We asked the GPS folks to share a little about what they are learning by being with us. We thought you’d be interested to see what they said.

This reflection is from Rachel:

With GPS I am learning a lot about myself and who I really am.  Used to be, I was so consumed with materialistic things, like having the newest, cutest, pair of jeans or the cutest shoes.  Now I’m thinking of ways that I can creatively make money while still doing things that I like and instead of trying to buy my happiness I am learning to live and be happy with where I am at.

We asked the GPS folks to share a little about what they are learning by being with us. We thought you’d be interested to see what they said.

This reflection is from Conner:

We need to really think about the people that we’re serving. I don’t know, but in service- long term investment is important.  Strategic planning is important.

Putting power under people is huge.

Something else is that commitment starts with you, and you’re relationship with God. Knowing who you are is very important.

We asked the GPS folks to share a little about what they are learning by being with us. We thought you’d be interested to see what they said.

This reflection is from Justin:

I think God is trying to tell me that right now I’m not being the full me.  I’m holding back and he is trying to give me all these opportunities to go all out and I need to start using them.

We asked the GPS folks to share a little about what they are learning by being with us. We thought you’d be interested to see what they said.

This first reflection is from Lindsay:

What I’m learning about myself is that I am able to adapt to different types of people and different circumstances.  I figured out I like being challenged and being put in hard situations.

I found that when Im interacting with others that it doesn’t matter if they’re exactly like me or in anyway like me at all.  I found that it is almost easier to be myself when I’m around people who I know aren’t there to judge me and who I know are going to accept me no matter what.

Before our hike to Big Bluff on the Buffalo River

I think the phrase above means it is something that is difficult to do.  Not sure.  However, one thing I am sure of is that it is a difficult thing to measure growth and positive change when you’re in the moment.  Most of our “learns” and our ways of articulating “what God taught me” or “what I figured out” are retrospective.  Most of the time for most of us our ability to get our minds around something that has changed in us sounds like:  ”I didn’t know it then, but now I see that_____________.”  Or “I lived like I believed this thing was true, and now looking back I see that I was changing, that perhaps God was changing me.”

Working with young people (our GPS group is ages 17-20) who are in the midst of a personal and directional upheaval is great fun, and meaningful for me.  It is also hard to measure progress outside of the increased open-ness, overall level of smiles and laughter, and occasional new insights that our people bring at the times you least expect it.  We are a group of very different people- who are growing to like each other very much- that is evident.

But regarding growth, effectiveness for our people, I wish they would give me more.  Right now.  I want to force the learning.  I want to force the change.  I want to be the Holy Spirit and get inside people’s heads and hearts and help them to see truth to the point of complete “ah ha!” moment.

I am not good at this techinque.  As a matter of fact, even though I try to force the change in people here- I resent it when I see others do it somewhere else.  It bugs me when we give tons of energy to creating “God moments” rather than gathering and celebrating the ones that are happening all over us all the time.   I suspect the people I judge for being in the God business, who seem to be forcing change and shoving stuff down people’s throats would judge me too, when I try to manipulate people through other means to get them to change.  Actually, I bet they would laugh, because the attempt is feeble.

On my good days, however, I just help our people help others, and ask them a few good questions.  I share a scripture, quote, and/or story, and expose them to other people who understand their place in the world.  When we do this, great things happen- and I don’t always get to see it, and I am sure many who experience those great things will not even know how to articulate what has happened until after the fact.  Sometimes it will take years.  I am ok with that.    (More and more every day!)

What does all of this have to do with “catching lightning in a bottle?”  Well, I have comitted that we will do our work, and give students a chance to reflect, and be good with whatever they reflect back to us.  If they don’t give us a bunch to work with regarding a verbal or written reflection of “growth” or “change”- its all good.  We still love our people, and do our work.  God is big enough to use it all- and we trust that.  Some of our people love to work out what they’re learning in discussion and writing.  Some of them tend to shut down when asked these types (What are you learning?) of questions in an organized fashion.  Yet, you get them one on one the change is obvious and they share all kinds of good stuff that is honest, real, and reflects growth.

Their growth is also reflected in just how they approach people and situations on a practical level.  We can see it- sometimes they can’t- just yet.

So, with all that being said- I’m going to share some November thoughts from students over the next few days.  They might be things they wrote down, or things I heard someone say.

I can’t change people.  We can’t catch lightning in a bottle.  We can provide people with a space where change can occur, and is occurring whether we know it now or not.

We appreciate your support and are looking forward to finishing up well this fall, and hoping for more groups in the spring.

ck

gather round the coffee table for the "informal" learning circle!

Today we go on our first GPS Tulsa fall retreat- a trip intended to involve camping, but may in fact involve cabins (more on that after we return) because we are experiencing our first freeze warning of the fall.  I’ve heard that all the best families camp.  Its because when you camp, nothing ever goes as planned.  There’s not enough space for all your stuff, the weather isn’t what you expected, dad snores, and sometimes you wake up looking a skunk in the eye about 2 feet away (this happened to me back in the day- spent the rest of the night sleeping on top of a state campground picnic table).

Really what happens is a great opportunity for adventure, and all the possibilities that can be birthed from it.  A retreat that has elements of adventure (meaning- we’re going to do this thing, and we’re not exactly sure how its going to turn out, lets try it!)- is a great chance for a group of people to put to test a great quote from our friend Parker Palmer:  ”If you can’t get out of it, get into it.”

Stuck out on the trail, stuck in a car with people you don’t know that well, stuck on that zipline, stuck overlooking that beautiful valley, stuck believing its time to tell the truth because you trust these people, faced with a choice to “live in the light”  as John says in the Bible…. well, it doesn’t all sound difficult or terrible.  But, when we create space to engage our identities as image bearers of God- and live out as creators and contributors with a group of people trying to do the same thing, something great happens.  We face points of choice.  We see God and each other in new ways.  We tell the truth, and hear truth with more mercy than is normal when we are engaged in our self absorbed busy life.

This is the beauty of retreat.  This is the beauty of committing to a group of people over time.  This is stuff God uses to alter our direction, and create memories that influence our future.  This is stuff worth getting into.  (cause once you’ve signed up for it, you can’t get out of it.)

(Kinda like life.)

Here’s a few learns from our recent experience.

• Service makes us feel like saviors who rescue the broken, while Justice means God does the rescuing, but often he works through the united power of his great and diverse community to do it.
• The goal of service is to help others, but the goal of Justice is to remove barriers so others can help themselves, and look to a Savior with little obstruction.
• Everybody is normal till you get to know them.
• Our group would never choose to hang out together on their own merit- but now their gathering produces more laughter and goodness than I would have imagined 2 months ago.
• 3600 lbs of bikes to the metel recycler is a lot of jacked up bikes.  They get heavy.
• Our past influences us greatly- and every part of it can be used by God to make something great in us.
• Grant wants to work at the zoo.
• People older than us have something to teach us.
• Conner needs a compass (or hard wired GPS in his body.)
• Its fun helping people, together.  The people we help have something to teach us as well.
• There is great value in commitment.
• Everybody has a kite they’re carrying around, that is your gifts and experiences.  When you use your gifts that kite tends to take off, and everyone around gets to see and enjoy the flight of it.  When you keep them to yourself, carrying that kite gets a bit awkward and cumbersome.
• Imran plays a mean version of “Sweet Child of Mine.”
• Dinner together is important.
• People are very helpful when you are trying to find a lost teenager deep in the city.

Please continue to pray for us- that our students and all the people we work with come to believe and live out the mission they were created to live.

Cause- if you can’t get out of it- you gotta get into it!

ck