When you want to work for God… start a committee. When you want to work with God…start a prayer group.

-Corrie TenBoom

You can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.

-A.J. Gordon

Prayer is a trade to be learned. We must be apprentices and serve our time at it. Painstaking care, much thought, practice, and labour are required to be a skillful tradesman in praying. Practice in this, as well as in all other trades, makes perfect.

-E.M. Bounds

I don't know if you've noticed...but we've been praying lately. Other people have started to notice. A few months ago, people at the church would see me around and ask, “Is anything happening for young adults these days?”

And then we started praying.

Since then, people have been hearing about the group. Good things. And I would agree. Good things are happening. Some of them already, and some of them not yet.

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

2 Chronicles 7:14

There's a promise for you.

I was reading over parts of Too Busy Not To Pray by Bill Hybels this week. In many ways, I feel like that title describes our group. Right now, there are too many things happening and about to happen that we don’t have time not to be praying.

Hybels quotes a popular phrase in his introduction,

When we work, we work; but when we pray, God works.

Sounds like a deal to me.

In other news...thanks to everyone who showed up for the First Annual Convergence ‘It’s All About Green’ St. Patrick's Day party! Pictures to follow. Next year: we'll work on the green theme more. Brace yourselves.

Next week, Andy Lambkin will be sharing at Convergence. Andy facilitates the young adults ministry at North Shore Alliance called ‘As Simple As Possible’ …you’ll find his style to be thought-provoking and challenging.

This St. Patrick's day (for the first time ever)...

It's All About Green

Date: Friday March 17

Time: 8:00 pm

Location: Zina's place

**contact youngadults@broadwaychurch.com for directions & more info**

re: Conversations. Our new young adults pastor, Corrie, wrote the last post. You should read it if you haven’t already done so. And then you should comment. You know –- the whole concept of a web-based dialogue (that’s the difference between your personal journal and this web log business). Thanks to everyone who did share their thoughts!

re: Spark. It’s a junior-high event on April 7th and 8th that’s happening at Broadway. It’s for kids from all over BC. It would be cool if we could provide some leaders from Convergence. Junior-high ministry is kind of in the same boat as young adults -- previously, it has been a forgotten ministry, blended with youth-aged kids. In recent years it has started to receive a little more attention and effort. Like young adults, we’re still trying to figure out what it can and should be. This event will be a cool, one-time opportunity to hang-out with a fantastic age-group that has HUGE potential. The mandate is “to bring preteens together to encounter the love of God, to plant seeds of “GOD” dreams in youth, and to SPARK the church to reach preteens”. How so? Lot’s of interactive, high energy events & services. Think that you could get on board with that? They largely need volunteers for security and chaperoning rooms. Especially guys (surprise, surprise). Who knows? Maybe you’ll find your niche…and even if it’s not your thing, it’s a good way to find out! For more info, check out http://www.historymaker.hm/spark/ and if you want to volunteer, talk to me!

re: Dancing. I don’t know if you’ve noticed yet, but I love words. And when I find some good ones, they get stuck in my head, and I can’t keep them to myself. My sister recently sent me a book by Donald Miller (a.k.a. author of Blue Like Jazz) called Through Painted Deserts. She said, “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do with a good book? Pass it along?” It really is fantastic. This book fits his typical wandering from thought to thought, but follows the story of a road-trip. It’s full of beautiful words & images that make me pause, letting them roll around on my tongue. Like these ones…

Matter and thought are a canvas on which God paints, a painting with tragedy and delivery, with sin and redemption. Life is a dance toward God, I began to think. And the dance is not so graceful as we might want. While we glide and swing our practiced sway, God crowds our feet, bumps our toes, and scuffs our shoes. So we learn to dance with the One who made us. And it is a difficult dance to learn, because its steps are foreign....the first few lessons had me feeling clunky and awkward, but soon they will give way to a kind of graceful sway...

Chefs and Trainers

For the majority of my youth, my spiritual food was prepared for me. It was sifted, mixed, cooked and handed to me on a plate. I ate it without question, and it was so easy to digest, I hardly even had to chew it. It wasn’t until I started as a “pastor” myself at the age of 18 that I realized that I should really pay more attention to what I eat, get a variety of spiritual vitamins, and encourage others to do the same. It was also then that I realized that all of the good food that I was eating, whether I prepared it myself or it was prepared for me, would go to waste if I didn’t use it. Without a proper diet and exercise, my spiritual body was destined for spiritual gluttony, a fate many in my church had already embraced. I began to work out my faith and found a balance there that James and Paul wrote about between faith and works. So in my ministry to others, I quit being a chef and switched to being a trainer. Now I teach people how to feed themselves properly, how to chew and digest well, and how to develop a good diet for their spiritual body type. More than that though, I train with people, I help them to work out their faith through their hands and feet, to use what they’ve eaten for good. I’m getting myself ready to move to a new arena, with new spiritual athletes that I know are in an excellent facility. But I don’t know what kind of shape you’re in, or whether or not you would even prefer a trainer over a chef. I would love your help.
My questions are:
What can I help to train you for? Where would you like to go as a group?
What values / qualities are you looking for most in a trainer?
Cheers,
Corrie