Wild Adventures: Youth Week Day 1

I know that Wild Adventures has zoo animals and a petting zoo but the wildest part of the day yesterday might just have been the restroom stop at Country Boys Mini Mall in Bristol, GA! Sketchy doesn't even begin to describe this place. You know you might need to keep driving when everyone at the "Mini Mall" is wearing less than adequate clothing or properly worn clothing and there are a gang of motorcycle riders (not the business man/weekend rider type) outside.

Youth Week 2010

I am super pumped about the "wicked awesome" Youth Week we have planned for 2010!! Josh Burnham, a good friend is going to be speaking and our worship band will be leading us in worship this week. I can't wait to hear what God has laid on Josh's heart for our students and see how God works this week. We are kicking things off with a trip to Wild Adventures in Valdosta tomorrow (how I loathe theme parks!).

Wednesday: Worship @ 5:30 PM followed by the 135th annual Redneck Olympics

Thursday: Mexican Frisbee at Mill Creek @ 9:30 in the AM (Ultimate Frisbee and lunch at El Som)

Friday: Worship @ 7 PM with game night/Lock-In to follow (Lock-In)is for Rising 7-9th graders only!

Can't wait to see God rock our faces off this week!

Books, Quotes, and Memories

I have recently read a couple of books that were not so great and a couple that were. I won't bore you with the not so great ones, but I would like to offer a few insights from the others.

Margaret Feinberg is an author who is like a younger, more orthodox version of Anne Lamott or a female version of Frederick Buechner. She has a unique gift of taking the everyday, the mundane and shedding new light on it. It seems to me that that is most like God and the stories of the Bible. God uses a bush to call Moses. He uses bread and fish to feed people (physically and spiritually). Her book Organic God was a short, simply written book but with some very powerful truths and reminders for me. One that I want to share is her observations on Proverbs 14:4 "Where there are no oxen, the manger is empty, but from the strength of an ox comes an abundant harvest." Her paraphrase was "No oxen=No poop=No profit or Oxen+Poop=Profit" (74-75).


I shared this enlightened observation with my mission team in Boston on the first night, after an early morning and a long day of travel as we geared up to have over 100 kids for sports camp. To be sure, I got some funny looks at first, but I began to talk about how everything we do in life has "poopy" parts but just like this verse says, if we don't have that then we aren't going to see the profit. For us last week the profit is the harvest, not that we were witnesses of, but the harvest of the seeds that we planted in the lives of the boys and girls we worked with each day, even the ones that tried our patience to the nth degree. Our battle cry last week became "holy poop" as we worked like oxen to be faithful to the Lord of the Harvest! I certainly won't forget that verse any time soon nor will I forget the memories of watching students get excited about sharing God's love with others.

Charles Marsh and John Perkins are two men who have spent their lives promoting awareness about the need for reconciliation between blacks and whites and the ultimate need for reconciliation of sinners to the God who fashioned them in lovingkindness. Their stories are as different as their skin but the both have so much wisdom to offer. In a recent collaborative effort, Welcoming Justice, they traced the roots of racial reconciliation in the U.S., it's decline, and the renewed need and emphasis of it. In the last chapter Perkins offers this insightful observation based on a verse from Zechariah, "God's people have to offer some kind of alternative to the brokenness around us in the world" (112).


I was amazed last week as I watched some of our students from FBC offering an alternative to the broken world that surrounded many of our campers in Boston last week. They shared stories of difficulties at home, challenges for their family, strained relationships, etc. with our students who then shared them with me or in our group time each night. As we prayed for the campers last week, I couldn't help but be reminded that we are to reflect the better life, the Christ life for all to see around us.

M-Fuge Pictures 2

This and That

Do you ever have those moments when it seems that life has sped by you so fast that you don't really know what happened? That's been the last few weeks for us. I don't really like it when blogs say, "It's been a while since I last posted..." I would like to think that my life and my thoughts on life are important enough that people check this blog once or twice a day, but I know that the chances of that are slim to none, heavy on the none side. So let me catch you up if you still care enough to read on...

Cyd had a birthday last week that we celebrated in style at the new Carey Hilliard's in Statesboro. We both grew up going to the Hill, as we affectionately called it after football and basketball games, church events, and any time a group of teenagers went out to eat in Savannah. Hilliard's is a Savannah Icon and Institution. I can't really think of better place to eat in Savannah! The sweet tea is amazing! So we celebrated in style at the Hill and then had not one but 3 birthday cakes at our house for dessert, two of which I made. We had a great time celebrating another year on the calendar.

A few weeks ago we enjoyed some time as a family at Tybee before spending some time with the 2009 seniors at Tybee as well. We took a ton of pics, so I will get those uploaded soon. We did NOT see Miley but man was Tybee buzzing with the film.

This weekend we got a new swing set for the girls. Todd and Karen and Abbie and Anna Deal gave us a swing set that we moved and set up on Saturday. The girls absolutely love it!!!

Lots more to share but I've got to get to Starbucks to hang out with students, I love my job, because I get to work with the greatest bunch of teenagers anywhere!!

Final Thoughts about Charleston

A couple of days have passed since the High School Mission Team that went to Charleston returned. I have continued to pray through and think about what kind of impact the trip had on our students and the residents of North Charleston. The week was filled with ministry to young and old alike. We did a block party the first evening that has already spread some seeds for ministry. The young woman, Sarah, who owns a Jump Castle business was really excited to know that a group from Georgia was coming to Charleston to do ministry. God had already been working in her heart to give her a desire to use her business to go in and help minister to people living in multi-housing communities like Horizon Village. She and I talked for 30 minutes on the phone about the possibilities and what a ministry like that might look like. She also talked to Charleston Outreach, the organization that was helping us about the future of ministry for Sarah’s jump castle business. I look forward to hearing reports from Charleston Outreach.

In addition to that new prospect of ministry I cannot get over the way I saw God working in the lives of our students, not just with the mission work but with each other. Many of them were stretched to love each other in new ways despite being tired, individual sin, and the stress of focusing on ministering as a unified group. They saw firsthand the gospel at work not necessarily in the lives at Horizon Village but in their own lives and in each others. Any time you have a small group that goes on a trip you have the potential for tempers to rise and for tension to be thick but it is during these unloveable moments in our lives that we truly embody the gospel of grace, as we love others “even while they are yet sinners” just as Christ does. Watching them as a group huddled in a hotel room serve one another communion was overwhelming. To me that was a perfect picture of how the body of Christ, the church, should be at all times, humble, servant minded, having the “mind of Christ dwell richly in you.” I simply cannot shake the fact that this may be the greatest lesson our group learned last week. Thanks for all your prayers and encouragement

Charleston Update 6

Yesterday stretched us more than any other day I think. As we were finishing getting ready for our last night of backyard Bible club tensions got a little high among our group, so we spent last night at the hotel relaxing. We had a wonderful time of worship together as a group in one of the rooms that brought our focus back to the forgiveness and redemption offered to us in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

After about an hour we broke up and then nearly everyone ended up back together downstairs for an intense and LOUD game of signs. Today is our last full day in the city so we have the chance to seem of it in the daylight and to get one more really good meal from Jim 'N Nick's Barbecue.

Charleston Update 5

Only one word can describe this week...AMAZING! We have seen God move in so many ways among our group and in the residents of Horizon Village. Today we are going to be doing some prayer walking as we spend some time in downtown Charleston before we conclude our backyard Bible club tonight. Join with us in praying that God will use tonight to plant seeds and possibly even harvest some that have already been planted. We know that God is willing and able to accomplish more than we can even imagine!

Our group has meshed better than I ever dreamed possible! Anytime you take a smaller group off like this you have the potential for personality conflicts to spring up everywhere, but we haven't had that. I think that's been one of the coolest things for me to witness this week, unity of our group through our shared faith in Jesus Christ.

Anslee Hagan was able to join us yesterday, so we are thrilled that she was able to get over her cold enough to come minister the last part of the week!

Bruce Cockburn has a song that the Vigilantes of Love did a cover version of some years back that goes something like this, "Suns up, uhh, looks okay, the world survives into another day, got me thinking about eternity." That's my prayer this morning as we conclude our last day of mission work here in the "Holy City."

Charleston Update 4

The other group that is here ministering witnessed a shoot out at the multi-housing site they were working at yesterday. The incident occurred about 200 yards away from them and they had to have a police escort out. Keep praying for both groups as we have two more days of backyard Bible club.

Charleston Update 3

This morning we were able to go and sing with and for some of the residents of one of the senior citizen complexes at Horizon Village. We meet some really wonderful people. The weather was cloudy with a gentle breeze that made it a very pleasant experience since we were outside in a gazebo. We also prayed with the residents specifically and shared communion together. We have already had some amazing experiences and manifestations of the Holy Spirit this week, but the absolute best part of my week so far was getting to share in worship through the elements of communion.

Baptism and the Lord's Supper are two things that all Christians believe in and practice. Often times in seminaries and among Christians of different traditions the differences of theological understanding with these two sacraments divide us...for me I can find no better common ground than the body of Christ broken for us and the blood of Christ poured out for us. These two elements encompass so much of the Christian message and unite believers together like nothing else can. It was truly a humbling experience for me to get to partake of communion in a setting with people I know and love so well and people I had just met an hour before. Such a great time. We leave in a few minutes for our Backyard Bible Club...

Charleston Update 2

Another good day! We did encounter some rain this afternoon which kept us from being able to do recreation at Horizon Village. We didn't have quite as many kids as yesterday, but we still had around 30. Tomorrow will be a full day. We are planning on going to sing, pray with, and have the Lord's Supper with the senior citizens at Horizon Village in the morning. In the afternoon, we will head back to do more backyard Bible Club stuff. Pray that God will use us to meet needs in both areas. My heart is broken over the need for compassion and humanness that we encountered throughout the day. God is doing something big this week in and through our group.

Being in Charleston makes me really miss Cyd. We honeymooned in Charleston, so the city holds a special place in our hearts. It was cool to see the our students as they experienced a small taste of what this great city has to offer.

Charleston Team Update 1

We have had a great first day! We arrived safely around 3PM with adequate air conditioning in all three vehicles! Quickly checked in, had orientation from Charleston Outreach folks, and headed to Horizon Village were we will be doing ministry all week. We did a block party of sorts. We hadn't out water bottles with scripture verses printed on them. We also had a jump castle inflatable for the kids to go crazy on and bounce off the sugar high from the semi-frozen Popsicles we had for them. Lots of face and arm painting. We were overwhelmed with the number of kids that came out...close to 50. Tomorrow should be a great day! Keep praying for us!

M-Fuge Summary

Well, It’s been a full week and I have been able to fully recover and begin to process the amazing things that God did in and through our students while we were at M-Fuge. The week was jam-packed with ministry and missions opportunities. I wanted to share a few highlights of the week, but this is certainly not a comprehensive list of what God did that week and is still doing in the lives of the people that we ministered to but also the lives of our students.

One of the greatest joys of my week was listening to several of our students as they talked about sharing their faith, verbally with children at the different ministry sites. Many of our students with the help of other students and adult leaders helped lead children to Christ while we were in Birmingham. To see the expression of our students as the retold the events was awesome! One encounter happened as they were walking in a mall. Another encounter included the young person who accepted Christ as Lord and Savior going and dumping out a bag of marijuana and promising not to smoke it again.

Some of our students worked at the home of a Native American couple who were very hard to the gospel at the beginning of the week but God began to soften their hearts by the end of the week. The students also cleaned up several dumpsters worth of trash and garbage for the couple.

As we began the week many of us entered our Bible study groups (groups made up of kids and adults from other churches) with preconceived notions about the people in our groups. This led to a judgmental attitude and spirit for many of us if not all of us. God did a work in several of us to help us realize that we were missing the whole point of why we had gone to Alabama and the way in which God wants us to view people who are different than us. It’s always painful when God points out our blatant sin, but the grace and healing that comes from that is indescribable!

Our time as a group continued to grow and flourish. God was strengthening existing friendships and beginning new ones among our group. Our students came home pumped about what God did in and through them June14-20 but I think they are even more excited about how God is going to use them right here in Bulloch County in the days ahead.

Please join me in praying for tangible ways for our students to continue to live out and express their faith in our Lord.

Thank you for all your prayers and encouraging words!! Thank you to everyone who helped provide for your own student to be able to go or for scholarship assistance for other students.

MFuge 2

Isn't it funny how God works sometimes? I have been praying for our group that would be going to M-Fuge for a while now...my prayers have been focused on God breaking us as a group so that we can be refashioned more into the image of Christ. The old phrase about being careful what you pray for has never been more true to me than this week. God has been destroying walls that divide our group as well as walls that have kept us from being all that God wants us to be. It's so easy for us to slip into the comfortable position of thinking that we are the only normal people around but God has reminded us that even when people look, talk or act differently than us we are all part of the body of Christ working for his glory. Lessons from God aren't always the easiest thing to deal with, but the end result is ALWAYS a good thing. I don't know what exactly God is teaching you right now, but my prayer is that you are open and receptive to the work of the Holy Spirit!

My Girls

One of the hardest things I have to do in life is leave my beautiful wife and girls for a week at a time. I am so thankful that I don't have a job that requires me to be gone from home all the time, but it is enough that it makes me homesick for my girls. I have this thing about being apart from Cyd that makes me not sleep well. It doesn't matter if I am home and she is gone or vice versa, I just don't rest well without her beside me. Granted, I don't really get a big portion of the bed when we do sleep together, but I always rest better when she is beside me. Being on youth choir trips makes me especially miss her. It was on those trips in high school that we became good friends which eventually led to us falling in love. One of my most vivid memories from youth group activities is staying up late talking to Cyd in her hotel room in Chicago on a youth choir trip. No, I wasn't suppose to be in her room, but we weren't doing anything inappropriate. It was that night that I learned things about her that few people know. If I had to guess, it was that night that first began to stir feelings for her in my heart. It was that night that God did some work in my heart, giving me a more compassion that I ever had for another human being. It was that night with all the Deadheads (The Grateful Dead were in town playing at Soldier field, so besides our group, the hotel was full of their fans) making noise in the hallway that the Triune God was working in a small group of teenagers lives from Savannah, Georgia.

Words can't express how much I miss my girls when I am away...the cool thing is that it's like I haven't been gone after I'm home for about 5 minutes. Whenever I am away, I anticipate those first few moments after I walk in the door, the hugs and kisses, the smiles, the tears (sometimes), it makes trips go by faster when I hold onto that hope.

Cyd, Claire, and Charlotte, I miss you and love you!