It has been a crazy start to the Believe spring tour Travel . . .
In 40 years of Christ in Youth travel history we have never had a staff vehicle wreck. We were blessed yesterday to have no injuries as one of our 15 passenger vans rolled 50 miles west of Joplin Missouri. I was scheduled to fly out on Friday morning and meet the team in Anaheim for our second Believe stop this spring on the Speak Tour. I quickly met up with our team and am on the road with them now in somewhere west of Amarillo, TX.
Last weekend our speaker, and my good buddy, Jason Raitz’ house burnt to the ground the day before our Flagstaff AZ event. No one was injured severely in that situation either. Jason’s family was at the Church and his little brother, who was at the house at the time of the fire, was treated for minor burns and smoke inhalation. Jason tells the whole story and how the church has come around them during this storm in his blog.
Next week the Believe Team travels to Tulsa, OK and I’m somewhat anxious and nervously looking forward to a quiet normal Believe weekend.
On other fronts, may people have been emailing in asking about Foundation Red set lists for the current Believe Tour. Here is a link to a published set list for the Speak Tour.
Also, others have been asking about next year’s theme, Messiah Tour 2009 2010. The following is a published version of our artist and speaker theme working document. It will be morphing over the next few months as we continue to pray, evaluate and listen to comments from this spring tour.
Yesterday I had a phone interview for an article to appear in a Christian magazine. One of the questions that the writer submitted prior to the interview was, “why do tweens and jr high students need their own music when they can just listen to the music now that they will eventually listen to when they are teenagers?” I intended to steer the interview as much as possible to the underlying theme of what is wrong with our current systems and practices for walking beside the youth in our churches as they grow up. We have traded many traditions in our faith for rearing children for a ‘just get through it’ mentality. In so doing, the real damage done is a failure to equip students with a faith that holds together during life’s crisis moments. (AKA Jr High)
I feel like the greatest lesson for transition into tween ministry within the church came from the Disney Movie "Brother Bear". I know, forget about all the stupid new age overtones and see how the community walked their young through a process of maturing into adult hood. The key to me was how they were all involved. Remember the party around the camp fire when the whole community presented the young Indians with their tokens. How awesome would it be if we were constantly be sitting our students down and affirming the gifts that we see in them. We need to let them know that those gifts are needed in the Body. (NOW and when they graduate)
I firmly feel there is great significance in the concrete right of passage they had set up on the movie. You were allowed to put your hand on the wall and join the larger adult community (or in our case, join this more mature age group of tween ministry in the church) when the whole community gathered around you and acknowledge your growth. They made it a BIG STINKING deal.
Furthermore, we all know that the most important things happen in
Rent the freaking movie! It's awesome.
