Communion and Community...

This weekend, I have the opportunity to lead communion during the morning services. I'm fairly excited about it...But it gets me thinking about why we do communion. Jesus said to do it in "remembrance of him." And I wouldn't do it for any other reason. Jesus had communion with his disciples and as he passed the bread and the wine around, he was engaged in community with them. He knew each of them so deeply. They had lived life together, had experienced miracles together, had seen people be radically changed together, and the disciples had learned from him again and again. As they sat in the upper room, there was so much going on as he passed the cup and the bread. He was about to die and he was telling his disciples that they needed to remember him once he wasn't physically with them anymore.

Often, I take communion and forget exactly how intimate this is. I drink the juice and eat the bread and think, "That was a nice service." or "I'm glad that we have the privilege of taking communion." The reality is that we have the privilege and the responsibility of taking communion together...in community with the local body of Christ. We get to celebrate him together because he is present...Alive...right here with us and that is an amazing thing! I Corinthians 11 really writes to people that were perverting this concept of communion but Paul uses some great wording as he addresses the issue of communion. He says, "For whenever you eat of this bread and drink of this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes!"

Wow! As a local body of Christ, we are making a proclamation every time we engage in communion. It isn't just a ritual that is done the first of every month. And it isn't a time only for somber reflection. It is a time for somber reflection and then celebration together as the local body of Christ, proclaiming Christ to the world around us! It should move me. It should make me gaze deeply into the face of Christ and only begin to understand his love for me. His love poured out on the cross 2000 years ago!

God, give me the ability to think deeply about who you are and how you created your church to proclaim you through communion.

Passion and Challenging Conversations

Greg Stier talked tonight at the conference. It was good. Basically, he just told us that we must listen to where kids are at spiritually so that we can get the issues on the table in an authentic, real way where there can be conversation. Here's the thing...Sometimes, I want to be comfortable. Sometimes I want me to be happy. The reality is that if we are going to move kids BEYOND something of a trivial version of Christianity, we must start digging SO deep that they cannot step out of the line of fire.

I am fascinated with the idea of taking 8 kids to an Island, asking them spiritual questions and just listening while engaging in life threatening activites. But this is what Greg Steir did. He found that the students were willing to listen to him only after he listened to them.

I want to listen to students. I want to hear what they have to say. I want to listen to adult leaders. I want to hear what they have to say. I want to hear what people that don't know Christ have to say! I want to engage in the hard conversations to move people towards full devotion to the God that they say that they serve!

God has rejuvenated me this weekend. I'm pumped to go back and continue to preach the love of the cross, the message of the gospel, and proclaim truth to students and adults alike. I realized this weekend again and again (and have realized before) that I love what I do and we are so blessed to be a part of a church that values teens!

God, give me passion to hear the students that are within reach. Give me the grace, mercy, and confidence to address issues in a loving, hard way. Help me to continue to seek you and your word day IN and day OUT!!!!

Conference Stuff

Yesterday and today have been both enlightening and frustrating in the same instant. Frustrating because the more that I go to different sessions and seminars, the more that I realize that I really don't know much. Also, there is so much that I feel like I am missing by not going to certain sessions. I guess you have to pick and choose.

These weekends are so refreshing and replenishing. I enjoy being with youth workers from all over the country but especially am blessed to be with youth workers from our home local church. It's exciting to hear and process the same things to gether in a very healthy, God honoring way.

I'm excited about dinner tonight. Skyline Chili. Yum.

Monday looks like a great day to do some serious driving and hopefully it won't take nearly as long as it idd the other day!

By the way, I think Grant will be a phenomenal intern as well as Amber and Jackie. I'm pretty excited for this summer to begin!

God, keep us safe. Keep us learning. Sharpen our love for students and for you this weekend!

Icy Interstates and The Emergency Room.

We drove from Wichita, KS to Cincinnati yesterday. I am one of these people that when we are going somewhere, I want to be there in the amount of time that MapQuest tells me that I should be there in. MapQuest said 12 hours, I thought twelve hours. We started at 6:30 A.M. on Thursday morning and began the short jaunt acrossed the midwest only to find rain, snow, sleet, and freezing drizzle as we drove. Ugh. To top it off, the windshield didn't defrost well, Grant blew a fuse, and the windshield wipers were less than steller. None of these things would be that bad on there own except that we were crawling at 40 miles per hour. Wow.

Halfway through the morning, Isaiah, my son, started to have weezing issues. As a five month old, I was scared. He wasn't breathing well. We stopped at the emergency room, they gave him some treatments for the croup and after a two hour stop, we headed on. We will had about 320 miles to go. St. Louis was halfway and we were ten hours into our trip. The last 200 miles of our trip turned into freezing rain and the roads being treacherous. I went about 40 miles per hour the last 4 hours of our trip.

We arrived at 3 A.M. Friday morning Central time. The group that I am with is VERY flexible and God works in crazy ways.

I keep looking at the situation and thinking "if this would have happened, then this might have happened and if this didn't happen, we might have been..."

Thank you Lord for safety, work in this group this weekend as we experience a rejuvenation and a sense of calling to work with students week in and week out.

Headed to Cincinnati...

I'm excited to head to Cincinnati with a team of youth workers tomorrow. I'm excited to take a weekend of refreshment and recharging. I'm looking forward to seeing our staff be excited about what it means to connect deeply with students.

While I am in Cincinnati, I would love to have a conversation with Chap Clark regarding the book "Hurt." I want to know what he thinks on some different cultural differences that I am experiencing in Wichita, KS and how they may or may not parallel what he experienced as he wrote hurt.

I also would enjoy having a discussion with Fields on the issue of time management. How does he do all that he seems to do without killing himself? He has to be a good delegator, I guess.

Anyway, I'm excited to go hang out with youth workers from ALL over the place.

God, bless our time. Give us safe travels and teach us to follow you in amazing ways! Lead this student ministry...Build the house and move in spite of who I am!

Interesting.

While I was in college, I had a friend of mine create the following video. For whatever reason, it has impacted my life in amazing ways the last several years. Jesus, I love you.