Oh, if you want to download “Follow the Rules” from iTunes, all the proceeds go to Compassion International. Song by Zach Hendricks and filmed by Ben Wyman, featuring Rebelbase Student Ministry staff!

Camp Rules Video

Day 1 of Edge Camp

Day 2 of Edge Camp

Day 3 of Edge Camp

Final video for camp

Its time for EDGE CAMP!! Sunday we’ll load 7 buses and head to Giddings, TX for the best week of the year. Over 400 students and leaders will take over Camp Tejas for 5 days of zip lines, rock climbing, lake swings and more! This is the BIGGEST year of Edge Camp as far as numbers, and I know it will be one of the most transformative.  This year’s theme is “Animated”; which means “to bring to life.” That’s exactly what’s going to happen at Edge!

Paul’s letter to the Romans has similar themes of transformation and metamorphosis. He’s speaking to people who are coming to understand God’s love in a new and fresh way. His message is clear; Christ gives us LIFE. This new life he’s talking about is based on a relationship between Jesus Christ and YOU. This is our focus for the next week. We have been putting in every effort to create an environment where students may see God move in an extraordinary way and understand His LOVE! We know He will!

I’m excited that Brian McCormack is bringing the Word at Edge Camp! He knows most of these students and is all too familiar with the passion behind the week. Will you pray with us that hearts and minds will be transformed? Pray that our students will come to life as God speaks through Brian.  Pray that they will encounter God in a new and fresh way. Pray that our leaders will stay hungry and foolish for God and allow Him to move through them!

Of course there will be tons of stories to hear when we get back! Let them tell you all the funny things like how many hours of sleep they got, how the mud pit games traumatized them for life and how the improv group made tons of jokes about Justin Bieber.  Then, after all is said and done, listen to them tell you how they came to life because they experienced God’s LOVE at Edge Camp 2011!

Big part of this week is our move to a new house! Whether we’re ready or not, we’re moving to a beautiful 4 bedroom house (see pics below) in Spring, TX THIS Wednesday. In our rental house pictures are off the wall, boxes are stacking up (mostly because Amanda is awesome at packing), and minor projects are getting done before our landlord does an inspection. We’re excited. Becoming first-time homeowners feels so “adult”, whatever that means, and we have this new responsibility. Thankful that God has provided us with a place to live and the means to make it happen. Wednesday is going to be a LONG day.

On Thursday I’m taking a group of students to ICHTHUS Music Festival in Wilmore, KY. We’re leaving at 5AM! I’m afraid my parents of students still think this is a joke. Leaving at the “crack” of dawn and driving 16 hrs to bluegrass country with 20 others and 2 vans.  Excited to see some peeps while we’re there; Bob & Myrtle Clark, Duncan King and his family, Jeremy Woodley and family, and hopefully some other members of GLC where I served 3 years ago. Praying for a safe trip and a great time at the festival with these students!

So its a busy week; packing up a house, moving on Wed, driving 16 hours on Thu, weekend in KY. Glad that today is a day of rest. Or as much rest as Amanda will allow before the packing starts again!

-I’m in a fight with money.  Not being able to do something really important to me because of my financial situation makes me… perturbed.  Yes, I think my mom is the only one that says that word anymore but I’m using it here.  (see how easily distracted I am?)

-Mission @ the Park today revealed to me two things; one – that a “missions-small group” of sorts has started with a committed group of jr high students. This group of students have become a faith unit of serving kids and Jesus in a small apartment community just outside our hometown.  Two – these students have become part of a “family” which includes the overjoyed kids who live there and a few parents who consistently see them every week.  Awesome to see God at work through constant community.

-Ridiculously excited for a brand new initiative my boss has allowed us to take in jr high with a Student Leadership Team (SLT).  4 high school students were selected, after applying/interviewing, to commit to Jr High Ministry for one year starting this summer.  Praying God will use me and the staff to mentor these students into becoming leaders with a servant’s heart.

-Totally random, trying to figure out if I’m going to continue putting one space after a period when I type or two….  I’ve been noticing more people using one space and I can’t seem to get use to it or get into a habit of leaving one space out myself…. Weird.  I’m going to start putting three spaces in to see if it catches on.

-Sometimes I wonder how it is I ended up in Texas.  Not a bad thought at all, just one that has been hitting me over the past few days.  Probably comes along with buying this new house.

Well, thats all.  I’m going to go back to my regular addiction of watching 24 now (thank you Netflix!).  Hope to be writing more here soon.  That is if I can focus a thought for longer than 10 seconds….

Father Forgets
By W. Livingston Larned

Listen, son:  I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead.  I have stolen into your room alone.  Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me.  Guiltily I came to your bedside.

There are the things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you.  I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face merely a dab with a towel.  I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes.  I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor.

At breakfast I found fault, too.  You spilled things.  You gulped down your food.  You put your elbows on the table.  You spread butter too thick on your bread.  And as you started off to play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, “Goodbye, Daddy!” and I frowned, and said in reply, “Hold your shoulders back!”

Then it began all over again in the late afternoon.  As I came up the road I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles.  There were holes in your stockings.  I humiliated you before your boyfriends by marching you ahead of me to the house.  Stockings were expensive — and if you had to buy them you would be more careful!  Imagine that, son, from a father!

Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you came in timidly, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes?  When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption, you hesitated at the door.  “What is it you want?” I snapped.

You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and your small arms tightened with an affection that God had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect could not wither.  And then you were gone, pattering up the stairs.

Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me.  What has habit been doing to me?  The habit of finding fault, of reprimanding — this was my reward to you for being a boy.  It was not that I did not love you; it was that I expected too much of youth.  I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years.

And there was so much that was good and fine and true in your character.  The little heart of you was as big as the dawn itself over the wide hills.  This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night.  Nothing else matters tonight, son.  I have come to your bedside in the darkness, and I have knelt there, ashamed!

It is a feeble atonement; I know you would not understand these things if I told them to you during your waking hours.  But tomorrow I will be a real daddy!  I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh.  I will bite my tongue when impatient words come.  I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: “He is nothing but a boy — a little boy!”

I am afraid I have visualized you as a man.  Yet as I see you now, son, crumpled and weary in your cot, I see that you are still a baby.  Yesterday you were in your mother’s arms, your head on her shoulder.  I have asked too much, too much.

I think the major theme I’m hooked on in this story is the main character’s struggle to get others to believe his story.  There are those who refuse to believe him, those who know the truth and try to keep him quiet, and those who don’t seem to think his story matters.  And I’m sitting watching the show thinking, “if they would just listen to him and check it out, they’ll see what he’s talking about!”.  Its easy for me to get caught up with characters in a show like this one…

Recently my boss got back from a Donald Miller’s Storyline Conference with some really good thoughts about the story we tell with our lives, and the story we want to live and be a part of.

Questions for me and you…

• Whats my story?
• What kind of story do I want to tell with my life?
• Why is the story good for myself, my family, or the people around me?
• What are the first three steps I need to take to get this story started?
• How, and with who, will I celebrate this story being told once completed?

One last thought:

“God’s greatest creation is not the earth or the cosmos or even heaven.  All those things exist to serve and dazzle the true love of His heart, and that is YOU.  As hard as that is to believe, you are a cherished creation of God, and your story matters.  Those who do not believe they matter will have a hard time enjoying life or inspiring others.  Understanding your story, seeing God’s presence in your life, is critical to walking with Him in the future and creating and walking through a personal story for your life.”

“If God took the time to make you and put you into the world, He did so because the world needs you and your story, and God enjoys watching it unfold.”

Donald Miller

Believe in your story and know that it matters!

Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training.

1 Corinthians 9:25

Entrepreneurs of Life

As Entrepreneurs of Life, we respond to the call of our great Creator
By seeing all life as an enterprise transformed by his call to “Follow me.”
We therefore count the cost, considered the risks,
And set out on each day as a venture to multiply our gifts and opportunities
In order to bring glory to God and add value to his world.

In so living, we find the fullest meaning of our lives in answering the call,
We seek our identity solely in our naming by the Caller,
We pursue excellence defined as “My utmost for His highest,”
We count our deepest companionship among our fellow-followers of the Way,
We look for final approval only from one audience – the Audience of One,
We break down every false barrier between the sacred and the secular, Weaving all life into a
seamless web of faith and love in action,
And we work for no other accomplishment or legacy than the Caller’s own “Well done.”

The menial and humdrum we elevate because of the one for whom it’s ultimately done,
The dangerous and sacrificial we bear as the privilege of high calling,
The siren sounds of ease, success and popularity we shun for a trustworthier voice,
And the temptations of conceit coming from being so chosen We answer with a gratitude humbled by grace because we have been chosen at all.
Thus we are fully engaged in the world on realistic terms, but empowered by vision and energies
from a world that is unseen
but even more real and realistic.

In all things, and in all the vicissitudes and seasons of life,
We know that, primarily, we are called not to somewhere or something but to Someone,
That there is no true calling without the Caller,
That calling is not only being who we are but becoming what we are to be,
That no self-made goal can ever rival the Ultimate Why of the mystery of the Creator’s Purpose for each of us as his creatures,
That we will never rise higher than when we follow the call Not knowing where the path may lead – so long as the Caller is God,
And that while we may lose our jobs and our health, or retire from a career, We will never retire
from our calling – until that Final Call, which is death, leads each of us to the climax and
consummation of all calling.
For on that day, for the first time, we will not need to listen only to a word; We will see the Caller
face to face and find ourselves in our Father’s home forever.

In the meantime that is our journey until our life’s last day, the passion of our lives is to go further, higher, deeper, always closer to the One who called us once and calls us still – to Himself, and to all the joys that knowing him can mean.

Os Guinness