D-day

What better way for teenage boys to serve than a little good demolition?

my new day in youth ministry

This week, I've been pulling out some of my youth ministry materials from days past when I served as a youth director, blowing the dust off the binders, and planning ahead for next week's LinK Summer Camp!

I'm finding that as I put on my youth ministry hat again these days as a part of Link Christian Development, I have new eyes and a different approach than I did in the past.  Next week's Link Summer Camp highlights some of my changing philosophy:

*Link Summer Camp will have 10 students and 7 adults participating together in the four days of this local camp.   There's a greater chance for connections, impact, and development when there is a strong ratio of adults to youth.  

*Link Summer Camp will link people across gender, age, income, racial, and community divides.  Jesus is a reconciler and restorer.  If we are to learn from him and do what he does, then we will intentionally plan and work with our youth toward reconciliation and restoration at the point of divides in our community.  This is possible in Jesus!

*Link Summer Camp will proclaim the Kingdom of God through Jesus Christ.  I got Dallas Willard off the shelf a few weeks back and began re-reading The Divine Conspiracy-  beautiful, compelling writing that reminds us that the life, death, and resurrection of Christ grants us access and invitation into Kingdom life now, here on earth.  I commit to proclaim and live life as a Kingdom bearer and a Kingdom bringer in and with Christ.  I desire to better help our young people understand what the good news of the Kingdom invitation is and to call them to a life committed to discipleship. 

That's enough for now...looking forward to sharing more with you next week at Camp!!

picnic in the park '12

Picnic in the Park is a wonderful seasonal opportunity to gather and grow a community of hope in Christ right in the middle of Lincoln Park, Downtown Waterloo.   Friends from Harvest Vineyard, Orchard Hill Church, and the surrounding neighborhoods gather to eat, worship, pray, visit, and play!  If you'd like to come take part, PIP is every first and third Sunday of the month, June through October, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.  If you'd like to volunteer to serve, please sign up at www.orchardhillchurch.org.

neighboring

We have a new neighbor named Lance.  He's fresh out of college, a new hire at John Deere, he's from Michigan, and I have a feeling he's going to challenge me in neighboring.  Lance just moved in to the apartment we have on our acreage on Saturday.  He'd been to our area during an internship with Deere, and now he's going to call the Cedar Valley home with his new job.  Lance had dinner with us last night, and this morning, he came with us to church.  On the drive home out to the country, I was sharing various bits of information with him about living out where we live.  As we passed two houses about .5 miles away from our house on our gravel road, I simply said, "We don't really know these two sets of neighbors."  Lance's response?  "Well, I was on my way out to your place a few weeks back when I was checking out the apartment.  I saw the couple that lives here, Kermit and Carol, outside, and I stopped, introduced myself, and ended up riding in the tractor with Kermit for a couple of hours while he was planting in the fields."

Yep, we've lived here 10 years and have never stopped .5 miles away to sit down with Kermit or Carol for two hours.   Lance, God's going to stretch me with you, I can already tell.

remodel

Kudos and credits to my incredibly amazing superfantastic awesome daughter, Sara, for giving a new look and some pizazz to the blog.  I've taken a month off from posting but am ready to begin again...and this time with a new look.  :)

p.s. Sara is sitting next to me dictating the descriptive adjectives for herself, though I won't disagree with any of them. ;)
p.s.s.  Miss Sara has now begun her own blog at www.saraventures.blogspot.com.  Reflections of life and faith from a thirteen year old's perspective.  You'll also notice that Sara has quite the "hair" gift.  I tell her that it paid off that I wasn't a good "hair mom".  It forced her to take matters into her own hands.

CCD in Haiti

I talk a lot about Christian Community Development.  If you watch the 3 minute video above, you'll see a tremendous model of it happening in Haiti!

three questions

Dave Gibbons leaves his listeners with 3 questions (in an interview by Wendy Seidman  in a 2009 supplemental Global Leadership Summit conversation):

"Think about your hand.  What is in your hand?  You have everything you need right now to accomplish God's thing in your city.  Don't compare yourself to the big church or to the small church or to that leader.  What's in your hand?  Really ask God to help you see. What's in your hand may be very uniquely not your strength but maybe again your weakness.  And that leads me to the second question.

When you think about your hand think about the nail print hand of Jesus in the middle.  Think of pain.  So, what is your pain?  Your pain will often guide you better than again your strength.  God allows the pain to dictate who you maybe are feeling compelled to serve.  But also, your pain gives you resonance.  It gives your voice authority cause this world doesn't relate to your accomplishments, to your degrees, to your gifts, but they immediately relate to your pain.  So, your pain is your platform.  It's your voice of authority.  It's your credibility to the world.  Cause remember most of the world lives in suffering.  It's a norm.  They don't live the happy life.

And the last thing is when you think about the hand think about the outskirts of your hand.  Think about the fringe.  Who are the fringe?  Mostly the American movements focus on the masses.  Cause we're thinking we gotta grow our churches..it's a numbers game again.  But I realize Jesus' style, he cared about the masses but he really focused upon the few. And you see intentionality about the fringe, the outsider, the mutants, the misfits, the  freaks of a culture.  The ones who weren't seen- many times they were children and even the women.  So, who are the fringe in your local community? That will guide you in terms of who you actually need to serve and minister.  That doesn't mean we forget about the people like us. But in terms of what we're known for, what's beautiful again, is that we love our neighbor, our neighbor is someone not like us, who's uncomfortable many times to be around, who's maybe even offended us, but as we love these people that's when people realize that's supernatural and that's when they take a closer look at who Jesus is."