I have mentioned several times that during the Springfield years we became involved in a ministry called Our Fathers Table (OFT). OFT was the feeding program of High Point Urban Ministries, a coalition of faith-based organizations and churches that provided outreach to the homeless and under-resourced of our community. Beginning in 1988, we would take a group of five or six students and myself across town to work in the soup kitchen and serve lunch. A couple of summers we went every Friday; after that, we went every other Friday. Eventually Springfield Friends Meeting as a whole took up the ministry and started taking groups of adults on a regular basis. We would arrive a few hours before opening, make soup and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, set up the tables, wrap the plastic utensils, and then serve the meal when the patrons would arrive. We would also clean-up afterwards. I may not seem like much, but it was always very important to me that the students in our ministry learn to serve.
The director of OFT at the time was a fireball of a woman named Yolanda Jackson. A short, attractive Hispanic woman, Yolanda loved that ministry. She poured her life into the hundreds of people who passed through each week, often taking care of much more than just their hunger. She was a deeply spiritual woman who did what she did because she felt Jesus had called her to that work. She also ruled the place with an iron fist. People seldom got rowdy at OFT, because if they did, they knew they had to deal with Yolanda- and that was never pretty!
We often had interaction with the clients who would share lunch with us, learning their stories and sharing with them our faith and our lives. There was one particular individual who we all fell in love with, and for whom OFT had become both a home and a ministry. Richard would be there every Friday when we arrived, usually inside sweeping and cleaning the kitchen and taking out the trash. He was the only patron allowed in before the doors officially opened, because he would come in and work until it was time to eat. Richard was homeless, although he sometimes got to sleep at the house of a relative; he had some mild mental issues and a major speech impediment. You had to listen very closely to understand anything Richard was saying, and if he got excited you had no chance. Yet we spent hours talking and listening to Richard. We often gave him a ride after lunch to wherever he needed to go. We would bring him clothing and other things when we could. For us, Richard became the official "mascot" of OFT. Through him we could relate to many of the issues that faced everyone who stopped in for lunch. For those few years, Richard made a major difference in our lives and in the ministry of Springfield Friends Meeting.
Today on my Lenten devotional blog, The 40 Day Adventure, I challenge us all to live out Matthew 25:31-46; to reach out to those who are hungry, naked and sick, and to do so in the name of Jesus. Every time I donate a can of tuna or some used clothing, I remember Yolanda and Richard and the impact they had on my life. As so often happens in ministry, I am sure they influenced us much more that we did them...
Because of Jesus,
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
It's Game Time!
Over the years we played hundreds of different games at youth group, from the sophisticated to the stupid. I assume most student ministries are like that; I could be wrong. I think our games always had a lot of variety and creativity, and I know that some of them are quite memorable to the kids who played them. If you happen to be a former youth of mine who is reading, I'd love to hear which ones you remember. I bet someone from every group I was ever a part of remembers the Egyptian Mummy Race (see pic at right). Let's take a stroll through the game Hall of Fame:- The grand poobah of all my games was Sardines. I learned it as a kid from my youth leader, DB3, and then passed it along to every group I ever worked with until Waycross, where we had no decent place to play without disturbing people. This was hide and seek in pairs, and it was a riot. The kids at Springfield were really good at it.
- At TNT we often played versions of TV games shows. We played Remote Control, a game of TV trivia based on the MTV show. We did our own versions of the Dating Game and the Newlywed Game. The Newlywed Game was especially fun because we would partner students who barely knew each other and make them guess at the answers to the questions. It was often hilarious. We also used board games such as Taboo, Win, Lose or Draw and Outburst to create games we could play with a large group.
- We had a great game we played on the pool tables at Springfield and Kissimmee called PIG. It involved rolling a pool ball and sprinting around the table, and it was awesome. We played a similar game on a ping-pong table called Round Robin. Other active indoor games for the groups included classics like Fruit Basket Upset, Shuffle Your Buns (a musical chairs variation), Broom Hockey and Do You Love Your Neighbor? All of these required lots of movement and lots of noise, so they were very popular! And I haven't even mentioned the cults of Four Square players that sprung up at Springfield, in Kissimmee and in Tampa...
- We played Brain Games, too. These were always fun, but there was always someone who just never figured them out, so they often took a VERY long time to play. "It can be Snoopy, but it can't be a dog..."
- We played dozens of different Name Games designed to help students learn each other's names. These games, at every stop along the way, were pretty much universally despised...
- We had some outdoor games that were favorites as well. Go Tag was a classic that used tons of energy and created mass confusion. It also allowed lots of opportunities for creative cheating (Best creative cheater ever? Todd Willis in Kissimmee), one of my favorite things about youth group games! Wild Softball was another favorite, featuring a softball bat, a kickball and running the bases backwards or playing without a third base. We also tried Wet'N'Wild Softball, where you were hosed down between third base and home plate. We occasionally played football and basketball like normal people...but not soccer. Don't get me started on soccer!
- Over the last few years of my ministry, at Wesley Memorial UMC in Tampa and in Waycross, we had a lot of fun with a device call The 4-Way Grinder. It was basically a tug of war between 4 individuals with inner-tubes wrapped around their waists, all pulling in different directions (see picture at right). Only minor injuries were recorded...
Because of Jesus,
Monday, March 8, 2010
The Oscars- My Way!
Best Picture: My ten finalists would have been Invictus, Up In the Air, Up!, The Hangover, Public Enemies, Paul Blart, Mall Cop (Yes, I said it- Paul Blart rocked!), Julie and Julia, It's Complicated, The Proposal and Inglourious Basterds. My winner would have been Invictus, with Up! finishing a very close second. The Hangover made me laugh so hard I hurt. There needs to be a special category for comedies, since the Academy is clearly never going to honor them in this way. If there was such a category, Old Dogs would be nominated too, and classics like Ghostbusters, Anchorman and Monty Python and the Holy Grail would have received their rightful accolades.
Worst Picture: Halloween 2. Nothing else was even close- and I saw All About Steve and Whatever Happened to the Morgan's? (or whatever it was called). I loved the original Halloween movies, and even the "reboot" of the original Halloween was tolerable. This was sooooooo bad...although Will says I am wrong!
Best Actress: I love Sandra Bullock, but Meryl Streep should have won for the double header of Julie and Julia and It's Complicated. Of course Sandra had The Proposal and The Blind Side- ah shoot, give them both the award!
Best Actor: Morgan Freeman for playing Nelson Mandela in Invictus. I can't imagine how difficult it is to portray a living legend, one who is known and adored by millions of people. That has to be scary. He had Mandela's speech patterns down pat. I love George Clooney in Up In the Air (and the badly underrated Men Who Stare At Goats) but Freeman gets my vote.
Best Movie with Blue People: Watchmen! You didn't really think I was going to give Avatar any love, did ya? :)
Best Reboot Ever: Star Trek. Absolutely perfect.
Worst Actress: Megan Fox in everything she was in. But does any male actually care?
Movie I Most Misjudged From the Trailers: Sherlock Holmes. I thought they were going to just KILL the characters of Holmes and Watson, making them more action heroes than intelligent detectives- but they really did pretty well. I enjoyed the flick, much like I enjoyed Harry Potter, Wolverine and Transformers 2. Those movies are just fun to watch.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Hope & Faith
You see, during spring training every team is 0-0. No wins yet, but more importantly, no losses. These groups of professional athletes gather with eternal optimism. No matter how bad they were in the previous season, they have HOPE that this will be their year. No matter how many years (or centuries, Cubs fans!) it has been since they were last champions, spring training is a time for fans to have FAITH in their team. And no matter how bad they may be this year, next spring the same hope and faith will be present.
Those of us who follow Jesus should know exactly what this hope and faith feels like. We have access to it every day. No matter how bad the situation, no mater how tragic the circumstances, no matter how deep the sin, we need to understand that through grace we can start our "season" anew by simply turning it all over to Jesus. Unlike baseball, when we fail we can have a total "do over." Unlike Cubs fans, Christ-followers can go through life with the knowledge that in the end, God wins! Our hope and faith are not in the things of men or in our own abilities, but in the love and grace of God. We never have to leave spring training- our record is back to "even" every time we confess our sins. It's really an amazing thing...
Maybe this will be the year that the hope and faith of Cubs fans will be rewarded. Maybe it is the year my Rays return to the World Series! Either way, isn't it great to know that the hope and faith of Jesus fans are rewarded everyday? No one is a loser when they are following the Son...
Because of Jesus,
Saturday, March 6, 2010
"I Hear Leesha..."
In the Spring of 1989 a group of us including myself, Marilyn, Jeff Byrd and Doyle Craven got tickets to see Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith in concert in Chapel Hill, NC. Amy was featuring songs from her Lead Me On album, while MWS was touring in support of his i 2 (Eye) project. We were all so excited to go. Plus, Doyle had a brand new Ford Probe he was dying to show off...
Our excitement turned to sorrow very quickly when we received word on the day of the show that our dear friend Penny Thomas had passed away. Penny had worked at Quaker Lake and had been very active in the youth programs of NC Yearly Meeting of Friends. She had also worked with chronically ill children on the pediatrics ward at Duke Hospital. She had been very sick for a long time, and only a few days earlier we had been to Duke to see her. Her passing was not unexpected, but it still hit us all very hard. Doyle and Jeff had both been especially close to her. We debated whether or not we should attend the concert, eventually deciding that there was nothing we could do at that point, and that Penny would want us to go.
Even in our melancholy state of mind, the concert was excellent. We all knew their music so well, and we all shared one unspoken thought as the night went along. One of the songs on Michael's most recent CD was called I Hear Leesha. The song was about a young girl who had passed away, and it mourned her loss. It also spoke of the hope Christians share that there is more to life that what we have on this earth. The chorus says, "I hear Leesha singing in heaven tonight. And in-between the sadness, I hear Leesha, telling me that she's alright." I think secretly we all were praying that he would not sing it. He did. As we looked at each other with tears flowing, I knew it was one of those moments in which Jesus was working in each of us. I knew it was a feeling I would never forget.
A few days later I attended Penny's funeral. Jeff Byrd sang at the service, and I have always thought it was one of the bravest things I have ever seen anyone do. He was hurting, he was saddened, and he didn't really want to be doing it. But he knew he had to. Filled with the Holy Spirit, he sang beautifully and with passion, sharing both his love for Penny and his faith.
Being a follower of Christ is not all flowers and rainbows. There are struggles, tragedies and moments of doubt and fear. Every time I listen to I Hear Leesha I am reminded that in the midst of the darkest parts of life, Jesus is there to give us light and life. I hope you will remember that as well.
Because of Jesus,
Our excitement turned to sorrow very quickly when we received word on the day of the show that our dear friend Penny Thomas had passed away. Penny had worked at Quaker Lake and had been very active in the youth programs of NC Yearly Meeting of Friends. She had also worked with chronically ill children on the pediatrics ward at Duke Hospital. She had been very sick for a long time, and only a few days earlier we had been to Duke to see her. Her passing was not unexpected, but it still hit us all very hard. Doyle and Jeff had both been especially close to her. We debated whether or not we should attend the concert, eventually deciding that there was nothing we could do at that point, and that Penny would want us to go.
Even in our melancholy state of mind, the concert was excellent. We all knew their music so well, and we all shared one unspoken thought as the night went along. One of the songs on Michael's most recent CD was called I Hear Leesha. The song was about a young girl who had passed away, and it mourned her loss. It also spoke of the hope Christians share that there is more to life that what we have on this earth. The chorus says, "I hear Leesha singing in heaven tonight. And in-between the sadness, I hear Leesha, telling me that she's alright." I think secretly we all were praying that he would not sing it. He did. As we looked at each other with tears flowing, I knew it was one of those moments in which Jesus was working in each of us. I knew it was a feeling I would never forget.
A few days later I attended Penny's funeral. Jeff Byrd sang at the service, and I have always thought it was one of the bravest things I have ever seen anyone do. He was hurting, he was saddened, and he didn't really want to be doing it. But he knew he had to. Filled with the Holy Spirit, he sang beautifully and with passion, sharing both his love for Penny and his faith.
Being a follower of Christ is not all flowers and rainbows. There are struggles, tragedies and moments of doubt and fear. Every time I listen to I Hear Leesha I am reminded that in the midst of the darkest parts of life, Jesus is there to give us light and life. I hope you will remember that as well.
Because of Jesus,
Friday, March 5, 2010
Summertime!
1988- This was the year of the first Summer Ministries Brochure, featuring the little cartoon surfer dude on the cover (Click the link above to see the dude). Our summer theme was There's Always Room For One More as we continued our efforts to reach out into our community. This summer featured the first Youth Week, a trip to the Betsy B, a trip to Atlanta to see the Braves play, as well as Rec-Room on Wednesday nights and YFYF (Young Friends Youth Fellowship) on Sundays.
1989- The theme for the summer and for Youth Week was Come As You Are, using the song of the same name by Peter Wolf. This was the first time I produced a cassette tape advertising Youth Week, using music, interviews with youth, and very goofy stuff. I especially remember Todd Farlow rapping his lines and beat-boxing his way through his entire part! This was also the year that ventriloquist and impressionist Freddie Pierce performed as part of Youth Week. We went back to Atlanta and the Betsy B; we collected over 200 cans of tuna to help feed the homeless of High Point; and we adopted our first child through Compassion International. Rec-Room and YFYF also continued, as they did every summer. This was also the summer of the very first Kyoto's Night. A red-letter date for sure!
1990- The theme was One Particular Harbor, and it was quite the summer! We began working at lunch on Fridays at Our Father's Table, the feeding program of High Point Urban Ministries. We started three new ministries that would last (under various names) for as long as I did youth work- Girl's Night Out, Dudes Night Out and Magic Middles. This was also the year that saw the birth of our new lock-in we called Rec Around the Clock. We also had our first Chain of Prayer to kick-off the summer, travelled to Walt Disney World for a second time, and went back to Atlanta. Our summer concluded with a Luau at Quaker Lake. A great summer.
1991- The theme for the summer was Hearts On Fire, and for Youth Week we went with Go West, Young Man. Our Summer Safari took us back to Myrtle Beach. The Student Spotlight arrived on the Youth Group Hotline. The Putt-Putt Masters Golf Tournament made its first appearance, as did the One On One ministry. We saw the Braves play again and continued the other events and ministries that had worked so well in summers past.
1992- We called it our Psycho Summer, with a Youth Week theme of Carry the Torch (it was an Olympic year!). For the first time, the little cartoon dude we had named Zed was not on the cover of the summer brochure. The big new event was our Schoolzout Blowout trip, as we once again went to Atlanta but this time included Six Flags in the adventure. We went back to Myrtle Beach, and ended the season with a last gasp event skiing and swimming at High Rock Lake.
1993- Our summer theme was JAM!- Jesus and Me! We added a Servant Week to the schedule, went to see the Braves again, and headed back to WDW for the best trip ever! This summer also saw the birth of the SNAC program- Sunday Night After Church, which extended YFYF on certain nights. The amazing part is we were still doing all of the other stuff from past summers as well. And why did I subject myself to this madness every summer? Why did we do so many outrageous events and trips? Why did we keep adding new things each year? One answer: Relationships, relationships, relationships! They connected me to the youth, the youth to each other, and most importantly (I say that a lot about this) all of us to Jesus! And I loved every minute of it...
Because of Jesus,
Thursday, March 4, 2010
CCM Countdown: 10 (again!)
10) HEAVEN IN THE REAL WORLD- Steven Curtis Chapman- 1994
No artist in the short 40 year history of CCM has received more awards and recognition than Steven Curtis Chapman. By the time this CD came out, SC2 was already established as one of the young stars of the growing business. Featuring no less that seven songs that received major airplay on Christian radio stations, Heaven In the Real World catapulted him to a whole new level. This album was very popular when I first arrived in Kissimmee in 1994, and I still remember Darin Miller's moving performance of The Mountain in worship one Sunday morning. SC2 is still among the most popular CCM artists around, and has continued to produce quality music for the past 16 years.
Featured Songs
The title track (see video below) is a classic, reminding us that heaven is not just "out there" somewhere, but, because of Jesus, can be right here on earth. We just have to take Jesus to the people. Using news headlines to set the tone and spoken words that ask the question "Where is the hope?," HITRW moves you to ministry. King of the Jungle reminds us that Jesus is no wimp- "The Lord of the gentle breeze is Lord of the rough and tumble"- and that He is the King of this jungle we call life. Treasure of You is a rocking reminder that God doesn't make junk- you were created as a treasure. Burn the Ships uses a quick history lesson to teach us that the best way to move forward in a new life with Jesus is to get rid of the things that might take you back to your old life. And my favorite song on the album, Facts Are Facts, gives us this great piece of pop theology: "I know there's a God who knows my name and His Son who died to take the blame. I believe Jesus is coming back, 'cause a promises are promises and facts are facts.."
Download this: The Mountain
Other Recommended Steven Curtis Chapman Albums
More To This Life- 1989
For the Sake of the Call- 1990
The Great Adventure- 1992*
Signs of Life- 1996
Speechless- 1999*
Declaration- 2001
All About Love- 2003
* indicates that this album is also featured on this countdown
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