2018 in Cities

01 - New Freedom, PA, USA
02 - Charleston, SC, USA
03 - Hilton Head Island, SC, USA
04 - Katoomba, NSW, Australia
05 - Southport, QLD, Australia
06 - Sydney, NSW, Australia
07 - Fairfield, CT, USA
08 - Washington, DC
09 - Sicily, Italy
10 - Athens, Greece
11 - Vouliagmeni, Greece
12 - Selbyville, DE, USA
13 - San Diego, CA, USA
14 - Newport Beach, CA, USA
15 - Los Angeles, CA, USA
16 - Sturbridge, MA, USA
17 - Abu Dhabi, UAE
18 - Al Reem, Abu Dhabi, UAE
19 - Tybee Island, GA, USA

Standing goal - out of the USA once a year.



[2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006 in cities]

2018 in Posts

Best/favorite posts from 2018, in case you missed them.

The Kingdom is Like

Vision and Budget

Ember's Abuse and Misconduct Policy

Welcoming Home Emily

Ideation - Ember Style

2018 IG team Wrap

My 2018 Post Sabbatical Thoughts

2018 in Books

Thirst, Scott Harrison *
The Power of Moments, Heath brothers +
Drive, Dan Pink
Unclobber, Colby Martin
Redeeming Sex, Debra Hirsch *
The New Copernicans, John Seel
Powerful, Patty McCord
Draw the Circle, Mark Batterson
Love into Light, Peter Hubbard +
The Messy Middle, Scott Belsky *
Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson *

* highly recommended
+ did not finish yet

Happy 21st!

Dear Katie

Happy 21st!

Now you are officially legal and officially responsible. Of course, you've been responsible long before this - responsible for the things you have seen that most of us have not.

You are also responsible for your soul. No one will care about your growth and development except you. This also requires you to think and act properly to those you serve and bless and deeply understand the why behind the what.

Mommy and I are thrilled at your life. We are your biggest fans. Keep living life to the full.

Love
DAD

Better Practices - The 40 Day Rule

This is a series of posts that outline our better practices - tactical things that you could do right now that The Ember Cast has found highly profitable for growing global leaders. Feel free to use these ideas with attribution, meaning just say, "I got this from The Ember Cast."

We have a 40 day rule for returning summer teams. It is strong encouragement that no one makes a major decision within 40 days. Getting a new job, starting/stopping a relationship, dropping out of high school, etc. The motivation for this encouragement is to detach emotion from action.

It is easy to make commitments while still on an emotional upswing from a cross cultural experience. We think it's actually wiser to let emotions temper before making big commitments. If your decision is sound and smart, your plan will still work after you've calmed down and decompressed.

The other piece to the 40 day rule is to spend it praying about your experience. For your hosts, for your team, for the people you met, for yourself, that you continue to grow in grace and character.

If you are involved with short term teams, put in a system to help your participants make smart decisions after their time on the field. It might look something like this 40 day rule or not, but detaching emotions from decisions should be part of it.

Friday Burn

::: How do European Countries Differ in Religious Commitment?
Link via Justin Long


::: How I Made Sure all 12 of My Kids Could Pay for College Themselves
Link via Terry Storch


::: Your Phone is a Tool Not Your Boss
This is incredible. Most of you should read this and do at least a few of these.
Link via Tim Ferriss

Meeting Culture

A few weeks ago, I attended a lunch time gathering of supporters/partners for a little refugee drop in center we've been doing some work with. The main goal was to introduce partners to each other so they knew who was who. Another goal was to share milestones from 2018. They've got a Christmas outreach coming up so some of that was talked about too.

This center is in early stage start-up ministry mode. Founder working 24x7 on anything and everything. Communications is either non existent or all over the map. Partners don't know other partners, they only know the founder - he is the central hub and they are spokes. There is not much process and no one knows quite who is in charge of any given initiative or project. So much chaos. I love it.

In the Western world, we want a schedule and a point of contact. Our host said, "In the Middle East, we don't have deadlines."

From Intern To

One of the first summers of the existence of The Ember Cast, we partnered with Serve the City Baltimore to deliver a few talks for one of their teams. This was the first time I met Deanna [yes, same name as my wife], 7th from the right in the black shirt. She would later join us as an Ember intern - before we renamed our intern program to ProtoGuides.

Deanna joined us as an intern for literally almost everything we did. She was pretty much constant for 18 months, including two summer teams, lots of student gatherings, a few large scale training events, and at least four culture service learning weekends.

Since her time with Ember, she finished college, got married, moved to Philly for a season, led teams to Latin America and Asia, and is now going to be serving on a local college campus with her husband in vocational college ministry. We're thrilled for the Lord's call on her life and expectant about this next season. Ember might be partnering with her ministry with some things around our core competencies too.

Not everything we do works out great. And the cycle of return is at least four years. But there's a few bright spots that we keep in touch with that makes it stick: Emilie 06, Trevin 08, Tricia 08, John 10, Drew 10, Carolyn 11, Wendy 12, Deanna 13, Hope 14, Tess 14, Lindsey 14, Shannon 15. Keep on, the world needs you at your best.

Friday Burn

Big Tech has Your Kid's Data and You Probably Gave it to Them
... by the time a kid turns 18, there will be 70,000 posts about them on the internet.
Link


::: Five Year Trends from the US Census Bureau
For the 2013 to 2017 period, among the geographic areas with 10,000 people or more, the locations with the highest median household incomes were, by county and county equivalent: Loudoun County, Va.; Fairfax County, Va.; Howard County, Md.; Falls Church City, Va.; and Arlington County, Va., were among the highest counties by median household income.
Link


::: The IRS is now on Instagram
Tag away.
Link

Senior Senioring

College envelope for Em... and it was an acceptance with a good amount of scholarship money. It's that time of year for many seniors.

This particular school is Biola, in So Cal. We've all loved and been impressed with the school. Most notably for me, they have hosted one of the longest running student missions conferences in the US.

Proud of our Em. More decisions soon.

Thoughts about Giving Tuesday

+ I don't want to feel this way because I know Giving Tuesday has great intentions. But it always feels a bit dirty to me. Like a flea market, where people are trying to get you to see the stuff on their table. It feels like the lowest level of engagement when it comes to working with charitable donors.
+ Even with that, it took a few simple clicks to create a fundraiser on Facebook for The Ember Cast and we raised a good bit of money relative to our budget.
+ There were a few people that I only interact with when they are trying to fund something. It's commonly referred to as ministry partnership but it really is sponsorship. If you are reading this, it's not your fault - you asked and I gave. To their credit, I asked if they would be willing to give to Ember too and they all did, one incredibly generously.
+ If you are giving or receiving, my encouragement to you is to set the bar really high when it comes to engaging with your donors and charitable organizations. I know for The Ember Cast, your attention and trust is worth way more than your donations.

Friday Burn

::: The number of people with access to electricity just fell below 1B.
Link via The Weekend Briefing


::: Is our constant use of digital technologies affecting our brain health?
Link


::: The World's Largest Migrations
Link


Photo: The Louvre, Abu Dhabi.

Better Practices - A Humble Mindset

This is a series of posts that outline our better practices - tactical things that you could do right now that The Ember Cast has found highly profitable for growing global leaders. Feel free to use these ideas with attribution, meaning just say, "I got this from The Ember Cast."

There are many times when we think way more highly of ourselves. When it comes to mission teams, we sometimes believe and articulate that we are 'taking God to [fill in place or people]' as if God isn't there already. It's a fundamental error in theology.

Instead, articulated excellently by Tim Dearborn in the Short Term Missions Workbook: "Walk with humility. Remember, you are showing up late to a meeting. God has been at work among these people long before you arrived!"

This simple shift in thinking will put your team in it's rightful role with who they are, what they are to do, how they should relate to long term partners and who they serve and what the Lord might be calling them to the future.

GNR in AUH

On my last night here, we decided to go over to the Grand Prix to see if someone wanted to give away their wristbands to see Guns N' Roses. I'm not a huge fan and we only stayed for 5 or 6 songs but it was an experience and totally worth it.

I continue to be fascinated by Abu Dhabi. Cultural mix of very futuristic future and very old past. Lots of the world comes here for opportunity - you cannot help but meet people from places you might never go. A cab driver told me that Nigerians are taking over the world. The Filipinos are the most polite people I have ever met. Someone Katie works with said, 'Abu Dhabi changed my life.' Interesting focus on investment in the city and it's citizens. There is something about the desert.

Thanksgiving 2018 AUH style

From our family and our camel friend, to yours, Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving Eve

How to Neuter Entrepreneurial, Apostolic Leaders

1. Force them to go to school.
2. Give them too much money
3. Tell them all the reasons why something cannot be done.
4. Swamp them with paperwork and administration.
5. Give them people to lead who are excessively needy.
6. Limit their travel and keep them in their own culture.
7. Consistently correct them when they are provocative or prophetic in their communication.
8. Make sure any initiative they take must go through multiple steps of approval.
9. Insert 'conserve' and 'maintain' in conversations with them.
10. Have someone supervise them who projects his or her own strong pastoral gifting onto the relationship.
11. Tell them to stay when they want to go.
12. Make sure they have plenty of rules and policies to live by.
13. Give them a precise, detailed, inflexible job description.
14. Keep them safe.

- Beyond the Local Church, Sam Metcalf

Friday Burn

::: Big tech, Kibera and AI
Link


::: Square Roots - Urban Farming
Link


::: Robert Egger - Philanthropy Puts a Chokehold on Innovation
Egger was the founder of DC Central Kitchen.
Link


::: My friend David Huey runs Hungry for A Day and they are kicking off their Thanksgiving project this week. Check it out here.

: 'Limited resources + Willingness to fail + Increasing passion = Exponential Innovation' - Craig Groeschel

Photo: Vienna, Austria. July 2007.

NovEmber dinner guest - Icing Smiles

Once a month, The Ember Cast hosts a dinner with a select group of students and a special guest who are some of the most creative and innovative in the global missions/nonprofit space. The intention of this dinner is for our students to learn, interact and be inspired by these amazing individuals who have created something incredible from nothing.

Our NovEmber dinner guest was Tracy Quisenberry, founder and executive director of Icing Smiles. Icing Smiles a nonprofit org that provides celebration cakes and other treats to families impacted by the critical illness of a child. In just over 8 years, Icing Smiles has mobilized thousands of volunteers including bakers, project managers and delivery staff to deliver cakes in all 50 states, including just delivering their 17,000th cake.

Our conversation touched on lots of topics including working in multiple vocations, starting something from nothing, having a laser focus on the mission of your organization and some of the struggles as a founder. Below are some other highlights. Thank you, Tracy, for helping inspire our students and helping Ember forge the future!

The Founder struggle
"Dig where you are"
The hardest job is to lead a team of volunteers.
Was always too hard on herself as a founder

+ Her career experiences as an international tax account for a large multnational corporation helped prepare her to lead an organization. There were also lots of things that she had to learn

+ Icing Smiles is not a faith based org but we would not be an org without my faith.

Q - Have you struggled with mission creep?
Definitely. Had an offer early on to be a program piece of a big, well known nonprofit, but it was an obvious bad fit.

Q - do you want your org to outlast you
Tracy - Yes! Absolutely.
Tony - No not necessarily. Seth Godin - entrepreneur or freelancer. I used to think about us multiplying lots of mentors and missions catalysts that were investing in high school students. But now, I want to be the artisan crafting each and every thing that we deliver.

Advice to 16 year old:
Don't be so hard on yourself. See the pieces of the puzzle,

There are 14 steps to delivering a cake.
"A cake is not just a cake - it is sometimes a breath of air when families feel like they are suffocating."

The Ember Cast Celebrates 8 Years!

EDIT: Duh. I had 2010 on the brain - it is 8 years, not 10.

It was exactly 10 8 years ago today that we held the first board of directors meeting for The Ember Cast, so today is a pretty huge milestone for Ember and it totally took me by surprise. I'm thrilled at everything we have done over this season and wouldn't trade it for the world. Super grateful for the Board [only 3 of us right now] and how the current and past Directors have paved the way and forged the future through the medium of Ember.

Some quick numbers over the past 10 8 years:
Almost 20 team training events and 16 Perspectives classes, all involving over 1000 people. Some 18 community impact projects, involving around 300 people, virtually all high school students. 9 summer teams, 115 people, 9 countries. Over 1500 people have been involved in some kind of Ember engagement. Around $202,000 raised and spent for student missions leadership. Some 18,500 service hours. Over 700 donors have sacrificially given for these efforts. Around 120 travel days. 14 ProtoGuides, which is who you should bet the future on.

Thank you to all of you that have given your support both with your attention, finances and encouragement. Special thanks to the Board for hanging with me to follow through on the idea that we can catalyze high school students to live very large lives impacting the future. And of course, all glory to the Lord for letting us be a small part of this.

PS - I am never bored.

Feb 2008, flying to Orlando for Humana 2008. Matt, Joyce, me. Note that I worked with my board before they actually became my board.