Lets say you’re getting ready to graduate high school, or perhaps you graduated in the last year or two, and you want to go to a private Christian University like John Brown University….eventually.

But right now now, you’re thinking, “I want to get out there with people and make a difference. I’m not sure I want to jump right into college. I need a year where I can figure it out a bit more, and help people in the process.”

So, if this person’s parents are saying, “Hey, that’s great…but what if there was a way to get some real-life experience serving people, AND get some college under your belt?”

We have an answer, and it could be the most educational year of your life, and you ‘ll still get a good deal of college credit!

John Brown Univerisity has asked CQ Missional to provide a program site for theirLink Year program. We are one of 3 sites this coming fall. Kanakuk Kamps in Branson, and Camp Eagle in Texas are the other two. While we love the idea of students spending a year in a great camp setting, preparing for life, we believe that an urban setting like ours, doing youth ministry internships, taking classes, and helping real people in a real city like Tulsa will be very powerful, and a great investment.

Students will live in community, with hand picked Resident Advisors with a heart for ministry and great experience in helping young people, in a great dorm complex owned by our partners Literacy and Evangelism International. They’ll have a safe place to live, great ministries to serve with and learn from, and great classes and discipleship that we will provide. Also, they can get 15 hours of college credit from JBU for the classes we teach, which includes a Spring mission trip to experience another culture.

Want to know more, including our list of guest teachers and speakers? Check out our website at: www.tulsalinkyear.com!

We are so excited to get this rolling. Remember, as a not for profit ministry, students can raise funds toward their fee to us for the year, like they could for a mission trip. (And JBU will work with them for Financial Aid on the tuition part of their fees.)

If you are interested in participating, or assisting a student with their Tulsa Link Year fees, please contact us!

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!

“Prayer to me is far more than just a monologue with God.  It’s breathing…it’s being.”

Triibe is a group of guys, that primarily go to Believers Church, that are exploring news ways of communicating and praying with God through drums.

You can check out a short video about Triibe here.

Recently, the Triibe guys went down to an area in Tulsa called Brookside to have a time of prayer whilst beating on drums late on a Thursday night.  Several of the guys play percussion while others will get on the mic and intercede with the rhythm.  This was a small, closed session in an abandoned retail store, until the room began to get stuffy and someone opened the front door to let some air in.  The room started to fill with patrons from the surrounding restaurants and bars on Brookside.  This was exciting.  Then it started to get a little more exciting when the people coming in from off of the streets began to pray on the microphones.  A closed prayer session started finding itself gaining momentum in a hurry.

One of the people from off the street began praying on the mic in a very bizarre way.  He was swearing at God.  His prayers were full of anger and the cuss words were flying.  Adam, one of the Triibe guys, went over to ask him what was going on.  He responded, “I hate God.  I hate the Church.”  Adam said, “I’m sorry to hear that.”  The guy, still full of anger, continued on about how destructive the Church has been to him.  Adam replied again, “I’m sorry to hear that.  We care about you, man.”  Then the guy inquired, “How much do you guys rent this space for?”  Adam said, “He didn’t know.  He was just down here to pray, but he could find out.”  After that, the guy remarked, “Because I would like to pay for the next three months rent for you guys to be down here.”

In a matter of five minutes, this guy went from swearing at God on the microphone, to offering to pay for the rent so Triibe could continue to pray in that space.  The living God is at work in our cities.  May we be open to His rhythms.

“My back hurts.”

We had just spent a night on the floor of a basketball court during an in town missions trip.  One of the guys I was with chimed in again, “My back really hurts.  But why do I feel more connected to Jesus because my back hurts from sleeping on the hardwood last night?  Like I am suffering for Jesus or something.”  This was a fascinating question.  Why did a tweaked back make him (us) feel more connected to Jesus?

During this trip, we had been serving the homeless at a downtown shelter run by the beautiful folks at Trinity Episcopal Church.  People would come in off of the streets for a hot meal, and we had the privilege to hang out with them and serve them breakfast.  I believe that my friend having an ailing back connected him (us) to Jesus by helping him to identify with the homeless people that we were serving.  Sleeping on the hardwood floors somehow helped him (us) to understand and be able to relate to those who had to sleep on the pavement the night before.  In a very small way, we could identify with the pain of being homeless, and that helped us to connect with the folks we were serving.  In do so, it also connected us with the person of Jesus.

I once heard Tony Campolo say, “We can’t just look at the Bible through middle-class American eyes, and try to fit it into our lives.  We have to identify with the poor in order to understand the message of the Bible.”

We need to identify and relate with the poor and the hurting.  We need to begin to put a face to pain–a face to suffering–a face to a statistic.  In doing so, does it also help us to better understand the gospel message of Jesus Christ?

“Compassion grows with the inner recognition that your neighbor shares your humanity with you.  This partnership cuts through all walls, which might have kept you separate.  Across all barriers of land and language, wealth and poverty, knowledge and ignorance, we are one, created from the same dust, subject to the same laws, and destined for the same end.  With this compassion you can say, ‘In the face of the oppressed I recognized my own face and in the hands of the oppressor I recognize my own hand.  Their flesh is my flesh, their blood is my blood, their pain is my pain, and their smile is my smile.  Their ability to torture is in me, too; their capacity to forgive I find also in myself.  There is nothing in me that does not belong to them too; nothing in them that does not belong to me’…In the depths of my being, I meet my fellow humans with whom I share love and have life and death.”  Henri Nouwen; With Open Hands