A group pic of the crew...

Last week I had the awesome privilege of hanging with 21 friends and fellow junior high ministry peeps at Forest Home Camp in Sunny California. Every year I feel so blessed to be a part of this group, and I walk away feeling encouraged and challenged. This year we spent a large chunk of our time with Dave Gibbons, pastor of NewSong Church and author of The Monkey and the Fish. The book was a very easy read, and was full of insight and practical content. The book talks a lot about third culture, which was honestly the hardest part of the book for me to get a firm grasp on. The definition seems to morph a bit from start to finish, but in the end it’s basically about the values and character of Jesus, and how we live that out in today’s context. Dave has an incredible video online that explains this much better than I can. It’s on facebook, and I haven’t been able to figure out how to get it on here yet. If you’re on facebook, visit my homepage to see the video. If you’re not my friend, shoot me a request and I’ll get you the video. Though I enjoyed the book and learned a great deal from it and from our time with Dave, I must admit that it was difficult for me to draw a lot of practical applications for junior high ministry from it.

As a group, we spent a chunk of time talking about what it meant to live out a third culture mindset, and how we could teach (or encourage, assuming it may already be there in some regard) it to middle school students. We talked a lot about being adaptable and “fluid”, and about the idea that many middle school students already embody this trait by virtue of their multiple roles in the family and at school. I honestly can’t say that anything stood out as being incredibly profound or game-changing, but it was a good conversation.

What hit home more for me were the conversations about ministry R&D (research and development), “fringe” ministry, and the idea of leading from our pain.

• R&D: The idea that we have to constantly be researching new ways of doing things. He cited Google as his main example, saying that they spend a large chunk of their time and money investing in new ideas. He also mentioned that for every new thing we start, we should end two old things. Not sure how that would fly in most churches, but it’s definitely worth thinking about.
• Fringe: Dave talked about what we’re doing to minister to the “fringe” elements in our world. The “least of these” or the ones that make us uncomfortable at best. How are we looking out for and reaching out to the people that others seem to pass by again and again?
• Leading from our Pain: The idea that every leader, and really every person, has a deep pain in their life. Whether it’s something that’s been put on you, or it’s something you’ve brought on yourself…everyone has a pain. Dave says that the best leaders, the ones who will lead the way in third culture, are the ones that lead from their pain. Pain, says Gibbons, is what draws people in and disarms all the things that can be used to divide us.

Great stuff to think about. Again, I’m thankful to be a part of this group and grateful to Dave Gibbons for coming to share with us. I’ll see if I can get that video from Dave up here in the next few days.