Keep us in prayer this week. We are starting a new endeavor. This is one of those things that the Lord has begun about a year ago, slowly leading us up to this point. We are starting a new service for youth in our area. It’s something very different in approach. It will be something very simple. Nothing fancy. Our pursuit is simply contemplation, conversation and community.

This whole thing came about from a conversation with a student, over coffee, who wanted something to bring his atheist friends to, but knew they would not step foot in a church service.

So we’re not doing a church service. It’s more of an experiment. We’re facilitating a place where conversation happens and doubts and questions are welcome. But our goal is to establish a sacred space where youth can step outside of their loud busy worlds and come in to talk, contemplate and experience the Lord. It will have a more quiet, prayerful, meditative tone to it. Ventus begins this Saturday at 7pm.

100,000 hits. Thanks to all of you readers and those of you in this blog community!

I’ve just had quite a few discussions lately about what makes a good blog and the best reference to quality blogging is in a post Mud Puppy had a while back. I read it from time to time as a good reminder. So here are the 4 C’s of blogging.

COMMUNITY

Invest — Your community will only be as good as the amount of effort you put into cultivating one. Get Involved.

Listen — It’s not about responding to every single comment—but it is about listening and facilitating

Cultivate — Give your community something to think about. Ask their opinions. Don’t provide all of the answers—let them fill in the blanks.

—–

CONSISTENCY

Find — Don’t know if you’ve “found your voice”? Then you haven’t. You’ll know the moment you do. And when it happens—Speak up!

Write — Talk about the things you care about. Be true to yourself.

Experiment — The Beatles experimented and evolved, yet they were still the one and only Beatles. Experiment—just do it consistently.

—–

CLARITY

See — You need to “see” where you want to go even if you don’t know how to get there. Having a definitive vision is everything.

Communicate — Your communication and conversation should be clear and articulate. Rambling doesn’t make for good conversation.

Vision ? Visionary — Don’t let the word vision scare you off. It doesn’t mean you need to be a genius—you just need to keep your eyes on the road.

—–

CONTENT

Frame — Your content will be as unique as the way you frame it. Don’t just report—have opinions and seek the opinions of otheres.

Share — People are hungry for knowledge and “know-how”. If you know something, share it.

Serve — Make no mistake. You are in the service industry. If your content offers no value—neither do you.

[originally from Logic + Emotion]

One of my friends is writing a paper for her seminary class on evangelism. The paper is about community and how we define it. So she asked me some questions and we talked about some random thoughts, then she posed this in her blog:

What does true authentic community look like? What is needed to have an authentic community? Vulnerability, trust, love, faith, hope? I truly believe that deep at the core of every person there is a burning desire for community, acceptance and love. If this is true how do we accomplish this? Is it part of the Church or not? What does it look like? Is there structure? Is it completely organic?

- Jessica Maher

So I want to ask for your thoughts or ideas - partially out of curiosity and partially to give her some perspective for this paper…

What is true community to you?

I received an email this morning asking me to feature this website. I checked it out and found it pretty interesting.

ChristianVolunteering.org is a free directory with over 2,000 volunteer opportunities in ministries serving the “poor.”  The site’s partners include the Salvation Army, GospelCom (BibleGateway.com), World Vision, the Association of Gospel Rescue Missions and over 1,000 ministries serving under-resourced communities.  In addition to volunteer opportunities for individuals, you can also search the site for opportunities that might be appropriate for church small groups and for short-term missions trips.  If you just type your postal code, you can get a listing of the volunteer opportunities in your region.

So if you feel like doing some good for your community in this season (or any) check out this website:

http://www.christianvolunteering.org/

And also if you’re looking to equip people to serve the poor, here’s another good site:

http://www.urbanministry.org/