30 Hour Famine

In just a few short hours, the students will begin to arrive for the 30 Hour Famine. We've already fasted for 4 hours and the hunger just began. I always dread the hunger, but the anticipation is the worst part. It makes me consider those in this world who don't know when that next meal will be on their plate. 30 hours is short compared to some the time others go without food.

I'm excited to fast with so many students who are raising funds for World Vision. I invite you to participate in giving alongside our students.

It should be a great weekend. I'll let you know how it goes!

Closed Ended Questions

It is my day off—1st one in over 2 weeks!—and I'm sitting here, listening to a seminar from Andrew Marin from the National Youth Workers Convention. He talks about building bridges with the gay community.

In his work, Andrew often gets yes or no questions in relation to his topic. His point about yes or no questions is brilliant and can help us in answering people in many circumstances. He points out that closed ended questions are asked because the inquisitor already knows what they believe and want to peg the answerer into a category based on their response. At that point, there is no further dialogue.

He points out that Jesus was asked 29 closed ended questions in the gospels...by John the Baptist, by His disciples, and by His enemies. Can you guess how many times Jesus answered with a yes or no?

Three.

And those three times were to Pilate...when His ministry was over and the only thing that remained was the cross. Other than that, Jesus didn't answer with a yes or no to closed ended questions.

Answering closed ended questions with a yes or no puts the hearer in a position to fight, stand their ground and close off hearing you. Answering as Jesus often did puts us in a place to continue dialogue.

I'm pretty good at answering those questions with a yes or no. And I hope that I can become more like Jesus

Mexico Media

I finally have some more stories from Mexico, but this time it's not just from me. Yesterday, our Mexico team used the sermon time during our church services to share stories of what God did in and through us.

You'll find the 40 minute session along with our PowerPoint slide show links next. I've also embedded the 4 minute video slide show that Zach made. Soon, I'll post the 20 minute version that he and Caleb spent so much time creating.

The PowerPoint file is in the 2007 version. If you don't have that version, click here for a 2007 viewer.

Mexico Sharing Audio - MP3 File
Mexico Sharing PowerPoint - PowerPoint 2007 File
Mexico Pictures - These are the 'best' 500 out of the 1600 taken!

Farewell to Seniors '08

It is once again that sad time of year where we say goodbye to our Senior class and ready ourselves for the incoming Freshmen.

To help celebrate our Senior's time in the group, we create a farewell slide show. I'm showing this tonight at group. They will be missed!

Bridgetown Prayer Walk

I've written about Bridgetown before here. Last Friday, I got to go down again and lead worship during the orientation time. It was a wonderful night and there were something like 140 volunteers there to feed, clothe, give haircuts, wash the feet of and eat with the homeless in our city.

A dream of Marshall—the director of Bridgetown—is to have groups of people minister now only under the bridge, but go out into the downtown area and pray for the city each Friday night.

This Friday was the first. I've been on a walk-a-bout before where we take hot chocolate and clean socks to the homeless living in other around downtown. But this prayer walk is "just that" described by Marshall. Praying and walking.

I was in a group of 5 people who walked about 2.5 miles while stopping at 9 pre-chosen locations to pray for 9 specific things:

1. For the protection of our team.
2. For the wisdom of the leaders of the city.
3. For those struggling with addiction.
4. For racial reconciliation.
5. For the police of our city.
6. For the other ministries already happening.
7. For those listening and preaching false religions.
8. For those who visit the city to see what God is doing.
9. For the struggling businesses in the area.

Of course we were encouraged to pray for whatever else we saw or to engage in conversations with people we see as we're walking.

Bridgetown can mobilize up to 80 people right now doing prayer walks that cover downtown. Marshall hopes that this ministry grows. If you've thought about serving with Bridgetown but have shied away at the thought of feeding the homeless, I'd encourage you to go on a prayer walk. Who knows what God will do?!

Exciting Day

Tuesday was an exciting day:

First, I got my car windshield replaced after the crack grew for months. I'm glad I replaced when I did too. I got the first crack in the summer, but the second crack happened the day before I got it replaced! Lucked out there!

Second, the iPhone 1.1.3 update came out. Now I can have Google Maps locate where I am and get directions from there...great feature!

And lastly, we had our 2nd Tigard-area Youth Pastor's meeting. It will be exciting to see what happens with this group of like-minded and group.

Guys Night Out

Last Friday through Saturday, Alison and our youth group gals were at the Revolve Tour, a big deal put on by Women of Faith. While the gals enjoyed their time, us men of the youth group hung out for a Guys Night Out. We did it all. About 14 of us ate 7 Pizzas, drank 6 2-litres of soda, crammed 5 bags of chips, played hours of video games, poker, capture the flag in the dark, a special Guys Night Outburst and more!

It left us all exhausted seeing as how most people didn't get to sleep until 5:30 or 6 in the morning, and arose at 9. I haven't stayed up that late since I had a final paper deadline! Whew! I need more sleep!

Fuel Halloween

Last night our high school group had a Halloween celebration.

As you can tell, I'm wearing a bio-hazard suit. I wore this costume about 6 years ago and remembered it was sitting in the supply closet of the youth room. My explanation for the suit was that I had to wear it after someone else used the bathroom.

We had many good times, but one of the funniest moments was watching 4 of our students attempt to eat a donut on a string while wearing a blindfold! The donut would bob and sway, hitting them in the face with its sticky exterior.

Next, we enjoyed a wonderful game of bobbing for gummy worms in Jell-O. :) Yes, disgusting. Even after all that Jell-O on my face, I took second. Each of us had 10 gummy worms in our bowl. By the time our winner found all ten, I had seven. Oh well, next time.

For those that opted out of the costume experience, we provided newspaper, masking tape and a team of people to dress them up right! Pictured here is the winner of the competition. They gave her spikes to make her into Bowser from the Mario Brothers games.

We ended the night discussing our group's new name: Fuel (That post is to come), and what we are passionate about.

Student Leadership Team

Sunday was a first for Ali and I. We finally had people over for a meal! It was awesome. Yes, we've had people over, but for dessert, hang out time, or other things.

This was the first time that people used our new dining room chairs. They match our table almost exactly and we got them for the price of dog-sitting. That's a great price!

Sunday was fun. We had our High School Student Leadership Team for a meal and meeting. I enjoy having our meetings, but having them in a home is much better. It's great hearing from them their thoughts on the group, how it's relevant (or not) and what is important to them.

Day of the Town - part 2

We finished our day of the town at Bridgetown last night. It was a wonderful evening. You never know what to expect. In fact it was the first time that a homeless person ever gave me money. It was just a penny, but wow, what a neat lady.

Pictured here are Amy & Breann (youth leaders), Brady & Nicole (students) and Alison making peanut butter & jelly sandwiches for the evening. Along with the sandwiches, we served homemade chicken chowder soup, biscuits, cake and coffee.

I had the job of Disney duty which means sweeping up the trash under the bridge. It is one of my favorite things to do there because you get to walk around and see all that is happening. You also get to stop and have conversations with different people while at the same time letting people know that they are important enough to have a clean living space.

Alison and I along with my brother and two rockers from church helped lead worship for our gathering of cross-denominational servants. It's so cool when people from different backgrounds get together in unity to be the church and not worry about our differences. It made me reminisce of leading worship in Mexico. Both are a beautiful picture of what Jesus prayed for in John 17.

Day of the Town

Ali and I are having a very towny day. She took the day off so we could have some much needed rest together.

After sleeping in, we made our way downtown for our first ever visit to Stumptown Coffee Roasters. Pictured to the right is my 16oz. mocha. The latte art reminded me of this video. Alison enjoyed a plain coffee (very good if you ask me) and I ate what I think is the best croissant I've ever had.

We then made a quick stop at Border's Book Store and drove home the scenic way, up behind the OHSU campus and stopped on the top of the hill for an incredible view of mountains Hood, Adams, St. Helens and Rainier! Astounding!

Our last town stop will be with Bridgetown Ministries under the Burnside Bridge. We're taking our youth group there to serve and love some of Portland's neediest people. It's always an amazing experience...always better than I could hope.

NYWC Day 4.0

Final day. Final thoughts Many more thoughts to come.

Brian and I started the day with the 10 minute walk to Starbucks for a Pumpkin Spice Latte and a scone, then onto the final seminar session; it was our first together for the weekend. We chose Doug Fields' course on developing a strong volunteer team. He had a lot of good things to say, but one that Brian and I agree with whole-heartedly was that volunteer in youth ministry are never chaperons. They don't just help out the youth leader. They are the ministry. Without them, the ministry would flounder. Students need adults that love for and care about them. God bless them! To see the profiles of our great team, visit our staff page.

Our final session brought Marko (Mark Oestreicher)—president of Youth Specialties—to the stage.

He described the three basic questions of adolescence: Who am I? (Identity) Do I matter/have purpose? (Affinity) Where do I fit? (Autonomy).A person (regardless of being a teenager or not) won't enter true adulthood until they answer these basic questions. For more on that, I recommend reading Hurt by Chap Clark.

Marko then profiled youth ministry from its birth in the 50's to its needed direction today.

Youth Ministry 1.0 began in the 50's and lasted into the mid 60's. It fixated on answering the Who am I question. Culture informed its language and topics. It had a proclamation style, focusing on evangelism. It's "theme passage" would be from Matthew 7 about the wide and narrow gates.

Youth Ministry 2.0 began in the late 60's and continued on until recent years. (Although some would say that the next shift in youth changed long before.) This era fixated on the Do I have purpose question. Culture informed its models & measurements. It focused on discipleship and peer groups. Ministry was program-driven and the "theme passage" could be from Matthew 28 about making disciples.

Youth Ministry 3.0 is the shifting model described next. Marko reminded us that he didn't have a crystal ball, but as the times change, students change, and ministry methods need to change.

Culture fixates now on the Where do I fit question. Culture programs our students now for Community. Marko suggests that Communion and Mission (with the whole church) are good models to use. Instead of being program-driven, be present: Present to God, to the needs of the moment, to each other, and to life in the way of Jesus.

If I can take a quick aside, another speaker talked to us about being present and that having a CEO-like vision isn't as important as you think. He said that people point to Proverbs 29 which speaks about the destruction when people lack vision. But as he pointed out—and I confirmed—the word vision is used in the King James, which was written before our modern day corporate world business mentality. If you check out modern day translations, they use the word Revelation. When the people don't have Revelation...a message from God, they flounder. Therefore, we need to constantly bring the Word of God to His people.

Finally, the "theme verse" for this era could be Acts 2:44-46 and John 17:18, where the church comes together in all unity.

Marko's final thoughts were that the days of one size fits all ministry is gone. What we need to do is contextualize ministry for the students God gave us, do less, be communional—yes, that's a made up word emphasizing community and living out our recognition of what Jesus did—be missional at all times, and be present—live today, in the now.

Was that a lot to digest? Yeah, me too. I'm thankful to work with a great team and that I have many praying for me and the students I serve.

NYWC Day 3.1

I'm just about finished with the book Living With Questions by Dale Fincher, one of the seminar speakers. Between down time and the plane ride, I'm enjoying his philosophy/apologetic written for teens. It's kind of like taking an easy, condensed version of my college philosophy class. I'm still debating whether or not I want to use the book as a basis for a teaching series or a small group material.

That night, Mark Matlock of Planet Wisdom spoke on what the American church can learn from the church worldwide. He made reference to the body of Christ, and that a body needs all its parts to be healthy. Its parts aren't just about gifts, or types of people, but includes all races and nations. So to be healthy, we need to learn from the church as it is in other cultures.

Mark also spoke about how the Acts 15 church addressed the gospel heading into a new culture. From that, he developed a comparison of how our culture tells us to run church verses the way of Kingdom of God.

Culture	Kingdom
Defend identity	Deny self
Control the process	Submit to God and others
Critique others	Serve others
Achieve outcomes	Trusts God for outcomes

It's easy to get stuck in a rut of doing things out of our own wisdom and power in the church. Though I want success in my ministry, I don't want to play the numbers game. May we remember that it's His church and not our own.

NYWC Day 3.0

I'm a little late in getting my day 3 wrap up to you. Day 3 was long but good. In fact, I'm sitting at San Diego's airport right now waiting for our delayed 6pm flight back to Portland. 250,000 plus people have been evacuated from their homes because of the wild fires in the area. The hotel we stayed in even offered conventions travels an extra night's stay at a discounted rate. Many major roads are closed because of the fires. In fact, Brian and I visited the mall for lunch and it was practically empty. We'd estimate that around 40% of the stores are closed due to employees needing to be watching out for their homes.

While at the convention, we got news of two churches, one in the San Diego area and one in the Malibu area that burned to the ground. Their youth staffs were at the convention, so we had the chance to pray for them. The only item standing at the Malibu church was their cross. I know that these churches will have a hard time, but a chance to live out the reality that the church is not buildings, but people.

Now to actual day 3 things:

Gary Haugen of International Justice Mission spoke about the world slavery crisis and how our generation is called to wipe it out. 27 million human beings live in slavery, 2 million of those being children that are involved in the sex trade. It was a horrible feeling watching the presentation of how some people are treated. Fortunately, IJM directs an amazing team of courageous lawyers and others people to put together cases against the slave owners and raid properties to free slaves.

He called us who might be on the trip of Christianity but missing the adventure to step up wherever God calls and walk down a path where we will slip if God does not show up! Wow!

Well, that’s enough reading for you right now and my connection is messing up. More later...Out.

NYWC Day 2.1

The long day is over. Bedtime is coming. The day of rest begins soon.

For the record I have to admit that Doug Fields' talk convicted me. You see, he spoke about envy. He spoke about it in terms of ministry envy that we as youth workers might have toward each other. Envy kills. Maybe not literally, but my envy of another can cause me to kill their ministry and success when I talk bad about them, when I set them up to fail, when I only point out our differences and never celebrate their successes.

But I'm convicted because I have envy. The key to cleansing the envy from my heart is to celebrate others' victories and strengths. But I'm not there. I can only admit for now that I have envy.

So my fellow youth worker who's 6-digit raffle ticket held the winning number to my brand new iPod Touch, I am envious.

There, I've admitted it. My celebration for you may come some day.

P.S. Giving 3,000 finger rockets to 3,000 youth workers turns us into a bunch of mid-schoolers...and we all loved it!

NYWC Day 2.0

I'm sure I'll be back on later tonight. I've really enjoyed my re-entrance into the world of blogging.

Frances Chan spoke today. What a beautiful message of whole-heartedly perusing God and Him alone. He made many points, one of which Brain spoke to:

If Jesus had a church in Tigard, ours would be bigger. This would be true because of the radical nature of Jesus' message. Though, maybe not. Maybe his church would be filled with different kinds of people. His message was radical, but most so to those who were religious.

His other thought was about how we approach God's Word. Look at your church, your ministry, your life and walk with God. If you only had the Bible to go on, how would you expect the those things to look? Would they look the same as they do now? Different? Of course we have tradition, history, culture, and others aiding our own walk and styles. I'm not trying to say that these are bad, but Frances' question is penetrating and has implications for all who would call themselves followers of Christ.

Well, off for some perusing and then on to the next session. Out. Aaron

NYWC Day 1.0

After 8 hours of travel, time spent worshiping along side the Crowder Band, listing to the story of Phil Vischer, wandering exhibit halls, previewing the new Nooma with 3000 peers, and sharing two meals with Brian, we're about ready to call it a day.

As Brian and I were leaving the convention center at 10:30pm, I thought to myself, Where could two hungry guys without a rental car get some food to munch on? Just then, a dude with a Papa John's pizza box steps around the corner. :) I asked him if they delivered and he said he wanted to give away the last half of his pizza. Score! Though it was a bit old, it wasn't terrible.

By the way, snacks are welcomed at room 1729. Just leave them at the door if we're not here. :)

There is much more to say, but we only paid for 1 hour of internet. I'm looking forward to tomorrow and all that we'll learn, experience, and be inspired to be. It started off great; the emphasis on God. Good times.

San Diego, Here We Come!

Brian and I head down to San Diego tomorrow for 4 days and 3 nights at the National Youth Workers Convention...and boy are we excited!

We went two years ago and were impacted, refreshed and much more. Our plan is to spend some time blogging so you can see what we're thinking as we go along. Unfortunately, the hotel we're staying at charges $9.95 per day for wireless internet! You've got to be kidding! The Super 8 give free internet. Geesh.

I'm excited about David Crowder leading us in worship for the first day.

Mexico Video

Our Mexico team had a wonderful reunion party last night where we shared a meal, memories, what God is still doing in us and then had the world primer of the full length video.

If you have 17 minutes, check it out. You'll get a good picture of what we did!

Back from Mexico!

Okay, so I never blogged to say that I'd left for Mexico...sorry :)

Ali and I, along with our youth group, spent an amazing 12 days in Mexico with missionaries Tim & Kathy Johnston. We participated in building a house, building a dorm type building for the missionaries, church ministry, a VBS, clothing and food distribution, house visitation and much more!

It was an exciting time in our lives for ministry but to also watch students gain a greater compassion for the poor and understand God's heart for them.

I'll share more soon, but I wanted to let you see the pictures and video. Hope you enjoy!

Check out the pictures here.