I stayed up late last night writing little notes on our year-end letter we are sending out to contributors to CQ Missional.  And, while we are  really a little operation, there were at least 35 contributors to this ministry last year, not including the support different people provided with their prayer, counsel, volunteering, and joining us as clients.

That is a humbling thought, and I looked out the window at my back yard on this cold day and said Thank You to God, who is the creator and giver of all good things.  We working at CQM say thank you also, to all of you who join us in this desire to help young adults discover their unique purpose, and to all our partners who believe that engaging service to our neighbor is something we were all made to do.

Our open house is coming up Tuesday, and I also got great news this week that we can pursue becoming the urban ministry site for John Brown University’s Link Year Program.  We are growing.

Below is a copy of our year end letter to contributors and to those interested in this work.  Please don’t hesitate to contact me if we can be of any service or support to you.

Dear Friends:

With 2010 coming to a close, I wanted to thank everyone who has helped CQ Missional invest in many lives this year. In our first year alone, we were involved in coaching and counseling relationships with around 10 young ministry leaders on a regular basis, and saw the successful completion of our first session of the Certificate in Missional Leadership (our 10-month internship program) & GPS Tulsa (for recent high school grads).  I have included some thoughts and comments I’ve received recently from GPS students at the end of this letter.  Please pray for them, and the new students who will join us this spring.

New things for 2011 include:

• • Starting our own 501c3 non profit, making us grant-worthy for our community service work, and creating better communication avenues between supporters and our team. This will mean  contributors can give directly to CQ Missional, and we will connect with folks directly from our office here in Tulsa.
  • More GPS groups, a new CML internship program at Camp Loughridge that we run, and being an urban ministry site for The John Brown University Link Year Program  starting this coming fall.
  • Official partnerships with Camp Loughridge and Garnett Church of Christ, opening the door to new opportunities to invest in the lives of young people.
  • Adding more team members who offer vocational coaching and pastoral counseling for young adults-increasing our capacity to offer more of those services.
  • Continuing to enjoy the work we do!

All that is to say, as our year ends:

• Thank you for your support and friendship!
• Please pray for our work- that we might hear God’s voice and join Him in blessing people.
• Please consider making a year-end tax deductible contribution as much of our regular contributions are also being used to pay insurance, legal, and other costs of doing business.  Our goal this year is to get full funding for the Director Position, and provide funds for administrative assistant work.  We are at 50% at this time.
• Lastly- consider paying it forward by sharing what we do to other potential clients and contributors who may join us in this work..

We are doing our part to invest in lives, and help young people invest in more lives…
Some words about investment from 2 Corinthians:

He throws caution to the winds,giving to the needy in reckless abandon. His right-living, right-giving ways never run out, never wear out.

This, I believe, is supposed to be a defining characteristic of our story. We were created to contribute.  Thanks to all of you for working with us to contribute and see how God’s giving doesn’t run out.

You can send your year end tax deductible contributions directly to:
CQ Missional
1212 W Albuquerque Pl
Broken Arrow, OK 74011

God bless each of you.

Chris King
Director, CQ Missional

GPS Tulsa has proven to be a valuable experience for everyone involved-students, leaders, and their parents as well. GPS is about helping people discover the purpose they were made to live. Here’s some short  reflections from  our first students:

“Sometimes we might feel useless and unpurposeful but we are making a difference in peoples live whether we see it or not…sometimes we don’t see it though. All we think about is ourselves, we walk through our day thinking about the next thing we have to get done, the next place we have to go to, the next meal we are going to have…or how we are going to finance the next meal. We don’t realize the homeless people sitting on the side of the road-They have a life too. we are not the only ones on earth…

God put us all together to compliment and help each other.  to fit together as puzzle pieces, to help create one big beautiful masterpiece.  when we all come to this point of asking ourselves “is our existence necessary?” we should all ask ourselves “can one mosquito make a difference in a tent of sleeping people?”

“I graduated from a small highschool (TSAS), and alot of my friends moved away. Even the friends that stayed and went to TCC became more distant because we didn’t choose similar classes. College is so unstructured that it’s hard to make new friends in your classes (especially lecture based classes). Making new friends is something I’m not skilled at anyway. I feel like I have friendship (or at least something incredibly similar, perhaps community) through GPS.”

One seemingly “directionless” 17 year old closes our last one on one with this question:  “Am I doing OK?  How can I get better?  Do you think my path is a good one?”

“I don’t think we could make the impact, learn as much, or become the group we have become without the time that GPS gives us. GPS has helped me see God loves all people, and maybe I can try to do that too.”

“I love all of it.  Especially the people.  I would have never figured that this group of people would become good friends and trust each other.  I guess thats possible in other places as well.”

Good day everyone.  I am here to report that GPS Tulsa had its first session with 5 awesome students this past Tuesday.  We expect 2 more to sign up this week as well.  I have so much to say about our first day together, but if you want the whole scoop- we’ll just have to get together over lunch and I will give you the 3 dimensional deal.

1st United Methodist provided a great setting for us to consider some big ideas.

That being said- here are 10 observations (peppered with a few opinions) about our initial gathering:

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. • Grant, Conner, Imran, Lyndsay, and Justin are beautiful people.  Knowing our students so much better now after sharing a road trip around downtown, and a meal together, just seals in stone the idea that they are unique and have a big time contribution to make to this world.  We like them.
                  • The team of Beth, Paula, Nathan and Mitch really provided fat support, and it was fun for all of us to come around these young adults with some love and food.

• • • • • • • We sat in front of the courthouse and talked about the question “what do you trust?”  A nice, possibly homeless dude named Nathan joined in our conversation.  His perspective on trust was helpful for us, and he liked having some folks to talk with.   The experience informed a discussion about trust, and value.
            • Sometimes it is harder to heat up lasagna than to cook something up fresh.  It helps if you read directions, especially if you are an aerospace engineer.
  • • • • • • Conner and Grant just met, but actually went to elementary school together and knew each other as kids.
• I am blessed to have great people around me.
• Our spot on Quaker Ave is just right for this (although a fridge would be helpful.)  It feels cool, the location is right, and students are comfortable there.
• This format of training, service, teaching and counseling is valuable.  The students are worthy of investment- and they will be investing in children in Tulsa all year long.  Cool.
• We visited two beautiful places in Tulsa:  1st Methodist Downtown, and Global Gardens on W 21st st.  They provided a great context to deal with issues of love, service, and responsibility.
• This is fun, but there is much work to do in creating stability for this experience- including getting all the students fully funded and expanding the community of people who invest in young adults discovering their unique role in God’s big story.

Remember you can contribute in all kinds of ways- we just are trying to provide one way to do that.  I am blessed to be a part of this.  We can still take students before Sept. 1.  Shout at me if you are interested at sendtochrisking@gmail.com.

More coming!

CQMissional is all about helping people discover their role in making the world a better place. We think the sooner you can start discovering your unique role in the world the better. This is why we created GPS Tulsa.

GPS Tulsa is a one semester educational experience that meets in the afternoon and early evening once a week. People who are in the program will serve the community of Tulsa by working at John 3:16 Youth and Family Center.  But this is about a lot more then just service. After each day of serving we will eat a meal together and talk about the day. By answering “what, so what, now what?” questions participants will grow and learn from the experience of serving others.

The next really important thing about GPS Tulsa is that it is designed to help people find life direction. They might not know exactly what they want to do for the rest of their lives, but they will have a better understanding of who they are, their strengths, talents, limits, and weaknesses. They will have a better idea what their next educational steps or vocation should be.

GPS Tulsa is designed to be a complement to college. Anybody who has recently graduated high school can be in GPS Tulsa. It is designed to be a complement to college and we built GPS Tulsa to work really well in conjunction with the Tulsa Achieves program at Tulsa Community College.

If you are interested in GPS Tulsa all the info you need is in the GPS Tulsa section of this site. If you are already convinced and want to apply head right to the application section.

We would love your help getting the word out about GPS Tulsa. If you know anybody who might be interested please send them our way!

CQMissional recently took a trip to Colorado…we had a great time!

We stayed at Silver Cliff Ranch, where we helped out around the camp, and had lots of time to play in the snow.

We shoveled some snow:

Cleaned some cabins:

Helped serve meals:

Went snowshoeing (we also went skiing):

we even drank chocolate milk:

Why did we do all this? We thought it would be fun (it was!), but more then that, the mountains are a a great place to hang out, share our stories, encourage each other, and be in God’s creation.

It was a great trip…next time we go you should come!

Come to Colorado! We are going to go hang out at Silver Cliff Ranch (http://www.silvercliffranch.com/). While we are there we will be helping out at the camp making meals, and doing some work projects. We will help serve breakfast and dinner, and have the rest of the day free. There will be time for skiing at Ski Cooper (http://www.skicooper.com/), snowshoeing, visiting the Mount Princeton Hot Springs and just hanging out. We will have some evening sessions by Chris King around the question of “what are you going to do with your life?”

Come ready to work and ready to have a good time just spending time together.

Here are the details:

Dates: March 14-19, 2008 (we will leave Tulsa on the 14th and be back in Tulsa late on the 19th)

Where: Sliver Cliff Ranch, Colorado. Silver Cliff is near Buana Vista there is a map on the Sliver Cliff we site at http://www.silvercliffranch.com.

Cost: $100 for lodging. We will get three meals a day at the camp if you want them (breakfast, a sack lunch, and dinner), other food is on your own. Food while traveling is on your own, as is travel. If you want to ski plan on around $50 a day for lift tickets and $25 a day for rentals. Be sure and plan some money to help cover gas on the way out and back for whoever you ride with.

Travel: We will car pool from Tulsa, OK, or you can just meet us in Colorado. Be sure and have some money to throw in for gas, and let us know if you are willing to drive.

Who can come: This will be a small trip, we have space for about 10 people, You must be 18 or over.

If you want to come let Chris know by emailing info@cqmissional.com or find him on Facebook. A $50 deposit will secure your spot. If you have questions email Chris.

The CML is a ten month program full of real, hands-on ministry experience, studying, being mentored by CQMissional Staff. Its a chance to live in a new city, meet new people, confront hard situations and learn about the role God has created for you in his Kingdom.

Interested? Check out the certificate in Missional Leadership section of the web site, or shoot us an email (info@cqmissional.com)

20/30 is a community of people who gather every week at Ben and Beth’s house in Tulsa. Our time together is simple: we eat a meal, share our lives with each other, study the Bible and pray. We would love it if you join us!

The best way to get info an 20/30 is to join the Facebook group.  Just search for 20/30. There happen to be 2 groups called 20/30. We are the one with the painting profile picture.

20/30 is loosely associated with CQMissional and Garnett Church of Christ.