These are the ways that Andrew Jones (Boaz Project) describes his ministry and I love it! Here are some of my thoughts/responses to that. This is part 2. Been a long time coming.

Throwing Parties

Just the idea behind party is a good one! Who doesn’t like to go to a good party? Would you rather go to a party or go to a church service? Well that’s not a hard answer for most of us. Jesus uses celebration, party and feast/banquet language all the time. In fact it is one of his primary metaphors for the Kingdom of God.

Which begs a couple of questions: 1) why aren’t our services more like a party/celebration? 2) what would it look like if they were? To simplify (perhaps overly) a bit, let’s go down the elements of a good party.

Friends are very important. Both friends you know now and friends of your friends who you’d like to meet and become friends with. So let’s invite our friends and their friends to our party.

Attitudes of joy and giving are important to a party. So let’s stop moaning and groaning about the end times or abortion or whatever else and tell the stories of how God is at work and play music together, and eat together and enjoy each other’s company! This involves a lot more people I think and lessens the pressure on the “service” planners!

Changing hosts. With great friends we throw the party and then they throw the party and then this other friend throws the party. Fun stuff. This not only diversifies leadership, it involves everyone at different times and in different ways, their ways.

Loving people sucks sometimes

So we have all these kids in the neighborhood. That is okay. Most of them apparently have no parents or parents who sleep a lot because we seem to never see them. Or perhaps we've stumbled upon a new millenium version of Neverland without a Peter Pan. But I digress...

The point of the story is that they come over a lot. Sometimes to play with our kids and sometimes to play with our kids and their toys and sometimes to play with our kid's toys. You get the picture. Today when I came home some kids were over and one of them was playing with my kids toys, but not with my kids. He was being a little rough with the toys. So I just asked him to not be so rough and moved on... no big deal. Then he started being rough with them again. And again. And again.

[pay attention here's the point of the story] I found myself not wanting any kids to be around my kids and their toys. It was kind of bothering me. And then I realized that if we really want to love people and if we really want to bring light into darkness and if we really want to be about restoration, then we've got to live with it and in it and it around us. I know it's really obvious and I know this all in my head, but I guess God was making sure it is in my heart too: love wins. Not control, not hate, not anger, not fortresses, but love.

God help me to love.

And now for a really good picture to make us all smile. [we do live in tv land after all]

Sleep, Block party and Soccer

Whenever I leave home, there are two things that happen. It is a law of nature or something. I know that this is true because many others have experienced the same thing. For us it is that someone gets sick at home and that something happens with the car.

So I just got home from being away for a few days... Good news is that nothing happened to the vehicle. Bad news is that someone got sick. Jahred. But he's over it. But now Kate's got it. Fever. Etc.

So last night we were up with her. Trying to help her, drugs, etc. We also had big storms roll through with much thunder and lightning. Isaiah joined us in our bed. But no sleep for Carol or I. Isaiah is a machine though and was up bright and early ready to take on the world.

So I got up with him and let Carol sleep. Then I took the healthy ones to the block party at Jacob's Well. Fun stuff. Fire engines, moonbounces, facepainting, food and music. We had a good time.

Then when we got home we played some of Isaiah's favorite sport of late... soccer. He can do it pretty well and he loves it. (David Rebello is smiling somewhere!)

Also listened today to some Prarie Home Companion. If you aren't into Garrison Keillor, then you should be. He is the greatest storyteller in the world. If you aren't into public radio you also should be, but that is where you can usually catch him. I put up with the rest of the show - not that into the country, bluegrass scene - but he is just awesome. We preachers/teachers have much to learn from him!

DLC

I returned yesterday evening from the District Leadership Conference (DLC) we held in St. Louis. It's a gathering of all the district youth presidents, district NYC coordinators, and district trainers. The main part of this year's conference was the passing of info from our office to the district leaders about NYC 07 (waterfirewind.com). It was a big week for us.

Overall it went well. We had a few snafus at the beginning of the week but the two main purposes of our time together went well: relationships with the youth leaders and sharing the information about NYC.

Some highlights for me:
1) spending time with friends - especially Kevin and Josh
2) worship services - we had Jon Shirley as our worship leader and he was awesome. Dave and Mark Holcomb shared in the general sessions. God moved in many ways and his presence was definitely there.
3) conversations - on Tuesday and Wednesday nights we had some great conversations with people from around the US, just asking questions and sharing stories about what God is doing and where God is leading us.
4) making connections - meeting people, making friends and connecting with folks in regards to NYC.

Some tough things were not being with my family and not being able to be with my friends in Maryland as they go through a tough time.

The main thing I took away from DLC was that there is incredible hope for our church and our future. So many people are ready to make changes and look at things in new ways to make disciples of Jesus!

Prayers are Good

We'd appreciate prayer for some of our friends. Four people from Bel Air were in a horrible accident early Tuesday morning. All four are in the hospital, three in ICU. These are all people pretty close to us, who have been part of our lives at Bel Air. Be in prayer for their families and friends as well. I'm struggling to be honest...

Jacob's Well

We have found a church we like a lot. It's called Jacob's Well. We started going there because the pastor, Tim Keel, and I have had some conversations at some events with Emergent. He is also on the board of directors for Emergent.

One of the thins that I have really loved so far about the church is their approach to children's ministry. Instead of operating out of the educational model only for kids, they are trying to operate out of a much more holistic method. They involve kids in the story, not just tell them story. Some times they'll be doing plays/dramas, sometimes they will be doing crafts, some times it will be just listening to the story. It's just great! I love that they are trying to value kids and their hearts for God and the expression that comes out of that. I wish we could teach more adults to value the same things!

I'm still searching out some outlets for teaching. Pray for me that way. Perhaps you blog readers will have a lot to put up with in the future.

Shamed into it...

I have admittedly been a very bad blogger of late. So I've been shamed back into it today by my friend, Tom Young, the cripple. See Tom you got your mention!

I've been quite busy as of late. Visiting the lovely town of Cleveland for a one day meeting and then two days in St. Louis for some important meetings this last week. While both visits had meaningful and good meetings, the highlight of both had to be the food. (I'm a Nazarene after all!) We ate at some very nice places on both visits and because I'm a food lover, it was my pleasure. I had steak one night, seafood (good too -as hard as that is to believe away form the ocean) and crab cakes another meal, and then some really good pasta another meal.

I'm learning a lot. For example, St. Louis is a big union town and that means you have a lot of negotiating to do with them. I will not be spending time talking ill of them here (but I do happen to think $42/hr to plug in a microphone is a bit steep). But in case someone reading this is union related or someone from St. Louis may be reading this... I LOVE THE UNIONS!!!

Shirt Size Big, Hat Size Small

Just in case I was thinking that I was really smart, or if anyone else was, just in we have proof otherwise. We decided that we were going to try to go to another church this past Sunday morning. We had talked to some people and there is a relatively new church not far down the street from our house. Cool. I looked at the web site. Cool. It's called Journey of Hope.

So Sunday morning comes around and we head to church. We walk in and it feels a little wierd, a little wrong. We take the kids to their classes, sit down in worship and just kind of take in the scene. As I'm looking around I just realize that this is not a Nazarene church. (After spending my life in them, I just kinda know.) I lean over to Carol and said, "I don't think this is the right church." My always faithful and supportive wife says, "Sure it is. It has to be. You looked it up on the web." We look at the bulletin and sure enough. I had taken my family to the wrong church, "New Journey Church".

Apparently the church we were trying to go to is just a bit further down the road and over the interstate. That's your public education dollars at work ladies and gentlemen. Good reading skills. Follows direction in class.

But wait there's more...
I had a meeting today in Cleveland. We fly out in the morning, return in the evening. No problem. Except that when my palm synced with my work computer, all my appointments were pushed to an hour later. So when I looked last night at what time my flight was supposed to leave it said 7:20am. Oops. While I'm still assuming that I don't have to be there until about 6:20am, so I head out the door. Then I see these red and blue lights in the rear view mirror, surely not for me, WRONG! In keeping with a tradition by law enforcement officers across the nation, whenever I move I must be welcomed in the first month by a state trooper with a ticket. Kansas chose this morning to welcome me!

So then I'm driving to the airport and get a call from Dave, "hey, we're boarding the plane." oh yeah, you're boarding the plane... AAAHHHHH! So somehow I made it to the airport and it looked like I would make it in the nick of time... but no! Security decided that I looked like a threat of some kind and pulled me out to check me. After they discovered that I was indeed not a terrorist threat and allowed me on my way (I think it's the facial hair), I made it on the plane, just barely. Now that's a way to start a day.

I r smert and souport publik educashun.

Dome to Arch

We spent some time yesterday previewing some of the sites in St. Louis for District Leadership Conference in September and of course for NYC in 2007. I walked on the Rams new turf in the dome and toured the "belly" of it. Then we walked all over the city ending at the Arch. It was a good day, but very tiring. We ate lunch at the "9th Street Abbey", an old church that was converted into a restaurant, complete with stained glass. It was kind of neat, but awkward, because it was a church that had closed.

We met some great people who we will be working with at the hotels and convention center/dome.

I now this for sure, I often feel way out of place and like I'm not the perfect fit for this job. But I also know that God has called me here and so I am learning and growing into the role. God help me to know what's best and that I am not alone.

Telling Stories. Throwing Parties. Making Friends. Giving Gifts.

These are the ways that Andrew Jones (Boaz Project) describes his ministry and I love it! Here are some of my thoughts/responses to that.

Telling Stories
I just love this language and it flows out it so many ways in everyday life and ministry. From evangelism to teaching/preaching to friendship this language and mentality just flows in life.

Those of us who grew up in church have long been told that in order to “evangelize” others we need to memorize this formula, or these steps and these few verses, or these spiritual laws. But many of us have balked at this because we don’t ever just present an argument or rationality to our friends. That’s what commercials are for. And if there is something that we believe that much in, we take our friends with us to see it and tell them the stories about it. The idea of just telling our stories is something we all do anyway among our friends and so the permission to tell the stories about how God is working in our lives, in our strengths and weaknesses, is so refreshing. There is nothing to memorize here. There are no select verses to memorize, except those that have touched us so deeply that we know them, there are no spiritual laws to argue or prove, there are only our experiences to share. This is how God has touched me. This is how I saw God change me through this. This is how I met someone and did this with them and God was somehow in it. We can’t be wrong in telling our stories, because they are ours. We can’t be wrong in explaining to someone how God changed us, because we are the only ones who really know. This flows better too in the course of all our conversations, in the flow of our normal relationships, in the contexts that we live.

Those of us who have been in ministry that is “professional” in some way have been used to teaching or preaching in certain ways. We take classes on it. We go to conferences and workshops on it. Most of these teach us to find within a text 3-5 main “points” or concepts that we can draw out and show people. These are answers to the many problems of life and are centered mainly on myself and how my life can be better. Often everything else in the service and in the sermon itself are secondary to these points or concepts. If you think about most normal North American worship services they are gear up for and point to the sermon and the points. The stories and jokes and even the Scriptures themselves are secondary to the points. But if we were to change our paradigm from teaching/preaching points to telling stories, we would approach everything differently. Instead of pulling out three points that I can apply to my life, I would try to find myself within the story of Scripture itself. What is God trying to do in this story? What is God trying to do in me through this story? The focus moves from me to God. And the pressure is much less too. Can you imagine trying to hit a home run each week with 3-5 effective points that will change someone’s life and answer all their questions? Isn’t easier to be honest about the story, to tell the story, to struggle with each other about the story and where we find ourselves in the story… and it’s a story that has already been written and proven living and active!

Next time... throwing parties

Greatest blog ever???

This is a commercial long in coming, but I hope you've noticed that new link to your right for my wife, Carol's new blog. It has tons of pics and is really great. She is honest and open - the perfect blogging personality!

Office Space

While I am very NOT used to the corporate life, I have been fully indoctrinated as of late. I feel a bit like I've been transported to the world that I only used to read and laugh about in Dilbert comics. It's not really that bad, but sometimes you just think... uh, is this REALLY happening?

(Before I continue, if you have at all been wondering if I'm ever going to post some thoughts, as promised long ago, on "telling stories, throwing parties, making friends and giving gifts" that should begin tomorrow, if you haven't, then this is only a commercial!)

For example... I've been officially hired for a "temporary" position that will last over two years. Therefore the space that they've transformed into my office has been labeled temporary as well. In this same time that they've hired me, but before we moved into the office, they announced that in two years time they will be moving headquarters to another location. Pay attention, here's where it gets batty - we cannot hang anything on the walls of the office because its a temporary office and therefore we cannot alter the space or put any holes in the wall. In the words of my good friend and Jedi warrior, David Rebello, "Nice!"

Or this one, we had an all office lunch today. All of the NYI office staff were invited out to lunch. Before we went they gave us some options from which to choose so they could pre-arrange things. No problem, I understand that I think. So when we got to the restaurant they didn't seem to know where the orders we had faxed were. They tracked down the sheet and brought it out to us, but they had clearly not prepared anything ahead of time, etc. So instead of just going around and asking what each of us ordered, we had one person look at the list and try to figure out what each person had ordered. So he would ask you, did you order the number 5? yes you'd say, then he'd tell the waiter, "he ordered the number 5." And so on. Hmmm. (But I do not want to be down on the lunch or on going out to lunch. It was a good lunch with good people and I'm all for offices getting together for good and fun times... and if it happens to be paid for by them I would count that good too!)

I do like the people I work with a lot, so I praise God for that everyday. God is at work here there is no doubt, my prayer is that he would somehow use this goofy short white boy for his Kingdom. Cuz' he's the only one who could.

The Bus I never rode...

Things are moving along. Jahred and Meg started school and we live pretty close. They sometimes walk with their mom to school. That's just like me when I was growing up. Our school was right down the street. Because of this, I never rode the school bus. The only time was on field trips. Now that I'm "all grown up", I'm riding the bus. Here's a picture of the bus. But I start by getting on a short bus. I don't wear a helmet or anything though. Today my short bus was running late (our driver is not so good - she forgets the route a lot. Today she forgot a turn and had to go around a block), so I missed me big bus like in the picture. Therefore, I was a little late to work. I'm starting to figure it all out though. Man am I dumb.

Some VERY important updates

It has been a while since I've really filled everyone in on some of the greatest and best moments of our move thus far. A lot of gloom and doom lately, so I wanted to share some other things with you all.

First, today... I rode the bus to work which was fine, but I tried to get on the right bus- but going the wrong way - at my connection and so I was a bit late for work. No big deal though. I learned, but it was a bit humorous to me. Thanks to the nice bus driver for getting me in the right spot.

Second, and you won't believe this one even though it is true, on our move out here we had to stop at this truck stop/gas station off of I-70 just west of Indianapolis so that the fine truck of moving love would stopping beeping at me because it was below a 1/4 tank. As I'm standing there pumping gas, who would come out of the station with a soda in hand but none other than the world famous Rupert from Survivor! So I'm checking him out and saying to myself, is that really him? but of course it was because no one else in the world looks like that all the time. So I call Carol, who was in the Eurovan parked down a ways, and tell her. Now it should be noted that Carol is also a HUGE Survivor fan and was quite excited. She tries to casually "drive by" and see him, but once he saw me get out my phone he got in his car with his friends and then pulled away. I tried to get a picture with my phone, but it would not come out because I was too far away. So we saw 31 other yellow Ryder trucks on our move and had one Rupert sighting... awesome.

Third, you have to see this to believe it. I was visiting this church on Sunday night and saw this sign in the foyer outside the worship space. There has got to be a story behind this. Somewhere there is a proud youth pastor who knows that this sign exists solely because of a game he played one night. Brilliant! I do not have any signs in Bel Air because of me. A couple policies perhaps, but no signs. Bummer.

"Normal" Day

Well we had a "normal" day in our new home. We didn't really have anything to do, anywhere to be, etc, etc. It wasn't so great to be honest. Not because we are always wanting something to do, but because it was a bit of a reminder that we don't really have any friends here yet. It was tough. We miss our Maryland friends very much. So, I'm writing this, not so much for people to feel sorry for us, but just to be honest about where we are. I know that many are praying for us and we feel their prayers and God's presence. Enough being a bummer...

This afternoon I went to get my haircut and couldn't find a real barber shop open, so I had to go to "Great Clips" or something. So I had some strange woman cut my hair. It's just weird. And she didn't do a very good job. But I feel lighter.

I Love the DMV!

I'm trying to think of the things that I love, I mean, really love. There is my wife, my kids,... and waiting in line after line after line at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Go to this office and wait in line for your Driver's License - how fun! Now go to this place and have your vehicle inspected - Yee-haa! Now go over here and wait in line for us to call your number, have said number called only for them to tell you to go sit back down and wait for another person to call said number - the excitement only builds. Finally have your number called after much waiting, sitting, staring at strangers while on uncomfy seats - WHOOO HOOO! Add to that, every stop includes and special little ceremony where you get out this little book you have and write some things on a page and sign your autograph before tearing it out and giving it to them while adjusting some other numbers in the same little book - this is a party waiting to happen!!!

I think that my tiredness might be causing a new level of cynicism and sarcasm.

Tomorrow I'll start working on not complaining anymore for petty things in my life.

God's Involved Here

While I'm feeling quite overwhelmed at my position and the growing realization of what all this job entails, I'm realizing something else that's really great: God is already at work. While I believe that is true everywhere, it has been awesome to discover it here as we work on NYC together. From the people that he has brought together to the kinds of ways that we are connecting in the vision for the event, to the little coincidences (moments where you say, "It's almost like there's something else out there helping us"), we know that God is here. How awesome!

If you think of us pray for us and for the students who we are trying to reach, change and love with Jesus! Check us out at www.waterfirewind.com.

Commercial over.

Stop mocking God

This post comes out of some discussion with my brother, Kevin, (thanks bro for great conversation!) about a verse in Romans 6 where Paul talks about living like we've been brought from death to life. The question of discussion is, "do I live as though I were once dead, but now am alive?"

This also ties into a conversation we had on our High School mission trip a couple of weeks ago. We were sharing stories and some of the stories were more "dramatic" stories of death to life than others. These stories left some of those who had never "strayed too far" wondering if their faith or their relationship with Christ would be stronger or better if they had also done similar things. While I do believe every one has to find his/her own way, I also believe that the reason some of us feel like we haven't ever "strayed far" is because of this talk that some sins don't really matter or at least not as much.

I think the clarifying point for me is that we have all sinned. To trivialize "smaller" sins is to mock God's grace and his holiness. We do this all the time through teaching people that little "white" lies are no big deal, cheating is okay, obesity and gluttony are fine, hospitality is an option, etc, etc. I want to be clear that I'm not trying to lean back into legalism, but I do think that there is something to be said for realizing how far we are from God and how far his grace extends even to those of us who have grown up in the church and not really gone crazy with drunkness, orgies and the like.

For me when I begin to realize how far I am from God's holiness even when I'm trying, it makes me realize how great his love truly is for us, how far his grace extends and how much his Spirit can change us - from the inside out. This kind of life of embracing God's grace to me leads us to freedom and far from the fear that seems to dominate our culture, our decisions and our futures.

Hit the ground... running

We've certainly hit the ground. And I'm certainly running. I feel both of those. Overall things are going well though. Our NYC office is together. I hired two assistants and they both are sharp. I think it will work out well. They both come out of the Billy Graham crusade work, so they have large event experience.

Our family is doing pretty well. The kids are starting to just bug at each other, but that's expected with all the transition. They are starting to try to open boxes on their own in search of toys - needless to say that is not so good.

We appreciate your continued prayers. My parents should be here tonight and so that will be a big help!

KC Sunshine Band

We are here. I am tired. My wife is tired. My kids are tired. My van is tired. I don't know about the truck I was driving, but as far as I'm concerned, the sooner our relationship is over, the better.

Here are the low-lights of the travel.
1. Camper door popping open, several times. Losing stuff out of the open door on the expressway.
2. Coming out to a dead battery in our van this morning. We left every attachment in the world plugged into the lighters and then we left another light on and a door cracked. Oops.
3. 7,000 bathroom breaks.

The Jesus sightings:
1. The aforementioned stuff that fell out of our camper, some very, very, very nice truck driver, stopped, picked up, hunted us down and gave them back. Whoever says that there are no good people left in this world: well you're wrong.
2. A nice guy at the hotel this morning giving us a jump so we didn't have to wait 1 hour for AAA.
3. Our kids just loving hotels and pools. It is so funny.

Okay - that's all for now - dinner and sleep are calling.