Crisis, Calling, Community

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Day two of NYWC blew our socks off more than once! We began our day with breakfast downstairs of our beautiful hotel room. Being able to catch up with other friends, youth workers from our conference has been such a breath of fresh air. There's something enormously encouraging to chat with people who are in a similar calling.

After breakfast we headed to part two of a class we began last night with authors Jim Hancock and Rich Van Pelt. By the end of our 5 or 6 hours total of class time with these two genuine dudes, Josh and I felt like we really had bonded with them and felt very comfortable asking them questions about our ministry and received some wonderful words of wisdom, affirmation and advice. The class was on "Dangerous Opportunity: Helping Kids and Families in Crisis." WOW! What a loaded topic and we're so thankful for the informative yet engaging format of the class because we really desired some real answers for specific areas of our ministry.

Then we roamed the many ministry booths represented here and can I just say: Free STUFF!! Man people love to give away free t-shirts, music, chapstick and pens...oh and candy which lured us to their booths! What can I say, we're youth workers; free stuff is sometimes too appealing.

After Josh and I and our friend from Bend, Dorota made it through the booths and Dorota and I successfully dodged viewing the gigantic real snake that was present at one of the booths, we found some friends from Multnomah and chatted and walked for a bit then grabed some bites and headed back for the general session with worship by Lincoln Brewster and Mercy Me.

Although I haven't found myself in complete agreement with Emergent Theology, one of the things I have most appreciated about what this movement emphasis' is coming to God in worship and coming to him in a way that gives back to him the gifts and talents he has given us. During worship and a message, "talent" could also be seen in the auditorium. A painter who was off to the side, illustrating what he was surrounded by through his gift. And "sand art" something that I had never experienced told the story of the Prodigal Son through instrumental music while the artist fashioned the characters of the story simply through black sand...AMAZING!!!! Absolutely spectacular!

The speaker was the Bishop Sherwood Carthen, an African American preacher from right here in California. I want to share a few thoughts from the notes I took. I do believe that not many of us, if any, left his very convicting and inspiring message unchanged.

Sherwood emphasized from the beginning that ministry has to be a calling and it can't simply be an option. He spoke on the cost of leadership and how high a cost it is. He illustrated Matthew 4 when Jesus was taken to the wilderness before his public ministry began, elaborating on the fact that it was the Holy Spirit that led him ot the wilderness. I found this to be interesting, because as he later stated, so often we blame the Devil for bringing us to the wilderness of our lives, when it is the Lord who leads and guides you through the low times, shaping and molding your faith and trust in him along the way.

Here's the three lessons we can learn when we find ourselves in the wilderness:

• When we get to the wilderness, it crucifies false superficial spirituality; it removes our self effort, plans, projects and phony disciplines.
  
• We are dependant on God (Rom. 12:3). We should not think that we are better than we really are; we're not that good! It's in the wilderness where we realize were priviledged to be in this position. Without God, we can do NOTHING! We need him now man than we ever did before (Psalm 27:9).
  
• The wilderness always proceeds revelation. He'll take us through the wilderness to see if we can handle it. If we want a breakthrough or a blessing, we must realize that there will also be times in the wilderness; there will also be dry times. The wilderness will always come before blessing.

And there are purposes for the wilderness:

• Brokenness: it's equivalent to humility. The wilderness is necessary to wash away all confidence in our flesh and a deeper, more intimate dependant relationship on God. Blessed are the poor in spirit. HE IS ABLE!! Brokenness is continual. Brokenness is where you know God is doing something in my life (Is. 57:15). "God doesn't make junk; He recycles it!"
  
• To understand God's ways. Sit still and be quiet before the Lord; learn his ways before things aren't pretty and when you're in the wilderness so that when the dry times come, you'll stand! "When God puts you on hold, my business is to not hang up...but to hold on!"


• To experience God's victory. How could we give a personal story about God if we don't go through the wilderness? 1 Sam. 17; Psalm 23-24.
  

Lastly, I really believe that the third theme we saw today was "Community." We heard tonight from Shane Claiborne, author of "Jesus for President." He is an unsuspected character when you meet him. I wouldn't have realized that he was an author of any kind. He's unique, fresh and relative for our culture. He dresses like an old hippee, complete with dreads and he speaks with a very southern accent. Yet his heart is as genuine as I've seen for quite some time. What adds to his complete package was his desire to think ourside the box and examine his own life and allowing others throughthe example of his life to think of our North American culture in a completely uncomfortable way: basically learn simplicity and live on little so that you may gain more. Christ's message and life emphasis of "leave all that you have to come and follow me" really seems to be his motto and I must say I was convicted after hearing from him.

I do believe that it's good to be shaken to think in a different way than one has always thought. It's important to be grounded in who you are and in the essentials of what Christ has taught us. There just aren't many of us that are willing to go without many of our earthly comforts for the sake of the Kingdom and what is eternal, what is unseen, rather than what is seen. A timely message to hear considering recent topics Josh has been teaching on in youth group.