We Are Going to Have to Trust the Lord!!

Dear friends,

Did Jesus really mean what he said when he said, "Sell all you have and give it to the poor"? I have been challenged with harsh statements like this lately. Sometimes those blatant statements of Jesus really do get my dander up, but in a good way. I admit I have gotten comfortable. But following Christ isn't about comfort, it's about surrender. How can I keep perspective when everything around me screams "You need me to be satisfied!"?

I have no clue what surrender really means, honestly. I can't believe how much stuff we can accumulate. At the time, that stuff seems important. But now, I want it out of our home because it's just taking up space.

I'm in a last ditch effort to "clean house" to get rid of things that are just sitting around, not serving a purpose.

With the way things are in the economy, I'm choosing to have a different perspective. Yes, we need to be cautious with spending and I am reworking priorities for how stingy we already are. But, as I was reminded at the conference this past week, the sign of the times should not make us as believers gloomy or depressed or stressed, they should pour hope upon us, realizing that we are a day closer to the coming of our Lord. We have hope that all we endure today is only temporary. Praise the Lord for the hope that we can boast about in Christ alone!

More Moments from NYWC

Aaron and Amanda Anderson, from our daughter church, Mountain View...this couple has been a huge support to us and we love them loads! We're so excited that we get to be in a similar ministry together.

Dorota, junior high Director from our Bend church...She's from Poland!!! Love this girl lots! She's genuine and soooooo TOUGH!!! (kinda inside joke!).

Mr. Andy the man...youth pastor from our Bend church. Dorota and I thought his "thinking pose" to be quite epic and had to capture it!

Worship with Starfield

The past few General Sessions at NYWC have had worship led by a band by Starfield...a band that I cannot recommend more! They are very genuine and their lyrics are humbly worshipful. Praise God for bands like this. Right now, my walk has been very encouraged by the music of three groups: Tenth Avenue North, David Crowder and Starfield.

Here's the words to their song "Remain" which we sang a few times with them. I encourage you to glance over the lyrics and really take them to heart. Tonight it really hit home when we sang this song as a declaration that even in the midst of our country's economic crisis, even in the midst of war and pain and evil...one thing remins...there is NO ONE LIKE OUR GOD!! We're going to have to trust Him...it's our only hope...He is the only One who remains.

Remain

Defender of this heart
You loved me from the start
You never change
Through the highs and lows
As seasons come and go
You never fail

Day after day
Your love will remain
Faithful and true
You are good

[Chorus:]

You are God with us
You're victorious
You are strong and mighty to save
For Your word stands true
There is none like You
And when all else fades
You remain

When troubles come my way
You guide and You sustain
Lead me, I pray
Forever You will be
The great eternal King
Now and always

Day after day
Your love will remain
Faithful and true
You are good, you are good

[Chorus]

When all else fades
You remain

[Chorus 3x]

You remain
Cause' day after day
You never change
Day after day
You are the same
Day after day
You remain


http://www.starfieldonline.com/

Check out their website and hear some of their new music! "Reign in Me" is another one we sang this weekend.

Crisis, Calling, Community

F

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.

We're in Sacramento: National Youth Workers Convention!!!!

Well Josh and I arrived this morning to sunny, but very windy California! We're not far from the Governator, Arnold himself. We are priviledged to attend the National Youth Workers Convention here till Monday. We arrived before the rest of our team from OC and our conference. It'll be like a camp reunion with all of the youth pastors and some of them bringing their wives. I've been looking forward to this trip for a couple of years...amazing times of training, concerts, worship and fabulous times to hang out with people serving in the same ministry.

Special thanks to Daddy Craig for rising bright and early with us and picking us up at 3:30 a.m. to get to our 5:30 a.m. flight! We really appreciate all you did to help make this trip possible!

Be checking back here and I'll post updates on our trip and the sweet things we'll be learning and doing. For now here's two pix after we landed in Sacramento: