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A Time for Everything

November 29, 2011 in Faith, Family, God, Ministry, People, Youth Unlimited with 0 Comments

For the past 3 months Ecclesiastes 3 has been on my mind as Jennifer and I have spent time  in prayer.  We have been praying about our future and where God might be leading us.  Are we suppose to stick around Centre Hastings with YFC or is God calling us elsewhere?

After a lot of prayer we feel that God is calling us to move on.  It has been a really hard decision to come to, but, we said back when we took this job with YFC in 2005, that we always wanted to be doing what we felt God was calling us to do. So as of November 15th, 2011 we handed in our official letter of resignation, with the request to stay on until June 2012, so that  we could finish up the school  year with the current group of students we are working with.

So where are we headed?  We aren’t sure yet!  I know a lot of people would probably say “why would you leave one job not knowing where you are going?” well.. I believe that is a part of working in ministry… God sometimes calls you to do things that don’t always make sense, but we believe that he will provide for us.

In all the praying we have been doing, I feel that God is calling me back to my first love, which is worship ministry.  We don’t know where he is calling us, but feel very strongly that God is calling me to a church somewhere that is seeking a full time worship leader.  Our hope is to get closer to home on the east coast, so we are seeking out churches on the east coast, but we also know that we may not necessarily find something on the east coast, as not a lot of churches have budgets to hire worship leaders.

So ultimately we are continuing to pray for where God is leading us.  In the meantime, the finances with YFC in Centre Hastings have taken a down hill spill, so as a result, the board has decided to cut me back to part time as of January 1, 2012, so we are also in search of something to subsidize the part time salary that YFC will be providing us.

In the meantime, if you happen to hear of a church seeking a worship leader, please, pass the information along to me!

Make Long Distance Phone Calls 100% Free

November 22, 2011 in Culture, Family, iPhone, People, Rogers, Technology with 2 Comments

From time to time I stumble across something on the internet that is just to good and to useful not to share, this is one of those things.

My family all live on the east coast.. New Brunswick and PEI, and during this time of the year, my parents live in the Dominican Republic, so, phone bills are always a pain in the butt. Yes, I know, you’re probably saying “it’s 2011, who uses the phone anymore”.. well sometimes you don’t want to sit in front of a computer and have a chat, sometimes you want to walk around with a phone and get some house work done while you catch up on all the goings on back home.

Last night I was told about freephoneline.ca . This is a site that has a number of services, but one of the services they have is, they give you a 100% free local number, which you can set up to forward to another number. I found this to be really neat, because I can set up a second number and have it forwarded to my cellphone, which then could give me a business line, and a personal line.. share the business number with work people, personal with family and friends, and now you don’t need to carry around 2 cellphones. Now there are a number of other services out there that allow you to have a second number coming to your phone, if you have a smart phone, for example, you could use Line2.. but line 2 costs about $20/month… freephoneline is 100% free.

So how do you make free long distance calls, just because you get a free number.. well, the title may be a little misleading, because its not free calls to anyone at any time.. but, what we have done is pick the few long distance people who we make most of our calls to, and now we can call all of them for free. Heres how…

Set up an account at freephoneline.ca and select a number that is local to you.. then go into the account settings and enable forwarding.. it asks you what number to forward the number to.. you put in the number of the long distance person you want to call… hit save, and NOW when you call the local number you selected, it will automatically forward to the long distance number you set up.

In short, it looks like this ->

My account with a local number for ME -> forwards to my parents number in the Dominican Republic -> I make a local call for me, it rings on their end.. and there are no fees…

They can also set up an account with a number that is local for them, and it forwards to my number.. and when they call their local number, it’ll forward to me!

It’s really quite brilliant.. and I think its another step in the right direction.. I’m a firm believer that phone companies are ripping us off like crazy, and anything I can do (that’s legal) that “sticks it to them” I try to do, because they are charging me an arm and a leg and profitting 100000000% on everything they charge you.

The Hour(s) Before

July 25, 2011 in blogging, Faith, Family, God, Music Monday, People, Prayer, Sunday Set List, Worship with 2 Comments

Today’s post is part of a series of posts called “The Hour Before” You can get a full list of links to these posts by checking out the series here - http://robrash.us/blog-series/the-hour-before/

This is a typical Sunday during the regular calendar.. not the summer calendar

It’s Sunday morning.. an early morning like every other one.. 6am, Seth (2) comes into our room, “mommy, daddy, I slept in my big boy bed all night, and I didn’t pee… how was your sleep?” We exchange groans, grab the little guy and stick him in between us and put on his movie.. Land Before Time 10,000?

6:10 Seth can’t keep quiet any longer.. he just wants to play with his baby brother Micah (5 mos), so he pokes and prods at him until he wakes up.. always with a smile on his face.  Jennifer, the saint of a woman she is feeds Micah, tells me it’s time to get up.. we all lay in bed for another 15 minutes or so.

6:30 I get out of bed.. go shower, shave all that jazz.. get dressed.. the usual is a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, nothing too fancy.. it’s how we roll at Madoc Baptist.

7:15 wifey has made me some coffee.. too strong usually.. but I drink it anyway in an effort to thank her!  I sit on the couch with my boys, and watch some recorded episodes of Chuck and Friends while I help Seth with his clothes.

7:50 time to say “see you later to the fam” I grab all my gear and pack the car.. time for coffee number 2.. I go to Tim Hortons, despite the fact that they’ve burned the coffee the last 4 that I’ve had.. I guess I’m a sucker for punishment.

8:00 I arrive at the school… 2 years ago we sold our building.. we couldn’t fit anymore people in there, and we didn’t want to create multiple services, because we want our whole church to be a family, so until we raise the 1.5 million we need to build our new home, we meet in a gym in a public highschool.

8:05 the family who graciously transports our gear every Sunday arrives, we unload the 2 big custom made boxes that contain all of our gear.

8:10 a few more guys from the team show up.. we start setting up speakers, projectors, computers, soundboards.. all that fun stuff… though we have a small team of faithful people who set up every week.. we manage to set everything up in about 35 minutes.. repetition was the key..

8:45 the rest of the band is here, and set up.. likely some small technical difficulty.. but I fix it pretty quickly.. sound check begins.

9:15 sound checks done, and new songs we’ve worked those final kinks out of.. time to pray..

9:30 Bible Study begins.. I pop back to the sound desk and make sure everything is in line for the service on the computer..

10:15 study over.. I go greet some of the seniors, make sure their hearing aid line is working.. my family arrives.. Seth runs in the gym, tells everyone he’s here, and usually yells to me what type of underwear he’s wearing today.. he comes up on stage, gives me a hug and a kiss (probably the highlight of my morning).. Jen walks over with Micah, whose mouth is wide open, also looking for a kiss (Micah that is) at this point I’m on stage with guitar in Rock position.. Seth strums a few strings on my guitar, plays with some buttons on my X3Live.. I then fix my settings.. he goes back with mum

10:30 the party begins.

12:30 time to pack up, go home, have some lunch, and have a much deserved nap

 

A Quick Update

May 13, 2011 in Faith, God, Ministry, People, Prayer with 0 Comments

I know some of you who read my blog have been praying for me in regards to my back problems.  I got the call yesterday for my surgery date..  I head to Ottawa THIS WEDNESDAY for my surgery!!  Keep praying, and thanks for the prayers you’ve been offering up for me.

4 Things Millennials Want in Their Leaders

January 21, 2011 in Culture, Faith, Family, God, Ministry, People, Youth, Youth Unlimited with 0 Comments

Found this great article over at http://www.churchleaders.com/ check out their site and give them some love.

The Millennial generation is the generation that has grabbed my heart. I know that my preference is largely related to having and loving three Millennial sons and their friends. But I know that my favoritism also stems from the attitude of hope that this generation brings.

As I have shared in other writings, my son, Jess Rainer, and I just concluded writing a book about this generation with the basic title, The Millennials. The book will be released in January 2011. Our work was based on a massive research project led by LifeWay Research, where that team asked 1,200 older Millennials dozens of questions in multiple categories. The responses were fascinating.

Who are the Millennials?

As a reminder, the Millennials are America’s largest generation, over 78 million in number. They are slightly larger in number than the well-documented Baby Boomer generation.

The Millennials were born between 1980 and 2000, though our research included only the older portion of this generation, those born between 1980 and 1991. The study included demographic sampling that well represents the generation in total.

The leadership factor

Though we asked relatively few questions about leadership in our study, the intensity of their responses provided clear indication that this subject was one of great interest to many in this generation. At the conclusion of our study, we found four major leadership foci among the Millennials. We dubbed them simply “What Millennials Want in Leaders.”

1.?Mentoring. This generation has great respect for those older than they are. Most of them have good relationships with their parents. They have learned from older people all their lives, and they don’t want to stop now. They want to be led and taught in their places of work, in their churches, and in their families. They particularly want to learn from couples who have had long and successful marriages. Many Millennials see such examples as heroes to emulate.

2. Gentle spirit. This category is easier to describe by what Millennials do not want in leaders. Divisive, loud, and acrimonious persons turn them off. They loathe politicians and political pundits who scream at each other. They are leaving churches to some extent because they see many Christian leaders as negative and prone to divisiveness. They are repulsed by business leaders with harsh and autocratic spirits.

3. Transparency and authenticity. I wish Jess and I had counted the number of times that Millennials used the word “real” to describe leaders they want to follow. As one Millennial told us, her generation “can smell phony and pretentiousness a mile away.” They don’t want phony; they want authentic. They don’t want pretentious; they want transparent.

4. Integrity. The Millennials are weary of politicians who don’t keep promises. They are tired of Christian leaders who fail basic moral standards. They are fed up with business leaders who are more concerned about personal gain than serving others. They want leaders with integrity.

Looking for a few good leaders

The Millennial generation has much to offer. As a whole, they desire to serve others. Most of them are very family oriented. And they really want to listen and learn from others. Indeed, they are looking for a few good leaders to follow. When they find them, they will follow with commitment and enthusiasm.

Our study of this generation was one of the most encouraging research projects in which I have been involved. I found great hope in the Millennials. I see great promise in many of them. And I found among them a hunger to learn from leaders they respect.

May we who have come before them be that type of leader.

The largest generation in America is watching us closely.

Separate Jesus from the People of the Church?

October 20, 2010 in Culture, Faith, God, Ministry, People, Twitter, Youth, Youth Unlimited with 1 Comment

I sent a tweet yesterday morning that really seemed to cause a stink on twitter and facebook.  For those who didn’t read it, it was: “We must separate the Jesus of the Gospel from the people of the church, because the people will always let you down, Jesus never will” some people completely agreed with me, while others didn’t agree, so I’m going to try to explain it in this blog post (as I told them I would) which would then hopefully cause them to understand where/what I was coming from.

First of all, I cannot take credit for this quote, my friend and chaplain to our staff Bob Scrivens said this yesterday at our staff meeting.  Bob is an amazing man.  He’s easily in his 70′s maybe even more.. and is a retired counsellor/pastor/amazing man.  He carries a lot of wisdom, and believes 100% in what we do at Youth Unlimited, so much so that he tries to mention our ministry in nearly every conversation he has.

So where did this idea come from?  Are we talking about taking Jesus out of our minstry? Out of the church? Are we trying to be “seeker sensitive” (how’s that for an early 2000′s buzz word) are we trying to be politically correct? The answer is a resounding NO to every one of these points.

At Youth Unlimited with work with about 85% non-christian/non-churched kids.  These are the kids of Judges 2:10 (After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel.) Our job at YU is to share the gospel with teens, allowing them the option to accept or reject Jesus.  So then, if our goal is to help them to learn about Jesus, why remove him from the church?

We work with kids who have little to no interaction with the church.  For most of them, the only interaction they have had is what they see on TV.  They see things in the news about the church and the bad things it’s done.  They see stories of slander, rape, pedofilia and many other things.  When I talk to students, they always say “why would I want to be a Christian, I see all the crap that they do in the world.  The reason they say this is because, you never see the good things that Christians do in the news.

The reality is, if Christians were what I saw in the news, I would never want to be one either.  So this is why we say “we need to separate the Jesus of the Gospel from the people of the church.” When I talk to a student about God, my goal is to guide them to becoming a Christian, so when they bring up the bad christians, I point them to Jesus.  I tell them that they shouldn’t throw Jesus out the window because of some bad eggs that they’ve heard of or had experience with in the past.  I tell them they aren’t here to follow Christians, they are here to follow Jesus.

Now to address a few thoughts people had on twitter and facebook:

The main things the nay sayers said were things like “can we separate the head from the body”, “the people who gives us the bad rap aren’t really part of church”, “lets change the definition of church”

These can all be addressed in a simple manner.  The kids I work with don’t go to church, and would likely never step into a church (it’s a sad reality, but I came to term with it 4 years ago) so if we change the definition of church, it’s not going to matter one bit.  Young people equate church (the building) with christians (and the church.. of the bible) they don’t separate the 2, because they don’t know that there is a difference.

As a result of that, we need to utilize what we can, and be all things to all people.  If the church is a bad thing to a student, I’m not going to talk about the church, I’m going to talk about Jesus and point them to Him, hopefully some day we can get to a point where I can talk to them about the hurts they were caused by the church, and maybe try to heal that.

I hope that makes sense to people.  I tried to explain it as best I can.. feel free to discuss it more and we’ll see if we can get more info in on this one.

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