Prayer

Community Prayer

I talked with a parent about the idea of “community prayer” last week. The idea is that by sharing your concerns and prayer needs with those around you the community is rallied around your need bathing it in prayer. I loved this idea! I even twittered this brilliant little thought I had:

Never underestimate the power of God’s people praying in one direction.

Sounds good right? I took much pride in my ability to come up with such a great little concept in well under 140 characters- a little wisdom honey dripping from my lips. There’s only one problem.

It isn’t exactly true.

After I said this (seemingly) brilliant nugget I thought of a specific passage where God acted when his people prayed in the same direction.

Look what it says in Exodus 2:23-25:

“During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.”

“Wow, look at what happened when God’s people prayed!” I thought. Then I realized that my statement was a bit off.

You see, there was no power found in God’s people in this passage. They were trapped, desperate, weak, alone, and pitiful. The power came from God alone. Yes they were one in mind and heart but the power wasn’t in what they did but in the one they were submitting to. The truth of the matter is this:

Never underestimate the power of God when his people pray in the same direction.

Think about when Peter was in prison in Acts 12. The church was gathered in prayer for his release and safe return. They were in community prayer for the life of their brother. They were all focused in one direction but it was God who acted. It was the power of God that sent the angel, that dissolved the chains, that opened the prison gates. Peter thought it was all a dream until he realized that he was standing alone outside of the prison.

I am in love with this idea of community prayer. I want to engage my brothers and sisters in it more and more but let’s not kid ourselves here. Let’s remember where the true power lies- firmly at the feet of the creator and sustainer of the universe.

Never underestimate the power of God when his people pray in the same direction.

Awesomenessness, Discipleship, Mission, Prayer, Summer, Youth Ministry

Mission Trip 09 Part 2

So I had just found out that the homeless shelter that we had planned to serve while on our mission trip was broke and on the brink of closing. We would no longer have a place to serve. That’s it. End of story. This was creating a giant black hole right in the middle of our mission trip.

When I was scheduling places for us to serve, a food bank in Atlanta had given me a list of non-profits that could host our group. I called the first one on the list: Project Open Hand.

Within 20 minutes we had scheduled time to deliver meals on Friday and Saturday and to pack meals on Monday for the clients of Open Hand.

Remember when I had prayed to God to step in a save our trip? He was about to deliver… big time.

On Friday & Saturday we delivered meals all over the city of Atlanta. We were welcomed into apartments and homes and we were able to pray with many of the families. It was an eye opening experience for all of us. We saw men and women of all shapes and sizes, backgrounds and classes. We met disabled people and we met the terminally ill. It seemed that no matter what the circumstance, these people were thankful for the little bit that they had. Some even offered to pray for us! It was such a blessing. Of course, we met difficult people and some simply reached a hand out the door, snatched the bags of food, and were gone. These were few and far between though.

We overwhelmingly had an incredible few days at Open Hand. On that Monday, I think we pack closed to 3000 meals. That is not a typo – Three thousand meals for people in Atlanta. Only by the grace of God!

The whole focus of our trip had started out to be aimed directly at ministering and serving the homeless of Atlanta. We were still scheduled to do this on Saturday night and Sunday morning. However by Saturday afternoon I had begun to wonder whether or not we would still be able to do this in a meaningful way. Again, I guess I underestimated how God would answer our prayers.

To Be Concluded in part 3

Mission, Prayer, Youth Ministry

Mission Trip 09 Part 1

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Three weeks out from our mission trip to Atlanta I knew something was wrong.

I had been planning for this trip for the better part of the year. My desire was to take my teens to another large American city similar to the DFW area to work with homeless and those living below the poverty line. After talking with a few Atlanta ministers back in February I contacted a local homeless shelter and signed our group up to work there for the week of our trip. After Spring Break, I call just to reconfirm and iron out a few details. Everything seemed on track. We would work for the better part of the days in the shelter serving, meeting, and sharing with the men and women of the shelter. I was excited. My teens were excited. This was going to be a great trip.

Like I said though, three weeks out I wasn’t so sure. As we were returning from camp, while my teens slept in the van, I called the shelter again just to re-reconfirm.

“Who are you again?” the voice on the line said. “When are you coming? Ok, Someone will call you back.”

That day came and went without a phone call. The same story the next day. Something was up.

Very long story short… The shelter was nearly bankrupt. They had been cutting staff right and left. Our trip had been lost in the turmoil. They had no idea we were coming and they couldn’t promise to even have something for us to do once we got there. Oh snap!

Have you ever had a moment where the bottom dropped out? That is exactly how I felt. What were we going to do? Time was running out and the bulk of our trip was now, not just in jeopardy but, out of commission.

God, what are we going to do now? Father please help me, help us! You have to step in right now God!

If I had ever doubted whether or not God hears the prayers of the desperate I was about to be shown the power of what an Almighty God can do. Yes, he heard my prayer(s) but not even I could have expected how greatly these prayers would be answered over the course of our trip.

To Be Continued…

General

Back Home

Last Thursday I left town and headed east to the city of Atlanta for our high school mission trip. We had an incredible week working with non-profits, meeting and serving the homeless, and bonding together as a group. This week was one of those “I-love-what-I do” weeks where you get to see everything you hope to happen become a reality. My plan is to share with you a few stories between now and the weekend.

Summer has been more than crazy- new baby, trips, events, life. Summer is an odd thing for youth ministers. You spend months planning and preparing and taking your time then, all of a sudden, you running around the country at camp or events or on trips. It really is wild. I haven’t updated the blog hardly at all. I want to get back into the habit of posting regularly again so stay tuned. I am scheduled to be in town for the remainder of the summer. Whoo-who!

In the meantime, enjoy a few pictures from my trip:

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Discipleship, Ethos, Resources

The 3 Angles

I’ve been reading through Eugene Peterson’s Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity this summer. What drew me to this book was that it wasn’t about ministering to others but that it was more about soul care for individuals/ministers. For Peterson, the shape that Pastoral Integrity takes is that of a triangle. A triangle is made up of 3 lines and 3 angles. As you can see by the title, the angles are what Peterson is most concerned with.

Peterson is challenging/calling those of us privileged enough to lead others into God’s presence to do so out of a life that is constantly connected to the Source. His premise is that we spend so much focus and effort on the lines of ministry- preaching, teaching, administration. To be honest these are the acts of ministry that we get grades for. They are the visible (most visible) aspects of our jobs. What Peterson says is that we should be more concerned with the angles of ministry because these angles feed, inform, develop, and connect our inner life with our “professional” life.

Here are a few choice excerpts:

Three pastoral acts are so basic, so critical, that they determine the shape of everything else. The acts are praying, reading Scripture, and giving spiritual direction. Besides being basic, these three acts are quiet. They do not call attention to themselves and so are often not attended to. In the clamorous world of pastoral work nobody yells at us to engage in these acts. It is possible to do pastoral work to the satisfaction of the people who judge our competence and pay our salaries without being either diligent or skilled in them. Since almost never does anyone notice whether we do these things or not, and only occasionally does someone ask that we do them, these three acts of ministry suffer widespread neglect.

The three areas constitute acts of attention: prayer is an act in which I bring myself to attention before God; reading Scripture is an act of attending to God in his speech and action across two millennia in Israel and Christ; spiritual direction is an act of giving attention to what God is doing in the person who happens to be before me at any given moment.

None of these acts is public, which means that no one knows for sure whether or not we are doing any of them. People hear us pray in worship, they listen to us preach and teach from the Scriptures, they notice when we are listening to them in a conversation, but they can never know if we are attending to God in any of this. It doesn’t take many years in this business to realize that we can conduct a fairly respectable pastoral ministry without giving much more than ceremonial attention to God. Since we can omit these acts of attention without anybody noticing, and because each of the acts involves a great deal of rigor, it is easy and common to slight them.

Wow. What a convicting premise! I couldn’t agree more with what Peterson has said. This summer it is my goal to make sure that I’m working the angles in a greater and more deliberate way. As the pressures of my life grow- new baby, summer expectations, fall planning, leading up-out-and-about- so must my reliance on my Father.

To paraphrase the words of that rock band from the Great White North, RUSH-

I’ll be working them ANGLES overtime! (That was for you Kratzer)

D'oh!, Stories, Youth Ministry

Ya’ll Got Towed

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I experienced a first (and hopefully last) in my youth ministry career on Friday night.

I got the church van towed!

That’s right! I parked in an apparent tow zone when I took a group of teens downtown Friday night. I felt so stupid and angry and scared and frustrated and embarrassed and alone and helpless and… I think you get the point. Thankfully, everything worked out fine. No one was angry. No parent took their kids out of the youth group. It wasn’t brought up from the pulpit on Sunday and no one asked me to go forward. It was an event that I don’t ever want to repeat but it was also a learning experience that helped me put into practice some youth ministry basics.

Here is what I learned from the evening:

1) Make first contact with the parents.
Once it was determined what I needed to do and what it was going to take for us to get the van back I called the parents to let them know what had happened. I didn’t dance around what happened and I quickly admitted my stupidity mistake. I was able to make first contact with all but one family- their teen called them on their cell before I could. The ubiquitous nature of cell phones makes this a difficult task for sure but make sure that the parents hear from you sooner rather than later. A great side note: All of the parents were quick to offer assistance. That gave me a little confidence in a tough situation.

2) Name on the Insurance Card
One thing that would have made everything as smooth as silk is if my name had been on the insurance card for the van. (According to the impound lot) In the State of Texas, a tow company can only release a vehicle to the owner/operator of the vehicle. Our insurance card only listed the name of our church. All though I am a registered driver for the van my name was absent from the card. Make sure that your church/business puts your name on the insurance card along with any other drivers registered for the vehicle. One of my youth deacons had to come sign for me and we had to have that document notarized. Big hassle!

3) Keep Your Cool
I wanted to scream, kick, spit, and shove the valets and the (at first) unhelpful tow truck driver. Back in high school this is exactly what I would have done- I would have let my temper get the best of me. When we walked up to the spot where the van had been I immediately saw the fear and confusion in the eyes of my teens. I had to fight against pride and anger (pride in that I knew that they would begin blaming me and I felt stupid enough and anger in that I was so mad at myself and the whole situation) to put on a brave face. “Wait here,” I said, “We’ll figure this out.” I then began talking to the tow truck driver and began weighing my options. My intern said that he and the teens took comfort in seeing that I handled the situation calmly and rationally- for me, that’s a big win.

4) Don’t Park in a Tow Zone
Duh right? When I pulled into the spot I was paying more attention to the meter than the tow zone signs. We were actually parked in the last spot reserved for a restaurant. The sign warning against towing was halfway down the van (as opposed to in front of the parking spot) and I completely missed it. While I still believed that the zone was/is poorly marked that didn’t keep the van from being towed. Just be extra careful when parking in an area you’re unfamiliar with.

I hope that this never happens to you but if it does come back here and leave your story in the comments section so that I can feel like I’m not alone. have a great week!

Resources, Spilling Personal Secrets, Study

Give It Away

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Some have asked me how I take notes or how I can remember specifics from things that I have read long after the book has been retired to the shelf. Well wonder no more!

I got this from Tim Sanders’ book, Love Is The Killer App a few years ago so I can’t take any credit for this. I implemented this approach since then and began seeing the benefits almost immediately. Maybe this approach will help you as well. Using the last book I finished I’ll show you pictures of what works best for me.

First I jot down notes and references on the inside of the front cover (see picture below). I make sure to write the page number first and then follow it up with the main point, thought, or summation of the idea that I find interesting. Sanders recommends allowing only one line per note but that doesn’t work for me. When finished this becomes an index for all the takeaways and information that you have found helpful, insightful, or just plain interesting. It will serve you as a pretty good roadmap next time you’re tying to remember something you read. Best of all this info isn’t stored on your computer or on a some ratty piece of paper shoved between the pages. These notes will be forever with the book. Pretty handy indeed!

Notes (Front Cover)

After I’ve taken notes on the front cover I then write down quotes and definitions in the back of the book (see pic below). I am not as diligent about writing down full quotes in the back as I am with jotting notes in the front. Typically, if there is a great quote more than likely I’ve highlighted it. Regardless, writing down full quotes helps you internalize the message and aids you in remembering what you found important or interesting.

Notes (Back Cover)

So there you go! Maybe this method of note taking will help you become a better reader or maybe even a better leader.

What do you do to help yourself better understand or retain what you’re reading? Leave your solutions or ideas in the comment section. Let’s help each other learn and lead with greater understanding.

Awesomenessness, Book Review, Ethos, Leadership, Ministry, Remarkable, Resources

The Best of How the Mighty Fall

I finished How the Mighty Fall by Jim Collins last night. What a fantastic read! I took a ton of notes and almost went through an entire highlighter. Collins builds upon his previous two masterworks, Built to Last & Good to Great, to paint a compelling and relevant picture of once great companies who at the crossroads chose poorly, lead unwisely, and with foolhardy ambition allowed their organizations to fail.

I loved this book! To be honest I have loved just about everything I’ve heard from Collins.

</div>The man knows his stuff and is an amazing storyteller. It is hard to argue with his methods and even harder to ignore his findings.<p> </p> <p>The main idea behind the book is that companies/organizations move through <strong>5 stages of decline</strong>: arrogance, undisciplined pursuit of more, denial of risk, grasping for the silver bullet salvation, and capitulation to irrelevance or death. Collins argues that decline can be avoided or reversed but only when organizations get back to basic principles and values.</p> <p><strong>I think this book can speak truth into the life of any leader or organization that seeks not just to avoid failure but who truly desires to make a difference in the lives of those they serve.</strong></p> <p><strong>Here are some of my favorite takeaways from <a mce_href=”http://www.amazon.com/How-Mighty-Fall-Companies-Never/dp/0977326411/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1244219257&amp;sr=8-1″ target=”new” xhref=”http://www.amazon.com/How-Mighty-Fall-Companies-Never/dp/0977326411/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1244219257&amp;sr=8-1″>How the Mighty Fall</a></strong>:</p> <p><em>A core business that meets a fundamental human need- and one at which you’ve become best in the world- rarely becomes obsolete.</em></p> <p><em>The best corporate leaders we’ve researched remain students of their work, relentlessly asking questions- why, why, why?- and <strong>have an incurable compulsion to vacuum the brains of people they meet</strong>.</em></p> <p><em>Innovation can fuel growth, but frenetic innovation- growth that erodes consistent tactical excellence- can just as easily send a company (organization) through the stages of decline. </em></p> <p><em>The greatest leaders do seek growth- <strong>growth in performance, growth in distinctive impact, growth in creativity, growth in people</strong>- but they do not succumb to growth that undermines long-term value. And they certainly do not confuse growth with excellence. Big does not equal great, and <strong>great does not equal big</strong>.</em></p> <p><em>Any exceptional enterprise depends first and foremost upon having <strong>self-managed and self-motivated people</strong>- the number one ingredient for a <strong>culture of discipline</strong>.</em></p> <p><em>Audacious goals stimulate progress, but big bets without empirical validation, or that fly in the face of mounting evidence can bring companies down…</em></p> <p><em>The greatest danger comes not in ignoring clear and unassailable facts, but in misinterpreting ambiguous data in situations when you face severe or catastrophic consequences if the ambiguity resolves itself in a way that’s not in your favor.</em> (Collins powerfully discusses the lead up and failures surrounding the Challenger explosion- the fateful decisions to proceed with the launch- to illustrate this point)</p> <p><em>When making risky bets and decisions in the face of ambiguous or conflicting data, ask three questions: <strong>1) What’s the upside, if events turn out well? 2) What’s the downside, if events go very badly? 3) Can you live with the downside?</strong> Truly?</em></p> <p><em>You can be profitable and bankrupt</em></p> <p><em>Institutional self-perpetuation holds no legitimate place in a world of scarce resources; <strong>institutional mediocrity should be terminated</strong>, or transformed into excellence.</em></p> <p><em>If you cannot marshal a compelling answer to the question, “What would be lost, and how would the world be worse off, if we ceased to exist?” then perhaps capitulation is the wise path. But if you have a <strong>clear</strong> and <strong>inspired purpose</strong> built upon <strong>solid core values</strong>, then the noble course may be to <strong>fight on</strong>, to <strong>reverse decline</strong>, and try to <strong>rekindle greatness</strong>.</em></p> <p><em><strong>The point of the struggle is</strong> not just to survive, but <strong>to build an enterprise that makes such a distinctive impact on the world it touches, and does so with such superior performance, that it would leave a gaping hole- a hole that could not be easily filled by any other institution- if it ceased to exist.</strong></em></p> <p><em>To accomplish this requires leaders who retain faith that they can find a way to prevail in pursuit of a cause larger than mere survival (and larger than themselves), while also maintaining the stoic will needed to <strong>take whatever actions must be taken</strong>, however excruciating for the sake of that cause.</em></p> <p><em>Lack of management discipline correlates with decline, and passionate adherence to management discipline correlates with recovery and ascent.</em></p> <p><em>If you’ve fallen into decline, get back to solid… disciplines- NOW!</em></p> <p><em>We all need <strong>beacons of light</strong> as we struggle with the inevitable setbacks of life and work.</em></p> <p><em>“This is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never- in nothing, great or small, large or petty- <strong>never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense</strong>. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.” -Winston Churchill </em></p> <p><em>Failure is not so much a physical state as a state of mind; success is falling down, and getting up one more time, without end.</em></p&gt

The Goal Is Soul