pastor bud (3rd from the r) begins the commissioning service for the team of MoJCF Epiphany #6.
back after a very productive day as part of the team at mohican juvenile correctional. it was a great first day. an incredibly hungry group of 30 young men who desire to know about how they fit in the larger Story of life. so many interesting first time experiences. i spent some time with a young man who after sharing his story of what brought him to the facility simply looked at me and said “you won’t think less of me because i was honest.” amazing. how many lies this young man has bought about himself and his place in the Story?
three team members work on assembling some 1,400 links in the prayer chain.
another good turn was the presentation for the prayer vigil chain with some 1,408 links. i had the privilege, as the spiritual director of presenting the chain to the boys during my talk today entitled “you are not alone”. the take away today is simply to put the Story of Jesus and his offer to a real life (john 10:10) in the context of their lives. i wish you could have seen the eyes of the young men as the prayer chain was brought in the room….people from places like welcomm, south africa, iraq, austrailia, poland, and stateside like TN, NY and AZ to name a few. the guys at my table could only say “that is crazy”. they just can’t get it in their mind that someone would do something for them, when they don’t even know them.
on these weekends each team member has the opportunity to volunteer as a weekend star guide where you are assigned a “star” to walk with in a mentoring relationship. we spent some time today getting to know each other. i’ve got two “stars”. in our final time today i presented them with a new bible. in both cases the “stars” said they had never had a bible before. again…amazing!
for all of the above and more that i’m processing from today, i am grateful for the opportunity to serve on the team. i’ve been reminded many times how the church has lost its place in truly being the light on hill to offer hope to a broken world. we’ve got to do a better job. we are losing our way on impacting the culture.
oh yeah, a finally point, we introduced the boys to hillsong’s mighty to save. i wish i could have recorded their singing. there was a strength in their voices the second time through that communicated they understood the words. keep praying. day two starts in less than 9 hrs.