Main Session on Thurs. Evening: Mark Dever

Another great round of songs that were written by the group running the conference. All of the songs were from an album called Lu. So knock yourself out getting that. Very good.

Another thing that happened, and they’ve done twice now, is have a dramatic reading of a Psalm. This 2nd time was extremely well done. It was a memorized monologue of Psalm 22. A Lament to God. Anyone had any experience with that? I’d be interested in talking with you and perhaps putting it into our worship gatherings sometime.

The speaker tonight was Mark Dever, pastor of Capital Hill Baptist Church, and founder of 9 marks ministries. His topic is Jesus in the Psalms. Here’s my notes.

We’re looking at 3 Psalms. The first is Psalm 22. He outlined it for us.

• In verses 1-2, he sees God nowhere in his experience.
• Even though that’s true he reminds himself of God’s work for his ancestors in verses 3-5.
• Then he’s back to focusing on his situation in verse 6-8
• Then he reminds himself of God’s work in his life in verses 9-11
• In verses 12-18, it’s back to his suffering
• He prays in for help in verses 19-21.
• Then faith comes in verse 22 and he praises God all the way to the end of the Psalm.

Where is Jesus is in this Psalm? Or any Psalm for that matter.? There are two errors concerning Christ in the Psalms.

1. Jesus is nowhere to be found.
2. Jesus is the only thing to be learned from the Psalms and if you bring out anything else then you aren’t Christ centered

3 Things to Realize In Order to Find Christ in the Psalms

1. The Bible is about one message: The cross of Christ
2. Jesus taught that the Old Testament is about Him (Luke 24:24-27, 44)
3. We find some Psalms applied to Jesus in the New Testament. So we can use what we do know to apply it to some things that we don’t know.

Now, we’re moving to Psalm 78.
• Matthew applies verse 2 to Jesus teaching.
• John 6 applies verse 24 to Jesus claim to be bread of life

1. So first you have to understand the psalm as it was originally written.
2. We have to understand that Christ is the fulfillment of the OT

Now on to Psalm 1.

He closed by recommending books:

Best 3 Books on How To Read the Psalms

1. How to Read the Psalms (Tremper Longman)
2. Preaching Christ from the Old Testament (Sydney Griedanius)
3. The Messiah and The Psalms (Richard Belcher)target=blank
   

And Good night sweetheart

Seminar 2 on Thursday

In the 2nd seminar here before a break, we’re looking at how to evaluate ourselves as worshipping communities. Matt Mason, from Lakeview Christian Church teaching us (www.lakeviewchristiancenter.com)

First Off, Let’s Evaluate Evaluation

• Be gospel centered in your evaluation not worship team centered in our evaluation
• Don’t be preoccupied with your successes or failures. Be preoccupied with Jesus.

Intro Questions For:

The Worship Leader: Does the team know what you’re aiming for? Are there explicit values that you uphold and pursue? Do you have a process and criterion that helps you choose members and evaluate existing members?

The Worship Team Member: Do you find yourself serving without seeking how God would have you grow that will help serve the church?

Key Areas For Evaluation

GROWTH (2 Peter 1:5-8)

1. Evaluation Questions

• a. Am I growing in godliness or am I stagnant?
• b. Am I walking in a way worthy of His call?
• c. Is there anything (recent pattern of sin, current struggle that is distracting me) that I need to share with leadership?
• d. Do I know more of God than I did last year? Am I learning the Bible and theology?

Essentially, we want a worship team that is striving to become like Jesus and this evidenced in our behavior, attitude, and knowledge of God.

Practical Tips For Worship Leaders: Ask your members a couple of times a year at least what they’re reading.

2. Recommended Resources

• a. The Discipline of Grace by Jerry Bridges
• b. Set Apart by Kent Hughes
• c. Ten Questions to Diagnose Your Spiritual Health by Donald Whitney

CHURCH INVOLVMENT (Romans 12:9-13)

1. Evaluation Questions

• a. Am I just attending church or am I full participant in this body?
• b. Would those around me describe me as a person who loves the local church?
• c. Am I responsive to God’s Word?

2. Recommended Resources

• a. Stop Dating the Church by Josh Harris
• b. What is Healthy Church Membership by Thabiti Anyabwile

TEAM MENTALITY (Phil. 2:3-5)

1. Evaluation Questions

• a. Do I encourage others? Do I ask for input?
• b. Am I willing to receive constructive criticism?
• c. Am I territorial about my position on the team?
• d. Do I appreciate that many of us will serve in worship ministry for a season and not for a lifetime? Am I OK with that? Our identity is not in the worship team role we play. This is true of any ministry role.

2. Recommended Resources

• a. Worship Matters by Bob Kauflin
• b. Humility by C.J. Mahaney

NATURAL EXPRESSIVENESS (Ps. 34:5)

1. Evaluation Questions

• a. Are people encouraged by my example in meetings?
• b. Does my face and body language say that I’m engaged with God or just reading chords?
• c. Col. 3:16 and Eph. 5:19 sees corporate singing as building up the church.
• d. Am I regularly fulfilling my call to “teach and admonish” others through my example in worship?

2. Recommended Resources

• a. Worship Matters by Bob Kauflin
• b. Worship in Spirit and Truth by John Frame

Stewardship and Skill (Ps. 33:3)

1. Evaluation Questions

• a. Do I pay attention during rehearsal or am I in the musical twilight zone?
• b. Am I listening to other players and singers so that I can find my place in the song?
• c. Do I keep my “antennae” up as to how I might grow in skill in my area of service?

2. Recommended Resources

• a. Worship Matters by Bob Kauflin
• b. Music Through the Eyes of Faith by Harold Best

I really like this list. The only one that I’m a little hesitant about is the natural expressiveness. I obviously don’t want worship leaders who look mad or bitter or like they hate what we’re doing, but I don’t want some smarmy plastic weirdness up front either. You know who you are. You’re the hopping up and down woman with the tambourine! But anyway…we’ll be ripping this off or developing something very similar for our worship team. Thanks Matt!

Seminar 1 on Thursday: The Task of the Worship Leaders

I’m in my first seminar which is based on the book, Worship Matters by Bob Kauflin, that we’ve been reading through. I’m hoping will get some things that were not in the book, since I’ve already read that! Maybe some Q and A?

Common Misconceptions of the Modern Worship Leader

• Worship leader is a biblically defined role. Not true. Some say that the priests in the Old Testament are the same as worship leaders today. The priests carried out mediation between man and God. Jesus did that for us. So the guy with the guitar up front doesn’t mediate and is not a synonym for a priest.
  
  
• A worship leader is musically gifted. Not true. The pastor of a church is a worship leader.
  He may or may know nothing about musical skill.
  
  
• Worship leader is a responsibility of a single leader. Not true. There can be multiple folks who plan and implement corporate worship.

The Task of the Worship Leader

Kauflin’s definition of a true biblical worship leader is:

A faithful worship leader magnifies the greatness of God in Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit by skillfully combining God’s Word with music, thereby motivating the gathered church to proclaim the gospel, to cherish God’s presence, and to live for God’s glory

Again, this is all unpacked thoroughly in his book. So go get it. It is worth your time no matter what role you have in your local church.

A Faithful Worship Leader…

• Read Col. 4:1-2

• Was worship good or not? Don’t answer that with how it felt, but on whether or not we were faithful.

• Faithful means are we intentionally leading people to remember what God has done, who he is and what he has promised to do and be.

…magnifies the greatness of God…

• Read Psalm 145:1-3

• Magnify God like a telescope not a microscope. A microscope makes something small look bigger than it is. A telescope allows us to see in a clearer way something that is incomprehensibly great and huge.

• If folks leave worship saying, “I didn’t realize that God is that in charge of everything”. “I didn’t realize he is so loving”. “I didn’t realize that God was beautiful”. Then we’ve done our jobs well.

• God reveals his greatness in his Word, in creation, and what he does. So showing God’s greatness needs to come from us seeing him there.

• If we see God clearly we will naturally respond in worship.

…in Jesus Christ…

• Read John 4:23-24, 2 Cor. 4:6

• Biblical worship cannot come outside of the person of Jesus Christ. We must be obsessed with Jesus Christ. We exist for him.

• The gospel is the power of God. Not our skills. The truth that Jesus lived a perfect life, died as our substitute, rose from the dead, ascended to the Father, and lives today at the right hand of God. That brings revival and worship.

• Our worship is acceptable to God, not because it is done with excellence. As important as doing all things well is. Our worship is acceptable to the Father because it is completed and made perfect by the life of Christ.

• So, make sure that we consistently sing of the cross in a way that is accurate and compelling. It isn’t cliché. It isn’t every now and then. It is every week and done in a way that doesn’t distract or take away from the cross.

…through the power of the Holy Spirit…

• Read Phil. 3:3

• Biblical worship is impossible apart from the activity of the Holy Spirit

• We can be great at playing an instrument, but it means nothing unless the Spirit changes our hearts and reveals the glory of Christ.

• Pray every time and throughout a worship gathering that the Spirit will work in our hearts

• Don’t limit the Spirit’s working only through preaching and music or some sign or manifestation. The whole thing is under the oversight of Christ and the power of the Spirit.

• Listen and feel for promptings of the Spirit, before, during, and at the end of worship gatherings. Have a plan, but don’t ruled by it.

• Resisting growing too familiar in our routine. Mix it up.

…by skillfully combining God’s Word…

• John 4, “spirit and truth”

• Don’t just give lip service to the Bible. Read the Bible. Just read it. Big long portions of it. It’s that powerful. It will change lives more than a great arrangement. Preach the Bible. Sing the Bible. Saturate worship with the Scripture.

• When you sing a songs that lyrics are right from the Bible, read the passage. It shows us where those words come from. They don’t just sound good sung.

…with music…

• Music must serve the lyrics.

• Sing songs that say something
• Adjust your musical arrangements and volume to bring out what is being sung
• Use instrumental solos wisely
• Project lyrics.

• Music should display variety

• It reflect God’s various traits
• It enables varied responses
• It helps us to hear familiar words in fresh ways
• How much depends on the resources of the church

• Music should build up the church

• Don’t just play what is most current. It may not serve the church.
• This isn’t a concert, it is to draw attention to Christ
• What can be sung with most impact and the least amount of distraction

…thereby motivating the gathered church…

• We can’t demand worship
• Don’t manipulate people with voice or instruments.
• Don’t guilt them into worshipping
• Motivate with Grace

• Present God clearly in his greatness
• Lead with knowledge and humility
• If we make commands in worship we must show them the reasons the command is there. Don’t just say praise the Lord. But praise the Lord because…
  

…to proclaim the gospel…

• There is nothing more important that we could sing and celebrate than the truth that Jesus died in our place for our sins as our substitute.
• We get to show them how that connects to everything in their daily lives
• We must be worshippers. We’re leading out of the overflow of our knowing Jesus more, loving him more, obeying better

…to cherish God’s presence…

• We help folks acknowledge that God is always present with us. Whether I feel it or not.
• We want to help folks pursue God’s active presence, meaning become more acutely aware of what he is doing in our gathering.
• We want to help folks look forward to God’s unveiled presence. Meaning when we can see God in his fullness when He returns or we die.

…and to live for God’s glory…

• There is no distinction between secular/sacred. All of life is to be lived for God’s fame.
• Among other things, gathering to worship should make us humble, secure, grateful, holy, loving, and mission minded.
• If we meet with God our lives should be becoming more like Christ.

Main Session 2 Preaching: Thabiti Anyabwile

This morning a fella that some of have probably heard of named Thabiti Anyabwile preached from Psalm 73. He is connected closely with 9 marks ministries (www.9marks.org) and I've read several of his articles, but never heard him preach. He can preach. He pastors at First Baptist Church Grand Cayman (www.fbc.org.ky). Here's my notes and a comment at the bottom from me.

Introduction

•This is an important topic

•What role does emotion play in worship? This isn’t just a conversation taking place with the church, but it is taking place in our country. It’s not called worship, it’s called happiness. How it is found in money, fame, and rock hard abs.

•He quoted from a recent Time magazine on article on happiness. The telling line was, “we are terrible at predicting the correct source for joy”. True dat.

•In our current day with all of the obstacles to secular happiness, people are bottomed out emotionally.

•Is all of this true of Christians as well?

Outline - Psalm 73
Man centered emotion lead us to despair (73:1-16)

•Articulate Good Theology That Is In His Head (verse 1)

•Hasn’t made it into his heart however (verse 2-3).

He thinks that he is the exception to God’s goodness (verse 2)
Why? The wicked seem to be prospering instead of him and he was envious (verse 3). His envy turns to bittersness (cf. verse 21)

•Rehearses the lifestyle of the wicked (verse 4-12)

They are healthy and without trouble (verse 4-7a)
They sin against God (verse 7b-11)
General Conclusion (verse 12)

The Result of His Man Centered Emotion (verse 13-16)

I’m wasting my life being righteous (verse 13)
Exaggerates his own trouble (verse 14)
Muttering under his breath heresy (verse 15)
Tired of it all (verse 16)

Application of What We’ve Covered

The first half of the Psalm is whining and man centered, most of us enter our corporate worship there. If we are going to rate our emotional response in praising God on a scale of 1-10, we’d admit we start out at a worship gathering in under a 5 on most days.

How does that affect how we lead our churches in worshipping God? Do we address where people probably are at the beginning of a worship?

Many folks also have right head theology or will see from the Scriptures what we’re teaching, but the heart will say, “I don’t like that” or “It ain’t happening for me like that!” Are we as leaders realizing that folks are coming together on Sundays on the verge of bad things going on in their life (struggling with self guilt over miscarriages, sicknesses, scared due to lack of income, romantic heartbreak, anxious about a week ahead, anger issues). Emotions are rampant in our church. Strong and raw and many times they are being controlled. Does all of this have a place in our worship?

God says, “Yes”.

God Centered Emotions Lead to A Singular Love of Christ and Joy (33:17-28)

•The transition takes place when he goes into the sanctuary. (verse 17)

•This isn’t church by the way. The sanctuary was the presence of God. Asaph wasn’t able to go in there much in the whole system of Old Testament worship. But we can go boldly into God’s presence through Christ who died for our sins and made us righteous before God. We have the Spirit of God indwelling us.

•Having encountered God, he sees things different. He gets a high view of God and his mind shift from man to God.

•He sees things very differently:

First off, he sees the wicked differently. He sess who is really slipping. It’s not himself (verse 2), it’s the wicked (verse 18). Things for the wicked will shift quickly (verse 19-20)

Second, he sees himself differently. He was righteous before God and therefore entitled. He was arrogant and bitter (verse 21-22). This shows that man cannot see himself rightly until he sees himself in relation to God.

Thirdly, he sees God differently. God makes the wicked slip. God sweeps them away. This guards us from anger, bitterness, and revenge. God is with his people all the time and guides them. (verse 23-24). Note how nothing has changed in his circumstance. Only in his perspective. His perspective is now that he needs nothing but God (verse 25-26). His joy isn’t found in lack of trouble or wealth or health. His joy is God, not what God gives or takes. Man this is a terribly important point. The overwhelming emotion that Asaph is now feeling is satisfaction (verse 27-28).

Application: We can have a leadership role during worship that helps folks go from emotionally unsatisfied with their circumstances to satisfaction in Christ regardless of circumstances. And not only on Sun. morning, but throughout the week.

Practical Tips

Avoid denial. Don’t pretend everything is ok in the lives. Don’t worry be happy will last about 30 minutes.

Avoid emotionalism. Don’t make the emotional high a spiritual fix.

Avoid manipulating folks. Don’t trick folks.

Address the fact that expressing emotion is good. It’s good to cry in sadness when you’ve lost. It’s good to shout when the cancer report was good. These folks need to be next each other.

Address the reality of suffering. Christians suffer. God is glorified in deep suffering in our lives. Prosperity Gospel is crap. A theology that God wants every believer to be wealthy and healthy is idolatry. Prosperity Gospel doesn’t love God it loves what God gives.

Show that our response is to be based on truth, not emotions.

Address both believers and non believers in their emotional state. The most helpful thing we can do for non Christians in worship is clearly show that to be outside of Christ is to be headed toward eternal punishment rather than eternal joy.

Pay close attention to our emotions. Asaph had my job. Take care of my heart. Get inspected by others who will talk straight about the state of your soul.

Closing Thought By Me

Very, very good exposition of Scripture. That’s two sessions and both have included great teaching. You may remember I went to a conference in the spring that was helpful in many areas, but the teaching of the Bible and showing us a huge God was not one of them. This is not going to be a conference like that. This will be a conference that is Christ and his Scripture centered. That is good news folks!

Main Session 2 on Thursday Morning

Well, after a few hours of sleep, we're back at the conference ready to go.

Oh by the way, join us as we read through the Psalms by Sunday Morning. Sean is reading Psalms 1-50, Brian has Psalms 51-100, and I'm taking Psalms 101-150. Good stuff.

This session's singing was led by Pat Sczbel (www.crosswaycc.net) and his two sons. Very cool concept. Most of the songs we sung they wrote and they did a nice arrangement of It is Well by Robert Robinson. Another song we sung this morning and last night off of the Psalms CD I mentioned is "The Lord is". It is great. Get it ASAP.

Very good singing again. Christ and his cross seen clearly and therefore we were affected to respond as always. One little thing however that I got distracted by and would love to hear your thoughts on. When song leaders mutter individual prayer lines or different words or something like that while the group is singing, does that distract you? It's not that they're talking that distracts me. I like to be instructed on the next line we're singing or if he's telling us to repeat what we just sang or something like that, but if it's a "thank you Jesus" or soemthing like that it pulls me away from what we're doing together to listen to what the leader is saying. Thoughts?

Session: Session 1 Preaching

Well, the music is over and they did some general conference announcements and now it's time to preach. Not me, a pastor from Frisco named Craig Cabaniss (http://www.gracechurchfrisco.org/pastors). He knocked it out of the park. Accurate. Clear. Practical. I'm going to post my notes as I took'em with no flair:

Knowing God With The Psalmists (Psalm 33)

Introduction

--Where Do We Get Our Idea About God?
--"What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us." A.W. Tozer
--Our perception about God shapes our response to God in corporate worship
--Psalm 33 gives a correct perception of God
--This is a Psalm of Praise

I. An Invitation to Worship (33:1-3)

•It’s loud (“shout”, “loud shout”), not all psalms are loud, nor should all songs, but this one is. There are some that should be.

•It’s happy (“for joy”)

•It has instruments (“lyre, harp, strings, voice”)

•It’s creative and skillful (“new song, skillfully”)

New songs aren’t just most recent, they are new in the sense that we are singing of the new things God has done for us. We can sing hundred year old songs but the application to my heart is here and now. It is new!

Reverent Worship has nothing to do with style or volume or age of song, it has to do with right response (see verses 1-3) to who God is (see verses 4-19)

II. Reasons For Worship (33:4-19)

•Notice that a cheerleader worship leader, a banging keyboard, a bunch of activity is never mentioned.

•Here’s what is:

The Scriptures: The content of the Scriptures declare that God is right (verse 4a), faithful (4b), righteous and just (5a), and unfailingly loving (5b)

Creation: God created the world and is so unbelievably powerful that it all happened with his voice, word, speaking! (verse 6-7)

Those things are huge, so, respond to that with respect and reverence and awe (verse 8-9). Perhaps this is now quieter response?

God is in Control: He appoints nations and peoples and plans to succeed or fail. Why? Because his appointments and plans never fail but always succeed. So it is happiness and joy and comfort to be God’s people (verse 10-11)

God has Chosen Us for Good: God sees all of the people of the earth and sees all of our sin (verse 12-15) and our hope is not in our ability to rule our own lives (verse 16a) or fight for our lives (16b) or our possessions or advantage in life(verse 17). But God loves and redeems and forgives those who hope in Him and believe that he can save them from death (verse 18-19)

III. Worship Ender (33:20-22)

•We wait for God to provide and protect for us (verse 20)
•We rejoice in trust in his character (verse 21)
•We pray that we experience his love as we hope (verse 22)

Session 1: I Repent

Unfortunately I'll have to post all sessions at the end of the day. We're having trouble getting a network at the church. So no live blogging this time.

About 7:15pm...hey they start late too!

The conference kicked off tonight with a main worship session. When you walk into the church (www.covlife.org) there was a bluegrass band playing as you registered. Very good bookstore with books on the Psalms (the theme of the conference) and books by the speakers. It was a pretty good mood when you walk in and the book selection was going to be applicable to what we're going to be dealing with, so that was helpful. We talked about possibly having a minimalist book selection for sale at Crew on Sunday morning. Books pertaining to our sermon series. For example, we've been going through the gospel according to John. We could have some commentaries and books that we'd promote as being helpful. What do you think? Would you buy'em?

Worship started with a simple clean video of some mountains in black and white. Piano played softly as several folks read from what I think was Psalm 103. The power of God's word simply being read never fails. Crew needs to do this much much more than we do.

Out of this we simply sang several songs that were completely new to me. I found out later that they were new to everyone. Bob Kauflin, the song guy, brought up that he was going to be introducing a lot of new stuff at this conference. But...after just a verse through each song, we all caught on and sang LOUD. What can you expect from a room full of worship leaders? The place sounded awesome with the voices of people singing with all they had.

Now, we (Brian, Sean, and I) worshipped don't get me wrong. But one of the things we talked about going into this was, that we are here to worship, but also learn and get a vision for what passionate Christ centered worship can look like at Crew. We want to walk out of this with some tools baby!

So with that in mind, I'm going to comment practically. Obviously there were little things throughout that we took note of (font of words, volume of music when you walk in, layout of instruments, props), but talking with Brian and Sean on the way home we were all impressed with the genuine passion for God that the leaders up front had. It was contagious. It wasn't over the top, but it wasn't weak either. It was strong undistracting excitement and response to God.

Essentially, there needs to be revival at Crew, not just renewal of forms. We want to excite in our church a deep understanding and focusing on who Christ is and what his death has accomplished for us. If there's a Sunday where we leave unaffected at Crew, that the reason. We're unaffected by the gospel. And that starts at the top. I have promoted a little too flippant an attitude in our corporate gatherings I'm afraid. I don't have a small God and I don't think I'd ever be accused of that. But we are sort of prancing into God's presence these days. That's my fault. There is a firm resolve as I type to set a different tone. We're going to add some weight to our times together. I guess "glory" would be the word wouldn't it?

Blogging at Worship God 08

Well, I'm finally sitting down in front of my computer to pound out some thoughts onto this blog for the first time in about 2 months. And as usual I'm feast or famine. I'm planning on posting several posts over the next 3 days.

I'm at the Worship God 08 Conference in Gaithersburg, MD (www.worshipgodconference.com) with our worship leader, Brian Patton, and one of our music guys, Sean Knisely.

All three of us having been meeting weekly over the past few months and working our way through Bob Kauflin's book Worship Matters and dreaming long term dreams for worship at Crew. This is the beginning stages of transitioning music leadership in all of it's capacities to Sean for the long term. He's gifted out the ears musically and loves Jesus. He has a passion for our community to worship the cross of Christ. He shares Crew's dream for living missionally in Huntington.

We are laying the thorough ground work, however, biblically and theologically, so that Sean can be a pastor, elder, theologian, song writer, at Crew.

So pray for us. We are taking this conference and the extended car time, hotel time and hang time very very seriously.

Anna's Medical Trip To Peru

I posted a blog from Lydia yesterday. Today I wanted to post one from Anna Keffer. Anna loves Jesus and people. Something cool about that. On Saturday nights she pulls a graveyard shift at a local hospital. On Sunday morning she plays bass guitar at Crew. On Sunday afternoon she serves food at the city mission. On Sunday evening she dies. She is a supertalented nursing student at MU. She's a Yeager scholar. If you're not from WV then you don't know what that is. It means that you're so smart that the state pays for your school, books, rent, and to go on 2 international summer trips during your undergrad. It means more than that of course.

Well this summer instead of choosing some laid back study abroad. She chose to go to an underfunded hosptial in Peru to love on people and serve them in any way she can. So check it! (THE REST IS FROM ANNA KEFFER):





Well, I've been in Peru for a week...and describing my time thus far as "pretty stinkin' amazing" doesn't quite cover the experience. I've worked as a nurse, a doctor, a translator, an evangelist, and a friend for the past 6 days. There is so much need here. It will probably take me awhile after I return next week to really process everything.

It's always hot and dirty down here, but all of us stink so it doesn't really matter. I've treated lots of people with skin diseases, the flu, chicken pox, infections, parasites, etc. The Peruvian hospitals are unbelievable.

The children and adults down here are incredible, gracious, and hard-working. The only similarity between them and us is that we both wear clothes. The Believers down here are so enthusiastic about God and faith and living in community; their entire survival depends on community.

Well, hopefully once I get all of my thoughts organized, I can give you some more in-depth goods.

Vaya con Dios,
Anna

Lydia Nyhuis: Short Term Missionary to Greece

Hey guys. As most of you know--Lydia Nyhuis, a Crewite, left on a short term mission project to Greece through Teen Missions. We supported her with fundage and prayer. She is going to be leading a team to Greece this summer. Unfortunately for us, but probably fortunately for her, she is restricted on internet access. She can mail us her blog post, however. We'll be posting for her. So here are 3 entries. Dated, but still giving us insight into how to pray for her and her team. (Josh...The Rest is Lydia, seller of purple)

6.3.2008
Well, I arrived at boot camp today! Leader training starts tonight and the team starts coming on Saturday. We are going to have a busy next couple of days with leader training and getting tents and everything ready for the team. There are now 23team members instead of 22-18 girls and 5 boys.

6.10.2008
It’s the second full day of boot camp! Today was a hard day though, half the team is homesick and so we as leaders have been trying to comfort them as well as taking the team from class to class. Our rigorous schedule (we go from 5:30am to 9:30pm with very little down time) keeps the leaders from really getting to know the kids well at this time but that will improve soon. Basically, this is a big time of adjustment for the team members and so they are struggling with many different things. Pray that we will effectively minister to them and that God will give us wisdom as we lead them.

6.16.2008
The team is bonding but unfortunately its in 2 groups and not one. Most of the home sick kids are doing better but there are still a few who are really struggling with homesickness. Pray that the group will unify as one team and appreciate the differences and gifts of each person on the team.