Encounter

High School Encounter coming up September 17-19th at Camp ALOMA!

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The Examen

The Examen, also known as The Daily Examen, Examination of Conscience or the Awareness Examen is a very simple yet powerful tool in a Christian's prayer life. The Examen was really developed and popularized by St. Ignatius of Loyola who founded the Jesuit order. This was a practice used daily to help the participant in Ignatius' retreats to see where they had failed and where they had succeeded. 

The practice is very simple so I'll get right to it. There are two questions that we ask God in this prayer:

1. The moment of consolation. We ask God to show us where we were connected to Him the most during our day.

2. The moment of desolation. We ask God to reveal where we got in His way or where we have failed Him. 

The key to this exercise is to be really ready to listen to God's voice. Try to find a quiet place and spend some time just breathing in God's presence before you try to just start asking God these questions. After you've spent some time in silence, ask the Holy Spirit to speak. When you ask these questions try to take captive the first thought or moment that comes to mind. This way you are not 'thinking' but merely listening. For example, many times when I have prayed the examen and God revealed a moment of consolation I quickly dismissed it because it was something small or something I had considered trivial, but after thinking it over I quickly realized those first moments that came to mind always had a common theme and I found God was just speaking in a way I had not anticipated. Mostly I have expected God to reveal my moments of connection to Him when I was doing something I considered to be particularly religious, but I am usually surprised that my connections with God are in the small and unexpected things. 

In the youth ministry in our Church I will sometimes practice the examen over a worship service or youth gathering. I often find the more I practice this or practice this in a group with other adults it really helps to reveal what God is doing and where He is moving in our ministry.

**Note: this may be a good exercise to journal during, that way you can spend time reflecting over previous exercises which helps to see where God is moving on a larger scale as well as where you are getting in His way on a regular basis.

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A lesson from Haiti

This week I am back from Haiti and as I get back into the swing of work and home, I am still trying to process just what happened last week. As you might know already it is hard to do a short term mission to the poorest places in the world and then just jump right back into you day to day when you come back. That is why I am useless this week. It is extremely hard for me to sleep in my comfortable pillow top mattress while knowing the people who will sleep on the ground. It is hard to see my excess in light of their lack and at times I feel a mix of guilt and anger. Guilt, because I have so much and anger, because there are those around me who have even more yet care even less. And yet we have so much to gain from the Haitians. Even though they have so little (or nothing in some cases), they have a joy we do not possess in America. Last week our whole team was surprised to see not weeping and depression but a country that has gotten its joy back. It’s almost as if the earthquake there lifted a vale and the people could see God at work. Since the quake, churches have been growing and revival happening. It reminds me of what Joseph said to his brothers. “…you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good…” Even though the devastation is severe (in fact, more sever than I can portray), God takes together all things “for the good.”

As for me, I learned many lessons in Haiti, which I am still in the process of unpacking. One that stands out the clearest to me is paying attention to the Holy Spirit. For many of us in the US church this is more of a theory or a good sermon than an actual practice, but after talking to some of the missionaries who have been engaged in the work of God outside of America, Spiritual Discernment is an essential. To listen to where God is leading is a key element in the work of a missionary. The take home message for me is to learn to pay as much attention to the Holy Spirit here at my church. If we cannot listen to God’s promptings through His Spirit, we cannot be as useful to His purposes here on earth. The question that I have to ask myself and I hope that you do the same is this: What does God want me to do right now? Many times I confess that I snuff out the flame of the Spirit with my unwillingness to be a fool. What I mean is simply this, if God prompts you to go pray with someone on the street the first thing that we tend to worry about is an awkward moment rather than grieving the Spirit of God. What is more grieving than to disobey? While we were in Haiti we had amazing translators and a team that went with us as we walked through villages. When we saw someone or felt a nudge we prayed with them. Yes, sometimes I felt awkward going up to people and asking them “How can I pray for you?” but the more we practiced the more natural it felt. The more that we step out of our comfort zones in our lives, the less we care about comfort zones because once you feel the joy and power of walking in the will of God, there is no comparison. For me, the true awkward moment will be standing in front of my God when He asks, “Andrew, why didn’t you talk to that man? I sent him into your path for a reason and you let him slip by.”

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Leaving for Haiti in a few days

With only a few days left in the States, I am getting both excited and nervous about going to Haiti. Reasons for nervousness are obvious: I'm leaving my family behind, I'm leaving for a country I've never been to, and I don't know exactly what I'll be doing there. But, the reasons for being excited are more than I can list. Having just finished the Easter season, my thoughts are on not only the Resurrection, but the cause that Jesus left His followers with..."Go...". And that's exactly what I'm doing, I'm going to where people are hurting. Tony Campolo once said, "wherever people are hurting, that's where Jesus is" and that's where I want to be!
In the last month I've received not just support from my church, but criticism as well. Some folks don't believe you should be there unless you have a specific skill set that is in need, or people going there are just in the way of professionals. While from a strictly secular point of view this makes sense, it fails to see the sacred element of going to bring food and water to those who have none. I read this morning that there are 1.3 million homeless in Port-Au-Prince, and with that many homeless, food and water are going to be huge necessities. I cannot look at this topic without hearing Christ's words ringing in my head.  Possibly some of the most powerful words I've ever heard..."For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me...as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me"(Matt. 25:35,40) What sticks out to me the most out of that scripture is that Jesus says, "you did it to me," not "it's almost like you did it for me." He says that when we feed and give water to "the least of these", we are giving it to Him. It shows that Jesus looked at taking care of the oppressed not as just something nice, but something divine. Can we call ourselves Christians (like Christ) without actively feeding and caring for the "least of these"? It's like calling yourself an American without paying taxes.
The opportunity to be the hands and feet of Jesus in Haiti is a divine one, but the question I am asking myself is, what about when I come back? How do i continue to love and seek out the "least of these" in Arizona. I am hoping that in the next weeks, God will help me to see what areas I am not serving him yet, and where He needs me to be searching for Him at home.

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Family at the Basketball Game

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The Jesus Prayer

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ChristogramwithJesusPrayer (89 KB)

The Jesus Prayer is a very simple prayer that dates back centuries. Used by many Christian traditions, the Jesus Prayer comes to us as an older practice that was formalized by the Orthodox Church in the 5th Century but really stems from Biblical roots. In Matthew 20:31 we find the two blind men begging Jesus for mercy and in Luke 18:13 we see the tax collector crying out to God. This is the same kind of prayer we try to achieve with the Jesus Prayer. When we look at these passages in accordance with 1 Thessalonians 5:17 we see the reasoning behind the repetition of this prayer.

The Prayer is simple, it is, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner." This simple phrase is repeated multiple times during a prayer time. 

Practice

Praying the prayer itself can be a learned process, because although it is simple, we really should not mindlessly repeat the phrase. It requires a humble and honest approach for it to be useful. Just as we see in the scriptures listed, we need to approach prayer with a sense of need for the real presence and life changing power of Jesus in our hearts.  The prayer is meant to be spoken on the lips, not just within our thoughts. If whispered quietly, the first part of the the prayer can be spoken while breathing in and the last part can be spoken while breathing out so that we can visualize ourselves breathing in Christ and exhaling ourselves as sinners. This is just a variation and is not a requirement to the prayer.

A Prayer Rope can be very useful for concentration during the prayer as well as setting a goal for yourself regarding how many times or how long you will say the prayer in a day. In the Orthodox tradition the use of knotted prayer ropes is an integral part of the Jesus Prayer. Orthodox prayer ropes (Chotki in Russian) can be purchased or made , but a simpler beaded version can be tied as well using wooden beads and hemp. Our youth ministry recently practiced making these at a prayer retreat and most of the students made them with little to no problems. The Prayer rope that I like to use has 50 beads and a fringe and cross at the end. When I have prayed all the way around the rope, I take a minute while holding the cross to speak my worries and cares to Christ. After having said the prayer at least 50 times I find that those prayers while holding the cross are much more heartfelt and meaningful. If you are interested in learning how to make the simplified version, you can contact me and I can give you instructions.

Miniature Creed

The Jesus Prayer is simply put, a statement of faith or a creed. The words themselves speak to what a Christian believes and what his attitude should be. 

Lord -we give Jesus the Lordship of our life; Jesus-we invoke and call on His name; Christ-we call him the Messiah (that's what Christ means); Son of God-we recognize His place as the only begotten; have mercy-we plea just as the tax collector or the blind men did; on me a sinner-we recognize our state and need for Him.

When we look at the prayer this way, it seems a powerful statement of faith, worthy of writing in our hearts.

Personal Practice

When I first tried this prayer as an experiment, it seemed wrote and repetitive to me. In a word, I called it dumb. Only after having repeated it for a time did I find a sense of peace and connectedness to God. When I had repeated the prayer for about a half hour I felt more at peace than I had in a while during personal prayer times and I finally realized that this would be of great use to me. The longer I have practiced it the more and more I have become fond of it and it has grown to be an integral part of my private prayer times. During some recent months of increased stress in my ministry I have relied on this prayer heavily to give me the strength, peace, and patience to make it through the day. 

I hope that you give this prayer a try. I almost didn't but because of a book that I was reading I decided to give it a try and it proved a lifeline to me during a difficult stage of ministry. I hope and pray the Jesus Prayer is as meaningful and useful to you as it was and is to me.

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