A few months ago when our crew talked about "vision, calling, mission" and so on, and then also when you guys were asking me personally how I knew that I could go to that country and so on, I shared with you the ACTUAL vision that God had given me concerning the people group there. That was in college, and that's how I know I can go to that place. But there's more to my LIFE calling really...And this will help explain my OVERALL calling, the part that I usually shorten "to help equip believers for the work of the ministry." I've invited my friend Devan to pop in on this post because she was one of the founding schemers of this dream, though I don't know if she will say anything or not.
JC's Place: founded in my heart in 1995 and 96, when Devan and I were in high school. We used to sit around my house, her house, McDonald's, or go driving in our cars late at night just to talk about this "JC'S Place." We'd hang out at the computer lab to type up notes about it. Even after we both graduated, we'd furiously shoot emails back and forth from Tulsa (where ORU is) to Ft. Wayne (where Taylor is) to make sure that the dream of JC's Place was settled. I still have some of the more important ones, too.
What is JC's Place, you ask? Straight from the "JC's Place" manual sitting in front of me...(and I'm shortening this a bit for the post): to teach the Bible; to equip its members with the tools necessary for the work of the ministry, including but not limited to prayer, fasting, giving, the traits of 1 Tim. 3:10-13, and Eph. 4v11-16, the gifts of the Spirit and the fruits of the Spirit; and to provide opportunities to excercise what they have learned both within the ministry of JC's Place itself, in the surrounding community and in all the world.
Where is JC's Place? JC's base is in the US. All initial training takes place here. After training, members are free to continue in the US or to go to another country. After sending out of the member, other bases could then be formed.
How long is the commitment to JC's Place? Pre-acceptance training last for a period of two months. The internship last for one year. After that year expires, members are invited to become elders and are free to go where the Lord leads them long term.
Where does the actual training take place? Where do members live during training?
Interns and elders are lodges at the facility of JC's Place. Members are expected to maintain an attititude of discipline, love and respect despite the fact that their home is their school AND place of ministry. Members are expected to pay for various expenses during their stay. These costs are to maintain the home, buildings and ministries of JC's Place. Once accepted, JC's elders will assist its members in fundraising and working to earn those costs.
Will interns have free time or time to pursue activities other than those involved with JC's Place? JC's Place will require the amoutn of time needed to be a college student who works a job. Many evenings will be free and schedules are flexible. We recognize the perils of a closed group setting and will work to avoid and problem this will create. Anyway, this is not all work, it's a lot of fun, too!
What will we do?
YOU'LL LOVE GOD
YOU'LL LOVE OTHERS
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Now here's the thing guys. Some of you read that and you think, "Big deal. That sounds like every internship program or mission organization I've heard of." That's all well and good, except we'd never heard of those programs. We didn't know about raising your own support for an internship - we thought, "Well this thing is going to cost money? Guess we'll have to help them raise it." We were making it up as we went along. We really felt like God was giving us a picture of something that we were to be involved with and to build at some point in the future, and it was unfolding on paper right before us. We ended up taking it to Pastor Brad one day (we were SOOOO nervous). It was like taking our entire lives' dreams to our Pastor ( CRAIG - can you imagine)!? You know what he said? "Yeah. Huh. REEEEALLLLY??? That's great. It already exist." We kind of looked at each other and then at him like, "NO you must not understand what we're trying to say here." HAHA...it was great confirmation that we were on the right track.
Anyway, all of that to say, I know what's in my heart with JC's Place, and the HEART of it...and I feel like it fits with the organization that sends people to that country to which we'd be going back eventually, and the work we'd be doing there as long termers. It's funny how the dreams that God places in our hearts years and years ago wriggle their way into fruition in ways that you might never expect, because they don't LOOK like what you were expecting. But they're there, just as clear as day...
2 comments:
ok, I'll bite on this one. For me--I believed JC's Place to be this very present, now, actual structure type of place. That's back in high school when Ang and I actually went to visit a piece of real estate to estimate whether it would fit for the actual location. (Do you remember that, Ang, It was like some sort of happy acres between Huber and Northridge.) In my adolescent brain I was very concrete still. As I've gotten older and my brain has developed further, I realized that the vision and passion beginning in all those conversations and brain storming have led to a more refined and deepening within myself, not in a physical geographical realization, but one of certainty about who I am and how I fit into this world and God's work. I remember being so disheartened when I took a step back and realized that the actual JC's Place may never exist as we saw it then. I thought God had pulled a big fat joke on me. Then I had to struggle through the whole ordeal of is this really mine or am I jumping on Angie's bandwagon (and I'm sure you all know how convincing she can be.) (I have tons of stories for this if you have not experienced it first hand.) In the end I realized that-for me--my passion is to engage with teenagers. I'm talented at meeting people where they are and taking them to a deeper, higher, whatever kind of level--better understanding themselves, their world, their God, etc. I'm not a youth pastor in definition of my career. However, I found my fit in looking at what am I good at, what do I love, and what do I care about. I had to come to the point where I let go of all the other stuff --like "it has to be done this way" and "it has to look like this". I don't fit those definitions or those plans so why would God's work for me fit into a nice neat box either.
That's all I've got for now.
I think what's interesting is that for both of us, God WAS showing us something significant in JC's Place (not just me, even if Dev sometime says it was my dream). NO, JC's Place was not meant to happen just as we envisioned it most likely. But I think that each of us meant to take something from it.
I think (because I would) that for Devan, she was meant to take away from it this intense desire to care for teens out of it. I was always about the administration of it. I wanted to be about the equipping of the interns. That was always my thing, "How can we train the interns, and what's it going to take to make the WHOLE thing happen?" Always - that's been who I am - equipping the saints for the work of the ministry.
Devan was always ten levels in from that - on this level where ministry was happening WITH students and teenagers. Actual counseling and hands on work. Not that I didn't have my theoretical eye on it, I did. But I have my theoretical on how to theoretically administrate that ministry into existence. Devan - she was theoretically DOING it. She was with a teenager in her mind, I think...
Why am I saying all of this? I guess for a few reasons. I think some of you have been really curious as to why I know I can "go," and this may shed some more light on that. You know that Robert and I have spoken about going back long term, and maybe even as team leaders at some point. That role feels very much to aligned with the heart of JC's Place, and the organization that sends us obviously does, too.
But also because I wonder if you guys have dreams or visions that are tucked and stowed away, too? they may or may not be all drawn up in a manual like this? I'm a nerd - always have been, always will be.
But what's YOUR thing again? Tell me YOUR story again? (she says as she curls up on the patio chair with a nice cool glass of lemonade). Sometimes it's good to just tell your story again, and if you WANT to share, then we WANT to hear. If you want to. If not then, it was cool to just tell you all this story for the first time because you guys had never heard it.
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