Taken from www.experienceshift.blogspot.com

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Churches These Days
A lot of churches are building these great beautiful sanctuaries, multi-purpose spaces, fellowship halls and youth centers. That is awesome! These buildings often have great things like railings, ramps, stairs, smooth pavement, and benches...perfect for skate boarding! However, these same churches that claim they are trying to reach these people prohibit them from skating there, they post threatening signs, or special "security" personnel. They claim it is because of liability/insurance issues, or they do not want to mess up their new facility.

Consider this story from Mark Yaconelli's, Contemplative Youth Ministry:First United Methodist Church in Valparaiso, Indiana was just such a church. They were getting tired of the kids being there, destroying their steps, and messing up their facility. So, the elders decided to rebuild the steps and install counter-measures to prevent the skater situation. However, the youth workers were able to persuade the elders (after much prayer) to reconsider. Instead, the elders left the steps, opened up the church facility, gave the kids a tour, allowed them to use the bathrooms, and fellowship areas, and the church staff could be seen fellowshiping with them."If you want to know what it means to share the presence of Jesus with young people, if you want to know more than I can tell you in this book, then drive an hour east of Chicago to Valparaiso, Indiana. Go spend an afternoon sittin on the curb across the street from the Methodist church. Then watch as kids come skating up to the steps, leaping and twirling, crashing their boards against the concrete in acrobatic feats of life and energy. Sit and watch as the church secretaries, the bookkeeper, the maintanance and pastoral staff walk up the crumbling steps. Watch as they stop to say hello. Watch as they converse with the scruffy street skaters. Watch as they take time from their work schedule to applaud as a boy shows off an especially difficult spin on his board. Sit and don't say a word. Just listen to the whir of the wheels on the pavement. Watch the young people running in and out of the church to get water and use the bathroom and then see. See if you don't find those crumbling steps beautiful."

(from the closing paragraph of, Contemplative Youth Ministry: Practicing the Presence of Jesus (Youth Specialties) )

Book Review

“The Noticer” Sometimes, all a person needs is a little perspective by Andy Andrews is a series of fictional stories of people during different seasons of life. When a mysterious man named ‘Jones’ (not ‘Mr. Jones just Jones’) unexpectedly appears to give new perspective to their unique situation. Some of those areas of life include new perspectives on circumstances for a homeless man, to love, worry, wisdom, dating and marriage, choices, getting older and death for a man who is dying. Each perspective given was able to change the persons life and circumstances from that point on.
2 of the things I particularly enjoyed was 1) the writer’s emphasis on how little things matter using the story of Napoleans defeat at the battle of Waterloo, where things could have been different for Napoleans army if they only had brought with them a handful of nails. 2) I liked how he made a difference between a choice and a mistake
The book closes with a Readers Guide of questions that we may ask ourselves that relates to the chapters in the book.It was a nice easy read which I would give a 4 out of 5 stars

BACK TO BROADWAY

On Saturday, May 2, 7:00pm at the Intercession City Civic Center we will be inviting Fred and Sharon Moore to present "Back to Broadway". A musical, comedy, hitorical program for the whole family.
Snacks will be served and the best part is that it is FREE ADMISSION.

Everyone is Welcome

You can find out more about Fred and Sharon at www.unlimitedprograms.org

GOOD FRIDAY

On Good Friday, April 10, we will be viewing the "Passion of the Christ" over at the church. All are welcome. We will begin at 6:45pm. This film is a good reminder of what Christ suffered for us. (not that the film is totally accurate, but it gives us a good indication of some of the suffering he went through)