Weekly Update April 15, 2008

Wow, today is our (Bekah, Ryan, Amelia) one year anniversary at Northpark as young adults pastors…it’s amazing how quickly it’s gone and even more startling has been the growth and transformation that we’ve witnessed in so many lives. It has truly been a case of ‘Christ in us’, because neither Bekah nor myself (OK, maybe Bekah) are smart enough to mastermind a program that would yield such phenomenal results. Thank God that his economy is so mysterious, so far removed from our western-derived understanding of cause and effect!

There are so many things to share, my right brain-leaning self sometimes struggles to remember them all and put them all into context but I will do my best here to list all of the opportunities that are upon us as summer approaches.

1. This coming Friday night (Fresno State, 7:00 pm) and Saturday morning (New Covenant Community Church) there is going to be A Debate and Symposium entitled “In Defense of the Faith”.
This is a great opportunity to learn to effectively defend your faith to a culture that demands evidence or, if you don’t identify as a believer, a chance to listen and participate in further conversation. On Friday night and Saturday, Dinesh D’Souza, respected aithor and apologist, will particpate as well Michael Shermer of Skeptic magazine. Both events are free for students and Friday is free for everyone, follow the link above for more information.

2. Here’s an important need for volunteers aged 21 and over:

We are putting together a chapter for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes up in the foothills (up 168 about 20 minutes or so from church). We have been establishing student-led clubs in both our junior high and high school. Since we are working hard on getting the ball rolling, we thought we’d put on a coaches appreciation dinner of sorts for our local community and school coaches and those involved in our sports programs here in the foothills.

We determined the date for this dinner, Saturday, May 17th with a start time of 6:30 p.m. Pup agreed to be our speaker, which is great. It will be at my house which is up 168, about 25 minutes from church. We anticipate that we may have as many as 120 people here (gulp!) and we also decided, as I mentioned to you, that we would serve wine at this dinner, and that sort of eliminated any thoughts of having any under 21yo students involved. So, as we talked about, if you have any college-age, 21 & up young adults that would be interested in volunteering their time for this event, we would be thrilled.

Basically, what would be involved would be to come up slightly prior to the start time (not sure yet on exact times), help us set-up, serve & clean up. We plan on having dinner as a buffet line, so perhaps we’d have people standing behind the buffet making sure all is going well there, people helping us clear tables, and serve cake for dessert. I am not sure if we will have the wine & sodas just set out, or whether we would actually have someone serving, but that is not really that crucial at this point. At the end of the evening, we would want to clear everything, clean up everything, and get all the rental items ready to return to the party rental place. I don’t imagine it would go that late. We plan on serving appetizers only from 6:30 to 7 p.m. and having dinner at 7 p.m. and having Pup speak during the dinner, so it wouldn’t be a terribly late night.

If you available to help please let me know and I will get you connected with Lauren Insco, who is organizing the event.

3. This coming Sunday, April 20, is a big day at Northpark. There’s a Mexico Mission meeting after 3rd service, with lunch served this time (hopefully, Mexican food Dave?) and then an All-Congregation meeting at 5:00 pm to discuss the new building project. As the youth voice of the church, I would highly encourage you all to come to this meeting and it doesn’t hurt that there will also be dinner served! and childcare provided!

4. We have two major events coming up that both have the potential to see us connect with more students, young adults and young families. Here at Northpark, we try to keep numbers in holistic perspective because we realize that bigger does not necessarily mean better. However, our goal for Celebration C on Thursday May 1 and for our Freedom BBQ for graduating seniors (May 10) is to connect more young people and help them grow spiritually in community together. Meaning, please join in praying that God brings people in need (just like you and me) to our events and then, that God helps us to identify and equip leaders so that we can continue to add small groups/house churches because people grow BEST in relational community. As some of you remember from last time, it takes PEOPLE to do these events and so, I am asking for you to consider being a part of one of these teams…

Freedom BBQ Task Force or Celebration C task force.
Those sound all scary but really, they aren’t at all. We just have jobs like setting up, tearing down (really important so I can go home before 1:00 am), sound, food, childcare, roadies (we’ve just confirmed that we will have a live band at the Freedom BBQ), etc. So please let us know and if it seems like we keep reminding you and reminding you about these things it’s only because we recognize that they are important.

thanks for sticking with me long enough to get to this point, I am so grateful to be serving God together with all of you and may we continue to grow in Mission and Relationship together.