Need an idea for a Christmas gift?

Well then, have I got the thing for you!

www.sharingseedsofhope.com

Or feel free to email me for a custom order!

I have talked to a lot of people during the last few week who have told me about the dechurced of tulsa…basically 20 somethings that have grown up in the church and left. There are a lot of issues around this of course, but for now im thinking about the church structures that make this happen. Part of this problem can be seen at Garnett Church of Christ. The church is great for families, but when it comes to 20 somethings not as much. Basically college students and 20 somethings dont have a great place to fit. Now…I have to say that overall I think there is a need for churches to have structures that make it so that everybody of every generation is plugged into real communities, and I think that ideally these communities should span generations. I have something to learn from people who have lived a bit more life then me. But I also recognize that sometimes what a 26 year old needs is not the same as a 45 year old with 3 kids.

Here is the next interesting part: In the last 2 weeks I have talked to 3 people staring churches for 20 somethings in Tulsa. One of the challenges of these churches is that they grow up. Eventually all there people get married and have kids, then they have the 20 something gap again.

Next interesting part: The Green Country Event Center is the location for 3 or so churches, including Garnett Church of Christ, and Doxa, one of the new churches for 20 somethings, are 2 of the 3.

Here is my random idea: what if churches stared adopting a model of always having a bunch of churches in one building. Kind of a church co-op. There could be some shared resources, but the bigger thing would be to create a culture of one body. So, if your family goes to the great family church but you are 23 you can go to the young hip church across the hall. Or somebody who goes to the young hip church and has a baby can put the baby in the childrens program at the great family church. I know this sounds like it would be like a big church that has several services for different demographics, but I think it is different. Garnett Church of Christ has its history and DNA. It will never be able to be Doxa. The mindset that forms Doxa is completely different. It would also be really cool if there was a really wide range of churches. What if a Catholic Church, A Bible Church, a Baptist Church, a young hip church, an Assembly of God church and 4 or 5 others for spice were all working together and learning how to share space, resources, and work together, it might go a long way towards helping people get over some denominational silliness.

Next Day Update ——————————

I have been thinking about this some. I still think this is an interesting idea. I think that sharing some resources and churches bumping up against each other all the time would be a good thing. Doing joint ministry would be even better. But I think that this: “I have to say that overall I think there is a need for churches to have structures that make it so that everybody of every generation is plugged into real communities, and I think that ideally these communities should span generations” is more important than I gave it credit for. One of the things I really appreciate about the church I grew up in was that it spanned generations. I learned a lot from hanging out with old people! So, creating a church community that somehow connects generations seems like a really good thing. It seems like there are 2 big things that it takes to do this: 1) My generation needs to get over its pickyness, need to be entertained and  aversion to all things traditional. 2) The generations above us have to be open to new things, new styles of leadership and new types of community.

I spent my first weekend hosting at the events center, it was a good (if long) weekend. Mostly I ran sound for 2 events, the first was a funeral. The lady who died was Hmong, which is an ethnic group who migrated to the United Stats from southeast Asia. The Hmong have a tradition of a very family centered funeral that spans 4 days. This seems long…but when you consider it is a family reunion rolled up into a funeral its not that long. I have to say though…mixing for a service that is several hours long and nothing is in English can be a bit tedious after a while.  That said, I appreciated being able to be an observer, and get to see a part of Hmong culture. The Hmong seem to be a very warm and inviting people, and I’m excited to get to learn about their way of life.

The other thing I hosted was a graduation, which was simple from a hosting stand point. The school is a college focused on people who already have families, kids and jobs who are looking to move into new jobs, mostly medical and office professionals. It was cool to see a lot of people who have gone through a lot to graduate. I think they probably appreciate there own accomplishment a lot more then those of us that did college right out of high school before we had families.

So, good weekend…

Part of my week is spent working for the event center hosting groups….keep that in mind. Here we go.

wednesday – check engine light comes on in car

thursday (day off) – take half a day off.  get flat tire. eat chili.

friday – fix flat tire. host funeral (just as an aside…i have mixed audio in some relatively stressful situations. This one topped them all and all it was was one mic and a cd player. Why? none of the funeral is in English, so i have no idea what is going on)  at the church. After funeral push coffin to counting room. lock counting room.

saturday – put coffin back out into church for funeral (its a long funeral). Move coffin back into counting room for college graduation. watch lady almost tip her wheelchair off stage. coffin back into church for more funeral. drop big bouquet of flowers on floor. fix flowers. put coffin away. close building. go home. write blog post.  eat leftovers. go to bed.

Beths weekend: sleep until 10, buy phone, watch tv, go hiking, eat dinner, homework, facebook.

Ok, so remember how I told you I joined Curves this week?

Tonight I broke my toothbrush in half.  In half, folks. Wonder what will happen after I’ve been there for 2 weeks.

Some things you may not know about me:

1) I am a coffee snob. (says Ben.)

2) I joined Curves this week. (mostly b/c it is literally right across the street from our apartment. doesn’t get much more convenient than that.)

3) I got some new slippers. (i call them my happy feet.)

I’m feeling rather accomplished today.

I drove all the way into the big, scary maze of streets that is downtown today.

All by myself. [This is a big deal]

I did not freak out.

I did not get lost. [even though I had to make several detours from the route I had planned out in detail before I left.]

I found the bus station. [after several trips driving around the same block]

I did not get into a wreck. [though I saw several, which I attribute to drizzle all day making for rainy streets & people not driving with their headlights on-but don't get me started on that one]

I found a [relatively] inexpensive  place to park. [might not have been the closest one, but it was within reasonable walking distance & it did not require parallel parking]

I purchased a ticket. [which did not go how I thought it would]

And made my way back to the church.

I still feel like the country girl dropped into the big city most days.  But I gained some confidence today.

things i like about living in the city:

1. walking to things
2. discovering new things
3. interesting buildings

Things i miss about living in the woods

1. wood stove
2. throwing leftovers outside
3. animals
4. trails outside my front door

things i dont like about living in the city

1. it’s never dark
2. it’s never quiet
3. to many people
4. people asking for money
5. locking doors

Today was fun, we helped drill a well in the front yard of the church. Really. We did.

There is an organization called water4.org They are developing low cost, hand powered drilling methods to use in the developing world. The goal is to find ways to help provide clean water to the billion or so people who do not have access to clean water.

They came to do a demo of a new technique they are working on, so we all spent the day outside drilling. There were three basic techniques they are working on:

First is a basic auger. You just turn it around for a while and pull it out to get all the dirt out:

The second one is a bit more complicated. It uses this bit:

The brass valve on the left is one way. The basic idea is that you put water down the hole you are drilling and pound with the bit into the ground. The valve makes it so every time you pound the bottom of the hole water/dirt/sand/rock slurry is pushed up the pipe and is ejected from the top. The whole thing gets really heavy the deeper you go (you have to keep adding pipe), so you make is so a team can lift the whole thing out of the ground:

Last technique. This one basically uses a pile driver on the end of a rope. The driver is made of two cylinders, one inside the other that slide.  Here it is:

You attach one of several scary looking bits to the end…

…and drop the whole thing in the hole, and use the rope to pull the top half up a few feet, and drop it on the bottom half which drives the bit into the ground.

Every now and then you pull the whole thing up and the bit pulls out all of the dirt it has cut through.

They are also developing a pump to put into the well once it is done:

It is made almost entirely out of PVC, so it is inexpensive, durable, and made form readily available materials. It reminds me a lot of a pump that Cliff from the Institute for Biblical Community Development at JBU demoed during a Perspectives class I was in.

It was a good day…we got to meet several people doing really cool ministry around the world, see some new technology that is going to make a real impact in bringing fresh water to people, and hear how God is being glorified through all of this.

One of the great things about being in this CQMissional program is that we are going to get to experience a lot of stuff and get to reflect on it. So, how about some reflection…

The big cool thing to see in all of this is how God brought the right people together to form 4water.org. It’s a cool story about people realizing what God has for them and stepping out in faith to see what God will do.

Another thing I was thinking about all day was that it is interesting to think about how one technology fits into the overall picture of poverty reduction and wealth creation in the developing world. It’s one thing for a group of people to go to a village with this stuff, dig a well, and leave. It’s a whole new thing if you take this technology and invest in people who can turn it into a local business. Suddenly you are doing economic development, creating experts, solving problems…the effects can go beyond water. Something I am learning about myself is that I think that stuff like a new drill is cool, but I get excited about seeing how it fits into  the whole picture…how it can be one piece of a big puzzle.

Last thing is my little marketing mindset always kicks in…it would be interesting if somebody started building a big community of people doing water projects, sort of like www.akvo.org but bigger. They could get churches, schools, camps and other groups all over the world to drill wells in their yards as tests. It would be a cool way to raise awareness and test lots of technologies, everybody could give feedback, collaborate,  and post improvements…open source for the water set, like Make or Open Source Beer. Just some thoughts. (all of water4.orgs stuff is open source and public domain…they want people to use it)

Ok, long post, time for bed.

We have kind of been out of internet touch this week…sorry for the lack of updates! Hopefully we will get our internet stuff sorted out this week and can post more!

Our first week was really good! We have been meeting lots of new people (which is honestly exhausting for me!), mostly at the church where we will be working. There are two big things we have been doing, first is staring the academic side of what we are doing, we went through some introduction stuff to what we will be talking about, and we have a big stack of books to read. I’m really excited out getting into the books soon, to start examining some new ideas.

We have also been talking to the church staff starting to figure out some ideas about what our projects will be. Most of the next month will be spent figuring out how we can most effectively get plugged in and impact the community we are part of now.

That’s the short update…we will start posting some specifics this week if we get our internet connection worked out. We will have plenty to write about!