Each August since 1998, Beloit College has released the Beloit College Mindset List, providing a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college this fall. … it was originally created as a reminder to faculty to be aware of dated references, and quickly became a catalog of the rapidly changing worldview of each new generation.

Some highlights from this year’s list, which is here.

1. There has always been an Internet ramp onto the information highway.
2. Ferris Bueller and Sloane Peterson could be their parents.
5. There have always been at least two women on the Supreme Court, and women have always commanded U.S. Navy ships.
11. More Americans have always traveled to Latin America than to Europe.
16. Women have never been too old to have children.
19. We have never asked, and they have never had to tell.
21. They’ve always gone to school with Mohammed and Jesus.
37. Music has always been available via free downloads.
38. Grown-ups have always been arguing about health care policy.
63. They won’t go near a retailer that lacks a website.
71. Refugees and prisoners have always been housed by the U.S. government at Guantanamo.

Interesting stuff. What might it mean for those of us in ministry? Youth/student/college ministers specificaly?

Kids in the rainforest village. The one in the middle - Nenal - has some sick dance moves.

The abandoned orphanage that Mark and Joyce are renovating as a refuge for missionaries

Prepping the school building for a fresh coat of paint

I will have more pics and a sweet video when I get my camera back from Quito. Yes, I did.

There are some more reflective details on Tumblr, ’cause this space is about theology now, but some quick thoughts from Ecuador:

1. Ministry is hard in Ecuador. The Catholic church rules village life with an iron fist. Local people have been taught for years that Christians are demons, and that Americans come to trick them. They know nothing about God or Jesus, but they’re paralyzed by fear.
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   If you know missionaries in Ecuador, don’t forget to pray for them. If you don’t – you can pray for our friends. Inge is an amazing woman who facilitates ministry all over the place in Ecuador. She works tirelessly. Pablo and Marcella are an amazing couple who pastor a small church in Tena, and are trying to take the gospel into the surrounding jungle villages. They’re also expecting their first baby. They need all kinds of prayer. They’re doing a very hard job.
2. There are tribes and people who live deep in Ecuador’s Amazon still, and they’re protected by the government. No one is allowed to contact them. About 6% of Ecuador is unreached, but it’s not a simple thing to get to them. Pray for those people, and for brave missionaries.
3. Don’t tell me what teenagers can and cannot do. I’ve never seen a group of people work so hard, for so long, with so little reward, without complaining.

If you’re interested in details and pictures, you can get lots more on Facebook. We’ll get back to theology tomorrow!

A good blogger would have had stuff lined up before she left: guest writers and scheduled posts, but there were a few things I didn’t get to before we left. So it’s going to be quiet around here.

If you’re reading this before the 10th, we still need you. I won’t go into all the details, but this experience is going to cost more than we thought.

It’s also going to be better than I thought. We had half a day of training yesterday, but after one session I’m telling you: this WILL change these young people. There’s no way they’re walking out of here the same.

But we need you to make that happen. Whatever you can give – $20 or $2000 – our students need it. If you can be the instrument to answer prayer, please do!

http://GlobalExpeditions.com

Click “Donate”
Click “Support a Missionary”
Use Missionary ID 2304038

Thank you!

I wrote several inspiring, passionate, convincing posts about our trip and why we do this. (See below if you missed those.) So you know the why.

I need you for the How.

We have students who are working their butts off and having a really hard time getting funds in. We have students who belong to mostly secular families, and are getting no response to support letters. We have people and small businesses who have given generously in the past, but can’t do the same this time.

We have a group of starry-eyed young people who want to spend a week in the jungle with no electricity and no showers so they can be a part of taking the gospel to the ends of the earth. They’re searching out toxic bug repellents and getting exotic vaccines and mowing strangers’ lawns and knocking on every door they can walk to in order to make it happen.

We also have domestic air fare that was most costly than we bargained for, and extra fees and costs that we didn’t see coming.

Here is what I’m asking of you:

1. Prayer. Seriously. Don’t smile and think, “That’s right. Prayer first. Glad you didn’t go straight to the money thing, I hate it when people do that. Prayer comes first. Mm-hmm.” and then not pray.This isn’t about saying the right thing. We really need prayer.We really need prayer because I know there are people who would give us the balance if they had it, but they don’t. You can pray, though, and we need you to.

   Pray that God would release unexpected bonuses to missionaries’ parents. Pray that He would move on the hearts of people as they answer their doors, and as they find those stamped return envelopes tomorrow when they sit down to write bills. Pray for favor over those envelopes. Pray that the business owners who are getting our sponsorship information won’t disregard it, but that they’ll be moved to give – or even that they’ll just remember how badly they wanted more tax deductions six months ago.

   And pray for faith for our leaders as well as our students. Pray that we’ll remember to check our hearts before we speak, that we’ll live in faith, believing God is able.

2. Give. Ya. It’s still about money. Make sure you’re not praying for yourself one moment and being disobedient the next.If you can give – anything – please don’t wait any longer. If you were waiting to see if we’d really need it, we do. If you were waiting to see how much we’d need at the end, it’s probably more than you were considering giving anyway. (And if it’s not, the extra will still go to missions and you’ll still get to hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” someday.)

   If you can give – even if it’s only $5 – you can do it through our church’s secure online giving portal. Just PLEASE make sure to indicate that it’s for Student Missions.

Those posts:

• Two Steps to Sending the Gospel to Ecuador
• I Have an Ulterior Motive for Missions Trips
• Christians Should Keep Their Faith to Themselves

Last week I brought up our plans for next month, and asked you for two small favors:

1. Pray
2. Give

Some people don’t want to give because they think there are more efficient ways to spread the gospel. We discussed that.

Some people don’t like to support short-term missions trips, because they’re not as effective as long-term mission trips and probably not really what Jesus had in mind when He gave the great commission. Maybe, but I have an ulterior motive anyway.

Then there’s this complaint.

“I don’t believe in missions because I think people should keep their faith personal.”

“I’m not going to give someone money to go convince some poor group of tribespeople that they have to be Christians like he is.”

“It’s not really fair to go in as an educated, well-dressed American and tell them everything they believe is wrong. They’re going to believe you just because you’re an impressive foreigner.”

All of which is ironic because it sounds like respect for other cultures and people, but it’s very much the opposite. If you really look at it, it’s pretty insulting.

It’s true that we tell people what we believe – through a translator, usually. It’s true that there’s a weird, inherent celebrity-status thing going on as Americans (at least in India there was).

But these complaints that people have about how we’re somehow robbing indigenous people of their heritage or their culture is assuming that they’re stupid. Poor people in India are not stupid. Tribespeople in the Amazon are not stupid.

They appreciate that we’ve come. They enjoy the time we spend together and the small gifts we bring for the kids, but they also tend to ask a lot of questions. They listen very carefully to the stories, and they watch very carefully when we pray.

And some of them say, “No.” Some of them spend the day or week with us, have good conversations, consider the stories and the testimonies and the skits, and don’t respond.

And we let them. We’re sad for them and we continue to pray for them, but we don’t threaten or coerce or bribe – because that’s not the gospel. We present the facts, but they have to decide. Just like here at home.

Usually, when we leave a village, the people are sad to see us go. They hold our hands and walk next to the trucks and ask when we’ll be back and wave until we’re out of sight. Even the ones who say, “No.” Because we don’t take advantage of them. They would know if we tried to take advantage of them just like you would know if someone tried to take advantage of you. They know we love them the best way we know how, and everyone appreciates that.

You’re not praying and giving so that we can go overseas and manipulate people. We go to present the truth. We go because everyone should have the option; everyone should have the opportunity to choose.

Will you help broaden horizons, mingle cultures, and enrich lives? Clicky.

1. Pray
2. Give

In that order.

And I know that some people will say that there are more efficient means of spreading the gospel. I don’t think that’s true.

I also know that some people will say that short-term mission trips are not what the world needs, that it’s not really the great commission.

It’s true, and it exposes my ulterior motive for our plans this July:

I want to burst spoiled-suburban-kid bubbles.

That’s all the reason some of you need to write a check, ’cause who doesn’t want to see that happen?

I’ve done this twice before, and I can’t tell you what two weeks on a foreign mission field does to the psyche of an American teenager.

First, it shows them things about God that no one can teach them. These kids know that God is real, and the Jesus story is true, or they wouldn’t be going, but they’ve never gotten to work for it. They’ve never really gotten to labor for the gospel.

On these trips, they see people break down when they meet the Lord for the first time. They hear people say, “Yes” to their testimonies and their evangelism efforts. They lay hands on the sick and see physical healing manifest. They see the spiritual battle that we talk about and read about, with their eyes wide open.

They come home knowing God in a new way, and knowing He can use them for real.

Second, it shows them things about themselves that no one can teach them. All they know is who other people tell them they are, but two weeks away from family and friends and media, focused on God and other people instead of themselves, is eye-opening. Who you really are comes out when you know that no one else is watching, when you’re deep in a primitive jungle and you haven’t bathed for a week, when you’re hot and tired and cranky.

It also teaches you how clean your house is, how easy your food comes, how comfortable your toilet is, and how convenient garbage cans are. You can almost see the horizons broadening in their eyes.

Finally, all of the above often combines to ignite a passion for the gospel and global missions in a young person’s heart. I know that two-week mission trips won’t save the world, but if it opens a young person’s eyes to the need, the suffering, the gap between “us” and “them” and at the same time the truth that there really is no “us” and “them,” then it might be a start. If we get one committed, passionate missionary for every dozen students we take overseas, then we win and the gospel really will be known across the world.

(Aaand, side-note: We’re working with local churches, so the ministry continues. We might be the first to share the gospel with these people, but we won’t be the last.)

Will you partner with us to mess up some teenagers this summer? We need all the prayer and financial support we can get.

The other complaint that I hear a lot is that we should just leave people alone, keep our faith to ourselves, etc. We’ll hit that on Monday.

Many of you know that Husband and I lead the student ministry at our church. Jr High and High School students. (We covet your prayers.) We decided last winter that we need to get them overseas this summer. We prayed. We followed Holy Spirit’s leading to set up a trip to Ecuador. We started working.

Ecuador needs the gospel. You may have heard about Jim Elliot and Nate Saint, and their three friends, who lost their lives 50 years ago trying to take the gospel deeper into Ecuador than anyone else dared go. There ares still unreached peoples in those jungles. Six percent of the people living in Ecuador’s Amazon have never heard of Jesus.

And I realize six percent isn’t a huge number, but six percent is still someone. We tend to lean toward helping the “big” numbers, because they feel like bigger needs, but the people who make up the six percent in Ecuador have the same need as the people who make up the 88% in India.

So here’s what you can do. Two easy steps:

1. Pray. If you want to pray for us and our trip specifically, that’d be great. If you want to pray for Ecuador, that’s great too. If you need help praying for Ecuador, check out Operation World.
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2. Give. I know, I know. It’d be great if it had nothing to do with money for once, but it never will. “How will they hear unless someone preaches, and how will he preach unless he is sent?” Missions has always cost money, and it always will. It costs more these days than it did in Paul’s day, but we go further than he did and we make better time and more of us come back alive more often – so I think it’s worth it. All the info you need to give is here.

Some will say there are more efficient ways to spread the gospel than raising a lot of money to send someone personally.

Not true. There are more cost-effective ways to spread the information, yes. God can use a lonely New Testament, sure. But Jesus said, “Go.” Not, “Write.”

“Go.”

I recently read David Platt’s Radical (which I highly, highly recommend). Toward the end, he tells a story about preparing to go overseas to tell people about the gospel and help rebuild after a disaster, and about a woman who suggested there were more cost-effective ways than plane tickets. When he got there, however, he sat and talked with a man who explained that lots of people had sent money, and that was nice, but a brother comes himself to do the work. He said that it meant so much to them that David and his team went themselves.

This is the gospel, after all. Despite all our first-world, corporate efforts to make it a sales pitch, it’s really not. It’s a story and it’s rooted in relationship. It’s personal.

Others will say that two-week mission trips aren’t what the world needs, that’s it’s not the great commission. And still others will doubt that teenagers who have never been overseas before will be very effective.

The first part is true, and I confess: I have an ulterior motive. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.

If you’re in the Elgin area, come out on Friday for our third annula Stations of the Cross Art Exhibit!

Our students are putting together art for the 14 “biblical” stations of the cross, leading worship, and performing a couple of original dramas. Art Exhibit opens at 7 PM, and a short worship service starts at 8!

We were in the Daily Herald yesterday (scroll to the bottom) – Daily Herald article.

We had a WhirlyBall Tournament last weekend with our student ministry, and it was amazing. WhirlyBall turned out to be more fun than I expected, and the teams really went all out on team spirit. Hilarious times. Pics …

Black Ice

The Eh? Team

The Overdrives

Dudes ‘n Dukes

If you’re not familiar with WhirlyBall, it’s kind of like basketball with lacrosse hooks and a whiffle ball … in bumper cars. It’s mayhem, and it looks like this:

Good times.