Category Youthmark Stuff

Seems Like A Good Day to Pray

Brian Aaby Leave a comment

Sitting at The Met–a coffee shop–down in Renton.  This morning I am doing some work on the new editions of RoadGrip, HomeBase and Merge.  In just a bit I’ll be honored to grab some time with my friend, Dave Devries.  Instead of just jumping into the writing and the meetings, I’m starting my day with some concentrated prayer time, I’d be much obliged if you’d join me by praying for the following:

  • Pray for the many youth groups Youthmark has the opportunity to train for Mission51–being a missionary always, all ways a missionary!  We have completed three of our six retreats, over the next three weeks we conduct our northwest/local retreats!  The travel season was great, but it sure is nice to be home!
  • Pray for my neighbors.  We have several in our neighborhood who we have started to build relationship with.  Pray that we’d be an encouragement to those who know Jesus and build relationship with those who do not.  What an honor it will be to share Jesus with these friends-to-be.
  • Pray for discernment.  I am in the midst of creating/outlining/designing/etc. a ministry/business plan.  I need to know where I am aiming in order to hit it.
  • Pray for the lost.  Do you have non-Christian friends, relatives, co-workers, etc.? Pray for them.  Prayer=Care.  The more prayer usually means the more care.  As you care for these folk, I pray you’ll begin to share the Great news with your mouth.  It doesn’t take much to start a spiritual conversation.  Not in a cheesy, “your yard sure looks beautiful, but do you know what needs some work?–Your heart” type of a way.  Genuinely loving and listening will provide entry points!  Go for it!  I am praying for this for you!

Grace,
Brian

ColoRADo!

Brian Aaby 2 Comments

The retreat in Colorado was in fact, Rad-o.  Yes, I will have some cheese, please.

I’ll post about the retreat soon, but for today, I’ll give you some shots.

Grace,
Brian

Timing

Brian Aaby 1 Comment

The last several weeks have been filled with some very cool “God’s Timing” moments.  Things that happened that it was just so evident that God was orchestrating that exact circumstance for that exact moment.  For instance, I wrote about Brandon in Pine, AZ, who just happened to be pulling into the library at the exact time we were stopping in to ask about a church.  Then last week it was just so obvious to me that Sitka, Alaska was to be the place that our team from Dallas, Oregon should go.  However, the pieces did not fit and the day after they said, “not this year,” I heard back from Haines, Alaska who had not gotten back to me in three weeks.  Their leadership voted unanimously to have the team from Dallas!  God’s timing is perfect.

Well, yesterday He did it again. As I was listening to the Podcast of the sermon I missed last Sunday and after a much-needed 11 mile bike-ride while I was still cooling down, I thought I’d stop the procrastination and pull out our old lawnmower and begin the yard work for the year.  Side-note: our lawn mower is old.  It was old (used) when we received it in 1999. I had a hard time starting it this year and when it finally did start it would only go for about 30 seconds.  So, needless to say, 15 minutes into my lawn-mowing experience the front lawn was only 1/3 done.  It looked horrible.  As Pastor John was preaching through my earbuds and as the lawnmower was sputtering I was thinking about how long this would take with the engine lasting about 5-6 seconds each time I started it now…

…John, in his sermon, was talking about being Jesus in our world.  He literally had just introduced the point “share the Gospel” and was talking about our unsaved family, coworkers and our neighbors.

Over the light hacking of the mower and the proclamations of John I heard, “Hey, let me know if you need to borrow mine!”

My neighbor from across the street and a few doors down was inviting me to borrow his mower.  I had never met, nor seen the man.  However, this was a loud shout from God, not just a invite from a neighbor.

I love God’s timing.  Elisabeth and I had committed ourselves to this being the year we really invested in getting to know our neighbors.  We’ve seen some progress this year, but this was an unexpected blessing.  I did borrow my neighbor’s mower, and way more important than the lawn getting mowed was the foundation of relationship we now have through the couple of conversations we had before and after the mowing.

We left the conversation with the hope of doing a barbecue together soon!

Jesus is Lord of time!  He knew I’d be listing to that sermon at that time.  He knew our cruddy ol’ mower would sputter at that time and he  Thank you Lord for your timing!

Grace,

Brian

And then there was one…

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Thanks to all who have been praying oh-so-fervently on our behalf!  Join us in PRAISE that the prayer requests from last week have all pretty-much been answered! Alaska happened differently than we would think, Montana answers came slower than we had hoped, but literally at the PERFECT time to provide the encouragement we needed and then the Lord is doing a very unique thing with a couple shifts right now too (pray!). Join me in prayer for one more answer that we think could happen Sunday!

We are praying that a town in Montana says “yes” to receiving a team being trained for Montana.  We have a few other options, but I believe God may have us at this one specific place for this specific time.  The church is “between” Pastors and I think this could be just the spark they need!  Pray that the board of this church discerns God’s will and whatever the answer is, that we all praise God for what He is doing!

Exciting times!

Grace,

Brian

Top Five Tuesday: YMV Spring Retreat #1

Brian Aaby 1 Comment

This last weekend was our first “Spring Challenge” the Youthmark Mission Venture Spring Retreat.  It took place at Northwest Bible Church in Spring, Texas.  It included the youth groups from NWBC and another from Vinton, LA.  The students from Vinton are going out this year, one year after having a team from West Seattle serve in their community last summer!  It was so exciting to have them there.  I did post more about this retreat here.

So, today’s top 5 is a little different in that it’s sort of a report and a top 5 at the same time.  The criteria is pretty simple, my top five memories of the weekend.

Without further ado, the list:

Five: The launch of Mission51. I’ve been working on this little project that I’d say summarizes what we’re about at Youthmark… We do mission trips, but our passion is the 51 weeks of life outside of the mission trip.  Mission51 is really the call to be a missionary always, all ways a missionary.  You know it is an official movement when you have zip-up hoodies with the logo.  By the way, you can become a fan of mission51  on facebook and stay tuned for the mission51.org website.

Four: The Moment. There is a moment in the retreat that I was really looking forward to, and it did not disappoint. Because many have not attended who will attend, I can’t describe it, except to say, it was pretty powerful and God made Himself clear.

Three: Neil. My friend Neil Moloney, who is galavanting across the nation on a road trip right now timed his trip in order to be in Spring at the exact same time as us.  I put him to use right away.  Not only did Neil do some behind the scenes things, he helped with the worship with Joe Poppino as well.  Because we all got in on Thursday we had some quality time outside of Youthmark stuff as well.

Two:  Time with the Leaders. The team leaders for both NWBC and Crossroads of Vinton are such sweet people.  NWBC is heading into two communities in Idaho this summer, so the 8 leaders they had at the retreat were anxious to be trained.  Another Rob (the Sr. Pastor in Vinton) was not able to attend, however, the Crossroads youth leader, my friend Michelle, was there in all her Southern Accented glory.  The time chatting, encouraging and being encouraged by the leaders was sweet.

One: The Album. Joe Poppino, who is the worship leader for Youthmark–oh, and a worship pastor at a church in Mt. Vernon– was with me on the trip.  For the local retreats we have a band that plays with Joe. but to keep costs down, we have just Joe go on the out-of-area retreats.  Because Joe is such a gifted leader/teacher, we encourage the host church to bring in their musicians on Friday afternoon so that Joe can form a band for the weekend with his leadership.  Well, the NWBC students were excited to do this, that is, until someone Googled “Joe Poppino” and found out that Joe has “an album.”  The intimidation of a legitimate musician got the students too nervous to play.  This, of course, became the running joke of the weekend. Humble Joe (and he is humble) became known as Mr. Bigshot who has “an album.”   I started referring to him as “the talent.” And we all wanted signed autographs, because, afterall, he does have “an album.”

Looking forward to our other five retreats this spring, but this one was special!

Grace,

Brian

Pine and Page (Scouting Part 5)

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I had every intent of asking the librarian about the local churches, however as I approached the sidewalk toward the front door of the library, a red sedan pulled in and blocked the walkway.  As the driver got ouf of the car to return his borrowed dvd’s he noticed he had blocked our walk… He quickly apologized.
I never did make it into the library, the 45 minutes, or so, we spent with Brandon in the front of the library were God ordained.  As I asked him about the churches in the community his face lit up.  Brandon was three years into his walk with Christ.  He was saved from a very tough life, one filled with the lusts of the world.  A father-out-of-wedlock and a six year addition to Meth, he had been clean now for three years and is just about to gain back custody of his children he loves so dearly!
Brandon gave us the contacts we needed and we set up appointments with the pastors in Pine who we’d be able to meet the next day on our -out of the way- way back home.
As we left Pine, we stood (well, sat) astonished by the Lord.  He had everything under control.  He had us leave Tonto Basin at just the right time.  He had me not stop at the grocery store, instead see a school which prompted me to turn.  He had timed Brandon’s drive perfectly so that we could have that meeting at that time at that place so that this summer, ultimately, teens (and others) in Pine can hear about Christ.
How cool is that?
Praise God!
Off from Pine, we were now to praise God for all of His creation we’d get to see in the diverse beauty of the state of Arizona as we drove to Page.
More later….
Grace,
Brian

Tonto Basin and… (Scouting Part 4)

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My friend Jeff Clabaugh from Pine Valley, CA joined us late Monday night in Phoenix.  After some catching up with our hosts, JP and Andrea, we crashed for the night.  On Tuesday morning we made our way to Tonto Basin to begin the relationship between Pine Valley and Tonto Basin.  PV will be serving TB. Quick side-note, Pine Valley is a place I served a few years ago with a team from Boulevard, fast forward a couple years, it is such a blessing to have them as a sending team now!

I greatly enjoyed the drive up to Tonto Basin, I rode with Jeff, which gave us a couple hours to catch up and help get him further down the path of leading a Youthmark Mission Venture.  I am sure Buzz enjoyed some down-time to himself as well as he drove our rental.

Robert and Stephanie who Pastor the flock in Tonto Basin were gracious hosts to us for the few hours we spent with them.  They had just returned from being gone five weeks for the adoption of their first daughter!  It was great to be among the first to welcome them back home with their little one.

We left Jeff behind to continue to meet in Tonto Basin and Buzz and I drove north on our way to Page, knowing that we needed at least one more place on top of hoping Page would be a land.  On our way up I knew there could be a place or two that we’d randomly drive though that could be a fit.

As the side-of-the-road signs announce the number of miles until Flagstaff I noticed a second town name on one of the signs.  Pine, Arizona quickly approached and I wondered what kind of town we’d find.  As we drove through there was not a noticable church by the side of the road, if I were to stop we’d probably have to ask someone… so I decided to probably not stop.

As we approached the north end of town I saw the school and decided to at least make t the left and see if a church lay back around the school (they often do in rural communities).  Nope, no luck.  As we turned around, however, the public library was in sight and I decided to go ahead and be bold and ask the librarian about a church.
We parked and I never did make it to the Librarian….

To be continued….

Grace,

Brian

Let’s Watch Him Work!!!

Brian Aaby 2 Comments

I’m going to trust Jesus.  Will you join me?

This last week was one of huge blessings and answered prayer.  In the last week, I believe, we have had six or seven of our “question marks” in terms of places we will be sending mission teams this summer become “confirmed” places.

Here is the specific request:  We still have three invitations out there to places that we are hoping praying and trusting the Lord for.  Will you join us?

Pray for the town in Alaska that we’ve had great discussions with, but has yet to give us the “all clear.”

Pray for the two towns in Montana that we feel would each be a fantastic fit for the two different teams we have headed that direction.

Pray for the city-venture team to Seattle and the invite for the host church we believe would be a great connection.

These four places to match the four trained teams.  God, you know what needs to happen.  We trust.

Are you praying?

Grace,
Brian