twenty-three

i’ve had a hard time articulating the last portion of our days in hayesville, north carolina. even now, about 3 weeks after returning from our trip, i still struggle to understand what happens when a group of 15 people are placed together by God to contribute to his Kingdom. and it boggles my mind how [...]

I just returned from Seattle, after spending the day at Seattle First Church of the Nazarene at the Seattle Neighborhood Mission Learning Day conference. Sponsored by Praxis Mission Center, this was a gathering of church leaders and practitioners sharing about how we live out our ministries in missional ways in our communities. The gathering of [...]

A small group, a micro-community of students or friends, functions as a support network, a social connection, and a spiritual development arena for many of the students who become involved at the INN. As I look at how we approach directly "evangelizing" within our community, I have to wonder how the small group fits into [...]

We spent a lot of time with the Salvation Army last week at their state-of-the-art Belkin House location on Homer St. in downtown Vancouver. On Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday mornings, a smaller portion of our team showed up at about 7:15 to help serve breakfast to their residents and then help prepare lunch for the [...]

I’m sitting alone in a Blenz coffee shop (Canadian coffee!!) in the early morning of our first full day in Vancouver, BC. We arrived last night and jumped right into a couple of projects, giving the students an opportunity to get right into the city and experience some of the struggles and hope that people [...]

I just returned for a brief walk down to my local Starbucks, after participating in this year’s Coffee Break. Starbucks is offering free 12 oz drip coffee to "guests" from 10-12 today, so if you read this in the next few minutes, run…run fast, to your local shop and grab a cup.
I must say, I [...]

About 3 weeks ago, we had our first congregational summit at First Presbyterian Church, part of an ongoing vision process for the church. I wrote about it, about how encouraging it was for me as a staff member and as a newly-involved member of the congregation as a whole. This Saturday, we had the 2nd [...]

Yesterday I had the privilege to take part in the first of two congregational summits at First Presbyterian Church of Bellingham. Part of a current vision and evaluation process, this summit brought together about 75 members of the church community to discuss the future vision for the church and begin to brainstorm ideas for moving [...]

Ahh, the academic break. What a wonderful thing. I don’t intend to gloat to my fellow working world friends out there, but after a year in the "real" world, it is much better to be back on the academic schedule. Winter break was quite nice.
And now, it’s really good to be back. I’m just getting [...]

At about 9:10 last night, just before Late Tuesday got on stage to play their musical set, I looked across the Viking Union Multipurpose room and surveyed the crowded Fa La La La La La La La INN.  Something like 300 students bustled about, filling cups with hot cocoa and coffee, pasting together graham cracker [...]