Free Hugs?

You know what... I'm going to be completely honest with you for a quick second. I used to see people who wear "free hugs" shirts and hold "free hugs" signs up at major events or at school and I used to always think they were so weird. Well today I stumbled upon this short video and it kind of hit me in an odd way. Watch the clip.



There is something deeply profound in that one line of the song that says, "I'll love you for who you are." Here are couple things about this video that I think are deeply true:

1 - People have become very calloused to others.
The other day I was in the airport in Atlanta and we were in this little trolley car going to the next terminal. I look over to the guy next to me and asked him how he was and he looked like a deer caught in headlights. I then proceeded to tell the whole car how I think we have all become to scared of strangers that we forget to realize that we're all brothers and sisters. I got a couple of people smiling and even a couple people telling me that I was right! I remember a line from that movie crash that said something like, "sometimes people crash in to each other, just so they can feel something.

2 - We need to have faith in people.
Something I have learned over time is that many people are inherently good. People want to be LOVED so bad. Unfortunately many people find it in all the wrong places. It's one thing that is so incredibly awesome about being Christian is just the feeling of love that will never leave you, love that will never cheat on you, love that will never break and erode... We need to have faith in those very people looking to love and be loved.

3 - We need to see that it only takes one.
It only takes one person to affect many. Just as this guy walked down busy street and hugged one person, one became two, then two became three. Then another woman took a sign and she hugged even more people. We need to LOVE RECKLESSLY. You never know when that one will become two and the two will become three and the three might become 6.4 billion. Love is contagious, do it often.


³⁶"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" ³⁷Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' ³⁸This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' ⁴⁰All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." - Matthew 22:36-40

His Church, Her Church, Their Church, MY Church.

This idea of "the church" is something that I have been thinking about a lot, and encountering a lot over the last couple of weeks between my tour of churches for school and my journey to CCV out in Arizona.

Something that is part of my grade for the class I am taking is comparing all of the different churches and how they do ministry. The thing is... I think that's the very problem that we all have. We are so quick to speak of the many differences that we all have, that it ends up being what is more important. It kills me how divisive the "church" is. You are now part of the _________ denomination. They don't really believe the same as __________ denomination, and you definitely want to stay away from the ________ denomination. If you really don't know what to do, then you become non-denominational... um... which is by very nature a denomination.

I want to tell you about a moment I had tonight that was quite profound that brought this up:



We are on a retreat at CCV with the "family ministry" division which includes children's ministry, youth ministry and youth sports ministry. There is about 50 of us that came out to this GORGEOUS camp called Lost Canyon about 30 minutes from the Grand Canyon. Tonight during our group session three of the staff members were given the opportunity to give their testimonies, and then we worshiped for a little. As they were telling their story, I couldn't stop thinking... "wow... they are just like me." They are also just like many of my talented and broken friends and family from back home. We are so quick to say you are from that church, and I am from this church. "You do it that way, but we do it that way."

You know what... we are truly forgetting to say, We're all from THE church. God intended for one church, THE church to worship him and honor him. I think this is an idea we need to use to our advantage instead of to create division.

Not to be morbid... but it's almost like the body of believers has thrown itself on to a grenade. There are different body parts scattered around, and they obviously are not going to be working together. The cool thing about this little problem is that it's not permanent. We are always able to come back together and start functioning with all of our parts intact with with Christ as our head.

We not only are one, but we are accountable to each other to top it off. One of the pastors who just asked me what I was doing gave me a great scripture to close out with... I want you to really think about this verse, and just like I will, think about what we're doing to bring the body together. As one giant army of God we can do some serious damage for the Kingdom... I mean SERIOUS.

Romans 12:5 - So in Christ we who are many form ONE body, and each member belongs to all the others.

FINALLY in Arizona!

I think it is safe to say that we have definitely done enough driving for the week! We have finally arrived in Peoria, Arizona. We got in at about 4:30 yesterday, dropped off our stuff at both of our houses that we are staying at, and then went to the church to check out their middle school service!

I just wanted to share a couple of initial thoughts about the area and the church:

1 - 30 miles will make a heck of a difference!

We drove through flagstaff, Arizona and it was a mild 74 degrees. There was lots of trees and grass, it kind of reminded me of home. After we got out of Flagstaff (which has an elevation of about 6000 feet) we drove down a hill that never seemed to end. In less than an hour, the temperature went from 74 degrees to a smokin' hot 103 degrees! I don't care who tells you it's dry heat, you definitely feel it. When you walk outside it's almost like getting punched in the face. To be completely honest, I really like it so far! It's always sunny, there are beautiful mountains and it feels nice at night. I am being told though that it's going to get to 107 today and up to 116 in July... yikes!

2 - CCV is both HUGE and PERSONAL... is that possible?

The first thing that I noticed about CCV is that it is absolutely gorgeous and absolutely huge. I always wondered how it was possible to form genuine Christian community when the church is that big. I haven't been here long, but I have already learned so much. The church has this really cool thing called neighborhood ministries. All of the small groups and a lot of the children and youth ministry stuff is divided by neighborhood and area. It creates this awesome feeling of knowing the fellow believers that live around you and share in the joys of Christ with you. It has a real awesome ACTS 4 community feel to it. People can help those in need and join with them in prayer and study! It really does make such a huge church feel really personal, I like the idea. I was able to check out children ministries this morning, and I had just as much fun as the kids did!

3 - I am in my element!

It has been such an awesome adventure so far! Granted, I started to get a little cranky in the car on the 3rd day, but since I got here, it has been so fun to meet new people. All of the staff I have met so far have been so gracious to share how they do ministry here. I feel like I am going to learn a lot from them this summer. It has been so helpful just beginning to see how other churches do things. The family Melissa is staying with have been so helpful in helping us get acquainted. They even cooked and incredible meal for lunch today before youth group, it was amazing. Another big thing is that the church is also very in to adventurous stuff. It was one of the main reasons I went to this church. When I went on their website and they said they were about loving people and living an adventurous faith, I really felt God was pointing me in this direction. The one guy who I will be living with runs this ministry called "the edge" that is all about doing crazy adventure sports. I love the idea and I hope to get involved in the ministry!

Anyway, I could say much, much more, but I think I want to take a little nap before group. I will posting pretty often, so please keep in touch!

Love and Adventure, Adam

DAY 2 DRIVING (click to enlarge)


DAY 3 DRIVING (click to enlarge)


This is the position I sat... and sat... and sat!


This is when the view finally got pretty... the mountains out here are awesome!


Lastly, this is when we got to Arizona. The welcome center was cool, and it meant that we were finally getting close!

Let the Road Trip Begin

Here I sit in Lincoln, Illinois after one very long and exhausting day of driving. Over 800 miles down and we are still only 1/3 of the way there! Although it is discouraging, it is still hopeful! We are staying with my good buddy and fellow intern Brendon Foulke and his wife to be Amanda Enlow at Lincoln Christian College. They are both graduating in 4 days and then Brendo is starting his new position at the CCV in PA! Very exciting!

Anyway, it was a good drive today through the mountains and the rain. We went through Indianapolis which was cool and just started seeing miles of cornfield. I look forward to another good day tomorrow, so I should probably hit the sack.

Tomorrow we should see some cool stuff, we will be taking the ol' historic Route 66! If you read this tomorrow, it would be cool if you could take a second and just pray for us youngins out on the road! We hope to make it to Amarillo, Texas tomorrow, so we'll see what happens!

HERE IS A MAP OF TODAY'S ADVENTURE!
(click to enlarge)



Love and Adventure,

Adam

Arizona here i come!

Church Tours - Day ONE

Only one day after buying my new Honda Civic I get to take it on a little drive! As I quickly approach my trip to Arizona, I find myself on another trip just days before the 2400 mile haul to Peoria, Arizona.

I am taking a class for the very beginning of the summer called "Discipling Youth." Basically, for this class we are touring around to different churches, youth ministries, and church camps to get a feel for how different people and different denominations do church. I think this is a great experience for the same reason why I think my trip to Arizona is going to be very beneficial, because too many people think the way that they do things are always how they should be done. So, now that you get the gist of things, let me tell you about my first day this far:

I woke up and headed to the church to pick up the rest of the group to head to Bethlehem. It's a small group consisting of two friends of mine, Jon, Laura and of course the girl I see everywhere I go, April Tatta! You can check her blog out HERE. Anyway, we got to Bethlehem at 8:30 to go to First Baptist Church. The service was pretty good. The worship pastor sounded a lot like Jimmy Buffet, the Senior Pastor seemed to know his Biblical Theology and I really liked how you had children, teens and older folks all in the same service.

They had a contemporary worship service, followed by a gap for Sunday school (which I got to hang out with some teens at) and then a more traditional worship service with a choir. One thing I really enjoyed about the service was that they had this part in the service called "Children Chat." During this time, all the children come up and listen to a short Bible story and they ask the kids questions. It's really awesome just hearing their simple answers and applying that to how Christ asks us to have a child-like faith. That was my favorite part.

Tonight we are at Camp Ichthus up in Palmerton, Pa. We're going to have a class up here and then go to see the new Star Trek movie! From there we are going to have a camp fire and then hit the sack. We're heading up to Syracuse tomorrow, so I look forward to it. I certainly know that I will sleep well tonight from being up late putting the finishing touches on my mothers day gift! LOVE YOU MOM!

PS - Happy Mother's Day to all the rest of you mothers out there in the bloggisphere! You are all eternally under-appriciated!

Arizona, Here I Come!

First off I would like to apologize for my little blogging hiatus. Between how crazy things are at the end of the year along with trying to figure out why I blog, I decided to give it a little break!

Now that I am back, I want to fill in anyone who in the bloggesphere who may not know what is going on. A couple months back I accepted an internship at a DIFFERENT Christ's Church of the Valley out in Peoria, Arizona. I was hooked up with this job from my Senior Pastor Brian. I will be heading out on Thursday, and I will be out there until the end of August. (minus a break for some stuff, I will explain later)

I have had an incredible experience over at CCV in Pa over the last year. Giving my last message this week was incredible and at the same time hard. I love these kids so much, I look forward to seeing them when I get back!

So some of you may be asking, "Why do you need to go all the way out there when you have a great church here?"

Well the answer to that is simple... Experience.

All of my ministry experience has been from the same place, with the same people, with the same idea of how ministry should be done. As incredible as that has been for me, it will be a difficulty when I go in to full time ministry and have the perception that there is only one way to skin a cat. So this will be really for me to get a very well-rounded education on ministry!

There are a couple really awesome things about this internship as well.

1 - Melissa will be coming with me! She got accepted for their children's ministry internship, and will be living at a different "home stay" in between mine and the church.

2 - Traveling! As most of you know, I love to travel. On Thursday I will be road tripping across country with my wonderful fiance and our two great friends Damo and Renae! We'll have the opportunity to see the Grand Canyon and take a drive down Ol' Historic Route 66.

So I am pretty pumped about this. Of course in the fall I will be back at Eastern to finish my last semester and graduate! I will also be needing a job for that last semester, so if any of you have something I could do, let me know!

Here is a short video about the church!

One last thing I wanted to do was give you a quick schedule of events, because I explain this a lot, and it's somewhat complicating!

The Schedule

Sun, May 10th - 13th -- Summer Class Trip For School to Syracuse.
Thurs, May 14th - 16th/17th -- Road Trip from Pa - Az. (aprox 2,374 miles)
Mon, May 18th - 20th -- Intern/Staff Retreat to Lost Canyon in Williams, Az.
Thurs, May 21st -- Fly back to Philadelphia with Damo and Renae
Sun, May 24th -- Melissa's Graduation
Sat, May30th -- My Sisters Wedding in NJ.
Sun, May 31st -- Fly back to AZ for the summer!
July10th - 15th - Orange, California for C.I.Y.