5,000 Postcards, 90s Dance Party, and Ravencrest

Since my last post about 3 weeks ago life has really picked up in pace. So I've got a lot of ground to cover if I'm going to keep you all filled in on the happenings of my life.

So, first things first, 5,000 postcards.
This month has been the month of recruiting volunteers. Actually we recruit volunteers year round however, in our Early Childhood and Preschool departments we are very short in volunteers and in order to get above water we needed 200 more volunteers. I know, 200. It's a crazy number for me to comprehend as well. With that being said there was one weekend where we were supposed to have an announcement given from the stage about the upcoming trainings we had. Due to some unforeseeable circumstances the announcement didn't happen. The result. Print, copy, and cut 5,000 postcards to pass out at the doors for Sunday morning services. Then this resulted...

Yes, that's 5,000 postcards. But one cool story of this whole happening. The following weekend while working in kiosk, a big burly man with a mohawk comes up to us holding a postcard from the previous week and tells us that a woman dove out of her way to hand him this postcard. He then said that this must be God giving him sort of sign to attend training and get involved in Summit at church. We then directed him to the leader training room. We ended up getting 110 people at our training. Not the number we were looking for but we are incredibly thankful for the people who have committed to showing Christ's love to the kids of Summit. 

Now onto the 90s dance party.

This past weekend I had the opportunity to go CO3, a conference for Young Adults, up the mountain in Estes Park at the YMCA. To say that this weekend was awesome would be an understatement. It was filled with laughter, tears, food, bad coffee, good coffee, little sleep, and deep real conversations with people I just met on Friday. Each session was powerful and convicting. I left each session having learned something new. However, there was one in particular that really resonated with me. It was Sunday morning and the young adult pastor from a church in Boulder was speaking. He gave a talk on the prodigal son but with more emphasis on the older son than is usually given when this parable is preached. As I listened to the sermon I found myself relating more to this story than I ever have before. Typically, I hear about the younger son who asked for his inheritance, basically saying, "Dad, I wish you were dead so I can have your money." The he runs off, screws his life up, spends all his inheritance, then comes back home and is welcomed with open arms and grace. Meanwhile the older son has lived at home and has obeyed his parents and wonders why his parents would throw a party for his runaway brother rather than reward him for obeying his parents and not running way. This is what got me. I was the good kid growing up. Don't get me wrong though, I did plenty of bad stuff in my life too. But I was the kid who followed the rules because I didn't like getting into trouble with my parents. Then just today while reading One Way Love by Tullian Tchividjian I read this, "I was building my own identity, my own righteousness, but this time it was a religious "Christian" righteousness, an identity of being the good son." WOW! Talk about a great tie in to the session from yesterday morning. This is what I have done in my own life from time to time. I created this persona of I'm a good Christian because I follow the rules making it seem like I have it all together when I reality I have created righteous identity that says I follow the rules so you should too. This is not the person I want to be. Then I read in One Way Love a few pages later about having to be able to balance out grace with law. If we have too much grace we need more law, if we have too much law we need more grace.  The downfall is that when we are perfectly balancing the two it keeps us from experiencing the Gospel of grace. Now, I bet you are wondering what 90's Dance Party has to do with any of this. Well, to close out Saturday night we danced the night away with 90's music and 90's jumpsuits.

Last but not least, Ravencrest.

9 years ago, the summer between 8th grade and my freshman year of high school, I went on a trip with my youth group to Ravencrest Chalet in Estes Park, CO. This trip was very influential in the person I am today. Actually, had I not gone in this trip I probably wouldn't have gone to Taylor, wouldn't have gotten involved in ministry, and wouldn't be living in Colorado today. You see, it was at Ravencrest that I recommitted my life to the Lord after one of the toughest years of my life. I decided during my 8th grade year that I was too cool for my friends at school resulting in having no friends at school. Then I badly twisted my ankle resulting in no more softball for the season. Then to put the icing on the cake my grandfather passed away two days before my graduation from middle school thus taking me into the darkest point of my life when I wanted to nothing to do with God because I was putting the blame on him for taking my friends, softball, and my grandfather away from me. Then I went to Ravencrest. I remember there was one night in which I sat on a rock outside to have a quiet time. It was in that moment when I realized the brokenness that I was living in and how I needed Jesus to be the center of my life again. I can't even begin to imagine what my life would look like had I not gone to Ravencrest. While driving to Estes Park I just so happened to pass Ravencrest for the first time in 9 years. So I couldn't help but take a picture. 

And for funsies I'm gonna post a throwback to when I was at Ravencrest 9 years ago.

Yes, I am wearing a drive the bus t-shirt and Vote for Pedro baseball hat and that was my I'm not gonna smile for pictures phase. That phase ended shortly after this picture was taken. 

With all that being said, life is good. I'm feeling incredibly blessed to have the job that I have here in Colorado and to have built up some new friendships this past weekend up in the mountains. 

Home, Vulnerability, Community

Since moving to Colorado people ask me on a regular basis if I miss home. I'd be a liar if I said I didn't miss home in some way, shape, or form. There are definitely parts that I think of daily that I miss. I recall one of the conversations that I had with my mom on the drive out here about home and how it really isn't home anymore. In some senses you could say that Wheaton hasn't been my home for the past four years. From September to May I would call Upland, IN home and from June to August I would call Lansing, IA home and occasionally I would call Wheaton home if I was going home for Christmas or Easter. There was a short period between transitions from Lansing to Upland or Lansing to Lafayette where I would have called myself homeless. My belongings were all in boxes and bins and while I had a roof over my head and a bed to sleep in home was just not home anymore. How can you call the place where you live out of a suitcase on visits home? This house that I grew up in now was just a house where my parents live. Even though this is a rather sad realization to make, that none of these places are considered home anymore, each of them helped me shape my worldview and gave me community. 

Which brings us to where I am now. A month ago when I moved to Colorado to start my 11 month long internship at Flatirons Community Church I came in with my own, rather skeptical, view of mega churches. After visiting Willow Creek in Barrington, IL this past January my view was slightly better but still skeptical. My skepticism primarily came from the idea that I didn't see true community happening in a mega church. But this past week my skepticism was proved wrong. 

In the course of 24 hours two events happened that have altered my thoughts of community in the mega church. First one happened last night at the intern guys' apartment. Last night we all got together for brinner (breakfast for dinner). We had a blast in the kitchen cooking the pancakes, eggs, bacon, and cinnamon rolls. After we finished eating we sat on the floor of the family room and started talking about why we chose to do the internship and what some of our struggles have been since starting and how we have already seen God do a number on our lives. If you had told me a month ago that I would be willing to share some of my deepest struggles with my fellow interns I would have probably told you that you're nuts. It's only my closest friends that I have known for years that I share those things with. But that's exactly what happened. I shared some stuff that I'm struggling with to my fellow interns. I was willing to be vulnerable with a group of people I met for the first time a month ago and it feels like we've been friends for years. 

The second event that happened was just this morning at staff devos. Each Tuesday morning at 9 AM we all gather to share stories and updates from the past week, then a devo is given by one staff person, then we sing some worship songs, then we share prayer requests and then close in prayer. This morning started off like any other staff devo until we hit the prayer requests portion. One person shared a trial going on in their family and it was a like a spring board. After that person there was another and another and another that shared tough things happening in their families and households. I just sat there taking in all that I was witnessing happening before me. It was incredible. It was so cool to see community happening before my very own eyes. In that moment I realized that I thought, "Wow, I have a really awesome church family." That is when I took a double take. Wait, did I just call Flatirons, a church of 20,000 my church family? Yes, I did. It was really strange moment for me. Because for the past 16 years of my life I have called Glen Ellyn Bible Church my church family. Now, GEBCers, don't get me wrong, you are still my family. In fact, it is because of you that I am where I am today. Because you were such an awesome church family for 16 years it made any church I attended during college hard to call my church family which is probably why that never happened. So thank you. With that being said, today I am feeling incredibly blessed to work at a place that is in fact messy and that we embrace that messiness and live life alongside one another. I'm thankful for this community that is vulnerable with one another and allows others to be a part of some of the hardest parts of their lives. Thank you Flatirons for being a place that is broken and messy but filled with grace and compassion and a "me too" environment. 

Finally, I want to leave you all with a passage from Acts 2:42-47, which is all about a community of believers who come together in community and fellowship. "They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved."