Check out some of the books I just posted on the site. They are the books that I get to read for one of my Doctoral classes. Then via asynchronous chat (message boards) I interact each week with 20 students from all over the U.S and world. One fortunate part of this program is that we get exposed to resources which are on the bleeding edge of publishing and theology.

I’m spending the next two days interacting with Len Sweet in my Doctoral program. I discovered last night that like Aslan he is scary but ultimately he is good. He “thinks different”

So here I am sititng in Class in Portland Oregon. More later……

Hey I’ll post something tomorrow about my week at camp. It was another amazing time with students.

Sorry for not posting much lately. I went rafting over the weekend and it was a pretty crazy experience. Big class 4 river with a lot of people flipping out of the raft. I spent a good chunk of Thursday night laying in my sleeping bag thinking about how scared I was to guide a raft on Friday. It was a great trip and I didn’t fall out of the boat but I managed to get everyone else out at several point. This next week I’m up at Forest Home with my 9th graders going to camp so I won’t be blogging.

So here’s a short post about a problem I’ve had for years. When I turned 26 I became a full-time youth pastor. While I loved the transition to this period of my life one thing I learned quickly was that there was a serious lack of training within the church for pastors. We were all so busy doing our jobs that we never had any time to make sure that we were growing. As much as I loved my last church experience it was particularly bad there. Even when I was “Under Care” of the church in the ordination process I was essentially on my own; or at least that’s how it felt. I’m more than willing to own up to any part that I may have contributed to the problem. It could very well be that there was something I was missing that I was supposed to be doing. Perhaps I come across as too strong and with everything figured out. But, on the inside I feel like I’m screaming out for someone to take care of me. I wish I didn’t always feel like for me to have someone care about me as a person and a pastor I would have to be the one to reach out. But, this isn’t a complete pity party. I want to make sure that I am the Pastor who cares for the people that work for him. I never want them to question my commitment to them and my desire for them to grow. It could be that God put this isssue in front of me so I would be aware of what the neeeds were so I could help meet them for other people. But, I think I need to figure this out because if I’m alone trying to figure things out by myself I’ll probably continue to screw it up.

One of the reasons I got into the Youth Ministry gig was because I loved to watch students go through changes. Last night I was a part of an event that gave me a great opportunity to view those changes up close. Two years ago my interns at Bel Air Pres and I began to contemplate where the next summers mission project would be headed. We decided to take a team to Fiji. Choosing and training the team was awesome. The majority of the students had just finished their sophomore year and were very young. The training was tough but they all managed to make it through. The trip was amazing (I hear) although I didn’t end up going because I had just accepted a job at my new church. This past year one of the students has been putting together video footage to create a documentary of the whole trip. Last night we viewed the 1 1/2 hour video. It was great reminder about what God did during the trip and how it impacted the students lives. One of the best parts was some interviews that were just done (1 year after the trip) asking students how it had changed them. Everyone had very tangible examples of the changes. I was stoked (and a little teary eyed) to see it.

So, the time in Seattle was pretty amazing. Usually on trips like this I spend most of my time shuttling students, dealing with logistics and needs. This trip was different. I was an active participant in the service side of things. It rocked me good.
One quick Story: We went to a park one night that has the nickname “crack park” for obvious reasons. When we got there for some reason I was very scared and felt a strange sense of oppression. There were about 30 people in the park all engaged in some sort of nefarious activity. I asked my group if we could sit and pray for a moment. During that time of prayer I asked God to take away my fear and to fee me from it. As we walked into the park I noticed a woman crying. We went up to talk to her. She was a bit scary. What we acertained was that she didn’t have a place to sleep that night. I offered a suggestion of where she could go and get help and she asked me to drive her there. When I told her that I couldn’t do that she began to scream at me and told me to go to He**. Then in a quick turn she asked us to pray for her. We walked away and prayed for her. On the way back by her I mentioned that we had prayed and that sent her into another screaming tirade. She yelled a bit more at us to which I replied that I was sorry she was hurting and that we were going to “move on.” The whole thing was scary but it taught me a lot. I think that Satan has a hold of places like that and the oppression that I felt in that park was real. It’s hard to explain except to say I believe that evil and drugs go together. Leaving that moment I realized that the woman asked me to fulfill some very specific needs that she had. I wish that I had been able to help her out with those needs. But, that wasn’t my role there at the time. She was hurting and I couldn’t help. I realized through that moment that experience was good for me because it taught me how much I needed to rely on God. Now, my fear wasn’t taken away and I still felt the oppression but I also felt a huge amount of compassion for that woman. I wasn’t offended or even discouraged about my talk with her. If anything it just reminded me that I had to love people like that even more. I think that showing love in that way would have been best facilitated with meeting her tangible needs but I couldn’t do that at the time. Anyways I still think it was a helpful experience.

Hey- I’ll put up a new post tomorrow after I spend some time reflecting on the trip to Seattle. An amazing time of learning how to have a compasionate heart. Thanks God for challenging me.