most adventurous times of your life and one in which the presence of God will feel nearest.
Jesus says he is with you always - and he said that to young people who were about to embark on a missionary adventure that would cost them everything

Many thanks to Andrew for sharing!

Technorati Tags:: Andrew+Jones, student+missions

Leader Application

This year, we are doing leader applications for the first time. It's definitely all for our benefit. Most of you probably know that an easy way to see who is serious about leading is to ask them to fill out an application.

I've had a lot of fun putting the application together, but even more fun reading through the ones that have been filled out. My favorite question is:

"Describe the riskiest - but not necessarily successful - endeavor you have ever attempted."

I was going to post some of the answers... but then I thought maybe that wasn't such a great idea - since these were from applications and all.

Anyway, good question huh?

SPACE 2006 team - Cameroon

"Without risk, there is no faith, and the greater the risk, the greater the faith" - Kierkegaard
If you want to live a life larger than yourself, you must be willing to take some risks. - Erwin McManus

Well, here is the deal with my summer team. My SPACE team is making plans to go to Cameroon this summer. You might be wondering why. One of the best reasons - to visit and help out a GCC family that lives there. Their job is to build indigenous youth ministries and we will help out with some of their efforts during the summer. We will be in or near the city of Yaounde. It's quite exciting but also very daunting. Africa, like whoa.

The plans for this trip have not come easy. A few candidate leaders could not go because of family concerns - and these were strong, solid, very capable leaders. These leaders are fantastic - smart, well spoken, servants, students of culture, love being around teenagers. And they pass probably the most important test - can I trust them with my own children? [By the way, all the other leaders are just as fantastic AND also pass that important test.] When these leaders had to bow out, my confidence was really shaken. Maybe Africa is not the right locale for student teams. Maybe no one is quite ready for Africa. Maybe it's too much, too far away, too much unknown. And on and on.

In the midst of waffling back and forth, I had a phone conversation with someone from the GCC MTF. This particular family falls on the opposite extreme side of the safety continuum - in other words, they are totally unsafe. They only go to the mall in the daylight. They only eat food that has been 100% cooked. When they go to church, the whole family rides in the back of a pick up truck. Standing up. [If you know them, I hope you are laughing.] On a more realistic and serious note though, when compared to God's call to reach the nations, this family knows that risk, adventure and mission is part of the deal. In other words, it was quite a pep talk.

I was reminded again of why we do this - maybe you readers already got it. If we decided to bag this specific trip because of these kinds of concerns, then this SPACE thing packs up and closes shop. If risk, adventure, and the 10/40 window is not worth it, SPACE is simply a big farce.

So there are our plans. 5 teams this summer. Oh, and I almost forgot. One more possibility of another team - a reverse mission thing. Tell you more about that later too.

Technorati Tags:: S.P.A.C.E, Cameroon, student+missions

Marcus Brody

HENRY
(to Indy)
Marcus?! You didn't drag poor
Marcus along, did you? He's not
up to the challenge.

DONOVAN
He sticks out like a sore thumb.
We'll find him.

INDY
The hell you will. He's got a
two-day head-start on you, which
is more than he needs.
(beat)
Brody's got friends in every town
and village from here to the Sudan.
He speaks a dozen languages, knows
every local custom. He'll blend
in. Disappear. You'll never see
him again. With any luck, he's
got the Grail already.

SXSW coverage

The SXSW festival was last week, and if you haven't heard of it before, and you are a blogger, time to do a little reading.

The SXSW INTERACTIVE FESTIVAL brings together uber-geeks, tech entrepreneurs, and digital innovators from around the world for four days of keynote speeches, Trade Show, panels, parties and assorted evening fun. Now in its thirteenth year, this is the event where the web's most creative minds share their ideas about how interactive technology will shape our future.

How ... interactive technology .. will shape .. our future. Sounds pretty weighty - and important. What I imagine is that it is a pretty significant event with some pretty significant people, all that are involved in this convergence of media, the web, and relationships. I think you would agree that changes in the Web in the past few years have made a pretty big impact on our culture.

Related links that I will be checking out too:
SXSW podcasts
SXSW video

At about the same time that I had been thinking it would be good to listen/watch some of this coverage, Mark over at Posting Threads posted that we should watch the video about Craig Newmark of craigslist and Jimmy Wales of wikipedia talking about the communities theyÂ?ve help build.

On Winning

"You lost today, kid. But that doesn't mean you have to like it." - from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

March Madness has 0 bearing on me. [You are surprised I even know huh?] The only real thing it means to me is that people enter their pools and some crazy men spend a lot more time in front of the TV. Even though I don't follow sports, I know that winning and losing is a fact of life. There is usually only one winner, one person at the top of the class, one that gets the biggest bonus or promotion. That is the way it is in school, that is the way it is at work. That is the way it is at Brownies and gymnastics, even when my little girls don't quite understand. Even though life is not a bell curve, there are winners and losers.

A significant way we view life is how we define winning and losing. Sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. And sometimes, we have a perspective that is a little bit different than what our culture tells us is 'winning' and 'losing.' This story of tennis star James Blake [who is a friend of a friend of some family, which is why the story originally caught my eye] is a great example.

Mission Trip Advice - #3

This is the third in a series of posts entitled "Mission Trip Advice." [Post #1 and #2 in the series.] So you have signed up to go on a mission trip, and maybe you don't know exactly what to expect. And you are maybe looking for some advice. What is one piece of advice that experts could give you?

Steve Addison is a life-long student of movements that renew and expand the Christian faith. Steve distills the characteristics of dynamic movements and makes them available to leaders committed to the multiplication of healthy churches. Steve began his research into Christian movements in the late 1980s while serving as a church planter in Melbourne, Australia. He carried that interest into his Doctor of Ministry with Fuller Seminary. Steve currently serves as Director of Church Resource Ministries (CRM) Australia, a member of the CRM global community. CRM empowers leaders for the church.

Steve's blog is a daily read for me. He writes about leadership, mission, culture and movements around the world and I have specifically appreciated his notes on movement characteristics.

Steve's advice is as follows:

Practice naive listening. Go with the posture of a learner and expect God to speak.
As you listen, keep a journal of your experiences. What do you hope God will achieve in you through this trip? What is going on around you and within you? What is God up to in the midst of the people you are visiting? What's he doing through the Christian workers and ministries there? Intentionally choose portions of Scripture to reflect on during the trip. Expect to gain fresh insights into how God works by stepping out of your own culture. Allow him to "unfreeze you". Stay open to how he is going to reshape your life through this experience. When you return home expect to see your familiar world through different eyes. Don't let yourself settle back into the same way of life. How has the trip enriched your understanding of God's mission in the world and the part you are to play in it? What will you do?

Much thanks to Steve for contributing to this series.

Technorati Tags:: Steve+Addison, student+missions

DaVinci Code - Reminder

On May 19th, you should go to the movies.

Just go to another movie.

Save the date now. May 19th, or May 20th. No later than Sunday, May 21st -- that's the day the ballot box closes. You'll get a vote, the only vote Hollywood recognizes: The power of cold hard cash laid down on a box office window on opening weekend.

Use your vote. Don't throw it away. Vote for a movie other than DVC. If enough people do it, the powers that be will notice. They won't have a choice.

The major studio movie scheduled for release against DVC is the DreamWorks animated feature Over the Hedge. The trailers look fun, and you can take your kids. And your friends. And their friends. In fact, let's all go see it.

Let's rock the box office in a way no one expects -- without protests, without boycotts, without arguments, without rancor. Let's show up at the box office ballot box and cast our votes. And buy some popcorn, too.

May 19th. Mark your calendars now: Over the Hedge's opening weekend. Buy a ticket.

Read more here.

Technorati Tags::Da+Vinci+Code

SPACEmySPACE

Ok... so I'm going to do a MySpace experiment. More details to come, but the gist is that I'm going to try do a learning experiment with some kids on cross cultural mission using MySpace is a medium. I know, sounds weird. Ha, what did you expect?

I've created a SPACEmySPACE group to start with. If you want to join, let me know.

Plant Watching - Ocoee, FL

More on what is happening in Ocoee, FL with Voxproductions.

Related posts:
SPACE and evangelism
35 hours in Orlando

UYWI - Reload - Philly

JBourq is one of our SPACE leaders. She has been around from the inception of SPACE, when a few of us met and talked about what a service/missions team would look like for students. She has been a first hand witness for most of my crazy ideas. The ones she hasn't witnessed have been luckily nixed by my wife. She's also seen how some of our plans have needed to be changed during the actual execution. Keys locked in vans, getting kicked out of nursing homes, way too many bags of leaves.

What she has also seen firsthand is how important it is that we are preparing these kids to do ministry on their own. How we must not quit when it comes to exposing them to the realities of the world and what the church is or is not doing to meet those needs. And how absolutely exhilarating it is to nurture an environment where students are unleashed to live on mission and when their friends come along.

JBourq heard about the Urban Youth Worker Institute and their one day training day called Reload, and decided that she wanted to go. Since the event was in her hometown of Philly, it made perfect sense. She took the SPACEintern, TMurray [another one of our summer team leaders] and they had a great time. [Remember that the future is urban - it is a reality of the world we live in.]

"The best leaders are not those who win the most followers, but those who create other leaders." - Neil Cole

Update: Here are the SPACEintern's notes and a picture of her with Bart Campolo.

Mission-esque blogs of note

I recently found these two blogs that some of you might also be interested in reading. They seem to be well written, have a pretty good flow of postings and have RSS feeds.

Enjoy.

InternationalTeams team blog

Missional Hands - a blog from Urbana staff

Mission Trip Advice - #2

This is the second in a series of posts entitled "Mission Trip Advice." [Post #1 in the series.] So you have signed up to go on a mission trip, and maybe you don't know exactly what to expect. And you are maybe looking for some advice. What is one piece of advice that experts could give you?

Justin Long manages strategicnetwork.org and is senior editor for Momentum, a magazine devoted to unreached peoples. He has linked at least once and commented here before. Here is some of Justin's advice:

1. Do not put anything before God. Do not push your organization, denomination or church as the greatest in the world. Do not make comparisons. In restricted-access nations, the scarcity of workers often leads to partnerships you would not often think possible. Do not automatically assume these partnerships are bad. Go as a servant to the local workers.
2. Do not introduce new concepts, ideas or doctrines that take away from the work of locals. You are only going to be there for a short time. Lift up the local work wherever possible. Realize you are not likely to achieve in a few days what locals have not achieved in years. You are part of a process; you are sowing seed. Ask how you can best serve those who are coming after you.
3. Live a pure life as a witness for Christ. Watch what you say and do. You are in a different culture and you may find temptations in unexpected places.
4. Honor times of rest and worship. Be sure to keep fellowship with the rest of your team. Do not let anything divide you. Remember stress and culture shock can bring out the worst in peopleÂ?including you. Be open, transparent, full of grace and forgiving.
5. Honor the local workers, so that you will stay long in the land where you are serving. Security is often a big concern in restricted-access countries. Obey any restrictions that they place upon you, realizing these are for their protection as well as for your own. Honor the local government, "rendering unto Caesar that which is Caesar's." The country's political system may be different from what you are used to. However, this "foreign" system may work well for the locals. Political debates are not likely to push local ministry forward.
6. Do not "murder" ministry options with idle talk. There are many complex situations on the field which you, with a few weeks' experience, are not equipped to solve.

Read the rest of his recommendations in the article entitled Ten Suggestions for Short Term Workers.

Technorati Tags:: Justin+Long, student+missions