Seeing Gray

Adam Hamilton is not afraid to address the big issues of the day in his book Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White. In this book he addresses the issue of how often the church seems to be reactionary in its approach to issues and has become politicized. So much of our society has been pushed into categories of conservative or liberal. Growing up in the church at the tail end of modernistic thinking, many churches promoted a very "black and white" view of the issues. For instance after I attended three years of college to be a film major I ended up completing my undergraduate degree at Liberty University as a youth ministry major. Many, many times I heard some very dogmatic things said in chapels and from the pulpit railing against Hollywood, feminists and homosexuals. In a lot of ways it was shocking to me in how these groups were stereotyped and villainized instead of trying to be understood.

In the book, Adam attempts to look at many of the major issues that have been divisive among church people and tries hard to bring both sides to a point where constructive dialogue can occur. Now depending on your views of such issues which he attempts to tackle, I am sure that there are at least a few chapters that will make anybody a little uneasy. In fact, as I read the book I began to feel that each chapter was only barely scratching the surface of the issue and could possible deserve an entire book devoted to each one of the topics he writes about. What I did like about the book though was that Adam is trying very hard to get people to stop villainzing those who may disagree with them, but instead at least consider the other side of the arguments and see if there is a middle ground that can be agreed upon or at least come to a point in which we can open up a dialogue instead of judging and criticizing those we don't even know.

Adam states in Chapter 4: "Our culture is in the midst of an important shift in which more people will be able to accept paradox and to hold fast to a compelling faith while living with ambiguity." (p. 30). On one had I agree with this. In fact this resembles the philosophical shift of modernistic thinking to post-modernism that we have seen occurring over the past few decades. It was when I was in seminary that I studied the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard and he was way ahead of his time in bringing about this concept of paradox within Scripture. By systematizing our faith like a science, we have lost the absolute mystery and wonder of God. Post-modern thinking brings us back to that concept of paradox and ambiguity though. But the important thing here is that we remain clear on when Scripture is not ambiguous.

Quote from Chapter 5: "Christianity, when most effective, most faithful, and most empowering, is found in the sweet spot between legalism and libertinism. It holds together, in tension, the seemingly opposite ideas of grace and holiness, faith and works, legalism and libertinism. Black and white are found at the poles: The legalists are ready to judge all who don't live the gospel according to their rules, and their rules have served to push many away from Christ. The libertines have often failed to recognize that there are boundaries, that there could be anything we should refrain from doing simply because the act itself might displease God. The Christian life is found in the sweet spot between these two." (p. 36). This is a compelling quote and gives us reason to recognize that we need to approach these issues with a sense of humility knowing that when it comes to sheer knowledge on such issues, we don't know everything. In fact, I remember in seminary studying the theology of Charles Finney. He was one of the main people responsible for the Second Great Awakening and called the Father of Modern Revivalism. He had a huge role in American Christianity. But as we studied his theology, I remember being troubled by some of his views. It was then that we realized that most-likely on a subconscious level modernistic/scientific thinking was permeating the way everybody thought in those days. Enlightenment thinking was the mental grid that shaped peoples worldviews and theology. Discovering this caused me to approach theology with more humility than dogmatism, recognizing that culture plays a huge part in our thinking whether we want to admit it or not.

My final favorite quote comes from the last chapter: "The radical center within the Christian faith embraces the evangelical gospel that proclaims that human beings are wounded by sin and are in need of saving, and that Jesus Christ is God's antidote to our human condition. AND it embraces the social gospel that seeks to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, and recognizes that Christian's responsibility for addressing the great problems of poverty, oppression, racism, the environment and war. The evangelical gospel without the social gospel is spiritual narcissism. The social gospel without the evangelical gospel remains afflicted by sin and holds, in the words of the Apostle Paul,'to the outward form of godliness but denying its power' (2 Timothy 3:5a). The radical center holds that the gospel is incomplete without both its evangelical and social witness. . . . The radical center holds together a liberal spirit that is open-minded, searching for truth, generous, and always reforming, with a conserving spirit that is unwilling to discard historic truths simply because they are historic. It is willing to question anything but requires a very high level of evidence before setting aside what has been treasured as truth by previous generations." (p. 232-233). As I read through his book I knew that on certain issues I leaned more conservative and on others more liberal. There is a general uneasiness with considering the other side because it is much easier to categorize and label those who think differently than you. It takes patience, humility and maturity to step to the "radical center".

I highly recommend this book, and if you are daring enough, use it for a small group discussion. You might find out that all Christians do not think alike. In the politicized culture that we live in right now it would be amazing to see the church begin to lead by example by uniting at the radical center instead of allowing our culture to fit us into polarized categories and inflame arguments instead of pursuing reason, dialogue and love in our conversations with one another.

Junior High Mission Trip to Cincinnati 2009

Well what can I say about the Junior High mission trip? A lot!!! I saved the biggest team for last. We had 30 Junior Highers with 3 adults and a Senior guy to help me out with the boys. This was also the most boys we have ever taken on one trip: 15 boys, 15 girls. We signed up with the organization called "Christ in Youth" who put on "Know Sweat" mission trips. We staid on campus at Cincinnati Christian University and then would travel out to our work sites during the day. It was nice not to have to travel at all. We had a 20 minute trip to the downtown area. Before we left the church though, I had each Junior Higher quote one of their memory verses to me (without repeating the same verse as the person in front of them) before I would let them get into a van. This caused complete pandemonium but it was fun to see them scramble to refresh their memories on the verses they learned earlier.

Once we got down there, we got ourselves situated into our rooms. It was a complete joy to discover that the boys were put into a dorm that actually had air conditioning! I can't even remember the last time I had an air-conditioned room to sleep in on a mission trip. I was also excited that I might have my own room all to myself. But that was a short lived dream as I acquired some room mates by the end of the day. It seemed that it was punishment to make some of my junior high boys come into my room. This was new territory for me. I was not sure how I felt about being feared this way. Anyhow, I stuck to my guns and by the middle of the week I actually had a great time with my room mates. We had some good conversations going into the night.

On the first work day we ended up over at Walnut Hills High School. Just out front of the school is a large patch of ground owned by the Cincinnati Parks. The issue is that the honeysuckle shrubs have taken over the entire area. In fact, the entire school was pretty much hidden from site as a result of these shrubs and vines. It was our task to get into the woods with saws and trimmers and pretty much level any and all honeysuckle shrubs and vines. Our Junior Highers attacked it with a passion.

During our lunch we talked about some of the things that we observed while getting down into the woods. The teens saw a lot of alcohol containers, some condoms, and several other things that made you wonder just what was going on deep down in these woods that are just a few steps to the front door of one of the best high schools in Ohio. We were able to see the spiritual significance of what we were doing: shining light into the darkness so that all may see the truth and the things that happen in the darkness will vanish in the light.

On our next work day we went to Ault Park. This was a beautiful park. The issue here once again was that the honeysuckle shrubs have taken over the trails. In fact, some of the trails were just about unrecognizable as trails because of the overhanging plants, trees and shrubs. All the trails needed to be opened up in a big way. We attacked the trails from several different directions. Once again, our teens worked very hard and had a lot of fun.

At one point I was using a chainsaw to cut a fallen tree trunk in half. As I was working hard at splitting this log, I could feel several things hitting me in the back. Turns out that the rest of my team was right next to a bush that had tons of briers. The teens were picking them off the plant and using me as target practice. We ended up with a mini-war as the briers were being lobbed back and forth.

During our lunch break it just so happened that Tyler accidentally dropped his dorm key into the trash can. We had a good 10-15 minutes of entertainment as he went digging through every speck of trash trying desperately to find his key. He would lean into the trash can and reach down to try and dig out piece by piece everything he could grab to find this key. After a while, I suggested that he just lift the lid, take out the trash bag, rip it open and look through it like that. He finally took my advice and found the key.

We attacked the trails for another hour or two while some of the other teens did some mulching. After we finished up we decided to make a trip to a UDF for some ice cream. Once we got inside the UDF store a huge torrential downpour happened outside. It was fun to eat ice cream and look outside in amazement at the storm that was passing though.

On the third work day, we ended up back at Walnut Hills High School. We had a very interesting morning as several city officials gathered together to thank the teens. One in particular was from Xavier University. He encouraged the teens to continue to serve. He also mentioned that Xavier gives out 10 full-ride scholarships for students who have demonstrated a life of service. This struck me as a much easier and cheaper way to help get your teen through college than putting all your time and effort into the slim chance of a sports scholarship. It was really a great honor to have so many important people take the time out of their day and leave their air-conditioned offices to thank a bunch of hot, sweaty Junior Highers for their hard work. It was pretty sweet. After that I challenged the teens to double their efforts and try and get as much done as they can today. Our teens took that challenge personally and did a tremendous job attacking the woods with their saws.

Part way through the day Bill Schnure, who is one of our parents and a Science teacher at Walnut Hills, took us to see his classroom and the courtyard in which he and his classes have designed several biological environments. He just got a shipment of several different types of fish in that day that he added to some of his displays. It was very cool to see Bill's classroom and the projects that he and his students have created out in the courtyard.

When we arrived back at the college we cleaned up, ate dinner, and went to the last session. The sessions in the evening consisted of a worship band and a speaker. We had a great experience processing all that we were learning through these sessions. The speaker was challenging and the worship band was energetic although all the songs they sang were songs that I was hearing for the first time. As we were chilling out on our last night, another torrential downpour occurred. This time, many of the Junior Highers did not just look from the inside-out. Instead they ran outside and enjoyed the shear power of the storm. As it took seconds for them to become completely soaked, someone decided to slide down one of the many steep hills on the campus. This lead to a lot of sliding that was fun to watch. In fact, all of the water that was coming down the hills had one spot that it all collected. Some of the teens started sliding down that hill into the massive puddle. They had a lot of fun getting wet and muddy. Unfortunately, the next morning I ran into a maintenance guy who was looking up at the hill as we were loading up. He was not happy about the hill commenting on the grass being destroyed and how troubling it is that kids would do this. I had a difficult time seeing things through his perspective though. I have spent Summers doing landscaping in my earlier years and I did not see any damage other that grass that was pushed down and given a day or two it would pop right back up. Plus when you consider all the good that was done all throughout the Cincinnati area with unleashing over 300 Junior Highers for the week to serve (for 4 weeks even), I think sliding on the grass is of little significance. But I knew I was talking to a grounds keeper and not a youth pastor so I quietly sympathized with him and moved on.

On Friday we heading over the river to Newport. We went to the aquarium for the morning. I built up the fact that in the past I have always missed the feeding of the piranhas and I was not going to miss it this time! We had the time down! At 11AM the piranha's would feast. As we made our way slowly through the aquarium, we made sure that we doubled-back to the tank with the piranhas at 10:45. The excitement was building up for a savage and bloody feeding. As each minute past, the excitement kept on building. Finally, the moment came as food was dropped into the water and then . . . the freakin' piranhas ate them like goldfish eat crumbs. It was such a letdown. I got ragged on for the rest of the time. I wanted to see a piranha feeding frenzy that would savagely rip fresh meat right off the bones of its victims. Instead we saw these passive, docile fish dine quietly and elegantly on dead fish. No excitement. No savagery. I wanted to turn the dumb piranhas into fish sticks.

After the fun at the Newport Aquarium we went and had lunch at Dewey's Pizza then headed home. It was an excellent trip especially for our Junior Highers. It was important to me to instill within them that missions must start first of all in our own community before they head off on mission adventures elsewhere.

I have also been told that I need a GPS! This has been a theme that has continued for a while now and I think that I am beginning to agree. I am never, ever, ever going to do another mission trip without a GPS. I am tired of trusting Google Maps or Mapquest or just going on instincts. These three have not served me well. Plus I have been teased about making a wrong turn with the team on just about every mission trip I have ever lead from my first year as a youth pastor. So as we look to next year, there will be a new tool added to my backpack.

I also want to say a very, very big thank you to my adult leaders who helped with all of the trips, and to all of you who helped with your prayers and financial support. We would not have been able to have such a great Summer of missions if it were not for adult assistance on all of these levels. It was truly a remarkable and amazing Summer! Thanks again!!!

Blog Post #4: Senior High Youthworks Chicago Mission Trip - Lisa Wachenfeld

Just returned from a this year’s mission trip to Chicago with the senior high youth. They are really a great group of kids – kind and accepting of each other, compassionate toward those less fortunate than themselves, and willing to share their faith and pray out loud for a group. And Scott Russ has had a lot to do with all that. He’s really fun, but he’s also very open with the kids and serious about the word of God and how it affects their daily lives. I had always thought our youth program was good, but didn’t have any real frame of reference or comparison. We worked side by side, day and night , with four other youth groups. It was really clear - our kids are in the right place with the right influences.

We stayed in the Humbolt Park area of Chicago – a mostly Hispanic neighborhood. We slept on the floor of a classroom in a small Christian school and packed a change of clothes each day so that we could stop at a public pool or park on the way back from our work site, to take a shower. It amazed us each day that the nine girls in our group could be showered and out before the two guys! Then back to the school where we had a bit of free time before dinner and usually ended up socializing at Tastee-Freeze or on the steps listening to Ben play guitar and singing along. A night activity – a speaker, trip to Millenium Park, a local worship service, trip to the beach – a group worship service and finally, time with our own Epiphany group to download the day. Each morning, we had breakfast, devotions and then off to the work sites by 9:00am.

We were divided into four mixed groups. So I was with Chelsea, Sarah and Zana plus six other youth and a leader from a church in Grove City. Most of the week we spent at Casa Centrale, a social services organization serving the Hispanic community. The first two days we were with the older people that were in adult daycare. Many of them did not speak English, so we were a little apprehensive going in. Fortunately, our three girls have all taken Spanish, so that really helped and eventually the language of love took over. We talked, played games with them, did crafts, gave them hand massages with lotion and played lots of bingo! Our Spanish numbers are now very good! We got attached quickly and it was sad to say goodbye.

The next two days we spent in the Head Start program with children ages 2-5. It was crazy but the kids were very interested in having us there and liked all the extra attention. And we were able to do some cleaning and organizing for the teachers. The last day we worked to fix up the gardens and landscape at a school for disabled children.

You mostly think of youth mission trips as physical work, but most of ours was relational, which is a nice change and opportunity for our kids. And it expands their ideas of what kinds of service they can do back home.

And the trip back and forth in the 15 passenger vans…? What happens in the van, stays in the van!

Lisa Wachenfeld

Blog Post #3: Senior High Youthworks Chicago Mission Trip - Tom King

Our mission consisted of work, play, work, work, and more play. We plastered and painted walls, pulled weeds in gardens and manicured some former empty lots into gardens. Besides the physical labors we experienced, we got to really experience this mission trip several different ways. It had several aspects that consisted of Relational, Educational, and Spiritual.

Relational:
It terms of being a relational aspect on this mission trip, with the Puerto Rican/Latino neighborhood, we had the assistance of our Leader and Pastor Tomas Sanabria, who comes from Chicago, (born and raised) and is of Puerto Rican ancestry.
He is President and Pastor for Ekklesia Ministry of Helps– a neighborhood outreach program involving work projects.
Pastor Tomas shed light on the life of the neighborhood – the issues he sees with violence, drugs, gangs, and overall attacks on his ancestry for some being undocumented persons. He offered many opportunities for the team to go and reach out to those on the sidewalks, in the alley’s, and in the store fronts. We were introduced to Mikey – a young child next door who rode his bike and did foot races in the street against Marissa, Hannah, Claire and others. Mikey claimed no one could ever beat him – pretty good for a 7 year old. We met Emmanuel – a young teen who had gotten into some trouble with the police that Pastor was trying to help with his leadership. Emmanuel had to do some Community Service, so he worked side by side with our youth and he was a very sincere teen who will be successful with the example of Pastor Tomas in his life.

The youth met many other people that we shared faith time and play time with. Johnny and Estefan came to meet us and we played Alley Ball (which is played with any kind of ball in the Alley where the Garbage Trucks use to pickup garbage).
Natasha and her little sister came to help in the Garden and play Four Square.

The parents of EUMC and the EUMC Sr High Youth should be very proud of there children. They are an amazing bunch to watch them work unselfishly with Christ in them as they spoke, worked and played with these kids all week; simply amazing!

Educational:
We also had the privilege to meet Flor (Spanish for Flower), at a UMC church that is a ‘Sanctuary’ for her. She is what we people in the USA most likely would tab as an ‘illegal immigrant’, but after hearing her talk, she is what I would like to call an undocumented person. It was an eye opening experience for all us as we sat in that ‘sanctuary’ of hers, listening to her words of why she is doing what she is doing, seeing her tears of joy and pain through her travels, and seeing God in her eyes as she spoke of the reasons why she is doing what she is doing. This experience and time with Flor will undoubtedly have a big influence on the opinions our youth will form on the present day situation with undocumented persons. To quote what the Pastor of this Sanctuary Church says on this situation (from Fox News): The church’s pastor, Rev. Walter Coleman, has defended his recurring choice to provide shelter for illegal immigrants running from the law: “I fear God more than Homeland Security.”

An article / opinion on Flor from the Chicago Tribune and Fox News are linked below. Please read and then discuss amongst your youth as it brings up some good conversation: Please remember we were on a mission trip to serve ‘unselfishly with open spirits and open heart’. Not too many times are we like this when we hear words.
http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2009/jan/27/news/chi-ap-il-immigrationactivi

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,327147,00.html

Spiritual:
Pastor Tomas led us each morning in devotion with a Bible verse and a personal reflection. He shared some of his own faith and that led to some personal sharing times from the Senior High youth regarding where they stood in their daily faith. We had some great tie-ins to the message from his personal experiences during his life in Chicago. He spoke of many friends and family members.

Take for instance Boco, who was gunned down in a gang related target. The gang members expressed piety due to Boco’s death by creating an Alter at the corner of the street where he was killed. This was a block away from Pastor Tomas’ home. They had made a little bench with candles around and other objects such as empty whiskey bottles and crafts made of yarn. Pastor called this Gangland Piety, and he came out of his home to pray and minister to the Gang members and there Alter they had built without a church.

Then there is Tommy Soto, one of nine children from his mother Margariutte. She was a woman who had tough times staying with the same partner or choosing her partners. Anyhow Tommy Soto grew up without a father and had many siblings with different fathers. He came to find an adult mentor at a Florist in town at the age of 11 where he worked. This mentor took Tommy in and did all kinds of good deeds for him. He did well up until they had a falling out when he was 17. Tommy then joined the Marines and off he went to Viet Nam. Then he had an incident where he punched an Officer of the Military and was given his Dishonorable Discharge. So, where does an 18 year old who was in the Viet Nam War with a Dishonorable Discharge go when they weren’t welcomed back home to the states? He turned to drugs and alcohol and a lost for God in his life. He succumbed to eternal life at a young age of 22, with Pastor Tomas being the last one to see him take his last breath. Tommy Soto was Pastor Tomas’ little brother. It is Pastor Tomas’ creed to fine those Tommy Soto’s in the world to help and minister too, and share together the love of Jesus Christ and his Father.

Lastly, this should not end without saying the YouthWorks organization did a great job with the evening activities they had planned.
God Bless,
Tom King
Sr High Youth Team Leader
Epiphany United Methodist Chuch

Blog Post #2: Senior High Youthworks Chicago Mission Trip - Meg King

Wow, what an incredible trip this was for all of us. The anticipation and excitement of what kind of service we would be providing to those in the south side community of Chicago was prevalent in everyone’s minds, or least I’m sure in mine, on the trip there. Great group of kids in my van. Sleepers on the way there; chatty and singing on the way back!

The trip proved to be an eye-opening experience for me in two ways: 1) Just how awesome it is to be given an opportunity to immerse your mind, heart and soul in doing the Lord’s work and helping others in such a hands-on way, and 2) To fully realize what a spiritual, respectful, intelligent and hard-working group of senior high youth we have at Epiphany. Their work ethic and compassion really shined through– even at moments of exhaustion or boredom. Proud to be their youth leader for the week! I learned as much from our own youth while in Chicago as I did at the different ministry sites.

Once in Chicago, our particular group was assigned to the ministry site that was actually right there onsite at the school we were staying/sleeping at. At first, this seemed like it might not be as “interesting” as those groups that got to go offsite but that thought quickly left our minds as we made our own adventure right there at the Salem Christian School – and once we realized our showers were right down the street!! The majority of our work there was more of the physical labor type – painting (we have quite the painters in our group – Julia and Lauren did a bang-up job on the stairwell of the school!); caulking, plastering/sanding (our interior decorators Kelsey, Marnie, and Lauren will certainly now know how to renovate their own homes one day!); moving heavy boxes of classroom supplies, constructing sturdy wooden tables for the classrooms (Wynn and Phil were such the hard-workers and covered in sweat most of the time!) One of the best parts of the week was the day we visited the Dream House, an organization who focuses on rebuilding and renovating abandoned houses. They had a house they needed help with right down the street from their offices –and this was our job for the day! We spent hours ripping walls down and tearing them apart with axes – you should have seen the look of excitement in Winn’s eyes when he found out we were going to be doing this. I think he ripped down the walls in an entire room or more! We all felt like we got quite a bit done at the house and then spent some time cleaning up and shoveling all the garbage into bags. The kids worked very, very hard this day. LOTS of sweat that day!
Another experience that our group had that definitely opened our eyes to the needs of some of the young ladies in the inner city was the day we went to the Young Mothers organization down the street from the school. We helped them collate and package some of the newsletters they were sending out. We also watched a video about the people that this organization serves: young mothers between the ages of 10-18 that have had children (most of whom are single mothers) and are struggling to make it in this world. Something like 84% of young girls in this part of the city had babies before the age of 18. A startling statistic that made us all realize what a dire need these folks had for an opportunity for an education, to make money and possibly start a career in order to provide for their families and provide a roof over their head. The Young Mothers organization provided just that – a shelter for a limited number of participants in the program, an educational opportunity, and career development training. They have helped many, many young women face this feat and beat it!

And a favorite day for many of us was the day we got to spend time with the children who attended the Salem Christian School. The teachers needed help tending to the children while they had a staff meeting so we played games with them, ate lunch with them, listened to their stories and saw God in the eyes of these children and their innocent and carefree ways. It was obvious that some of these children were so appreciative of all the attention and laughter and fun that they were able to have that day with our teens. A few of them especially fond of a couple of youth! They were sad to see us go, and we were sad to say goodbye as well. They touched our hearts in a special way that day!

The other very unique and special experience for me and my husband Tom was that we were able to go on this trip with two of our daughters –and this was such a special and meaningful thing to do this as a family. I hope the girls will never forget it and how it seemed to touch them so deeply to serve others in need and be in fellowship with each other and with so many other great youth and adults.

The Chicago trip was such a wonderful experience – and couldn’t have been with a better youth group! It’s so special to see that all of our teens are being exposed to this type of experience at a young age. I never had that opportunity as a child/teen. I can’t imagine the impact it will in some way be sure to have on their futures!

Blessings!
Meg King

The Death of the '80's

It is a sad day for many of us who went through our teenage years during the 1980's. A director that help to give a voice to our generation has passed away. I absolutely loved John Hughes movies and connected with many of them. It was especially awesome to see "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" on your freakin' Senior year! He gave us the dream of what the perfect skip day would look like.

Of all the movies he directed, I believe that it was "The Breakfast Club" that so many of us could relate to. It was much more than a Molly Ringwald film although I love Molly. "The Breakfast Club" looked at several personalities, both guys and girls, of which just about everyone could relate to at least one of them. His take on parents and teachers were something we could relate to as we struggled to find our own identity. We wrestled with previous generations who did not fully appreciate who we were becoming. While many Baby Boomer authors would waste time writing books about Generation-X which mostly turned out to be one big negative rant against the younger generation, John Hughes tapped into the things that help to give us a voice against the negative images we constantly received from print and news media. As many Baby Boomers tried to recreate the concept of family apart from their parents the grand experiment was not full-proof. Divorce, neglect, abuse, and abortion took its toll on my generation. As the teen culture developed, a lot of other issues came with it: teen angst, insecurity, self-identity, consumerism focusing on the teen culture instead of the older generations, materialism, teen sexuality, and finding a place in life to just fitting in.

Thank you John Hughes for understanding us and giving us so much to smile about. I will always cherish those films that came out in the 80's that helped us to understand a little bit about what was going on around us and letting us know we weren't all that crazy. In fact, there was a lot to celebrate with Generation X. We really didn't turn out all that bad.

Blog Post #1: Senior High Youthworks Chicago Mission Trip 2009- Scott

Well it is Tuesday and I am finally getting my thoughts together for my first report. We had a relatively uneventful trip up to Chicago. I ended up in the cargo van so I got the pleasure of listening to the music that I wanted to listen to. We managed to find our location easily. The only pain was once you cross into Illinois there is a toll ever 10 feet. Those of you who travel up here know what I am talking about. Our first night was orientation as we split up into teams and get our assignments. Our teams go like this:

Team 1: Lisa W., Sarah, Zana and Chelsea are with another youth group who are going to a place called Casa Central for the week. They will be ministering to Spanish speaking elderly people.

Team 2: Meg K., Wynn, Phil, Julia, Lauren, Kelsie, A.J., and Marnie. They are with another youth group who are staying at the location we are housed at and helping the main guy who is kind of like the care taker for a large section of this neighborhood. They are doing a bunch of manual labor type jobs.

Team 3: Tom K., Paul, Matt, Hannah, Marisa, Erin and Claire. They are with another youth group helping with a church called Ekklesia. They are assisting Pastor Tomas with a variety of things he has going on in his neighborhood.

Team 4: Scott, Ben, Eric, Lindsay S., Ally, Maddie, Sidney, Ellen, Abby and Kate. We are not with another youth group. We are on our own. We go down to a local Boy’s and Girl’s Club and assist Nick Sanchez with many of the programs that he has running for a bunch of inner-city kids.

I will have specific teens write a blog post about their teams experiences once we return. So with that in mind I will tell you about the fun stories of our teens that pop up when we are together!

Day 1: This is always an awkward day for everyone. Everyone is checking out their ministry site and sizing up what the week is going to be like. If it involves interaction with people it can be a little bit more awkward depending on what kind of situation you are walking in to. Plus a lot of our guys including me felt so tired the first day. I had no energy. I just tanked.

Our morning started out with breakfast and devotions. Then we all headed out to our ministry sites for the day. We typically finish up whatever we are doing around 3 and go take our showers and the designated public shower facility that we have been assigned to - yes, icky; but at least we feel clean and it is only for a few days.

After dinner we have a special activity, then club time involving everybody together. We usually have time for worship and a lesson from one of the Youthwork leaders. Then after that we meet in our own individual youth groups.

On Monday night we took the Loop train (L-train) into the city and wandered around Millennial Park. We ran into the famous Chicago Bean. It is this giant metallic bean shaped piece of art. You can see your reflection many different crazy ways. We took a bunch of cool team pictures. Then there was a band trying to shoot a music video right there and they asked us to be in it. All the teens gathered around the band and acted like it was a party! It was funny to watch. It will be interesting to see if this becomes the next big hit on MTV. Next thing I know they will be asking to do the next season of The Real World with our youth group because we seemed so cool in the music video.

After that we headed back to our mission site and had club time followed by youth group time. It was a good first night to get into the grove of what we are supposed to be doing.
Also, every day seems to bring us a new story about Wynn. It was announced at dinner time that those who had the letters A-K could get in line first for food. Wynn immediately jumped up all excited and ran to be the first in line. Thinking that he did not understand the instructions or was using some other type of alphabet, I called him out on it. He then explained to me that his first name is actually Albert. So regardless of whether the first half of the alphabet or the last half determined who goes first, Wynn had all his bases covered so that no matter what, he would make it to the front of the line either with Albert or with Wynn. I was very proud of him.

Day 2-5:

As you can tell I did not have the time to blog like I wanted to during this trip. Youthworks keeps a pretty tight schedule throughout the week and it lends to very little down time. But now I am sitting in my room getting ready for the first evening of the Junior High mission trip and I thought that it would be a good idea to reflect on the Senior High trip before I get to far into this trip and they begin to blend into each other.

Every day started out pretty much the same with breakfast, we make our lunches and then we head off to devotions. The morning mealtimes are great. The sack lunches bring back fond memories of elementary school with PB&J’s and Salami sandwiches.

Devotions in the morning were interesting. The teens felt that the themes were kind of repetitive with just a different theme word each day. It took discipline for some of them to have the 20-30 minute quiet time. I know for some of them prayer time turned into snooze time easily with the quietness and white noise.

Once we were done with devotions we headed off to our sites. My team had a fairly easy task this week. We were helping out a Boys and Girls Club with their day time activities. Just about every day involved swimming. I almost felt guilty at first and then some of our teens struggled with the challenge for the week. We discovered throughout the course of the week and through many different conversations that many of the government programs in Illinois were getting cut due to budget cuts. Many of the employees at the B&G Club went from full-time to part-time pay just to keep the programs afloat. So our presence and help were very much needed. It was just hard doing something that felt like we were baby sitting. We were told we really couldn’t speak about our faith so that we would not jeopardize their government funding.

As the days progressed though, we began to get to know some of the kids and really begin to start enjoying playing with them and serving them. At first for me it was hard to see some of the ways in which some of the kids treated each other - a much harsher level of heckling, bullying, and trash-talking than I am used to from our local teens. But as the days progressed, and we began to warm up to some of them, you could see the relationships starting to form between our teens and the neighborhood Chicago kids. Each day we did something different but it seemed that most of it involved swimming. On the first day we went to the local pool. On the second day we went out to the beach. On the third day we went to the theatre and saw Mall Cop and then went to the local pool. Many of us played a very intense game of Sharks and Minnows until our arms were about to fall off. On the fourth and final day we took them to a really nice local pool. At that pool we had a high dive platform where I finally got up the courage to do some flips off of it. A bunch of us did laps with several of the kids and their leaders. I ended up doing about 16 laps until my arms and legs were beginning to burn and I was physically about to die.

During the evenings we would start out with an evening activity usually right after dinner. On the first night we went to Millennial Park. You can read about that adventure above.

On the second night we had some special speakers. The were local people who decided to take action to change their neighborhoods for the better. The transformation of what they were able to accomplish by beginning with small changes that would eventually lead to massive cultural change in their communities was astounding.

On the third night we attended a local church that met at on of the area high school theatre auditoriums. I forget the name of the church but when I heard that the pastor was speaking about the tabernacle on a Wednesday night I had very low expectations. I began to wonder what exactly was going on when the entire auditorium packed out with hundreds of people. The pastor spoke on a small passage out of Chronicles about the basin that is to be in the tabernacle. He had an entire miniature tabernacle built on the stage. The images that the priest had to confront as he progressed towards the presence of God was interesting. He first had to deal with his sin by sacrificing blood on the alter. Then he had to confront his image in the water found in the basin and use the water for cleansing. There were so many amazing applications that he pulled out of that relating it to the death of Christ and the cleansing of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

On the fourth and final night we went to the beach. Lake Michigan was beautiful. Unfortunately it got very cloudy and even a bit chilly at points. As much as I am very fond of the Great Lakes, I just could not go back into the water. Many of the teens who worked hard and sweated great amounts of water actually took the plunge despite the weather.

After the activities we would have rallies with all of the other groups including the rest of our youth group who were at three other sites. We had decent worship time and teaching time. After that we would have our youth group time where we shared what each one of the teams accomplished that day and how they saw God through their efforts. These are always neat times where you can just sense the closeness and camaraderie of the youth group. The other teams shared stories of working hard within the community doing skilled labor, others assisted with the elderly, and others assisted with a local church pastor and his area of mission.

Funny Things:

The boys always insinuated that they were going to “get into trouble”. The joke behind it was that the Parker Brothers game Trouble was right in the middle of the room we were all sleeping in and they quite literally meant it when they said the were getting into trouble. They played it quite a bit and had fun with it.

Wynn and Matt decided to compete in a nacho cheese eating contest. I was excited because their only other competition was a girl from another church. I thought, hands down, Wynn would devour his cheese and shame the rest. Unfortunately when the clock started Wynn took one taste of the cheese and put his bowl down and looked straight ahead for the rest of the time. Everyone was going nuts at him but he would not respond and just stared ahead. Matt seized the moment and went head-to-head with the girl and squeaked out a victory. I was appalled by Wynn’s “tuned-out” demeanor. At the end of the game though he said that after one taste he was reminded just how much he despised melted cheese. I supposed I couldn’t blame him. I just want to see him as the next host of “Man vs. Food” if God grants me one wish involving the life and times of Wynn Rice. Wynn also had some amazingly great quotes throughout the week but let’s just say here that one involved Marisa putting out peanut butter and jelly for any of those who did not like jambalaya and the other involved Phil shaking Wynn awake if he moves around too much. In order to understand the humor behind that, you will need to find someone on the team to explain it. Both quotes were full-on belly rippin’ knee-slappin’ quotes that only Wynn could pull of in his uncanny sense of humor that shows up at unique moments.

As we rapped up the week we took our teens downtown for the day before we returned home on Friday. We had a lot of fun together. We showed up at the Water Tower Mall and went floor-to-floor window shopping mostly. Every store that had some kind of body spray, perfume or cologne Paul, Wynn and Ben seemed to dump half a gallon of it on themselves. They stank BAD after a while. Like “Pepe Le Pew” bad. We then ventured outside and made our way down to Ed Debevic’s. Half of our team ate lunch there and the other half went to Gino’s East. Each group enjoyed their culinary experiences.

Final Thoughts:

I believe that our trip accomplished what I always hope that our mission trips will do: deepen our faith, bring us closer together, learn how to become more like Christ, and just see the world through a different angle that the one we are used to. I am confident that many of our Seniors will do well in taking their faith to college and continuing to grow in their faith. And I believe that our new school year is going to be awesome. We had many students and leaders who were new to mission trips and strangers to youth group. I think this trip helped to connect them a little closer to the group so that they can feel even more apart of the family once we kick things off in the Fall. I really enjoyed getting to know Kate and see how she is coming out of the shadows of her big brother. It was awesome to see Zana finally connect in a deep way with our group. Matt fit right in with the guys as if he has always been one of us. Now he is! I don’t want to accept that Ally, Marisa, Chelsea, Julia, Claire and Trent are going off to college soon. They have been just as much a part of my life and spiritual growth as I hope I have been to them. I will miss not seeing them on a regular basis but thank God for Facebook and a darn good reason for me to go on a college road trip with some dads and act like were in college again!