(Laura, Me, Cindy, Mom -Theresa) Cousin Eileen and Son Manny (Rt)

My Niece Diamond and Nephew Anthony.

Photos from Pismo Beach, California

Cousin Eileen and Her Husband Butch Cater a Santa Maria style BBQ.

View the full set here

Legacy People, Harvey Carey

Friday Night General Session

MLK would be horrified by how we’ve reduced his legacy. He was about more than a day off from work and school to shop and play.

Elijah / Elisha (2 Kings 2:1-17)
To our forefathers: I am who I am because of you. I can’t be who I’m supposed to be without who you are.

Are you loyal / committed or are you using youth ministry as a stepping-stone to something else? Your kids know if they’re being used.

Legacy comes with benefits.

“I’m the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” He defined himself generationally. The movement of God is bigger than one generation.

Even though God moved with MLK and Mandela, etc, he wants to move with us too. He’s a multi-generational God.

Will we become legacy minded?

You cannot earn the prize of legacy when you have not passed the test of consistency.

Are you consistent? Do you have integrity? Are you unchanging? Consistency earns the right to receive the legacy. Elijah says to Elisha: what can I do for you?

Elisha: I want to be able to take what you did to the next level. I want to build on what you did. So give me a double-portion of your anointing.

What do you want out of your life in relationship to their lives?

Does your youth ministry calendar look like a trip calendar?

Why are the worst kids in our youth groups the leaders’ kids?

It’s a sin to be a boring youth leader. Jesus was a crowd drawer because he had life.

Why would you want double? Because legacy surpasses what came before.

Legacy means the next generation upgrades. Did you come to upgrade?

Elijah: If you keep your eyes on me, you’ll get it. If you take your eyes off me, you won’t get it. Do you believe he could do the chariot of fire again? He’s the same God yesterday, today, and forever. We will not be legacy people if we do not believe he can do today what he did yesterday.

Time to stop having church and time to start being the church.

Chariot takes Elijah from the presence of Elisha. His mentor, his identity was gone. What happens when the leader is gone? He mourned because the generation that blessed him had passed away.

Legacy people aren’t content with pizza and a movie and Chronicles of Narnia.

Elisha got a revelation in the midst of his mourning. He realized what Elijah said. He washed his tears and grabbed the mantle that fell. He wrapped himself in the mantle of the previous generation.

He approaches the same river as Elijah. Says: “What you did for Elijah, I expect you to do for me.” God removes the water, he walks through, and tells the younger prophets: “What’s up?!?”

Forget the holiday to memorialize. Choose to walk in the legacy of the prior generation.

Audio Podcast here

Legacy of Love, Chris Heuertz

Saturday Morning General Session

Word Made Flesh practices the presence of God among child soldiers and other exploited children around the world.

“The greatest commandment is love. Love will never fail, but how much time do we spend truly loving others with our lives? Chris’ life and ministry is an inspiration to this love, visible through his global work with refugees, orphans of war, women trapped in prostitution, sex trafficking and building many other incarnational communities to the poorest of the poor.”

Humilty allows for community.

Celebrate simplicity.

It doesn’t matter what our context is. We’re still called to a life of love.

Opened with a prayer: “Make me a girl who is … [going to be exploited and misused, that I may know you].”

Apologized for not being a preacher - his worst grade in college was in speech — he’s more of a story-teller.

There’s a lament we have as evangelicals: an informed continuity of what’s come before us. Our friends have legitimate reasons to question the reality of a good God. We need to share and pass on, that legacy by loving them.

[Listen to podcast stories/testimonies...]

As he learned to love others, he was changed. He became a receptor of as much as a giver.

We need to rediscover a theology of Christ that is human as well as divine. He came to restore our humanity. In Genesis, God created us good, very good. Jesus came to redeem that goodness.

We have become so disembodied in a hyper sexualized, media saturated, techno driven culture. Christ becomes flesh and blood. He reaffirms our need for relationships, as well as our uniqueness.

What are the missional marks of the incarnation?
+ It’s restorative.
+ It’s communal.
+ It’s identification.

Do we identify with the mutilation and amputation of Sierra Leone? Can our gospel commune and restore the terror and horror of genocide? Does the incarnation relate to war ravaged refugees?

When our limbs are severed, we’ve lost our capacity to be whole. Still, we must love. The truest legacy of love is woundedness. There were wounds on the corpse of Jesus — disguesting, grotesque wounds. Still, those who loved him bandaged those wounds. During Sabath, they prepared the spices to treat his corpse — two days after his death! The Sabbath is a symbol for their contemplative posture. Then they arrive at the tomb to dress the decaying, wounded body. Instead they discover him resurrected and whole.

Thomas’ doubt is crucial to rediscover the incarntaional legacy of love. Do we have the courage to touch those wounds? In the scarred wounds of Christ’s resurrected body, we can find healing for the open wounds in the body of Christ.

God, give us courage to discover those open wounds, and the love to touch them, and treat them, and pursue wholeness.

Podcast here

We are back home from California. I’m pretty exhausted from todays travel, we are sitting around catching up with our boys. We left Santa Maria at 6:00 AM (Pacific Coast Time) this morning en-route to LAX and arrived at Sun-port in Albuquerque, NM at 4:00 PM (Mtn Time).

Over the next few days I hoping to upload notes from my journal taken at UYWI, included in new post will also be photos of our week long trip, of family, and friends.