Awake... to a Living Hope...

So I spent the weekend with a few hundred middle school students. They were gathered at sonlife's new Awake conference. The 20 Middle schoolers that I took loved the conference. As a part of it, they were challenged with the plight of Aids in Africa. I was amazed at how they responded... they really deeply cared.

I know that many write off this generation as selfish, lazy, undisciplined...etc... but I am constantly amazed at how open they are to serving God... they really are willing to WORK for him... to serve others. This group called living hope stopped to talk to them as part of their awareness bus tour, and the students just really embraced what they were saying. Students are not as skilled as justification as adults are... so they actually listen when they hear about people with real needs...

I hope that they are forever ruined to the soft blanket of white suburban Christianity... that they never learn to justify their lack of concern...

To be honest... these students give me so much hope for the future... no matter how many Christian experts tell us how terrible that they are... they defy such naysaying by having a faith that actually produces action... and fruit

for more on living hope: http://www.lhbustrip.com/

2 books 1 CD

~Village thrift is recent entry from the Worship Circle. I love the first two circles, and used to use their tunes nearly exclusively when I was working with The Gathering. This new CD rocks... it has a song on it called simple which is maybe my favorite worship circle song of all time. Brought back happy memories of the good ole days of the Gathering, and all of the people who used to be a part of that. All good things must eventually end...

~Lencioni is brilliant. I really enjoy all of his books, but The Five Disfunctions of a Team remains his Magna Opus. Still Silos is great, especially for the church. We are so good at encamping in our little circle and fighting against others in our church, or other churches to build our own Silo... when really the only silo that counts is the Kingdom of God.

~I love xxxchurch's new book, The Dirty Little Secret. It is all about how the church and christians have failed to fully consider the porn industry's humanity, and also about how Christians can find freedom in Christ from porn addictions. To be honest, I found it helpful, because I am not immune to the temptations the book speaks of. We need to help each other with the very real temptations that are pushed at us daily... we need people to walk with on these issues (thanks Jason).