DLmail 10/14/2008 Crashing

How about that, go to church, learn about prayer and aviation lingo. If you missed Rick Rogy's message Saturday night, you missed a great one. His presentation touched off a great small group conversation for me with the 4th grade boys. It went so deep that I felt like...suddenly telling them time was up. Really, prayer, while so easy, is so complicated. Many "why?" questions arose and I was amazed at the depth shown by some of these kids. If I turn the clock back about 4 years, I sat in room G (or F, the old DL) and had an incredibly frustrating conversation with a boy named Jacob. It began when he flat out said, "There is no God. I have prayed and never gotten an answer." This was a child who didn't connect well. Who antagonized everyone. Who argued, as a 4th grader, using scientific theories. Who spent most of his time on the computer, alone. Who came to church every weekend. That was the key. He kept coming. I know what his unanswered prayers were, he wanted a friend, but had difficulty in being a friend. But he kept coming. It wasn't easy to catch him having fun. Then one day he met his match. Justin started coming to church. A prayer was answered months, maybe years after a kid prayed. But it was answered. Jacob and Justin became great friends. Jacob became a different DL student. Now, 4 years later, I sit in a small group with Lucas. He exudes faith and his most profound comment last Saturday was "I hope Jesus comes back really soon." He raised his hand when I asked who prayed within the last day. He prays all the time. And ironically he is Jacob's little brother. It was a great night in DL. I particularly liked that Rick suggested that the kids ask their parents what they learned in church that night on their way home. I wonder how many followed through and what kind of conversations ensued.



We were just three leaders on Saturday, Kevin, Monica and myself, but God ironed out the details and all went well. This weekend I am expecting the Stewarts, Tim and Melissa. Please let me know if you cannot make it. Having no social life, I am extremely easy to get in touch with. I check my email (rlingenf@hotmail.com) 1,500 times a day and I have a cell phone (696-3388) with me all the time. Last month I received over 4 calls from people I am not related to. So if you call, chances are I will answer quickly as it is a somewhat exciting and rare event in my everyday life to get a call.



Now some housekeeping. Kevin and Monica must miss on Nov. 8th. I need to know if you, Tim, Melissa and Zach, will be able to be in DL on that Saturday. Please let me know ASAP. Also, Susan Rychener and I had a discussion last week that we need to have a little pre-service eat time for the leaders. So, we need to know if you can come on Saturday Oct. 25th at 4PMish. This is something we did regularly a few years ago and it is so rewarding. We will do this with the 2nd-3rd grade leaders. It is an incredible time to connect as adults who have the same desire to serve. Please, please, please, let me know about those two dates. And the 25th is a get together time whether or not you are serving that evening. This is open to programmers, teachers and worship leaders also. Generally we have Subway, pizza or Avantis.

This weekend the Kingdom series continues with Behaving Like a King's Kid. Read this passage, Matthew 28:16-20 (the Great Commission). Come and serve and follow, uh, the great commission as you share Christ with these kids. Talk about walking the talk. The memory verse is "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me..." Matthew 28:18. Pray that you will be used to carry out what Jesus calls us to do. Small group leader info will be at this link: http://www.nwoods.org/storyWithChart.asp?storyid=598 Tim Reist's mainstage message is located here:http://www.nwoods.org/media/player.html




We have begun to put a real emphasis on tracking the kids who are attending DL. We have new attendance sheets and we are going to be much more intentional as far as helping these kids connect to their leaders and each other. Leadership will begin strongly encouraging adults to bring kids to church regularly and to the same service. This is really an adult thing as kids rely on parents to get them to church, but kids do have great influence and you can encourage your small group kids to encourage their adults to bring them to the same service each week. Keep in mind that this is a huge age to encourage kids to continue their spiritual journey. Middle school is next and things really change. My Josh is now in Quest. The large consistent group of Chillicothe kids that we had during 4th/5th has dropped from 8-12 each week to Josh and maybe one or two others. Whether those kids have switched services or just don't come anymore, I don't know, but they have disappeared.




Finally, I don't do much, but I do get out to help Kathy with the ballooning thing. I enjoy helping launch the balloon, then chase it, trying to anticipate where it will land and beat the balloon to that spot in hopes of catching it and enabling a soft landing. Below is a landing where I and a former DLer reached the basket to catch it right after the first, gentle bounce. What I didn't get a video of was the second landing in a cornfield west of Dunlap Sunday at dusk. That was a high speed drop over a treeline, then a violent series of bounces and drags. Fun stuff. Not as fun as the time the basket scrapped the top of Bergners at the Shoppes, but still fun. One of these days I will have the camera ready for those landings.