A friend of mine (thanks @m) sent this to me. It’s really a great, thought-provoking presentation that is certain encourage some good conversations.

“You cannot run a linear system in a finite planet indefinitely…”

Its about a 20 minute clip. So, grab a cup of joe and check it out. Then think about it…

We’re excited about this conversation at GRTS. Check it out and join us…

Some bemoan the limited interest by the younger generation in global mission…

Others describe current 20-somethings as the most globally minded generation ever…

• What’s the role of a 21-year-old in 21st Century mission?
• What’s the role of churches and missions agencies in the missional calling of 20-somethings?

These are the questions driving our upcoming Global Learning Center (GLC) Symposium. This year’s symposium is co-sponored by GLC and Intersect–a ministry providing training and coaching for emerging leaders around the globe.

All attendees of the Leadership Roundtable (see below) must register online. All exibitors must also register online AND contact Diana O’Connor at (616) 222-1278. The registration cost for attendees and exibitors is $15.

SYMPOSIUM EVENTS:
Download Symposium brochure.

Leadership Roundtable:
A Conversation for Ministry Leaders with Dr. Bill Taylor.
Feb 6, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. and Feb 7, 9-11:30 a.m.
Click here for more info. To attend this Roundtable and/or exibit a display at the conference, please register online with a cost of $15. Exibitors must also contact Diana O’Connor at (616) 222-1278.

Common Ground:
A workshop for Youth, College, and Missions Volunteers with Dave Livermore and Steve Argue.

Feb 7, 7-9 p.m.
Click here for more info.

Confessions of a Boomer:
GRTS Chapel, missions pastor at Calvary Church.
Feb 8, 10-10:40 a.m.

This week Dave and I have both been traveling to different parts of the globe.

Dave has spent the week in Monrovia, Liberia launching an Intersect Cohort, in partnership with Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, serving local ministry leaders who are pursuing graduate degrees. One of GRTS’s professors, Peter Osborn traveled with Dave and is teaching a graduate course.

Dave has been facilitating a cohort with Liberian ministry leaders. Cohorts are designed to learn with leaders in order to develop relevant, contextualized material that leaders construct and use in their respective villages. We’re excited about our connection with Liberian ministry leaders and GRTS that allows for creative and culturally specific expression of ministry. Everyone learns.

I’ve spent the last four days in Boston for our third meeting with our cohort there. We had a good week of exploring mission and calling. Each of these youth ministry leaders brings a beautiful angle on youth ministry and all are thoughtfully wrestling with how to continually express youth ministry faithfully and relevantly.

I also had the opportunity to do some training with Grace Chapel’s Middle School leaders. We talked about the youth worker’s identity and how one’s perception of their identity effects the way one approaches ministry. This led to some good thoughts and discussion.

We’re excited for the new year, and we’re glad to be invited to participate with others who are living out God’s call on their lives, whether in Boston or Monrovia.

Put missions and student ministry together and we usually think of short-term missions trips. I’ve spent a lot of energy in short-term missions both as a participant and a researcher. I continue to do both. And while I have lots of concerns about the assumptions and practices underlying some of the work that goes on in the name of “short-term mission”, I also have tremendous hope for redeeming the resources (millions of dollars and people annually) being invested in this growing phenomenon.

Through Intersect and the Global Learning Center we’re working with some other researchers and writers to develop some curriculum to enhance the effectiveness of short-term missions. Terry Linhart of Bethel College, Kara Powell and Brad Griffin of Fuller’s Center for Youth and Family Ministry, and I are developing a curriculum to help youth ministries improve their short-term mission work before they go, while they’re there, and after they come home. We just convened a group of some of the best N. American short-term missions leaders (agency leaders and youth pastors) for 24 hours to learn how to best develop this curriculum.

I’m also working with Kurt VerBeek and JoAnn VanEngen of Calvin College to develop a web and video-based curriculum for use by short-term missions teams of all ages. While the two projects will have some overlap, this one will have a parallel curriculum for the locals who receive the teams and will not be produced in book form–so that it will be highly accessible and adaptable.

I’d love to hear your best ideas on what to keep in mind when developing this kind of curriculum for those leading short-term missions teams.

I just had this sent to me (thanks Kevin).

Freerice.com is a sister site of Poverty.com.

Donors for this site simply ask you to click an answer that best defines the word on the quiz.

If you get the question right, the site donates ten bags of rice through the United Nations World Food Program.

Go here often.

Tell teachers and youth min people.

Make this a youth group activity.

If you do, and have some cool stories, stop back here and please share them.

Thanks

Hey College Juniors thinking about further theological/ministry education…

Join us May 18-23, 2008.

Imagine…

• A one-week, seminary course,
• With other college Juniors exploring the future just like you,
• Living and studying in community,
• Upon completion, giving you three credits that may count toward your undergraduate degree AND count for your future graduate degree,
• All for $250. That’s it.

Dave will be teaching Global Impact and I’ll be teaching Theology of Youth Ministry.

You get to hang out with us, with each other, study some great topics, make new friends, and explore seminary.

For more information, go to GRTS CONNECT.

Feel free to contact Dave or me or call 800.697.1133 to talk with Tara, Nate, or Mark.

Space is limited and we’d love to hang out with you for the week.

There’s a robust, vibrant, missional church emerging in postcolonial Africa. I had the unusual honor of sitting with 180 African church leaders and theologians this past week in Uganda. I was endeared to the way these men and women spoke honorably about Western missionaries and the traditional churches in their contexts while simultaneously talking about their struggle to be reformers for the Church in our generation. A few of the predominant themes included:

• Reclaiming a gospel of “transformation” rather than “evacuation” (the gospel should propel us into the world to meet the needs of the world rather than just hanging on until we can get out of here)
• The role of the church in reconciliation (blacks and whites in South Africa, Hutus and Tutsis in East Africa, Americos and indigenous tribes in Liberia, etc.)
• Empowering women in male-dominated cultures (To appreciate just how counter-cultural this is to many African cultures—one pastor told me about his region where the king can “have” any woman he wants anytime. As a husband, your greatest “honor” is to have your wife chosen by the king for sex).
• Developing partnerships with churches in the “West” that are mutual and not new versions of colonialism.

I keep encountering remarkably similar AND different themes between the challenges of living the gospel in postcolonial contexts and in postmodern contexts. We have so much to receive from what’s emerging in the African Church. We have so much to give to what’s emerging in the African Church. And together, we are broken-vessels, privileged to be part of who and how God is redeeming His world.

Stephen Freed, International Ministry Leader of International Teams was the keynote speaker at the Global Learning Center Symposium, held at GRTS this week. Stephen is an amazing guy for whom we have so much respect. He is a passionate thinker and follower of Jesus. He spoke at chapel on Wednesday and suggested that Christians must wrestle with these five (not necessarily exhaustive) considerations…

1. Our understanding of the gospel must realign- We must move from decision in response to a proposition and recapture our understanding of the Gospel where Jesus’ call is to respond by following him toward radical transformation. “Being saved” therefore, is not the finish line, but only the starting line.

(more…)

Yesterday I experienced missions whiplash. I was talking with a senior leader from one of the largest missions agencies in North America and he said, “Why aren’t the younger generation going into missions?”

Sensing that his question wasn’t really as interested in my response as it was in telling me his own opinion on the matter, I said, “Why do you ask?”

He went on to say, “We’re watching the number of young people joining us to be missionaries get smaller and smaller every year. I think they worship worship and they worship experience. So it’s easy to get 22,000 at Urbana or a Passion conference and nearly as easy to get that many to go on a short-term missions trip. But they don’t want to commit to the hard work of joining us and raising support to be a missionary.”

After a few minutes of this rather depressing conversation, I literally turned around and a 22 year old guy introduced himself to me–Dustin. (more…)

We pray for the healing of our world and the pandemic of AIDS that affects us all.

Take a moment to do something today… pray, donate, sign a petition, allow your heart to break at least for a moment…

Here are some sites with more information and action steps…

World AIDS Day- Official Site

Compassion International

World Vision