The following is a portion of a full blog entry recently written as part of my regular contribution over at GivMusic.com. To see the full article, click here!
Beyond the Bulletproof Glass
May 10, 2010
I was recently reading a blog post from a gentleman named Lee Bezotte. He was describing an experience that he recently had (with his six year old son in tow) that regretfully is both symbolic of a growing tendency in our society and an unfortunate consequence of our own insecurities combined with a slightly skewed view of reality.
In his post, he mentioned visiting a handful of churches in his community on a weekday with the intent of inviting the pastors and staff to a workshop on social media. Stepping out of the social web space and into the physical world, he was shocked at how inaccessible these churches really were. Some were locked down and empty mid-week, with nary a person to be found. The most poignant, however, was the church that had grown so large, so popular, and possibly so controversial in its community that the staff “greeted” them… from behind a wall of bulletproof glass. …read more
Our first 500 miles as a family of 5 are in the rearview mirror! Yesterday, we loaded the minivan, whined emphatically that it was not the RV, and headed for Portland, OR where Amy and the 3 KIDS will spend the next 9 days with family. As she visits great grandmothers, aunts, sisters, and cousins, I will fly to Phoenix on Saturday for the first of the two UthBuild March builds in Puerto Penasco, MX. When the first home is complete and the keys are turned over to the new homeowner, I will fly back to Portland, rejoin Amy, Bethany, Dillon, and Emily, and with the alphabet order restored, (A, B, C, D, and E… Yes it was intentional) our family of five will have what we hope will be a return drive to Boise as uneventful as the outbound one!
So… if you are a High School friend of Amy’s and in Portland this week, drop her a line! She is in town. If you happen to be in Mexico, come on by the build site and pound a nail or make a sandwich. (less likely, yes, but believe it or not, we do have a woman “coming by” in Mexico that just HAPPENED to read about the builds, contact us, and volunteer!)
Upon our return to Boise, we will be spending around two weeks helping my mom transition from the Elks Rehabilitation Hospital back to home. Then we’ll load the RV and see where God takes us! (Thank you to those who are taking a role in helping make my mother’s transition happen- from meals to overnight stays to visits to phone calls- while we are out of town!) She is continuing to recover well from spinal surgery, and is expected at this point to regain all functions that she lost prior to the surgery. Praise God!
A very special thank you to the team at the Catalyst Leadership Conference, who today launched the Catalyst West Coast 2010 website! Why the thanks? Well, the “unusual” background of this years site (the theme is “Unusual Tomorrow”) features various nonprofits that are taking “unusual” approaches to impact our culture. To see Share5, just refresh the page (after you’ve checked out the Word Made Flesh site) and turn off the foreground at the top!
Stay tuned. We’ll be talking to the guys at Catalyst about a group rate discount for Share5, and we’ll let you know. Regardless, if you have the ability, join us at Catalyst West Coast in Irvine, CA on April 21-23, 2010!
While I understand that there are no longer 12 full days before Christmas, I also understand that the issue of homelessness and the plight of those without a home will not go away on December 26th. With that, I would like to challenge you to consider taking on the challenge within the 12for12k “12 Days of Christmas Homeless Push”. It provides 12 simple, practical ways that you can both create an impact and increase your awareness of both this issue and those that find themselves in the unfortunate place of being affected by it.
I am currently preparing a three part series on homelessness that we will roll out on this blog in the days leading up to Christmas. The posts were originally written as guest blogger posts for another organization, so once they roll them out, we will link to them from here.
Stay tuned, and Merry Christmas. To steal a line from the 12 Days challenge, may you find yourself being human to another human being this Christmas!
Love as Jesus loved. Live as Jesus lived. Share Well With Others.
(originally written for the Nov 2009 e-bulletin of Bethany Community Church in Tempe, AZ )
Birthed at Bethany – The UthBuild Story
If you were to visit the High School Ministries room at Bethany Community Church on one specific night just over a year ago, you would likely have not recognized that something new was being birthed. You probably would have easily mistaken it for a teen event where the lights were flashing and the music was just a bit too loud. Like most, you could have easily missed that God was, in the midst of the noise and the strobing lights, forming a new friendship and a new partnership that is today changing the lives of not only our teens, but also the lives and the futures of families across the border in Mexico as well.
It was on that night in November, during a Bethany HSM concert event, that HSM Pastor David Robinson met the Houck family and Share5.org. Traveling with the concert tour, the Houck’s nonprofit provided the ministry support for the bands. Pastor Robinson took the time to share his heart for transforming and building youth with Chad Houck prior to the concert, and by the end of the night, the two had agreed to join forces in Mexico when HSM went on their annual missions building trip in March.
March arrived, and the Houck’s returned to Bethany in their 34’ motorhome, their home on wheels for their now fulltime mobile ministry work. They served as the camp speakers for the two weeks of building in Mexico, and upon their return, sat down for another heart to heart with Pastor Dave. This time, the offer was to help create a new opportunity that would expand the ministry that had begun at Bethany by making it available to youth nationwide. With the blessing of Bethany’s Senior Pastor, UthBuild was born as a full-fledged ministry division of Share5’s parent 501c3 organization, World Wins International.
This past October, for the first time under the UthBuild banner, several youth from Bethany’s High School Ministry stood before the congregation. They were sent out with blessings and prayer as they set their sites on Puerto Peñasco, MX for their 5 day Fall Break building project. The goal: to build a home for a homeless family in only 4 days, using nothing but hand tools and their own willing sacrifice.
By the end of the four building days those fortunate enough to be involved had the opportunity to witness the miraculous power and capacity of God manifest through their very hands. A group of 18 non-professional, non-experienced high school “builders” not only constructed a home for a family, but they went over 200% above and beyond. By joining the new house to an existing structure already on the property, the team was able to create a home with 2.5 times the living space of the original plan. Where the plans called for installing 250 square feet of roofing, they installed over 800 giving the entire structure a new sealed roof. Though a typical build only involves 60 linear feet of stucco, they applied in excess of 100 feet making the full home water-tight.
They pushed themselves harder than they believed possible, and in the end, they pulled off nothing short of a miracle. A group of people that shouldn’t have been able to do so gave a house that shouldn’t have been finished to a grateful family whose tears flowed as freely as their Spanish words of appreciation and praise to God.
Be sure to check out the photos below of the UthBuild October 2009 Build. You can find this article and more on the Share5 Blog, where you can follow the Houck family and the rest of the things happening on the Share5 Tour until they return to Bethany for the next UthBuild trip in March of 2010! Thank you for your continued support of Bethany High School Ministries, and watch for more here from UthBuild, the new national ministry making international impact, birthed right here at Bethany Community Church.
This past Sunday night we had the privilege of attending a pre-cd release concert in Wisconsin for Centricity Recording Artist Jason Gray. His new CD "Everything Sad is Coming Untrue" releases today nationwide, and my bottom line review for this album is… BUY IT!
Ispired by a passage from Lord of the Rings, where Sam asks Gandolf if "everything sad going to come untrue", Jason's title track is beautifully written, both times. Thats right, there is a part I and a part II, and while both reflect a different season and mood, they are both right on.
Amy's favorite track, For the First Time Again, includes beautifully crafted phrases like "Sometimes I think I know too much, but even then its not enough. Can you take me back so I can move ahead? Take me deep inside the grace that forgets instead of down the well worn path of my regrets. I'm older than I've ever been. Can you take me back and make me new again? Cause I need you now, as much as I did then."
Finally, my favorite track on the album is titled "Fade With Our Voices". It is a an excellent wakeup for those of us, like myself, who need to check our motives and our actions to see if they are lining up with our speech. It's words challenge us to "make our lives a melody that we proclaim when we live in Jesus' name."
But don't just take my word on it. here is what NewReleaseTuesday.com had to say about this new project.
Jason has an uncanny ability to absorb images, emotions and truths from
a variety of sources: theology, literature, relationships, his own
struggles, pop culture, poetry, etc., and to pull together those
diverse strands into a unified whole. Over the years he has developed a
razor sharp knack for saying deep things in a way that the rest of us
can relate to.
Do yourself a favor and head over to http://JasonGrayMusic.com today and pick up this new release. It will be a great add to your collection, and a blessing to your daily walk with God!
This past month brought us a roller coaster of what seemed like bad news that God turned into great opportunity through His people. Foremost of all of the events was the breaking of our motorhome transmission in Rapid City, South Dakota. Thanks to the generosity of a single donor, what was intended to deflate, delay, and depress has become both an amazing testimony and one more stunning example of God’s faithfulness. (As a bonus, we also now have a 100,000 mile warranty on a new transmission!)
This is just one example of how God is using people just like you to meet needs from the simple to the more difficult. If you would like to be a part of what God is doing with and through Share5, we have a few specific needs for you to consider.
Taking to the Air
We will once again be working with Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee in Atlanta for Catalyst Conference, October 7-9. Our challenge, however, is making the October 11 departure for the fall UTHbuild trip in Phoenix. We would like to leave the RV in Atlanta and fly. We have enough frequent flyer miles for one ticket, and have had $200 pledged towards the remaining tickets. They are currently between $220 and $275 each, and we need to buy three tickets. If you have either a) 33,000 flight miles on Delta, or b) can make a cash donation toward the purchase of the tickets, please contact us.
Web Development
With our book “Share Well With Others” coming out in December, we would like to redesign and upgrade our current Share5 website. We are looking for a skilled web developer to assist and/or direct the project, as well as funds to offset development costs. (Contact Chad directly by email or by phone at (208)585-7370.)
Publishing Seed Fund
We will be self-publishing our book, which means that we will need to pay up front for the first print run. If you can help us offset the costs of the books by investing in this process, we would love to hear from you. Expected expenses for various portions run from $250 to $2000, and we would be happy to share our plan with you if you are interested. (Contact Chad directly by email or by phone at (208)585-7370.)
Fill‘er Up
Our single biggest ongoing expense is fuel. If you can help us with a contribution to offset our fuel expense, we sure appreciate it. We’ve even made it easy. Just shoot it to us through our PayPal Fuel Fund! We now have a paypal debit card that we can use right at the pump, and you have the ease of our online contribution system!
Of course, if you would simply like to make a one time contribution to Share5, or wish to set up a monthly recurring donation, we would greatly appreciate your support in that manner as well.
Finally, we could not do what we do without your faithful and continual prayer support, so please, remember us and all those around the world who so greatly appreciate your prayers.
Some of you are inevitably wondering how Amy’s pregnancy is going. Others of you are now saying “What?!? Amy’s Pregnant??? I thought this was about a new spaghetti recipe!!!” Well, here is the update and the gameplan for "Baby on The Road".
We found out that we were pregnant while still in Boise during the summer, so we were able to have an initial appointment and labs worked up, as well as a first ultrasound to see a heartbeat, courtesy of The Baby Place . Since then, we have been monitoring heart rate and blood pressure as we go. (Easy to do when at WalMart!)
Amy sent out an email to the Christian Midwife’s Association, and we got several replies from midwives offering their services free of charge as we travel. We are headed to Illinois in a couple of weeks to meet up with one such woman for another checkup and possibly an ultrasound. (If anyone knows additional midwives in Nashville, Atlanta, etc., please let us know!) Amy is starting to feel movement now, which is always a little freaky I hear, and all is going well. The initial nausea has subsided which certainly makes travel a bit smoother!
Our plan is to continue normal routines until likely late December or early January when we will select a city in which to settle for a few months. Current candidates include Nashville, Phoenix, Dallas, and Atlanta. (suggestions welcome!) The common thread? Warm winter climate with tolerable temperatures from Jan- March, and a Christian midwife with whom we can share this birth process. (communities with greater than 5% chance of snow during those months need not apply… Sorry Idaho.)
We sure appreciate your prayers, and if you have any suggestions for great southern towns that we should be considering, please feel free to add your comments below.
We’ll be posting more information on the baby, Amy, and the Prego to Go story as things develop. Like a good spaghetti sauce, it will be simmering for a while. Check in with us later!
Thursday we arrived in Minneapolis, MN after our exciting couple of weeks in South Dakota. Needing a quick restock on the groceries, we were exstatic to find a Trader Joe's Grocery while on the highway south of St. Paul. Once inside, we met two women, Carol Rage and her friend Pat who was visiting from Florida.
What started as a conversation about butternut squash soup quickly turned to Jesus and the joy of serving him. I (Chad) spoke with Pat as Amy and Carol conversed, and our little divine fellowship moment lasted the better part of 15 minutes in the soup aisle! After we had exchanged contact information and talked about connecting with Pat and her husband sometime down in Orlando, the two ladies thanked us for encouraging them and headed for the checkout.
About 30 minutes later, Amy's phone rang. It was someone from White's Funeral Home in Burnsville, MN about 10 minutes south of where we were. It turns out that our two new friends had been very busy since they left us! They had immediately driven to Carol's church, Faith Covenant Church, and asked the staff there if we could park there for the week. It turns out the church was hosting a HUGE urban camping event called MUUUCE - the "Most Unbelievable Ultimate Urban Camping Experience" for approximately 750 JUNIOR HIGH STUDENTS!!! Instead of saying no, they called the funeral home across the street and gave our information to them, which is why Amy got the call. In the meantime, we got connected to help and voluteer for the MUUUCE event, so this morning we were able to help them serve breakfast to the 750 sleepover attendees. Emily and Dillon did an excellent job at putting smiles on the faces of sleep deprived teens, to say the least, as they handed out apple juice, orange juice, and milks.
Shortly after breakfast, we took a ride to one of Burnsville's many parks. While the kids were playing in the water, we got to spend a bit of time (30-40 mins?) talking with and encouraging a person who was there at the park monitoring the facility. It continues to amaze me how God is opening divine appointments with opportunities to encourage people along the way. We went for groceries on Thursday and ended the day today completely taken care of for a parking spot, with the opportunity to encourage yet another few individuals in their struggles and in their walk with the Lord.
Thanks to everyone who makes this possible. I wish there was a way to tell you how much it impacts people when someone with no time agenda can just sit and listen to whats going on in their life, and then respond with biblical encouragement. Thank you for granting us that opportunity!
On Wednesday of this past week, we started hearing a strange clicking sound from the RV engine as we passed through Sturgis, SD. Realizing we really couldn’t do anything about it late at night, we continued on. By Thursday morning we had arrived in Rapid City and the noise was both getting louder and joined by a vibration when we took off from a stop. We found a dealership that would look at it Friday morning, and spent the night in their parking lot.
The next morning, we unfortunately found that our transmission case had cracked in several places, the flywheel was shattered, and all would need to be replaced at a cost of roughly $3500.
We spent the first part of Friday looking for alternatives that might cost less like repairing and welding what we had. At about one in the afternoon I called one of our advisors to fill him in on what was going on. As I told him about the total estimate and our options, he out of the blue said, “Oh- I just had an epiphany… Can I call you right back?” The way he hung up, it was like he had left the iron plugged in or forgotten to turn the water off at home…
Literally eight minutes later, he called back. His first words, said with a slight chuckle, were, “I’m sorry, but I was only able to raise $3300.” He went on to explain that as we were speaking, God put on his mind the face of a Christian man he knew who had just sold a piece of investment property. He made a quick phone call and asked if the man had decided where he was going to sow an offering, as was his typical practice in these sales. It turned out that he had not, and with a quick explanation of what was happening, the man responded with, “Well, I was waiting to see what God would bring my way. It looks like this is it. You have $3300.”
By the end of the day Friday we had arranged for a completely new transmission to be shipped in and installed, including a 100,000 mile warranty, for $3270. More than enough. That is our God.
We will be staying this week in Rapid City, SD as we wait. We met last night with a local church pastor, and he has asked us to share our story with their congregation on Sunday. They have also graciously offered to host us for the week. We can not wait to see what God has in store in the way of divine appointments, as He surely knew we would be “delayed” here!
Isaiah 26:3-4 says that He will keep in perfect peace the one whose mind is fixed (or stayed) on the Lord. It tells us to trust in the Lord, for He is the Rock eternal. I would be lying if I said that I spent Friday morning in perfect peace, but the moment that phone call came, I quickly realized how foolish my worrying had been. We had asked God to fix the issue before something major happened. When it broke, we thought He was “arriving late.” Lazarus’s sister said the same thing…”If you’d have been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.”
God doesn’t “permit” bad things to happen to us, they just happen. He even warns that in this world we will have struggles. He also encourages us, however, to “take heart, for I have overcome the world.”
In our short sightedness, we failed to see that God had already positioned a new conduit for his blessings just outside our situation, hidden in plain sight, waiting to bring a blessing greater than we had ever imagined. Today, whatever your struggle, know that He has done the same for you. After all, he changes not!
“Cast your burdens on the Lord, and he shall sustain you. He shall never permit the righteous to be moved.” – Psalms 55:22
Our first 500 miles as a family of 5 are in the rearview mirror! Yesterday, we loaded the minivan, whined emphatically that it was not the RV, and headed for Portland, OR where Amy and the 3 KIDS will spend the next 9 days with family. As she visits great grandmothers, aunts, sisters, and cousins, I will fly to Phoenix on Saturday for the first of the two 
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