Brandi Carlile

A late night at the Varsity theater.

Andrea and I first heard her over a year ago when she was the warm up for Jamie Cullum.
Nathan and Heidi heard her as the warm up for Shawn Colvin.
Now she is selling out her own shows.
Energy, blues, country and rock all to come together as Brandi Carlile becomes one of my new favorites.

(Nathan gets the credit for the pics. He was there the night before.)

Brandi

NW Minnesota

Peer Ministry Certification Training friends in the north woods.
Just had to clean off the wood ticks from time to time.
Emmaus camp food! Two thumbs up!

jeep, jeep, jeep

camp somewhere

just before sunrise

a well organized woods

soon to be blueberries

Road to Emmaus

"




On the road again... I always joke that I should have a shirt that just says "camp somewhere" on it. This week I am on the road, literally, to Camp Emmaus. The camp surrounds it's own little lake that makes a nice run. The wood ticks are thick though, so shaking off has become part of the training routine.

Red Wing Black Birds

6 PM – Dogs are being walked, runners out running --- and lapping me!

The air is fall of sounds of the Red wing black birds as they swoop among the cattails. It is a memorable Iowa country sound. I recall my parents pulling over along the cornfields, with windows down, motor off, admiring a red ring black bird sitting on a fence wire with it’s high twirl voice crossing over the fields and ditches.

Green Leaves

tacky, tacky, porch lady

Another full moon remebered!

Cert School Dubuque

Back to the Wartburg Castle
My room just above the front doors, in the tower.

Cert schoolers!

Crash course in
6-5-4-3 Youth & Family Model, Milestones and Peer Ministry

the Inkshuks return

Pizza on the deck!

grinerGUYS

along with Andrea and Heidi
so great to once again move outdoors!

Hennipin Ave. United Methodist Team

I spend a lot of my time convincing groups they need a relational team of caring adults who do not consider themselves “ just volunteers” or “chaperones” but instead are full relational partners in ministry that make a huge difference in the life of kids and their families. The team I got to work with yesterday are well on their way to being such a team. What a joy!

Okay, they still can’t lower that bar to the floor. Such a seemingly easy task that continues to end up going in the opposite direction.

Spring --- maybe it is finally here? Nice early morning run. --- Flocks of happy returning robins everywhere. (Not sure how I know they are happy --- maybe the smiles on their faces??? Maybe the geese told me?)

Richard Rohr

It was a week ago Andrea, Michelle, Peter and myself got to hear Father Richard Rohr a Franciscan Preist from New Mexico ... Part of my Easter day ended at a coffee shop stealing some of Richard's words and thinking about how they fit with my own thinking. What follows are some rather random thoughts...

It is when we are on the edge of life; in the midst of the great joys and great sorrows that I am most aware of God. Strange that it is in the deepest drama of life itself that I most sense a genuine prayer. It is less about the examples, the classes, the retreats, the books, the various practices, all of which must have helped shape me and given meaning to prayer, I am sure. All of which I have used thinking I will be more centered, which I have assumed meant being closer to God. Could it be that it is when I am furthest away from center in these great joys, great sorrows, most troubled, when I am most unbalanced, that I am also most awake, that I am most attentive to God’s being. Being is prayer.

God does not love us because we are good. God loves us because God is good. Thus it is not earned. It is only lived in. At it’s best religion is doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God. Even this is not a demand it is only a response out of unfathomable appreciation for something I cannot fully understand. In gratefulness I become more and more passionate in my wanting to share.

This goes so against most religion that worries more about who is in or who is out, who is right or left, who is up who is down, gay or straight, born again or born again and again and again, who can have communion or who can’t, if the music should be by Johann Sebastian Bach or Michael W. Smith, oh my, who should throw the first stone! Trying to keep religion pure, trying to do it right must be a very exhausting and defeating.

It is not about protection… it is about proclamation. I can only share what I have learned, experienced, wonder, and sense as I continue to discover this loving, graceful God, who I must admit, I only get glimpses of. I proclaim and share a faith that becomes more and more a mystery. As I continue to learn I know I know something, but that is only enough to know I know very, very little. Accepting mystery, accepting multiplicity, drops all need to defend or be defensive when I hear or see things not of my experience, understanding or even belief. --- Still, I confess a desire to prove you, whoever disagrees with me, wrong. I have to protect my belief that protection is not important. – Ouch! – So I continue to learn to listen, love, experience, value relationship, grow in my passions, be still, and learn to let God be God.

NW ELCA Synod Youth Gathering

Another fun youth gathering... sharing the mircrophone with Dayle and uplifting the definelty-abled. Music with David Schere and Rachel Kurtz (and one kicking back up band!)

Signature Coaching

Three days with some of the best of the best from around the country working and preparing for more Institute sponsored coaching.

Worm Moon

according to the Farmers' Almanac.

• Full Worm - March Moon As the temperature begins to warm and the ground begins to thaw, earthworm casts appear, heralding the return of the robins. The more northern tribes knew this Moon as the Full Crow Moon, when the cawing of crows signaled the end of winter; or the Full Crust Moon, because the snow cover becomes crusted from thawing by day and freezing at night. The Full Sap Moon, marking the time of tapping maple trees, is another variation. To the settlers, it was also known as the Lenten Moon, and was considered to be the last full Moon of winter.

Teaching Passion

Content
+Relationship
+Skill
+Method
+Passion
=Learning

I am a facilitator, trainer, coach, and teacher. Basically I teach people how to teach. My beginnings were in middle school education at the University of Northern Iowa, which is a foundation that has served me well. Through the years I have learned to sit down, talk less, and listen more. My formula for teaching began with the first two words, with skill, method and passion added later.

Passion is something often recognized by the sound of ones voice, the sparkle in a person’s eye an enthusiasm that oozes out of them, a fire in the belly (Nathan's line) or even a heated urgency. Passionate people are often associated with loud fast speaking, but not necessarily so. I also see passion in the quiet, heart felt wisdom, of the person who speaks only a few words, but behind those words you can sense a deep sincerity.

So as a teacher of teachers, I wonder, can passion be taught? For a while I saw passion as something that had to be caught, more than taught, the idea that if you expose learners to passionate people, it may rub off on them. In a discussion over email with one of my Augsburg students I discovered a line out of Dangerous Wonder by Mike Yaconelli. “Passion can’t be fabricated or manipulated. Passion springs from gratitude”

If this is true, then reaching passion can come from learning to be grateful. Maybe it is so. My passions are the things I love to do most, the beliefs I hold dear to my heart, experiences I would never give up, my fondest relationships, and the surprising moments of discovery. Most all of these can be summed up in recognizing that I am so grateful that I can do, believe, experience, relate and discover. What I am most grateful for becomes my passion.

Okay a confession… I like listening to talk radio. Not a lot, but enough to catch the entertainment value of loud angry white men getting paid to riel people enough to tune in and call in. (Just for fun I sometimes count accusatory pronouns such as, they, them, and those people. Seem to average about 5 per minute.) I admit they sound passionate, but an aggressive, angry kind of passion. Are they grateful? Assuming behind their rants they actually believe what they profess must come from a belief, experience, relationship, or discovery that feels threatening by all the theys, thems and those peoples. When something grateful is challenged, or attacked, people may respond with passionate angry.

So, grateful! Teach people to name what they are most grateful for and they will discover their passions. True, passion cannot be fabricated or manipulated. But I can invite people to become conscious of and name what they are grateful for.

Slip Sliding Away

Wow! 41º

It's a February heat wave.

After some very cold weeks I was able to get back out running along the creek.
Got as far as an ice flow coming down the side of the hill.
Tried to stand still but...

Tapestry

a bit of my world with the Institute...
more fun than is leagaly Lutheran to have! (as Marilyn would say)

The Youth and Family Tapestry of Leadership

As an Institute we are proud and honored to have become one of the major weavers in the fabric of leadership training for the Youth and Family movement. Direct leadership opportunities on all levels and stages are part of this of influence that includes youth, family members, congregational leaders, professional staff and clergy, undergraduate degrees and advanced degrees.

Examples include these vital threads.

…Youth learning about Peer Ministry, the core training for frontline caring ministry.

… Large numbers of congregational members learn in quickly at Passing on the Faith Conferences a new paradigm for partnering homes and congregations.

…Staff and volunteers getting a huge jump start at the 3-week Certification School, which is a partnership with our Institute and The Center for Youth Ministry at Wartburg Theological Seminary, offers professionals, volunteers and clergy an emersion experience into the latest studies, skills and practices in Youth and Family ministry.

… Congregations and staff who we walk with over longer periods of time with our Signature Coaching.

… Staler undergrad programs at Augsburg College’s Youth and Family Ministry major, now 55 students strong, and Concordia St. Paul’s D.C.E. major, where our staff teaches.

…Graduate influence as we are invited in to teach at Wartburg Theological Seminary, and Luther Seminary.

Countless others invite us to participate and teach in the midst of places like the ELCA Youth Ministry Extravaganza, Princeton Forums on Youth Ministry and youth gatherings such as the National Episcopal Youth Event, The Disciple Projects in Texas and South Dakota.

These are just a few of the threads of an amazing tapestry created by leaders of all ages and influences. We at the The Youth & Family Institute want to say thank you to the thousands that we get to connect with through out a year. Lyle Griner, the Institute’s Peer Ministry Director, says, “We are about nothing less then changing the world, be it one person at a time.”

No matter who you are, or what level of ministry you serve at, we look hope you join in soon creating a relational web encircling the children of all ages in our hands.

Augustana College

Got to share the microphone with Jonathan Rundman this weekend in Sioux Falls as High School kids and leaders gathered for their "FaithFest" annual youth gathering.

I often say there is a huge difference between “youth group” and “youth ministry.” Youth group focuses inward. It has a club mentality. Youth ministry focuses outward... Caring about one’s neighbor, feeding sheep, doing onto the least, doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with our God. Youth ministry kids are kids who are honest about the world not always coating it in “happy slappy” Jesus songs, bowling nights, or strangely painted youth rooms hidden away from the rest of the congregation. Okay, I like a little “happy slappy” myself.

Maybe it is time for a new scorecard. Instead of evaluating youth group success by how many kids showed up maybe we should count…
➢ The number of kids trained to care for other kids
➢ Parents equipped with specific ways (“four keys”) of faith practices in their homes.
➢ God parents, grandparents, anuts and uncles who are intentionally given ways to nurture faith
➢ Intergenerational experiences where young kids to old, old adults hear each others stories
➢ Numbers of adult mentors who surround each child
➢ The times that kids are intentionally exposed to community situations where people live their faith outside the “god boxes” we create.
➢ Times kids get to learn from other’s stories who are “different” because of race, economics, cultural differences, and
➢ Kids who have found ways to be a part of a congregation community by leading with their own skills and interest. (Kids are either leading or they are leaving.)

I am not against kids gathering, it is just that teaching kids that a youth group is a way to get away from, even hide from everything else that is going on around them, may not be the best method. No more “holy huddles.” At least not without going into the world that surrounds us.

I am of course a bit bias, but Peer Ministry is the way for kids to deal with the realities of life that in their young ages they already have to deal with. It is the way to have support from adults equipped to walk with. One of the beautiful things about the Good Samaritan story is that the Samaritan takes the wounded person to the Inn Keeper. Kids need to know who the Inn Keepers are and how to guide their friends to them as they walk along side.
(Kathi, you got me going this morning!)

Tampa 3rd night

Out with a few of the best training crew in the world!

Two days with the Intensive Care course for a delightful crew of beginning youth ministers.

Two good runs along the bay. Missed the tornados last night!