Weekly Update March 26, 2008; Rescue Mission, Easter Recap, Date nights

Hey everyone,

Easter was a surprising and startling success, praise God, we had over 1600 people come to our Easter Weekend services, including around 250 on Saturday night. Thanks to all of you served in any capacity, we had young adults greeting, working with children, working with youth, playing in the band, directing traffic/parking and a whole bunch more jobs that I’m surely not even aware of.

This week, we’re gearing up for two opportunities come Friday and Saturday. There’s still time to register for the 8 Great Date nights, whether you have kids or not. Don’t miss this opportunity… if money is an issue, please drop me a note. The date nights begin this Friday and run for 8 consecutive weeks and the cost is only $50 ($10 for couples only). Try finding a babysitter that will watch kids for $7…(if you know one, please contact me, haha).

Also, Saturday, we are heading out to the Rescue Mission to “redo” a family shelter room. We still need more help with this project, so also drop us a line if you’re down for helping.

Small groups are meeting this week as usual and I’ll be at the Axis group tonight, so see some of you then!

Community and the Poor

This past weekend, at the Non Con (or non-conference for the uninitiated), I was confronted with the reality that I don’t have many meaningful relationships with poor people. I often advocate for the poor, I practice activism on behalf of the poor and support causes, but I don’t take enough time to get to know individuals or to get involved in their lives. It didn’t use to be this way when I used to be one of the poor, as opposed to one of the educated lower middle class struggling to hang on to what I’ve got.

I used to spend a lot of time working with teenagers who’d suffered abuse and neglect. I used to spend time talking with homeless people. Now, I spend more time talking to other people about working with poor people, foster children and the homeless. Clearly, it’s not an either/or proposition but a both/and. And if our little community cares for the poor the way Jesus did, than we can’t just serve the poor but we need to worship with them as well. They need to be at the center of our community instead of benefiting solely from times of intentional outreach. Ministry (what we do inside the church) need not be separated from Evangelism (what we do outside the church) because they are both part of Mission.

Community can be hard though. It requires a lot of each of us. Maybe the hardest part being that we have to accept others if they are to accept us because if we don’t accept them first than we will never be open to allowing them to know us, which is the first step toward acceptance.
“God’s love sets me free to enter into community with other people—even when the community is a very limited one and is not the total communion that my heart desires. Only when I live in communion with God can I live in a community that is not perfect. Only then can I love the other person and create a space in which we might be quite distant or very close, but we can still allow something new to be born—a child, friendship, joy, community, a space where strangers and guests can be received.”

- Henri Nouwen
Lecture at Scarritt-Bennett Center

Thanks to Sojourners Verse and Voice for pointing me to this quote.

What’s next? Opportunities to serve, opportunities to celebrate

A couple of weeks ago, a bunch of us young adults gathered together to celebrate as a larger group for the second time … I have to admit, I did not know what to expect exactly. But I knew that we could depend on our small group leaders and our leadership team (I know, I wish I had a better name for them-let me know if you think of one) and we wound up having over 70 people at one very loud party…

So now, we have to ask ourselves, what do we do next? First, of course, we continue to do what we’ve already begun doing: building lives through relationships and taking part in God’s mission to save the world. Second, I believe, it’s time to reach outside of our community more intentionally. God wants to do more through us, in many ways it’s more of the same things that are already happening (so many of them unrelated to me but coming from all of you!) within our Northpark church faith community. With that in mind, I’d like to let you know about some opportunities to serve more, on all fronts. It’s clear, in the Bible, that God has a design for us as people. A design for our WHOLE being. Therefore, as a young adult ministry, it’s important that we strive to be holistic in our approach to reaching out and growing spiritually. With that in mind, this spring and summer, we have (or are starting with) four separate service opportunities:

1. Serving our local church. Easter Sunday, March 23, is usually the busiest weekend of the year for congregations, will be an opportunity for Northpark to have four services, one on Saturday along with the usual three on Sunday. We need parking attendants, extra childcare workers, greeters, help with snacks, and more. It’s also important that each and every one of us attend a weekend gathering and go out of our way to be welcoming to visitors. If you’d like to volunteer in any capacity, please contact Kerry in the office, kerry@northparkchurch.org

2. Serving our city. On Saturday, March 29, we are partnering with the Beacon Society to Adopt a Room at the Family Shelter of the Fresno Rescue Mission. When families face emergency situations that leave them homeless, this is where they go. Many of these family rooms have not been updated or painted for years. We are going to paint, renovate and redecorate one of the rooms. We will be meeting at the Mission at 8:00 am and should be done around 4:00 pm. At least 10 people are needed for this project and we can use more because there are many aspects to redoing a room in one day. Email me, ryan@northparkchurch.org if you are interested in knowing more or signing up.

3. Serving internationally. This summer, we are planning on taking a group of 160 people (30 from Las Vegas) to Ensenada, Mexico. In addition to building 6 homes for families in need, we will be hosting a sports camp for kids, training pastors and church leaders, visiting homes to deliver groceries and hosting at 4 VBS sites. The cost per person is only $160 and this includes travel, food and lodging for the week of June 15-20. We are having a meeting for everyone remotely interested in serving in Mexico on Sunday, March 30 but if you are interested, don’t wait until then. Go ahead and contact Dave, dave@northparkchurch.org right away.

4. Serving ourselves. This sounds selfish but it’s not. It’s important to take care of ourselves and to invest in our own spiritual growth, otherwise we’ll be in no shape to give. In addition to spiritual growth-focused classes and curriculum in small groups we are offering a program for parents called 8 Great Dates. Beginning Friday, March 28 and running for 8 consecutive weeks, Northpark will provide the childcare and a short presentation to help your relationships and then set you loose for a great date night together from 6:00 pm to 8:30 pm. There is a small cost involved (if finances are a struggle please let us know and we will help) and pre-registration is necessary. Contact Larry, larry@northparkchurch.org to sign up. And I know, we need to find something like this for single people to invest in themselves as well. We’re working on it!

As always, feel free to contact any of at the church office 559.322-7200.

See you soon,

Ryan.

Mexico Mission 2008

This coming June 15-21, we are hoping to take 160 people (130 from Northpark) to Ensenada, Mexico to build six houses, host a sports camp, teach children and give some leadership training. The group that we are going with is called eocYUGO and they made this video recapping the year 2007.

Celebration B video footage

In case you missed it, we had a phenomenally good time on Thursday night in Room 202/206. I’ve got this shaky/dark video to share, see if you can see yourself there, it looks like everyone is having a great time…

Thanks to all of you who helped out, thanks to our guest house church (Kathy Humphrey and crew), thanks to the band, but most of all thanks to God for bringing our little community together in such a short time and for everything that he has planned for our future together.