History pt 10 - Our first delivery!!

Boy was I nervous!! I did all I could to make sure the three youth that came were not aware of my condition. We met at the church then went to the Holiday Inn at 175 and 1 and met Joe there. Joe is just like Anne, a huge heart for this ministry and tons of experience. Joe will take care of us.

We immediately saw a couple pan handling in the median. Joe had already talked to them and they had a tree identified on our side of the street where we would leave the bags of food. OK, first contact, but we could only wave and try to hear the thank yous over the roar of the traffic. On to the next stop.

We went south and Joe lead us to a camp within a stones throw of Route 1, but no one could see the tent It was also right by a river. Without the traffic noise, this would be a nice place to spend a weekend. The guy who lived there was really friendly and very talkative. I had three female members of the youth group with us that day. I will never forget what our new Homeless friend said when Joe introduced us, "Joe! You brought me angels today!" I guess that was the first time God spoke to us as we were out in the field doing this ministry. Yes, we were angels (that even included myself!!).

As you know, as I write this, many months have passed and I can finish out this story. We only got to see this new friend maybe 3 more times. Each time he greeted us very warmly and loved to talk to us. Once he was a bit drunk, but he was still so nice to us. He ended up getting out of the woods. He moved in with his girl friend. We heard he was working and all seemed well. Much later, we learned he was in the hospital in critical condition with pneumonia. He died just a few days after we heard he was hospitalized. The leaders of the different churches that are a part of this ministry decided to have a memorial service, apparently, his family did not want anything to do with him even in his death. So sad. The memorial was nice, many of the homeless people came and the pastor really did a great job. We had been hoping a sense of community would develop. We did see it, God was already making good out of a very sad situation.

This friend did talk about God and his faith when we saw him. We feel he is a Christian and now he is with Jesus. It will be nice to pickup our relationship when I get there.

Back to the first delivery. I only really remember the last stop. This is the "famous" camp that everyone talks about when they get involved. I can't tell you where it is, we want to allow our new friends as much privacy and respect as possible. It is in a very unusual location, thousands of people pass buy it every day and most, if not all, are totally unaware. Fortunately, no one was home. When I saw the tents, the trash, the fire pit, the stuff, I was very, very overwhelmed. Again, I was trying to keep it together for the youth. It was so incredible to know that human beings were living right here like this in Howard County, Maryland in the United States of America. We left a bunch of food and moved on. Wow, what an image that I will never get out of my head.

As we were leaving, Joe said he had a special job for one of our girls. There was a lady living in her pickup truck in the Walmart. She even had two large dogs with her. Joe said they had been trying to reach out to her with no success. He was hoping one of our girls would be the thing to open up a relationship. We were in the parking lot, Joe pointed out the truck and asked who would like to take food to her. It was pretty quiet for a while, then one of them volunteered. She went to the truck, knocked and talked very briefly. She came back with the food. The lady said, thanks, but she was OK.

Again, I can finish this story out - It has a better ending. Much later we learned that an entirely different organization eventually broke through and started to help her. The last thing we learned was that she was getting into some sort of housing. Pretty cool.

We did it, we did our first delivery. We meet a bunch of new people, we saw things I will never forget. We were on a journey following God as He revealed Himself in this new ministry.

History pt 9 -- Acting in faith

Now that we decided to be invovled in this minstry, I needed to attend the weekly meetings in the afternoons on Wednesdays. That is quite possibly the worst day for a weekly meeting!! Again, I was sure this was from God.

During these meetings we shared information on how each other was reaching the homeless people. I learned a lot and I could really see the youth doing this.

It came time for me to get us in the game. Deliveries were being done on Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. The best day for us was Friday. We could assemble the meals on Wednesdays and do the deliveries right after school on Friday. I asked for and got two Fridays per month. We were the only Youth Group to do this on a regular basis and we were the only group to deliver twice a month.

We were now in and we had no idea how we were going to do this. I feel this is exactly where God wants us to be.

History pt 8 -- Letting God talk to the youth

Now here is the thing. I am pretty sure that God finally showed me what big project He had been leading us to do. Now, what about the youth? How is He going to speak to them?

At the next youth group I told them that I felt God was showing us and if anyone was interested in trying to figure it out, see me after youth group. Three youth came up to me and I told them to pray specifically for a clear answer and to be ready to go on a visit with me. They agreed to do that.

Later, Anne and I finally connected. I explained to her that I felt God may be leading us to join her in this ministry. I also told her that God would need to speak to the youth before we decided anything. I wanted to take the youth to Route 1 to pray and see what happens. I asked if we could go visit a camp along Route 1. Initially, she was very hesitant. We want to keep the locations a secret to respect the homeless peoples privacy. She told me there was an abandoned camp that she would show us. I called the youth that said they would be praying and looking.

Later that week, we went and saw the camp. We had to walk quite a way off of Route 1 to get to the actual camp. Wow, even though no one was there, it was astounding!! The tent was there, but it was in bad shape. There was trash everywhere. Anne told us that the person who lived there before got beat up and they did not know where he was anymore.

After we dropped Anne off, the youth and I went to Arby's to talk about what we just experienced. We prayed and they were very excited about what might be happening. We decided that this was the thing that God was leading us to do. I now had to get us involved. This is so cool.

History pt 7 -- God finally showed us

I will never forget this meeting. Unfortunately, I don't remember what day it happened. It must have been in December before Christmas.

I was at yet another 30 Hour Famine meeting. These were evening meetings because many of the youth leaders were either lay people or bi-vocational pastors. I had not had dinner, I was very hungry, they only had cookies to eat and I was so tired. It had been a long day. Christmas is a busy time of year and I was beat.

During the meeting, we got talking about the different service projects and Anne kept talking about providing hot meals to some homeless people in the area. A church Route 1 was going to make a hot meal and several youth would be able to be there to serve the meal.

As soon as this was mentioned, one of the other youth pastors asked if a certain Sunday was available for them to deliver meals to be done as a service project. Anne and the pastor completed the deal and the rest of the table kept on talking about all these homeless people and where they were living. One of the people at the table had been to one of the camps. It was so unbelievable to hear how primitive the conditions were knowing that Howard County is so wealthy.

I started to ask a bunch of questions and eventually was told that Anne was the point of contact for this whole deal. I honestly thought that I had finally found what god was leading us to do!! I traded information with Anne and left that meeting feeling much better.

I could not wait to hear more from Anne.

History pt 6 -- 30 Hour Famine

As a Youth Pastor, I am always looking for new things. I have heard about the 30 Hour Famine for a while, I usually get a few things in the mail from them each year. The folks at GenX told me they do a big event for the 30 hour famine each year in the spring.

Sometime in the fall of 07, the GenX people told me they were beginning the planning meetings for the next 30 Hour Famine to be held in Feb of 08.

I decided to get involved and simply provide a new event and experience for the youth of Generation Hope.

I found out that this event has a several year history and about 10 different churches are involved every year. This year about 20 churches were initially involved. The event is really cool, not only do you not eat for 30 hours, you also do different service projects all around our area. It seems I am not the only one who see the youth of this generation need a hands on experience with God.

History pt 5 -- Could it be in Baltimore?

Also in the fall of 07, I was part of a team to plan the Youth Evangelism Conference for the State Convention. That year the conference was taking a whole new theme and purpose. It was going to have a component of different service projects on Saturday afternoon in the City of Baltimore. Again, it seemed like God was affirming what I thought I was hearing from Him.

While at one of these planning meetings I thought I had found the big thing God was leading us to do. I ended up sitting next to a person who was responsible for a lot of cool things in the City. We talked for a while and I ended up sending an email to that organization and anxiously waited to see how this would all work out.

Guess what? Nothing happened at all. I even called and left a message, but to this day, I have not heard from them. I guess that is what it means when God closes a door. I thought for sure this was it.

Oh well, we keep looking.

History pt 4 -- Still looking

Back in the summer of 07, we actually had the message fro God, but we did not realize we had it. I kept my eyes open to see where He would lead me and to see where He was working.

A few interesting things came across my desk, but each of them just was not right.

Somewhere along the line, a monthly coffee house that included about 6 different churches that was hosted by GenXaret was canceled. I ended up having a meeting with the folks who run GenX and we got talking about how to reach teens. We pretty much came to the same conclusions. They need to see God in action and they need to participate in that action.

It was nice to hear others with the same feelings and experiences about youth ministry.

I guess God was wanting to affirm me and not yet give me more direction.

History pt 3 - God speaks, but we don't see

The life of a Youth Pastor really begins to change in late Spring. Summers are a great time to be a Youth Pastor. We go on week long trips, there is no school pressure and God usually really shows up and does some amazing things.

In late Spring, us Youth Pastors are busy getting the spaces we reserved filled with kids, getting paperwork returned, recruiting leaders and just being very busy. This year was no different, but with the added deal of trying to see what the big thing was for us.

We went to our summer camp called Centrifuge in late June. In the weeks leading up to this trip, I sensed that God was going to speak through the youth to tell us what the big thing for us was. I liked that idea and told the youth a few time what I was feeling.

While at Centrifuge, we talked about this big thing with the whole group and everyone seemed to be kind of excited about what might happen. I really had no idea what to do next, but I though we could at least talk about some ideas we might have for the big thing. We spent a little time in prayer and simply had kids talk about things they thought might be the thing. Cara wrote down everything. Here is what it looked like:

I can't find it right now, it will be here soon.

When it was done, I really did not sense a consensus, but told the kids I would send them a copy of this list when were back home and they should keep praying.

Now I can see it, then we could not. Look at item number one.

History pt 2 -- God silent

As I mentioned in a previous post, I knew God was leading us to a big thing and I had a week long vacation at the beach coming up. I just knew God was going to show me the big thing as I walked along the beach in the morning during a quiet time.

I managed to have several of these walks. When I am on vacation, I usually have a hard time having these quiet times. I am a creature of habit.

Each time I walked, I wondered how He would speak to me. I gave Him permission to speak in any way He wanted. Wasn't that cool of me?

Guess what? Nothing happened at all.

I remember being puzzled, not disappointed, but confused.

History pt 1 -- Early memories

The earliest I can remember where I thought God was leading us in this direction was sometime before Easter 2007. Sherrie and I had been talking about what a good idea it would be to incorporate more service type projects into the youth ministry. I had been really thinking that the kids needed a cause to both get excited about and a cause that they could actually see God helping us accomplish. It seems youth today rally around a cause.

They are also very skeptical about things spiritual, they need to actually see God at work.

I felt it had to be a big project, so big that our youth group would have no way in the world to be able to do it on its own. The project would also have to include the rest of the church. Everyone would be able to be involved, but it all would be run out of the youth ministry.

We talked about a few different ideas. Some were really cool, some were crazy. A few even made sense considering the skills of the people we had at our church. For some reason, none of these ideas felt right.

My family had scheduled a vacation in Florida right after Easter. I figured I would get up early and walk the beach while praying and seeking what the Lord would have for us. I fully expected that I would have a clear understanding of what we were supposed to do by the time I got back to work.