1st week in Long Beach

Wow, it has almost been 2 weeks since the staff arrived in Long Beach, CA for our Campus Crusade Summer Project. I have already learned a ton as we are trusting God to grow our faith where life happens and to teach, train, coach and release our students (32 from around the U.S.) into the city to plant spiritual movements. It is much harder than I realized and at the same time simple. I am joining Joanna Meyer and Ethan Rietema as their co-leader to give direction and coaching to this task.

Our staff team of 9 total (two moms, 2 single guys, 2 single gals and us 3 with 5 kids) is great. They are coming together to help create a future, plans and strategy of how does a Summer Project train, coach and plant spiritual movements in 10 weeks. I'm super grateful for my co-leaders, Joanna and Ethan, as they bring a mix of leadership and skills I am completely lacking. I can light my self on fire, communicate passion and a vision for what we are doing and then naturally I step back and expect things to naturally happen. I seem to miss the nuts and bolts on how to take our staff team and 32 students to the next level. Joanna and Ethan are great coaches, strategist and thinkers and in that they are shepherding me along. At this point I believe our students have caught the vision and spirit behind what we are asking them to do. Today we had a good discussion on helping them really have some practical wins and tools to move them along in their spiritual and ministry maturity. All in all, I'm learning a ton. I really believe that this growing process is going to birth something real powerful and long lasting in our lives, our ministry (CCC), the students and in Long Beach.

On the family side, our kids couldn't be happier to be here. They get to go to the beach, play in the pool and be surrounded by 32 Godly college students. On top of this they get to see their cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents on a regular basis.

There is so much going on that I'm needing to remind myself daily that I need the Holy Spirit to grab my heart and attention. My pray is that God would slow me down to seek His face, to renew my heart, passion and vision for loving others around me, and to lead in His power. If you think about it please pray that God will do something amazing in our lives, the students, and in Long Beach. Pray that our significance is not found in a successful project or wise leadership but in God alone. That is where we're at. We need God.

For some photos and videos from the recent weeks check out Van Diest Photo Blog.
Categories: Family, Leadership, LongBeach, Prayer

Lessons from the Southern Baptist

This morning I read this from Steve Addison's blog. Great insights on planting movements. Take a quick eval on where you're at, how you lead and what your goals are in life and ministry.
Here’s a few insights:

• Planters who had been through a Ridley church planter assessment went on to plant churches that were on average 25% larger after four years. Even better, they saw 100% more conversions.
• Planters who had weekl--yes weekly--mentoring or supervision, led churches that were 25% larger than those who had none.
• When the planter had a parent church that sent a core group, the new church was 25% larger after four years.
• High expectations of members in the new church--tithing, membership class, membership covenant, ministry involvement, small group involvement--resulted in larger attendances.
• The new church was less likely to grow if it relied on special speakers and big events as its main strategy in evangelism. New churches that relied totally on prayer or on "letting the Holy Spirit do the work" were smaller. Looks like God needs us after all.
• If training people in evangelism was the main strategy in evangelism, the church plant was smaller.
• Surprise! Those who consider "Unchurched Relationships with Church Members" to be the key factor in evangelism were significantly larger than those which do not.
• "Seeker sensitive" services helped with evangelism but only if they were a contributing factor rather than the main strategy in evangelism.
• Stetzer found that leadership is key. What kind? The best church planters are suggestion-oriented: they lead by making suggestions rather than issuing commands. They dream big dreams. They are knowledge-oriented: they lead by knowledge and understanding rather than just example. They are task-oriented: they make things happen and get things done.
  The great thing about the report is that if you don't like the findings you can always say, "Those Southern Baptists are different!"
  
  Read the whole thing at : Church Planting Lessons from the Southern Baptists
  Categories: Church, Movements, Leadership

Moving out and off to California

Friday was a pivotal day in our transition to Mexico. The moving company took our possessions to soon be on their way to Mexico City. That afternoon after much toilet, shower and floor scrubbing (our house has never looked so clean) we handed over the house keys to our new house renters. They will be renting our house for 3 years and we couldn't be happier with the family God provided. Then we quickly changed clothes and headed for Christine's dad's house for a graduation party for Christine's step brother, Will, and step sister, Vanessa. The kids did amazing during the cleaning and running from one place to another. Isa was so tired I just stuck her in her furnitureless room and she took a nap on the floor for one more moment in her cute room.

Saturday was meant to be a day of just hanging out with friends, going to the boys soccer games and just resting. We woke up that morning with Jonathan vomiting. He so badly wanted to see his friends so we headed off to his last soccer game. He made it about 8 minutes into the game and then pulled himself out to lay on the blanket. But before we left his team sang him a cheer. You can see the video below.

After a few more trips to the garbage can Jonathan fell asleep under a tree. Benjamin joined his team for his final soccer game. You can see Benjamin in action here.

In spite of all that is going on the boys have done great. Their hearts broke and tears flowed as they said goodbye to some of their friends in the neighborhood. They spent many afternoons with these kids play fighting, protecting the planet and just being crazy kids. They are such good friends and we're confident God will provide another set of kids to be friends in Mexico City.

Sunday morning about 2 am we jumped into the loaded down suburban for the 12 hour trip to Las Vegas. The kids stayed healthy yet after drinking energy drinks and junk food to stay awake I got sick. Oh the joy of moving, packing, traveling with stress on top. After a short nap in Las Vegas we took the kids to the pool. That was all they needed to be refreshed. Later we took them downtown to the strip to see light shows and fountain shows. Not necessarily a great town for a family. But it was the rest we needed to split the 16 hour drive to So. Cal. Monday afternoon we arrived at my parents' house, unpacked a bit and headed off to my nephew's, Brett's, hockey game. The boys were so excited to see Brett. Later for dinner to my sister's house and some playing in the pool. 2 days away from Colorado and the boys have swam 2 times. Not bad.

Today....REST and catching up. Thursday we move into the Beach Plaza Hotel in Long Beach to start up the New Long Beach Summer Project.

Categories: LongBeach, Family

Great Insights from our culture about Church

This morning I was reading CCC staff member Scott Crocker's Blog and came across this excellent video clip from Fox's King of the Hill TV show. It gives us an excellent perspective on what our culture often thinks of church.

Enjoy.

Categories: Church

Make me a Saint

I was reading a book called God is Here by Steve Case. It is a modern approach to the life and ministry of Brother Andrew, who I know very little about. But one chapter Brother Andrew prayed this prayer: "Lord of all pots and pans and things...Make me a saint by getting meals and washing up the plates!" That is not the prayer I normally pray to experience God. Yesterday is when I read that and it was the 1st day that our moving company began to pack our house. It was an amazing feat of focus, work ethic and effectiveness. The four man crew just went to their specific tasks and cranked out packing every thing in our house. At one point I asked if I could do anything. They told me to sit back and take a nap. Then I read this prayer. Ooh the conviction.

Then today, day 2 of moving, I showed up and found out that I could apply the task of serving God and knowing him while working hard. I began to clean each and every grout in our showers, clean toilets and floors. Oh man, our house has never looked so clean. Tomorrow is the last day and our house will be totally empty. It is happening. It is for real, we're moving to Mexico City.
No turning back.

I'm so grateful for the life, work and ministry God has called us to. I couldn't be happier. Tonight in a friends condo (we can't sleep in our house) I read Sam Metcalf's blog titled The Honor of a Missionary Calling. It expressed perfectly how we feel about our calling. God is so good and we are seeing Him move daily in our lives, around us and are even more expectant on what He will do in the near future.
Categories: Books, Family, MexicoCity

I came back alive

Saturday and Sunday turned out to be awesome once more in Moab. This place has to be the perfect place for self torturing therapy. Saturday morning after good hard night's rest I jumped out of bed, filled myself with water and Ego waffles (mountain biking food) and headed of for Amasa Back Trail head with Gil, Gary, Doug, Reagan, Dan, Warren and Steve. I have heard about this trail for years so I was excited to take part in the torture. It lived totally up to the rumors. The trails started with about a 30 foot stair step drop off. I walked my bike down. It was too early in the morning to draw blood. Then for the next 5 miles it was up hill. Not super bad and totally worth it once you saw the views. (I included my mountain biking glamour shot for you to enjoy.) Then the downhill. 5 miles of back breaking bumps and jumps. I actually enjoyed the painful uphill more. Not sure what happened in my noggin to think that way.
Back to the hotel for a quick rest, lunch and back out to the trails. This afternoon Gil, Pat and I thought we would tink around at Bartletts Wash, a little Slickrock playground. Supposedly it was to be a 2 mile bike out to get to the playground but after 2.5 miles of sandy roads (total torture) we were no where near a slickrock area. I turned around to see about 10 bikes up on a ridge and then realized we missed something. With our heads between our legs, wondering where we missed the trail we headed back to the car. Yup, about a 150 yards from the car was a clearly marked trail. Oh well, we will come back another year to fight that one.

One of my favorite traditions of Moab is eating at the Moab Diner, hmmm. Great burgers and huge shakes and malts. I think even though I burned a bazillion calories this week I must have gained weight due to the Moab diner's food. I'll just have to leave the speedo in the drawers for another couple of weeks.

I came back to our hotel to find Curtis, Trent and Franklin resting. They ventured all day Saturday to climb a tower. Unfortunately the bad climbing book led them on a 4 hour hike to find no routes available. They were tired but had great attitudes. That led us Sunday morning to get up at 6am to get a few more climbs in. Franklin led his first route and it was a 5.10. If you don't know what that is, imagine hard. Franklin kicked butt (See the speck in the picture to the right) and Curtis then followed him up to clean the gear. Trent and I being the smart ones sat at the bottom cheering on and giving great advice.

Jumped into the car for the 6 hour ride home. It was great to see Christine and the kids. Now we're packing and getting ready. Moving Truck 2 days away.
Categories: Family

Quotes from Alan

This past summer I read a book The Shaping of Things to Come by Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost. Marc Van der Woude just attended a conference where Alan spoke. Here are a few quotes that stuck out and reminded me how good this book is.

• The issue is not whether you believe in Jesus, but whether you follow Him. The lordship of Christ is often proclaimed (orthodoxy), but not often practiced (orthopraxy). Greek thinking is comprehending an idea, while Hebrew thinking is learning by incarnating truth. In other words: you only really know what you apply in real-life.
• Christology shapes missiology shapes ecclesiology. If we start with the church, we start on the wrong side of the spectrum.
• To really change society, we need to tell a different story. Stirring people's imagination is more important than transferring knowledge.

To read the whole thing visit: Quotes from the Fringes

Categories: Books, Missions, SimpleChurch, Movements, Evangelism

Mexico City needs some hope

I just read this from Yahoo site today:

"MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Street riots, decapitations of police officers by drug gangs and the worst union conflict in years have raised tension in Mexico's presidential race with the government under fire for its handling of the violence." Read all of it at Violence unsettles Mexican election campaign

Looks like Mexico City is due for a massive outpouring of the Holy Spirit and some city transformation. That's why we're going.
Categories: MexicoCity

What is your goal?

This past week I was challenged by the concept of what is my goal for planting movements. Recently some of our National Team met with Neil Cole of Church Multiplication Resources (author of Organic Church and Cultivating a life for God). I would have loved to have had a seat at that table.

Neil shared this nugget: "What is your goal? If it is to plant 50 churches [movements] then add couple of more zeros. If your strategy cannot get you to 500,000 then you are doing addition and not multiplication. If you start with the essence of multiplication, then top end is attainable."

I think asking this question really tells if you're doing multiplication or addition. We all talk about being ministries of multiplication but if our goal is only reaching a campus or our neighborhood than we are probably talking about addition. But if we're talking about reaching full cities, states, countries than we must talk about multiplication. If that is true than it can't be about our charisma, gifted speaking or attractive personality. It has to be about raising up leaders to raise up leaders who will plant more movements and plant more movements.

Thanks to Shane Deike for this input.
Categories: Movements, Leadership, SimpleChurch

Moving Forward

When it comes to ministry and leading I love moving forward, making decisions and trying new things. Change and starting up new things is just in my blood. Recently a friend of mine, Jeff Johnson, told me about a book Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation. Jeff is a business architect for Sun and his primary job is to help restructure the company and help them be more effective in structure, leadership and systems. He's a pretty gifted guy. The thing he was sharing with me from the book was that the founding fathers made an agreement not even to deal with the issue of slavery for about 40-50 years because they knew that issue was so hot and heavy, disagreeable and tense that if they did try to work on that before the country got founded the country would have never gotten off the ground. So what they did was move forward, make decisions, knowing full well that they would have to deal with slavery in the future. But the important issue was the United States of America become a country.

Then today I read from Steve Addison's blog Anne Says: Just Do It! Steve shares: "The best church planters. The best movement founders are action oriented leaders. They act first. Think later. They are instinctive beasts. They drive institutional leaders crazy. They change the world."

Now I know this feeds my bent on moving fast and forward but it also inspires me to lead more out of my giftedness. Often times we as organizations or individuals stop moving forward out of fear or a concern that some serious issues might come up that we can't deal with now. So we stop. We lean towards the known and comfortable. We do what is tried and true without ever finding out if the new may be better. My take is move forward, reach new people, create new systems and let the new leaders you have reached and trained take care of those issues when they do come up. Don't be afraid and trust.
Categories: Leadership, Movements, Coaching

Brief Break in Moab

In the midst of getting ready to move Christine gave me the green light to head off to Moab, Utah for my annual Rock Climbing and Mountain Biking trip with about 50 guys from our church in Boulder. Wed morning I headed out of Boulder around 5 am for the 6 hour drive. I went with 3 staff guys from CU Boulder, Trent, Franklin and Curtis. Yesterday Curtis and Franklin (pictured right) took us to school and taught us how to "crack climb" two routes on an area called Wall Street. It was a ton of fun and super challenging.

This morning I took them into my world for the past couple of years. Traditionally on Friday mornings we ride the famous Slickrock trail. It is an amazing trail where if you can move your legs and keep your tires on the rock your bike will stick and climb it. It is one of my favorite things to do. Not only is it physically exhilarating the views, mountains and variety of landscape is a gift from God.

The guys did a great job and muscled it out for most of the day. It was years since Franklin, Trent and Curtis had been on bikes yet alone mountain biking Slickrock. About 7 miles into the 11 mile ride Franklin's legs were shutting down. He couldn't walk, ride or even stand. Then out of no where two jeeps came crawling over the rock and Curtis waived them down to see if they could take the wounded out. Franklin ended his day with about a 5 mile 4 wheeling adventure that was much more enjoyable than his first 7. Finished off with some napping, dinner and then some Texas Hold Em Poker. The reason I'm writing this is because I didn't do so well. Now off to bed and for maybe two rides tomorrow, Amasa and Porcupine Rim.
We're 5 days away from having the moving company pack up our house. Wow!


Categories: Family

Does God still answer prayers?

"Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work with in us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope. May he be given glory...." Ephesians 3:20,21. Many times we live in fear as we look at circumstances and we’re anxious for the things we need to do. Sometimes we dare not ask God or we just simply don’t. We are humbled at what prayers God has answered lately and we want to share with you with thanksgiving and praise what God has done.

• God found us a family to rent our house for 3 years.
• God sold our 1st car today!
• God found a wonderful family to adopt Aspen, our dog.
• God provided the perfect moving company to pick up our possessions, store them for free this summer and ship them to Mexico.
• God cleared the skies this recent Saturday and we had an extremely awesome garage sale.
• God has cleared all our paper work for our visa on the U.S. side with 8 agencies.
• God provided 33 students and 9 staff to join us for our Long Beach Project.
• God has secured amazing housing for the LB Summer Project in a safe area.
• God has cared for us, calmed us and reminded us that He is in control.

Thank you for doing some of the hardest work in the world; praying for us and the kingdom work of God. Your encouragement, prayers and financial gifts make this all possible. Thank you for partnering with us.

Categories: Family, Prayer, God, Newsletters

God still moving at CU

It has been over 2 months since we stepped down as directors at CU and passed the leadership to Kevin Dennis. God continues to move in the hearts and souls of students. This past Wednesday night we said good-bye to the student leaders and they encouraged us tremendously. We look back on these past 11 years at CU and are so grateful to God for growing us and showing us that He is all powerful, loving and desires to reach each and every student.

Just last week Katie, a Kappa Alpha Theta sorority gal, shared about another gal, Kate, who had been asking questions about Jesus and God. Christine has been having a ministry there for 11 years and is constantly praying that God will move through students to reach other students. Over the years many girls have come to Christ and awesome Biblical communities have been developed. With all our packing, moving and preparing Christine has had less time to spend there so she prays even more. God answers those prayers.

This past week Katie decided to share boldly with Kate about God’s love, forgiveness and how Kate could know God personally. Last Wednesday night Kate came to know Jesus.
We praise God that even in our last days in Boulder we have been blessed to see more fruit. With grateful hearts we THANK YOU!
Categories: Evangelism, God, Movements, Newsletters

Please Pray for Us

Please Pray:

• That we will listen to God and be obedient to Him.
• That our possessions arrive safely in Mexico City.
• That God will give us safe travel, rest and good family connections in the weeks to come.
• That God will show us where He is already moving in Long Beach and that we will join Him.
• That the final stages of our visa application is approved.
• That God will provide us the perfect house and car in Mexico City.
• That God will guide and give us wisdom as we lead the summer project in Long Beach.
• That God will deepen our prayer life and dependence on Him.
• That God will help us in the time of saying good-byes.

Categories: God, Newsletter, Prayer