Missions Trip

Saturday night, at 11:59 PM we will pull away from our church in a bus headed for Mescalero, New Mexico. We'll be there for a week long mission trip to serve the Apache Indian Nation with several work projects.

Historically, Indian reservations represent injustice and deep resentment toward the harsh and unfair treatment Native American's endured at the hands of European settlers. Our prayer is that we can be a part of healing these very old wounds. What an honor.

We're going with the Group Work Camps organization. I've been impressed with their logistics. They've told us exactly what to bring, what to tell our kids, and what to expect out of the week. This trip is an answer to prayer.

I don't have a ton of construction experience outside of Stagecraft in Technical Theatre class.  Can you imagine me managing a construction site? This should be really interesting. I'll post from my phone next week, so please be gracious with grammar and spelling errors due to the small screen.

Here are some of the activities we'll do next week:

• roofing
• building handicap access ramps
• painting
• drywall
• morning and night meetings
• and probably much more!

lift

Lately lift has been so fun. This is a picture from sound check a few weeks ago. The big church gave us their old hazer (smoke machine). It runs on mineral oil (laxative) which I find absolutely hilarious! God is really up to something with our young people. They are open, hungry, and willing to help out in our community. I can't wait to see what happens.

What we've been up to.

It's summer time and time for Lift's Elevate 2010 conference. It's a week and a half away. I'm excited to see what's in store for our city. This year we've invited youth pastors from all over Austin to speak at general sessions and break out sessions. I hope this is something that brings our city together! Here's a look at what we have planned.

Lift Leader Nuggets

It's been a while, but I will give blogging another chance at the encouragement of my friend David Lawrence. We've been doing some reorganizing of our team at shoreline. We structured our people and flow around Pastor Rob's strategy to reach this city. We have four things we put our energy and focus into: connect groups, leadership, serving, and services. I am responsible for the leadership aspect of the lift team.

That means I help out with training volunteers, discipleship, oversee our internship that will launch in January 2010, in addition to supporting the youth ministry. Here is a little encouragement that I sent to our leaders this week. I call them lift leader nuggets. I think it sounds silly. I hope it helps you.

Hi Lift Leaders!

Welcome the weekly lift leadership e-mail. We want to equip you so that you can lead well, so we’ll be sharing insights, from an assortment of leadership resources on a weekly basis. Ready? Here we go.

Today, I read a blog by Chuck Bomar about leadership and it got me thinking about the lifestyle of a leader.

If you are getting this e-mail you most likely want to live for something bigger than yourself. G-d has given you dreams and visions about His work in you and through you. However, if we are not careful we can make these things about us. We can get swept up in the business of everyday life. Along the way we can forget to take time for what’s important. We can forget to listen. To G-d and others.

This week, as you dream, toil, and share may you have the wisdom to still your heart, turn down the volume in your life and listen to the voice of Jesus and lead from that place.

We love serving with you!!!

In grace,
The Lift Staff

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LIFT Style & Galatians: So, Mike's Talkin' In "Big" Church Again

I really enjoy my job. Late last year, we merged our youth and young adults/singles team to have a more 'all hands on deck' feel for the programs, services, leadership, and most importantly, the relationships of both teams/ministries. I'm excited about this upcoming weekend because we get to lead our congregation's worship services and we are doing it in true lift fashion. Instead of having one person from our team teach in first service, drive to our south campus, and then race back north for second service, we are splitting up the teaching duties. Not only does each campus have its own speaker this weekend, but each service has a different teacher. Ben is down south. I'm north first service and Earl is north second service. It's going to be fun and a nice statement about the way we can do church (not personality driven).

This service comes at a crucial point in my development as a 'preacher.' Last week, I asked some trusted friends, and ministry peers to review my speaking style, delivery, content, and structure via an mp3 file shared on facebook. The common thread to the constructive criticisms they gave me centered around not saying too many things or using too many texts. For instance, they encouraged me to use one Bible verse and then get really specific examples of what it meant to the people it was written to and then share examples of what it means for our specific context.

When I read their comments I had to laugh at myself. I paid lots of money in undergrad and grad school to learn that stuff, but working for a while in certain circles leant me to picking up a few bad habits. However, not all the things I caught have been bad. So, this weekend I will endevor to only use one text, Galatians 2:20. I will spend more time in thei whole letter to the Galatians and getting to know what it says, rather than making it say something I want it too and finding other verses that say the same thing. I know that everything on the internet isn't true, but it's amazing what you can find on google as far as Bible research goes. Which reminds me...I was prepping for this sermon...

Theme: Galatians has been called “the Magna Carta of the Reformation” and Luther’s “Katie von Bora.” It is the book on which the Protestant Reformation was founded. The key to this epistle is seen in 2:16: “Know that a man is not justified on the basis of the works of the Law, but on the basis of the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified on the basis of Christ’s faithfulness, and not on the basis of the works of the Law—for no flesh will be justified on the basis of the works of the Law.” Paul thus links Christ’s complete faithfulness to the old covenant as grounds for the abolition of the old covenant and as the basis for our salvation. In a nutshell, we are justified by faith in Christ because Christ was faithful.

Bible.org: Galatians:Introduction, Argument, and Outline

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