Women's Retreat

I had never been to a women's retreat until a month ago. I had also never been in charge of running activities at a women's retreat until then. I would be lying if I told you that I enjoyed every minute of the planning process, in fact a hated most of it. But as soon as the weekend started, it all came together and it was awesome! Here are some of my personal highlights from my weekend spent with 100 women:

Pastor Laurel's messages
We spent the whole weekend going through the Jewish wedding customs and rituals. They paint such a beautiful and amazing picture of what Jesus has done for us! If you've never looked into that image (which gets used all over the Bible), here a few places to start: Isaiah 61:10; Matthew 25:1-13; John 3:29

Unexpected Friends
As I was walking down the hallway on the 1st night, I ran into one of my former college roommates. She was a part of the group of women that had come to the retreat from another town. I hadn't talked with her since she moved out of our house 6 years ago and I can't say that our relationship was left in a great place. Turns out, I had one of the richest and deepest conversations with her during the retreat. What an amazing experience!

Activities
I was basically coerced into this job, although, I happily agreed. This was the first big ministry event I had been involved in since my ministry sabbatical in the spring and it was a little rough to get into the swing of things again. However, everything turned out great! Here's the rundown of some of the things we did:

Friday Night:
We started out with taking the bridal theme of the weekend and planning a bridal shower to start out our weekend. This plan was quickly abandoned for multiple reasons and we ended up playing just one game which was bridal shower-inspired. We took the classic shower game of dressing someone up as a bride with toilet paper to a whole new level. We assigned each group a celebrity (and provided them with some pictures) that they would have to emulate. I was blown away with the creativity of these women (see pictures below)!

Saturday Afternoon: We brought back the Zumba, prayer time and massages they had done in the past, but we added some other activities this year:

- One of my team members, Tonya, spearheaded the bookmark making operation. She brought more craft supplies than I could count and helped woman make really cool bookmarks they could take away as a reminder of the weekend.

- Another team member, Sue, hung out with ladies and showed them how to make sugar scrubs. We had made this at a previous women's event and they were a hit for the second time!

- We also set up a DIY nail salon, this was my personal favorite! We supplied nail polish and Pinterest tutorials. It was so fun to watch ladies paint each other's nails and hear lots of laughter!

Saturday Evening:
This was the big event of the weekend - a wedding reception! Amber's hospitality team did a stellar job putting all the decorations and refreshments together for this! They also supplied the super fun props for our photo booth.

My Activities Team
I worked with two ladies I had never met before and they were awesome! Without them, nothing would have gone smoothly. It was great to get to know people out of my usual church circle who were better at my job than I was!

My Cabin
For the first time in my life I was not in charge of a cabin full of teenagers and it was a wonderful change of pace! Although, we did have a certain member of our cabin (cough*Meg*cough) who was a major prankster. I think there was maybe an hour of the whole weekend that she was not concocting a plan. One of them involved her dumping cold water on me while I was in the shower. It's good to know that I'm good humored enough that my response (after the quick yelp I let out) was hysterical laughter followed by a "That was awesome!" comment.

Dance Party Time!

Activites Team

Have you had a chance to retreat lately? Either with a group or solo?

Misadventures in Food: Coriander

My mom is awesome - I am grateful to have been so lucky to end up with her as my mom. There is one thing my mom did not teach me growing up: how to cook. I am not betraying her by telling you this, she knows it (and all the amazing things she has done for me have more than made up for this oversight). So I have been trying to pick up this coking thing over the past couple of years. The English muffin pizzas and Costco frozen dinners I made in college are no longer cutting it.

Turns out cooking is pretty fun! However, like many things I attempt, stuff tends to go wrong the first time I try them out. In fact, they go wrong often enough that I hope to share them with you for your enjoyment and maybe you'll learn a thing or two with me:

Recently, I decided to try a new recipe this week for a Tahini Avocado Chickpea Salad from Ohsheglows.com (one of my favorite recipe blogs). The main part of this salad is the dressing, so I took a lot of care during it's preparation, even triple checking to make sure that I had done it right. I kept tasting it and thinking something was off, so I kept adding things to it to fix it. I just could not get it right, so I checked the recipe again and I hadn't forgot anything. I decided that I must just be tired of tahini since I had it in my lunch two days in a row (by the way, tahini is pureed sesame seeds if you didn't know - I had to look it up the first time I came across it). I was doubly disappointed because the recipe had avocado in it and I have yet to find a recipe I didn't like with avocado - this was devastating!

My solution was to bring it to my co-worker in hopes that she would enjoy it and it would just confirm that I had too much tahini for one week. She tried it and immediately realized something was missing, so we went on a quest to figure out what the problem was. We looked up the recipe again and went through it step by step only to find out I had done everything right. I started looking through the pictures posted of the process where I discovered that the coriander I used looked different than the blogger's which prompted me to asked this question to my co-worker: "Uhhhhh...soooooo...are you like supposed to...ummm...are you supposed to crush coriander when you use it?" I was relieved when she did not know the answer right away, so I wasn't a total idiot. After a few minutes of Internet research , it was confirmed that you cannot just throw whole coriander seeds in a food processor and expect it to come out delicious.

I encourage to try out the delicious salad, but only after you read the link about using coriander. :)

Misadventures in Food Scale: Worth a 2nd Try Due to Chef's Ignorance

Adage #24: Lists are your friend.

As you might have guessed based on past posts, I love making lists. it's more than love, it's really a compulsion. So I have made a list of some of my favorite lists:

1. Things to never ever do in the video cafe again.

I mentioned this list in another post a while ago. During my first year of leading youth ministry at my current church, I took part in a 30 Hour Famine. The leaders collectively decided the best way to start the event involved herding all the students into our multi-purpose room (aka the video cafe), turning all the lights out, playing some loud music and bursting in with silly string. Sounds fun right? It was. Until we spent an hour sweeping and mopping the silly string off of the floor. This was the the event that started our list. For years we kept a mental list of materials we had used in the video cafe that made a giant mess or had backfired on us. We finally wrote it down and framed it and when we moved buildings, we immortalized it on the floor underneath the carpet in the auditorium. The best part of this list is referencing it when we hear of some other youth ministry using one of these items and making a mess, it's a little like an "I-told-you-so" moment.

Our list as immortalized on the auditorium floor.

2. Top ten favorite people in the world.

When my fellow youth ministry worker, Buz, realized my unhealthy love for lists, it could only go downhill from there. Buz challenged me to come up with a list of my ten favorite people in the world. I couldn't just brush it off and joke around about it. No, instead I spent weeks perfected it. I think it ended up taking me a month to report back to him with my final list. Before I finished the list, there were weekly discussions about who had made the cut so far and how I had four people I wanted to fit into two spots. It was rough. You probably want to know who's on the list, right? I can't remember who's on it. And you would be correct in assuming while writing that last sentence I am now trying to make up a new list in my head.

3. My to-do lists.

Yes, that's right it's plural because I have to-do lists everywhere. They are on my desk at work, they are on my phone, they are sticky notes by my bed, they are at the bottom of my purse and they are on the whiteboard calendar in my room. It's a disease, really.

4. Random youth ministry lists.

Along the same time Buz challenged me to come up with a list of my top ten favorite people, we also started making all sorts of ridiculous youth ministry lists. It was like the baseball stats of youth ministry: favorite message series during the spring, favorite events on a rainy Saturday afternoon, top ten Doug Field's resources used in a year ending in an odd number, etc.

My favorite list was of the people who had been in youth ministry the longest - it was topped by five leaders who had been involved in the ministry for a minimum of 7 years. These five people chose to stay involved in one ministry long enough to see the students they started with graduate from high school and often even longer than that.

Within the past year, all five people on the list have stepped out of youth ministry. What I love about this list is that these 5 people might not be doing youth ministry on a weekly basis any longer, but I know that they are all still involved in lives of young people (some who have graduated from our youth ministry) and more importantly, they are dedicated to the gospel. They understand that stepping away from a ministry program does not mean stepping away from ministry itself, whether they find that in volunteering in a different ministry, being actively involved in their neighborhood or whatever else God has called them to do. It's okay to be so committed to something that it feels weird when you miss a week of youth group. It's also okay to step away to do something else God has opened the door to. 

What kind of lists do you make? When was the last time you stayed with a commitment for 7 years? Is there something you need to commit to? Or is there something you need to be willing to walk away from?

Adage #23: Bring appropriate attire to a cold climate.

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. If you haven't read my last post, you might want to read that first here.

In my last post I talked about not forgetting where you came from. I love keeping some of my southern California roots while living in the Pacific Northwest, but it has created a lot of problems, too. The following are two of the biggest ones I've run into and have found pretty humbling:

Problem #1: Not owning enough warm clothes.

In the fall of 2003, I packed up all of my clothes, my alphabetized cd collection, a few other important belongings and moved into the dorms of Whitworth University (it was still Whitworth College then). I liked my California style, but I soon learned that the 3 long sleeved shirts and 4 sweatshirts I owned were not going to cut it in the below freezing weather. It took me years to figure out how to dress for cold weather. My first year, someone taught me the new mind-blowing concept of layering my clothes. In California, when it was cold, I would sometimes just wear a sweatshirt to school with no t-shirt underneath because I knew I wouldn't need to take the sweatshirt off. Apparently, that doesn't keep you warm - who knew! I also did not own any boots of any kind, let alone snow boots, until the fifth year I lived in Spokane. I thought boots were ugly and I felt weird wearing such big shoes. I was cold and wet for several years.

Problem #2: Not having practical shoes.

As ugly as I think Chaco sandals and all those other shoes for active people might be, it turns out they are super useful. There are a lot of fun outdoor activities to take part in when you live in the Pacific Northwest, especially in the summer. Many of those you would not want to wear tennis shoes because they would get soaking wet, but flip flops will not do the job. I have an example of a predicament I found myself in a few years ago. Some friends and I decided to go white water rafting in Montana on a beautiful summer day. I am a pretty cautious person, so the idea of white water rafting was a little scary as well as exhilarating. The particular company we decided to go through specifically told us that we could not wear flip flops or tennis shoes. So my friends with their ugly but extremely practical sandals looked totally normal on this trip and I found myself being forced to wear the below pictured, most ridiculous looking "water booties". And just when you thought it couldn't get worse than water shoes...

I'd like to say that I'm above feeling insecure about being the only one of my friends on this trip wearing these shoes, but that would be a lie. I was more than aware of my ugly water booties the whole day. I'm rethinking my stand against ugly, but practical sandals. However, I'm planning on sticking to a strict no-weird-five-fingers-shoe diet. I just can't do it.

"To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings."//I Corinthians 9:21-23 (TNIV)

Paul was willing to set aside whatever music he preferred, the style of clothes he wore, the local phrases he grew up using in order to reach people with the gospel. Those little things were not of importance in the eternal scheme of things. This has made me think a lot as I get ready to church plant in another community. I will need to have this same mindset - ready to give up more of these superficial things that I hold on to as part of my identity. In the end, God's message is much more important that my refusal to listen to country music.

Is there something superficial in your life you need to let go of for the sake of the gospel?

Adage #22: Don't forget where you came from.

Within the first year of college in eastern Washington I am sure I declared to my friends at least a hundred times that I would move back to California as soon as I could. They like to remind me of this often, particularly because they moved away and I have stayed put in the same town since graduating. I have just recently started answering the question, "Where are you from?" with a "Washington" instead of a "Washington, but I'm really from California."

I guess after 9 years, it's time to admit that I'm not really from California anymore. I am no longer tan in the middle of winter and the first thing I think about when I drive by a house is how difficult getting up the driveway would be in the ice and snow (apparently I talk about this as often as I think about it according to those who spend a lot of time around me). Even though California is no longer my home, there are some Pacific Northwest "traditions" I have refused to take part in with the hope of keeping a little of bit of my Californian blood alive and well.

#1

I refuse to wear socks with sandals. I have never had an issue keeping this up unless is involves maybe running out to the trash can quickly and all I have nearby are flip flops, but I don't really count that as going out into public.


#2

I don't own a single thing that is North Face. This is less of a stand against Northwest fashion, I simply cannot seem to justify spending $150 on a jacket that everyone else in town owns. Instead, I will continue to wear my layers: tank top, long sleeve shirt, sweater, possible sweatshirt (or two) topped of with a pea coat that isn't as warm as it should be with a scarf and at least two pairs of mittens. Never mind that all those layers most likely cost more than that dumb North Face jacket I should just buy.


#3

I have absolutely refused to purchase a pair of Chacos or Tevas. They are ugly and expensive. I pretty much blame all stereotypes I hold to these shoes specifically on the college I went to. People who wear these sandals grew up in Washington or Colorado, they are probably YoungLife leaders, they drive a Subaru, sometimes they have dreads or dress like a hippie and their favorite past times include outdoor activities I've never heard of. These are the same people who wear those tennis shoes that are trying to be sandals and now those shoes with toes that are just weird looking. But let me make a distinction here, I have no problem with the people who own any of these kinds of shoes. Some of my favorite people wear these shoes and I do not think any less of them.


#4

Subarus used to top my list of things I would never own. They are very popular cars up here and for good reason: they are one of the best cars when it comes to navigating in snow. So after I while, I decided if I was going to stay in this town with all of it's snow, I should get a car with 4 wheel drive. And there I was contemplating the purchase of a Subaru. When I first decided I would never own a Subaru, it was because I thought they were ugly, and then it just became a stubborn thought with absolutely no real reason behind it. As I was looking into a car to purchase, it became my first choice - gasp! But don't you worry, I ended up with what I perceive to be an amazing fusion of a California native living in eastern Washington. I bought a Honda Element. It has 4 wheel drive, it's made for camping AND it's a surfer car, tons of Californians who surf own an Element. I have managed to combine my southern California roots with my Pacific Northwest reality. 

In many ways, I try to keep my California roots intact in a much colder climate. I do not want to let go of where I came from. Although many of my reasons are wrong (because many of them are based on pride and vanity), I think there is a biblical reason to not forget where you came from.

Romans 12:2 (The Message) - Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. 

This verse doesn't really apply to my need to pretend that I still live in southern California when I clearly do not, but it does remind me that I'm really a native of God's kingdom. Those roots in my Creator are the ones I have to remember instead of getting caught up in the temporary culture I live in now.

Are you letting the culture you live in change who you are too much or are you letting God's culture be the standard you live by? Are you being dragged down by the temporary world around you or are you being transformed by the eternal Word of God?

Adage #21: Take your soul on vacation.

I took a day off of work a couple of weeks ago for a day long personal prayer retreat. This was the first time I have ever done that and if you haven't done one yet, I would highly recommend it! Here are some things I did and learned:

1.  I am easily distracted when I am at home, so I made a schedule of places to go. I went to a few coffee shops and a local park. I love sitting in coffee shops, so I picked a few of my favorites. Next time I would think more strategically about where I am going since one of the coffee shops was a little to loud and hard to concentrate in. 

2. I left my computer at home. I probably should have left my phone at home, too. Try to go unplugged, you'll be glad you did.

3. I had done a half day prayer retreat about a month before this. That one I planned out specifically what I was going to do with my time. With the full day retreat, I had a general idea in my head, but I didn't write a schedule out like I had done previously. I think it worked both ways. It was nice
to have written down exactly what I wanted to do during my half day retreat since my time was limited. I purposely left my time and activities more open when I did the full day retreat in order to be flexible with what The Holy Spirit wanted to do.

4. Bring your journal and get ready for a serious hand cramp. Since I was moving around to different places, I would start each place journaling and praying. I would also get ready to move on to the next place the same way. I wrote down prayers and my thoughts on the Bible passages I was reading throughout the day and then an overview of the whole day when it was over.

5. Do a prayer walk. I went to a large park in town, left my phone in the car and spent an hour walking around, praying and listening for God's voice. What a good way to get rid of all the distractions!

6. Do the things that connect you most with God. I went to coffee shops and a park because I feel easily connected to God in those places. Go anywhere that you feel that way about or do activiteis that connect you to God. One of my favorite places to do this is the ocean, but since I live 5 hours away from it, I settled for a local pond. It had seagulls, so it was like being at the ocean. After a little while of sitting in a bench, the seagulls choose to fly directly over me and I knew it was time to move or get pooped on.

I hope that you will take the time to do some sort of prayer retreat, whatever might work with your schedule right now. Here are some resources I used to help you get started:

How to Plan a Personal Prayer Retreat

Retreat Finder - This is a great site to search for a retreat center in your area, but know that it does include centers for many different faiths.

Happy retreating!

Adage #20: Get your eyes checked.

Now that I've thrown someone else under the bus concerning vision problems, I can admit to my own story. My office building has nice big windows that look at a hill outside. From those windows, my co-worker Laura and I can enjoy the wildlife. We've seen a lot of birds, squirrels, people walking their dogs, and some neighborhood cats. One of my favorites has been a mom and baby turkey which we saw grow up. And now there's a male turkey chasing around the ladies right outside our window (there's a part of me that hopes he doesn't catch one during office hours).

Laura's desk is the one by the big windows, so when she sees some exciting wildlife adventures going on outside, she'll summon me over to see what is going on. On one day in particular, she asked me to come over because she couldn't tell if what she was looking at was a little cute furry animal or something else. I couldn't figure it out either. After quite a few rounds of squinting, discussing if it was moving or not and then squinting again we were still at a loss. We both expressed our wish to have a pair of glasses at our disposal. It was at that moment that I remembered I did in fact have my glasses in my purse. I went back to my desk,  returned to the window with my glasses on, glanced at the subject of our study and said something deflated like, "Welp..." as I handed my glasses to Laura so she could take a look. In an extremely anticlimactic moment, we realized we had spent all that time looking at stump.

 (This is a tree stump and not a squirrel.)

Jesus spent a lot of his ministry time giving clarity to people. Most people had thought the Messiah promised to them was going to be an earthly king who would be a strong conqueror, but Jesus went so far as to flee the crowds when they wanted to force him into that role (John 6:15). Jesus the Messiah did more than the people could have imagined, he conquered sin for everyone.

The Pharisees never received the clarity Jesus was trying to provide to anyone who would hear what he was saying, they were too busy trying to trap him. The woman at the well (John 4), the woman who touched his garment and was healed (Mark 5) and Andrew and Peter who dropped everything to follow Jesus (John 1); these people experienced Jesus and were given clarity about who he was. This also meant that their lives were drastically changed, they could no longer live like they had before. The knowledge of who Jesus was gave them metaphorical glasses to see the world more clearly.

Is Jesus giving you clarity in certain things? Are you ignoring him or are you letting him transform who you are?

Adage #19: Never give a baby a dog biscuit.

For three and a half years I worked at a large coffee chain. There are always entertaining things happening around you when you work in customer service. The level of entertainment grows exponentially when most of the people you are working with have gotten out of bed between the hours of 3:30-6am. I have no idea how they expected me to be awake enough to serve coffee to the crazy people that chose to be up at 4am. Most of the business at our store was from our drive through window. I have said some absolutely ridiculous things to people while working in that drive through. One time instead of greeting the car at the speaker box with the name of our store, I said, "Welcome to Wandermere donuts." This is a mystical donut shop that does not exist and this greeting led to hysterical laughter from myself, the customer in the car and everyone I was working with. Of course I said it again a week later because I was trying so hard not to say it.

Our customers really liked their dogs and loved when we gave them dog treats (although this is completely against health code, just a little FYI). There were some of my co-workers who loved giving dog treats to customers in our drive through. Shockingly enough, I was not one of those people, but I can appreciate a well behaved dog who isn't trying to attack me as I hand the treat over. I'm really glad that you love your dog, but I do not, especially when it's about to jump out of your car. But I digress, back to the story. One morning I was working with a particular co-worker in the drive through who is just altogether friendly and fun to work with. In fact, she trained me, so I'm a bit partial to her. She is also a better person than I. She was doing her due diligence and cheerfully giving every car with a dog their treasured treat. As I finished making a coffee beverage and I turned to hand it off to her, she looked back at me with a sheepish grin which immediately turned into fits of laughter. She explained to me that she had just offered a dog biscuit to the baby sitting in the back seat.

We often make judgments with our peripheral view. We notice the skateboarder out of the corner of our eye that is about to run us over and we get out of the way. We duck when we see a bird flying right at us from a a glance we caught while shifting our eyes. We make a decision without all of the facts. Our peripheral view is important to keep us safe, but it also can be misleading. Sometimes that bird was really far away or the skateboarder turned the corner and we look like an idiot jumping out of the way for nothing. Our descion turns out to be pretty ill-informed. Or we give a dog biscuit to a baby.

When we take the time to look harder at the peripheral view, we get better clarity and avoid some embarrassing situations. But it's impossible to focus on everything that comes our way, right? When we bring these things to the Lord, he can give us the things we need to focus on. He can help us heal from hurts, let us know we need to let go of the pain someone caused us, he can send us in a specific direction. He might take something out of focus and put something lying in the outskirts to the front and center of our attention.

Earlier this week I took a whole day to do a personal prayer retreat. To take all the stuff running a thousand miles a minute around my brain and dump it all. I put it in front of the Lord and asked him to help me sort through it, what's important and what's not as important? 

When was the last time you spent a significant amount of time in one day with your Creator? What has he been asking you to focus on lately?

Adage #18: An avocado a day keeps the doctor away.

I was standing in a line for some sort of Whitworth cafeteria lunch concoction when I felt a tap on my shoulder from a fellow Californian student. She excitedly told me that there were sliced avocados in the salad bar (for the first and last time while I lived on campus). It did not matter that I would now have to stand in line for even longer, I would get my hands on some avocado! I got out of my line, retrieved my avocado and moved to the sandwich line to have my turkey avocado masterpiece created. I looked around and noticed that the other students from California were doing the same thing and soon the sandwich line was full of us, all eager for this special treat.

This moment in college has stood out to me more than many others, a life long memory created by a vegetable (or maybe it's a fruit, I'm not actually sure, which is a little embarrassing). My Pinterest recipe board is 60% recipes containing avocado. At the top of my list of things to know about a potential boyfriend is 1. does he love Jesus? and 2. does he love avocado? When I am at a restaurant, I find my choice so much easier when I just rule out everything without avocado or guacamole on it.

Imagine my elation when I discovered that avocado is actually considered a super food! This delicious fruit/veggie I consider a treat, is actually good for me. How can this be possible! It's so tasty and it gives me vitamins and the good kind of fat - unheard of! Do these people realize they've just given me permission to eat this everyday; in fact, they have encouraged me to eat it everyday. 

Serving God should be like eating an avocado. Serving such an amazing God, getting to use your passions, your talents, and your gifts for him should be so enjoyable that you think, "how lucky am I to get to do this?" You should get to do things you already enjoy when you serve him. You must also know that there will be sacrifice. You will have to get out of the line and stand in an even longer sandwich line. You will be fulfilled in ways you didn't know you could be and you will be asked to give up things you didn't think you can live without. When you choose to follow Christ and give your talents to him you will have to make some sacrifices, but in the end you will find yourself thinking it couldn't get any better than this.

What are some of your gifts and talents? Are you using them?

(Here is one of my new favorite avocado recipes from Oh She Glows. She's got a ton of great recipes, so check it out if it's time to mix up your usual diet!)

Adage #17: Gimme a break (Part 3 of 3).

There have been some unintentional things come out of this time of rest above what I was expecting. I am about two thirds of the way through and here some of the things I wasn't planning on:

1. Spending time with my family.
My immediate family lives in California, but I am lucky enough to live in the same town as my grandparents and a set of aunt/uncle/cousins. I suddenly had free nights when I stepped away from ministry for three months. One of those nights happened to be when grandma, aunt and cousin would get together for a movie night. This has easily become my favorite night of the week and I have loved the extra time I have been able to spend with my family!

2. The emotional side of stepping away from my home church.
When I first choose to take a sabbatical, I knew that I would return to ministry, but I wasn't actually positive that it would be at Life Center North. My main purpose in visiting other churches was to go somewhere where I didn't feel I had to do ministry, to go to church to be refreshed. I was not intentionally "church shopping", but if God moved me somewhere else, I wasn't going to ignore it, either.

I found myself missing LCN when I was gone for two or three weeks at a time. It has been refreshing the weeks that I found myself back there, around the people I consider to be a part of my family. These were the weeks that I longed to be at LCN on Sunday and I longed to be involved again. When I stepped away for three weeks at a time, I began to feel a little lost and without a home.

 On the other hand, some weeks I found myself eager to go somewhere other then LCN. I wanted to do something out of the norm and to go somewhere new. My home church was the last place I wanted to be some Sundays.

All these feelings are pretty natural. What I think is important is to never leave a church with anger or resentment. In the end, God has asked me to keep LCN as my home church and I will be faithful to that. I will also probably visit other churches every month or so just to get out of the ordinary. 

3. Learning to say no without guilt.
I remember talking a lot about boundaries and knowing when to say no in my college classes about ministry. I have slowly been getting better at this over time, but taking a sabbatical meant three months of saying no to ministry and serving. I learned quickly to not feel guilty because I was doing exactly what God wanted me to do for this time. There was one time when I gave in and said yes. When I showed up to serve, there was nothing for me to do - draw your own conclusions from that.   

4. Learning from everything around me.
I found myself able to glean lessons from everything that was happening around me. Going to new churches jolted me out of my routine and it became so much easier to take important points away from every sermon I was hearing. Because I have been more intentional about seeking God out in my life, he started showing up everywhere.

5. Living in community.
My living situation is pretty crazy, in a good way. I live with an amazing family from church. A husband, wife and their two young girls. There are also two other roommates in our house, which is not large. There have definitely been times in the past year and half that I have missed having my own space and less people around. But overall, I think this will be one of my favorite experiences when I look back at my life. Since I have extra time while I take a break, I have actually had time to sit down with some of roommates and have actual conversations and meals with them instead of running out the door to my next event or task. I am so blessed to get to share my life with these people!

What are you learning in your life right now? Are you being a lifetime learner? Are you spending time with people who are important to you? Are there things you need to say no to? Or maybe there is something you need to yes to?

Adage #17: Gimme a break (Part 2 of 3).

When I started my sabbatical, I began by outlining some goals and things I wanted to do during this time. Here are those things as I outlined in my journal before I started this process:


1. Stay committed to a Bible study.
When I started, I had 2 small groups in mind and now I'm in a totally different one. My good friends, Buz and Jolen, invited me into their Life Group. Life Center North calls their small groups "Life Groups" because we are encouraged to do life together with the people in that group. Here are some small group truths I've been learning:

 - You have to invite people. I would never had joined this Life Group if my friends hadn't invited me!  But they did and I felt welcomed from the very beginning.  

- The "perfect" small group doesn't exist. You pretty much just have to get over yourself and commit to one. This is the first small group I've been in where everyone is not the same age and it's not a bunch of single girls. Everyone else is married and most of them have kids. I should have joined one of these a long time ago! I usually choose to be in small groups with other single people, but how are we supposed to grow if we're in a group of people exactly like us?

Should you be in a small group if you're not already in one? Is there someone you can invite to join you if you are in one?  

2. Read. 
I hope you've heard the phrase "be a lifetime learner." I wanted to take my extra time and really dig into some books, not just start 20 and never finish one of them. I've been reading some books about ministry, a fictional read and some others about spiritual growth. One of my favorites has been Praise Habit by David Crowder.

How are you growing spiritually and mentally?

3. Spend my extra time with the Lord.
I didn't want to just end up hanging out with my friends instead of leading at youth group. Part of this was an intentional time spent each day reading the Bible, journaling and praying. The other part was setting aside time each week to go to a coffee shop and sit down for a couple of hours to read and journal. An important habit to have during this time was to keep journaling what I was hearing from the Lord and what was going on in my head during my time of rest.

I also planned a couple of half day prayer retreats, a full day prayer retreat and took part in a women's one day retreat offered by our church.

How much time are spending with the Lord? Do you need to dial something back for a little while so you can spend that time with God?

4. Keep the Sabbath.
I thought this would be easy now that I have a job with weekends off, turns out its still hard to do! It's been fun to see how different this looks each week as I try to keep a whole day to rest. It wasn't long before I totally understood why the Jewish leaders in the Bible had so many rules about this day. I quickly started thinking, "Now wait, is this work?" or "Am I resting right now?" But Jesus has a more go with the flow kind of approach: "Jesus said to them, 'The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.'" (check out the whole context in Mark 2 and 3). So my Sabbath looks different every week. Sometimes cooking dinner is therapeutic and other times it's work, so I throw a frozen dinner in the microwave. Sometimes putting my laundry away is restful and sometimes I save it for Monday.

Another part of keeping the Sabbath meant that I needed to rest from the church where I did ministry and go to another church, somewhere where I didn't know the people up front and what was going on in the church body. I needed to go somewhere where I could worship and listen without doing any ministry, but I'll talk more about that in another post.

Are you getting enough rest on a weekly basis? Is there something you need to give up for a little while so you can be energized?


5. Pray about ministry.
I started my three month sabbatical with the intention of being involved in ministry again when it was over (I asked some close friends and my youth pastors to keep me accountable in this). I decided to take a break so I would be better prepared to minister when I came back. I left it pretty open, asking the Holy Spirit to lead me where I should serve and having no specific ministry that I committed to return to. This was the part I was most afraid of - what would happen if I didn't hear the Lord tell me anything specific before I returned to ministry? What if I just ended up in same patterns again? A third of the way through, God gave me an answer. He gave me a big picture vision and how I pursue that in the next year or so is more up to me and the church I serve in.

Are your gifts and talents being used in your ministry? Are you stagnant or are you moving forward? Have you spent time praying for those in your ministry? 

6. The 80/20 rule.
 This last one was my youth pastor's thought and not mine, so I don't get to take credit on this one. He asked me as I stepped out of high school ministry for those three months to not completely check out. He asked me to stay in it for 20%. Ultimately ministry is not about me, it's about God using me to minster to others. I am honoring that committment I made to serve God by still allowing myself to be used during this time. This 20% has included grabbing coffee with some students every once in a while, talking with them when I see them at church, sending them a text or Facebook message, even playing Draw Something on my phone with them. I don't say, "I'm sorry, I can't help you with that, I'm on a break." In some cases, it means  keeping in contact with them, sitting down to talk with them and checking in to see how they are doing. In other cases, it means asking other leaders to jump in. In all cases, it means taking a minute to ask the Holy Spirit what to do next.

One of the most helpful things I did when planning out this time was that I put it all in my calendar. It forced me to make sure I wasn't hanging out with friends all week instead of neglecting the time I had put aside to spend with the Lord.

Can you take one of these steps to get energized?

Adage #17: Gimme a break (Part 1 of 3).

I was standing in a dark and cold kitchen at 2am exchanging stories with two other senior high leaders. I began to realize that something was off when they kept asking me who I was talking about. My stories centered around students and leaders who were no longer involved or who had graduated. I had no current stories to share with them. I was living in the past. A good friend of mine quoted her high school English teacher by saying: "if you're looking back to a part of your life and calling it the 'glory days', you are doing something wrong with your life now."

I started working in youth ministry when I was 17 years old and my youth pastor asked me if I would like to intern for her over the summer before I left for college. I didn't even have to think about it - I immediately said yes! I interned the following summer as well and when I returned for my sophomore year at Whitworth, I began as a volunteer youth leader at Life Center North. Since then I've been a volunteer, an intern, part-time staff member and a volunteer again. I've done junior high and high school, sometimes at the same time; worked with three different youth pastors; led small groups and small group leaders and even had a couple of brief stints in preschool and college ministry.

Nine years later, I found myself wondering where my passion for youth ministry had gone. It was frustrating beyond belief. I wanted so badly to feel that desire to serve the Lord again and I did the best I could to fix it. Our youth pastor did a great job of helping me and encouraging me to find where I best fit in the ministry. Even though I was using the gifts God had given me, I was still tired and lacked excitement while at youth group on Wednesday nights.

A friend suggested I take a sabbatical. "Sabbatical" seems like such a big scholarly word, but I think it's important to make a distinction between taking a "sabbatical" and taking a "break". Sabbatical isn't taking a breather and then maybe thinking about working again when it's over. It is an intentional time of rest. It is about energizing yourself so you can get back to doing God's work. I went into my sabbatical with some plans for how I would spend my time and with an ultimate goal of returning to ministry. 

Is there somewhere in your life that you need to take a break or an intentional sabbatical? Are you holding on to something just because you've always done it? Are you living in the "glory days" of the past?

I am about halfway through my 3 month sabbatical and I think it's important to share what I've been learning. I want to take the next two posts to tell you what I've been doing with my time in hopes that whether you're taking a break or not, you can evaluate how you are resting, getting energized and preparing yourself for the work ahead of you.    

Adage #16: It's a dog eat dog world.

I have friends with two Siberian Huskies, Ivan and Eena. A while ago, my friends brought their huskies to a family dinner where there were several other dogs. One of those dogs, much smaller than Ivan, is named Mrs. Mugglesworth. For some unknown reason, Ivan is terrified of her. I would have thought that her unintimdating name alone would insight lots of teasing from Ivan, but he is afraid to even make eye contact with her.

When Mrs. Mugglesworth walks into the room Ivan assumes the posture I do when there is an awkward public run in with someone I'm not sure I want to see, combined with a toddler who doesn't get how the game of peek-a-boo works yet: he looks the other direction, hopes that she won't notice him and figures if he can't see her, she can't see him.

As my friends were seated at the dining table during one of these family dinners - it's one of those higher tables with the tall stools, Mrs. Muggelsworth waltzed into the room and Ivan responded by doing what any small child who is afraid of someone would do. He tried to climb up into my friends lap to get away from the much smaller "scary" dog. Below is a picture of Ivan and his owner, the one who's lap he was trying to climb on: not an easy task for him.

I could hear this story from my friends 100 times and I still laugh so hard I cry, but it also started me thinking. Ivan doesn't even realize he could snap Mrs. Mugglesworth in half if the need arised. God has created each of us in specific ways, what happens when we aren't even aware of who He has created us to be? Genesis 1:17 says, "So God created human beings in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." We are created in the image of God, let that sink in for a minute.

Ivan is afraid because he doesn't know who he is or what he is capable of. But we do, we were created in God's image, the most powerful, wonderful, awe-inspiring being in existence. We find our definition not in what we do or what we like, but in the One who created us to be like Him.

Are you like Ivan? Are there parts of you that you are unaware of? Are there gifts and talents God has given you that you are not using or don't even know you have yet? I encourage you to ask God to use you in the most unexpected ways and see what happens!

Adage #15: If the shoe fits, wear it.

I love shoes, I'm convinced they can fix emotional problems (while simultaneously creating physical ones due to bad foot support). When I'm at the store and every pair of pants I try on don't fit, I can always count on shoes. I read in a Relevant magazine article a while ago that suggested one thing you should be able to do by the time you are 25 was to learn how to walk in heels. I took this information to heart and began my journey to better looking fashion and more uncomfortable shoes. If you are a female and are not already able to walk in a pair of heels without looking like a drunken monkey, here are a few reasons I think you should learn this life skill:

1. If you have a low pain tolerance, this is a great way to work on building that up. Wear your heels on your next trip to Disneyland or do laps around your neighborhood and soon you will be able to tolerate any sort of pain. You could probably win on Fear Factor after that kind of training.

2. Apparently, wearing heels makes you look more "professional", so if you are interviewing for a job, I would highly recommend you wear those heels instead of your running shoes.

3. Celebrities are people, too. And celebrities are always wearing heels - I'm pretty sure they wear them when they are asleep. When we wear heels it allows us to get into their world a little bit, feel what they feel and all that. We can either sympathize with how tough their life is (being followed by the paparazzi, hours of boring awards ceremonies, no privacy, etc.) or we can feel glamorous just like them by wearing our expensive Jimmy Choos (read: wearing the heels I bought at Target on clearance).

4. Maybe you need to come to terms that you are short and this is the best solution you have besides surrounding yourself with only short people. Not that this is a terrible idea, but I feel like there are a lot of great tall people in the world and it would be sad to miss out on those friendships just because you feel short when you stand next to them.

I hope I have convinced you. Or maybe really I'm just trying to psych myself into taking off these flats and putting on my super cute Jessica Simpson nude wedges.Happy shoe shopping!

Winter Adventures in Spokane: Spokane Public Market

When I tell people that I live in Spokane, WA they usually conjure up images of rain and hipsters. Then I have to gently let them down by informing them that I live in eastern Washington, where they are more likely to have a run in with rednecks and snow. But I think Spokane is getting cooler every year.

A couple of weekends ago, a friend and I went to the Spokane Public Market on 2nd Ave (it's inside so you can go anytime). We learned about and tasted every possible way to prepare a cherry, listened to a guy play his accordion, bought some delicious homemade jalapeno cheese bread and learned about all the different kinds of eggs you can buy straight from the farm. They also had fresh produce - I bought delicious zucchini for 99 cents! There are a ton of different friendly vendors selling everything from mini cheesecakes to fish to stairs for your dog.

After wandering around the market for a while, we ventured into Sun People Dry Goods which is in the same building. It's a local business that sells all sorts of eclectic Eco-friendly goods. I bought some note cards, some bath accessories and a bunch of awesome stuff for a friend having a baby soon. It is definitely worth checking out!

We ended our outing by stopping by the Main Market Co-op on Main Street. You could just shop here and Trader Joe's and be set to go! Since it's a co-op, its owned and managed by it's members and it is not-for-profit, but you do not have to be a member to shop there. They have tons of stuff that is hard to find in normal grocery stores and a delicious deli! 

So when you wish you were in Portland or Seattle, but don't have money for a road trip, check out these three places (it's even better if you go on a rainy weekend)!

Memories

In honor of Life Center North's move, I have compiled a list of some of my favorite memories at the old Life Center North building. I'm sure I've missed some good ones, so please add your own!

1. The "Things We Will Never Ever Use in the Video Cafe Ever Again" List
Every youth group learns the hard way that certain games make a mess. After discovering some of these things (such as eggs), a month later forgetting what a mess we made and repeating the process, we finally started to write down a list so we would remember. Just for good measure, we wrote that list down on the floor under the carpet of the new building.  

2. 30 Hour Famines
I am not even sure how many of these I have done anymore, but they were always awesome and the most epic kind of overnighter. One year the leaders thought it would be super cool to put all of our students in the video cafe (our multipurpose room) with the lights off and then burst in and silly string them. This was super fun for us, I'm pretty sure the students got tired of it and the ridiculous amount of clean up was how it ended up as the number one spot on our "things we will never ever use in the video cafe ever again" list. One of the Hitchcocks would always be the one with the most sponsorship. This event is when some of the students discovered the "mean Alissa voice". It would come out in the morning, while we were cleaning up before we would break the fast. It was usually directed toward students who were too tired to help clean. Over the years we did a bunch of different service projects, probably played every youth group game known to man, sometimes we slept and sometimes we stayed up all night, we played broom hockey and bigger or better, but the best part of the 30 Hour Famines was the chance to get to hang out with students and become a closer group.
 
3. Office Russian Roulette
It was like clockwork - every fall we would find ourselves moving office locations within the building. I worked at the church for 3.5 years and in 3 different offices/cubicles. One morning I walked into my shared office with then-youth pastor Adam to find him painting a Texas Longhorns logo on an orange wall. I promptly decided to paint the wall on the other side of the office hot pink. We figured they wouldn't make anyone move into such a unique (read "ugly") office and thus ensure that we would not have to move our office for a while. It was actually a fairly successful tactic. 

4. Coffee Spills.
Who hasn't had to hastily grab all their belongings on the floor of the auditorium because they were right in the middle of the coffee river determined to flow straight the the bottom of the stage? There's nothing more unifying than passing around paper towels and a mop to clean a spill that spans from the top row tot he bottom.

5. The Orange Pews
There is not much else in life that I detest more than the orange pews. They were awful. I had dreams about ways to destroy them. Noting good ever came of youth group students sitting on them during group, they were big, always in the way, and they were just ugly.

6. Community
I have been involved in many ministries at LCN as an intern, a staff member and a volunteer. I am thankful for the community God has provided for me at this church, a family away from my family. I am so glad that the church is not about the building but about the people, so I'm excited to see where God takes us in a new location!

Adage #14: Never overestimate sticky notes, either.

I have a love for office supplies. Perhaps, an unhealthy one. One Christmas while I was in high school, I received a $50 gift card to Office Max in my stocking. The only think I found more exciting than the gift card was the huge Office Max office supply catalog sitting next to it. I spent the next week pouring through the catalog carefully choosing what I would use my precious gift card for. Going to Office Max with my dad to use my gift card was just as exciting as getting the card in my stocking.

Of all the office supplies, I particularly love sticky notes. I have a reputation in the office for having a ridiculous amount of them. I wrote a previous blog post about starting to organize my day using a sticky note prioritizing system. This amazing new way of taking charge of my life lasted me approximately two weeks. I come up with organizing plans like Zack Morris comes up with schemes on Saved By the Bell (such as getting cheap class rings that turn your finger green). I fall into the trap most busy Americans find themselves in - I use all of this technology at my fingertips to make my life more efficient and fast paced instead of taking the time to slow down. What if I took the time I spend concocting ways to live more "efficiently" to take a breath, slow down and think about what I needed to accomplish that day instead?

Even though checking to-dos off of our lists feels like we've accomplished something, sometimes it can be harmful. I burned myself out in ministry once because I became so wrapped up in getting all the stuff done, that I blew right past the time I should have spent with God. One of my professors at Whitworth once read us a quote by Martin Luther - the gist of the quote was that when Luther had a busy day in front of him, he would spend the first 3 hours of it praying. I have spent years trying to find this quote so people don't think I just made this up, but I can't seem to find it (apparently, googling "Martin Luther quote about praying for 3 hours" and variations of that is not helpful). But even if I had made it up, the main idea is worth taking some time to think about. How often do you just dive into a day instead of taking the time to center yourself in Christ?

We can all find a thousand different techniques to prioritize our time and get through our to-do lists, but without Christ is there any meaning behind our checklists? My favorite times in ministry were the times that I took a break and prayed. I would go into the room our youth group met in or a quiet, dark room in the back of the church and I asked God what He wanted me to do, what was important to Him that day, that week, that year.  When I did that, I felt focused and centered. Sometimes God would give me clear direction to take and sometimes it was just a reminder that He needs to be my priority.

How can you slow down this week and make Christ your focus? What might God be asking you to give up so that you can pursue him?