Happy Anniversary

Today is the 4 year anniversary of my blog. I have learned a lot, grown a lot, yet still spell just as bad. I thought that a good way to celebrate my 4 year blogaversary would be to re-post my first post from Nov. 3, 2005 (I got this idea from my good friend Lars).

I was just listening to a sermon by Erwin Mcmanus, the pastor of Mosaic Church in Los Angeles. It really spoke to me about being real.
Recently one of my friends had some trouble in his life because they didn’t tell people what they were struggling with. They tried to do it alone and be invincable. What happened was that my friend fell.
This is a quote from Erwin in his message

” It is amazing how much strength love will give you and how much strength you will find when you care about other people even more than yourself. And I know this, no matter how sincere you are, your going to need some extraordinary strenth to overcome your rapids you are going to find yourself drowning in. And that is why we all need Jesus. Because when He enters our life, when we give our hearts to Him He becomes our source of strength. And when your exhausted and you have no energy left and you don’t think that you can make it one more day, you will find that He is always strong. Especially when you are honest about your weakness.”
I pray that we would be honest today about our weaknesses and that we would take them to God and take them to each other so that we would become the kind of people for God that we desire to be.

Lent Justice Calendar

Happy Monday to you. I have been thinking of this for a while now and it seems as though things are coming together for it. What the heck am I talking about you wonder? Well, a few of my friends and I are putting together a calendar for the season of Lent. It is a calendar where each day we focus on a different area of injustice in the world. Some examples are  human trafficking, water issues, hunger issues, slavery, etc. Each day we will focus on a different injustice, tell a story about it (short story), give a web site of someone or an organization that is working with that area, pray a prayer and give people a way to act. Example of acting is if we are praying for those who don’t have clean water (every 15 seconds someone dies of a water related illness) that for every bottle of water in your house you would give $1 to the Charity Water project.

I love that you come and check out my blog, honored in fact. I am posting about things that I care about (that Jesus has put on my heart) and you stop by to read, thanks. In that, if you are interested in sending some content for the calendar we would love it and need it badly. We want to get the info out there by the beginning of Feb as lent starts Feb. 17 with Ash Wednesday. Please let me know soon if you would like to participate and we can talk more.

You can either comment here or just email me at philnamy@gmail.com

Thanks again, have a great week and I hope to hear from some of you soon.

Justice Friday at the border

Last Justice Friday Post

On Wednesday evening I headed back down to Mexico with the staff to pray, hand out soup talk with the poor and desperate. It was a cold night on Wednesday, not cold for those of you reading in central Canada or Seattle, but cold none the less. The wind was blowing off of the Pacific and dropping the temperatures below normal for out here.

As we do each week we parked the cars and broke up into 3 groups and went off to start the evening with prayer. On the drive down to Mexico I was asking Jesus what he wants to see happen in TJ. I have been involved with the homeless for a lot of years now and I have discovered something profound. Handing out soup and hot chocolate with prayers is not going to end poverty or desperation, we need to do more.

As I said above “Handing out soup and hot chocolate with prayers is not going to end poverty or desperation, we need to do more.” In saying this, I am not downplaying prayer or hot chocolate, both are good and needed, but it cannot stop there. We need to get kids into school, parents jobs, alcohol and drug addictions stopped and poverty and desperation ended.

The thing that happens so often is that when a family is in their most desperate time of need instead of the church coming to them to offer hope and life some hustler out to make money at the expense of others gets to them first and offers them a way out. The way out is not a way out at all, it is just a deeper spiral into death and destruction. What do we as the church, the body of Christ need to do?

That is what we are trying to figure out on these Wednesday nights. It reminds me of a story in the bible where Jesus comes in the path of a prostitute. The pharisees throw this woman at Jesus feet and pick us stones to kill her. Jesus doesn’t just pray for her, but he points out the sin of the accusers, encourages, rebukes and affirms the girl accused of prostitution and writes something in the ground. It seems as though the point was made. The accusers drop their rocks, the girl goes away with freedom and understanding and Jesus moves on.

I pray that God gives us His strategy to reach and bring freedom to Him kids, both the oppressed and oppressors in TJ, Mexico.

 

U2

Well, on Friday I managed to do it again, I scalped for cheap into an epic show. Friday morning Amy and I work up, dropped of the kids with some good friends and headed up to Las Vegas to see some friends and supporters who were meeting us there. We were also headed up to see if we could score tickets into the sold out U2 show.

After a 5 1/2 hour drive we ended up at Sam Boyde Stadium, 3 hours before the show. Amazingly there were a ton of people there already. Most of them were getting smashed so that they would have no memory of the show that they paid up to $260 for, others were selling tickets and others were standing in the GA line to get the best spot on the floor possible.

I have done this enough times that I know who to stay away from when looking for cheap tickets. For starters, if you care, I don’t talk to the guy’s who have a sign. Especially the signs that say “I need tickets” on one side and “selling tickets” on the other. I also stay away from anyone talking on their mobile phones while trying to sell tickets, they are just trouble. The people I talk to are everyone else. I just unashamedly ask for tickets, free tickets at that.

It took about 20 minutes until I saw this lady walking around. I approached her and asked if she had extra tickets. She told me she had 2, her daughters friends couldn’t come. She said they were $36 each, but she would sell them for $30. Something inside me told me that if I try to get her to $0 then I am just a cheap jerk, so I went for it. 2 tickets to U2 in Vegas for $60, pretty good deal to me. Plus, this was the smallest show on the tour, so there were no bad seats.

It was a great night. Amy and I had fun and U2 did a great job. You can see it here from LA. I am grateful for the kind gifts that are given to me in the form of shows. It is weird and shocking to say the least, but I feel like Jesus is cool with me going to shows and provides for it to happen. That and there are a ton of really cool people out there who just want to hook people up with free tickets to great shows.

Justice Friday in TJ

I am posting Justice Friday today (Thursday) as tomorrow I am driving to Vegas to scalp for free (hopefully) into the U2 gig. Anyway, so yesterday my friend Ingvar and I went down to TJ, Mexico to teach on their secondary school on starting an international ministry. It went good, lots of questions, feedback and stories. I like when teaching goes that way, when it turns into a discussion.

Afterwords when we were about to leave for home we found out that some of the staff were going down to the red light district of TJ. A part of me was thinking “no way am I going, I have kids and a wife at home that I want to cuddle, and TJ is dangerous, I could get stabbed.” The other part of me was saying “if you don’t go then all the stuff you say about justice is just a load of shit that makes you sound like you care.” So I went.

We got down town and grabbed the igloos of soup and hot chocolate and headed for the red light district. Some people were in charge of the hot chocolate and others went walking and praying. I went with the group that walked. We headed into an open area and spent some time praying. Ingvar suggested that we pray and ask God what TJ will look like when Jesus comes back. The picture I got was of a park. A park where kids love to play, people are laying on the grass resting or playing Frisbee and flowers and beauty are all around. A place where people want to come and find rest and peace. The thing is that TJ is the total opposite of a park, it is more of a crack house.

After praying we walked around as some of the girls wanted to find some friends that they had run into the previous week. We walked by girl after girl after girl standing outside ready to give themselves to any man who would pay for their services. A few years ago I would have just assumed that these girls love their job and the money, but the more that I read and become aware of the issues of prostitution the more that I realize that the majority of these girls, most likely all of them hate what they do and are either forced to do it, or are so addicted to dope that they see it as the only way to get the money to stay on the stuff.

After a bit of walking we ran into the friends that the girls on the team were looking for. It was a mom and dad with their 3 little girls (6, 7, and 8 years old). The seven and eight year old were already doing services for men on the street and the six year old, named Guadalupe was close to being pimped out by her parents into the sex trade. The parents did this as they felt it was the only way they could make money to provide for their family, they were very straight up about it. We hung out with the girls and then gave them treats and walked on. While walking we passed another man standing on the street with a girl, no older than 12 who he was selling off to men so that he could make money. We stopped to offer him hot chocolate, but he just nervously motioned us on.

Even as I write this I am numb. I have not cried over this, nor have I thought about it much. I think I am afraid to let myself go to that place, although I believe I need to let myself go there, to get the heart of Jesus for this little girls, girls the same age as my Emma. These girls should be running around in a park, but instead they are prancing around at the will of their parents at all hours of the night being forced to give their innocent bodies away.

I will continue to go to TJ, as it is in my own backyard and I can not ignore it. I pray for these girls and pray for me that I would never grow numb to the things that break the heart of Jesus.

The Pogues Concert Review

Last night I went down to the House Of Blues in San Diego with and empty wallet trying to scalp into the Pogues show. I have been waiting a long time to see The Pogues, ever since college when my friend Clayton played me the song “Whiskey Your The Devil.”

So, back to the show. I have not tried my unexplained gift of getting into shows free in San Diego yet, so last night was my first go at it. I asked this one girl if she had any extra tickets right when I got there. She told me she was on the guest list and if the band remembers to hand it in then she would give me her +1 ticket (as a guest you get to bring one person in with you). We waited and waited and no guest list. She was texting, phoning (Canadian for calling), and emailing, but no answer from the guest list holder. Then, 5 minutes before show time it was handed in and she in turn handed me her ticket. Wow, what a cool gift.

There was some time till the Pogues came on and the National League championship game was on so I walked around downtown. I got hungry and desperate so I ducked into 7-11 for a hot dog and was approached by Paul, a homeless dude. I asked him what he needed and he told me he needed to eat. 7-11 is not the greatest of restaurants, but I got a free ticket to a show so the least I could do was to get him a free dinner, even though 7-11 food will eventually kill you.

After that I headed back to the House Of Blues and on came the Pogues. It was a great show to say the least. They were old, drunker than I have ever seen anyone and played a tight, fast and entertaining show. They seemed to know that their fans payed a lot of money to get in, $57 and so they gave them their money’s worth. The only negative thing about the show is that I was there by myself. I need a good concert buddy, one who can get into shows for free, or is rich and doesn’t mind paying for themselves as I get my free tickets. If your interested let me know.

This weekend Amy and I are driving out to Las Vegas to try my hand at the sold out U2 show. We have some good friends going and our buddies here are watching the girls. I will be tweeting on Friday my progress, you can follow at twitter.com/philcunningham

Alright, that’s it for now. See you on Friday.

Justice Friday

Good morning friends, it has been a while since posting Justice Friday posts, but I am very excited to be back in a place where I can continue posting them. The reason for the break was that I felt I was posting on stuff that I am not currently involved in outside of teaching and passion. I got tired of talking about poverty, trafficking, water issues, etc. while sitting in my house or office and not walking it out. My prayer and plan is that this would change now.

Last week I was speaking on a YWAM school in Winnipeg on the topic of Justice and Calling. On the Thursday we were talking about poverty and had an application day. We split the staff and students into 3 groups, one representing poverty, one water and one hunger. Jamie Arpin-Ricci who runs the base with his wife Kim represented the rich white dude who does whatever he wants, haha.

The poverty group went through the day only owning a cup and a plate/bowl. They had to borrow everything else. Shoes, toothbrush, pen, bible, etc. The water group could not use water all day. Not for washing their face, flushing the toilet, drinking, teeth brushing, etc. And the food group did not eat, but were at all the meals. It was easy to do at first, but then we started realizing how much we take these things that we have in our lives for granted. One girl had to take some pills and realized that she couldn’t use water to wash them down, she did anyway as she didn’t know of any other way. That night, for supper we all sat down at a set table with paper on the plates giving statistics of food, water and poverty. We talked and prayed, it was beautiful.

The poverty day made a huge impact on me. I realized how much I have and how I take so much for granted. I am going to make it a regular practice to sacrifice one thing each Thursday and go through the day thinking differently. Yesterday I didn’t spend any money, it was surprisingly hard. We had friends over for dinner and we used what was in the house. I wanted to buy good beer for them as they have been walking through some hard times and good beer helps, but we went without as I was not spending and had no brew in the house. I want God to continually change me and draw me to Him and the things that are on the forefront of His heart and mind.

I challenge you to make sacrifice a regular practice in your life. It really brings out our hearts and intentions. Thanks for stopping by and reading. Have a great day.

lets celebrate, this parties over and i’m finally home.

During the last 3 months I have traveled a lot. In July my family and I went to Thailand to work with good friends up in the North. In Aug. the family got into our 7 passenger God gift of a van and drove over to Seattle where we spent a great week hanging with old friends and drinking amazing coffee. Following that we hopped into a huge ass moving truck and headed down the i-5 almost all the way to the bottom as we moved to Chula Vista, CA.

2 days after arriving in California I was on a plane to Auckland, NZ to teach on their Justice DTS. This was an unbelievable time of hanging with old friends, meeting new ones and getting to share what God has put on my heart for Justice. Following that I headed to Winnipeg, the Slurpee capital of the world for the Mission Adventures North American leadership meetings, more good times were had for sure. Finally, after one week home I went back to Winnipeg to teach on their Justice DTS, great times hanging with Jamie Arpin-Ricci and the gang.

Now, for the next 2 months at least I am home. I love it, I need it and I celebrate it. I love the travel, I love getting to speak, hang out with old friends and meet new ones, but there is nothing better than home. Thanks home for always being there for me.

In other news, I am starting to blog regularly again, yea.

Tribes post pages 26-30

Sam, from YWAM Las Vegas just posted on our Tribes book/blogging project for Mission Adventures. It is a great post, very thought provoking and challenging  as we look to bring health and leadership to Mission Adventures and our Tribe. You can read below or click here to go to the site.

Thanks.

I think this chapter I like the most thus far.
For the upteenth time Godin refers to a non-profit that is small at it’s base and branches wide and strong. Acumen is a small group of investors and driven people who are drawn together by simply wanting to accomplish one goal.
Godin, “The better you do, the better you do. Connections lead to connections. Great ideas spread.”

This may be corny, but this reminds me of old YWAM. When I first read this, I thought, “ingenious!”

But, only if the anatomy of a movement truly is:

1. A story of who we are and what we’re building: We are God’s people seeking His kingdom.

2. A connection between and among the leader and the tribe: We are in conversation and dialog with Christ, but also commanded to loving/being in communication with one another…

3. We need something to do: If we’ve got eyes for “the kingdom” the world is our limit. We’ve no limitations or ceilings…only a kingdom to establish. And, as the last few pages had said, “We’re enabled. Given permission. Given the “authority” to accomplish this community effort.” Isn’t this original YWAM? Isn’t this not what we are today? At least not in full strength. “That’s it–Three steps: Motivate, connect, and leverage.”

I see this as Misison Adventures in it’s prime. Even in our weakest moments we’re doing this. We’re taking groups of young people, exposing them to the world, showing them other young people that have the same heart, then attempting to put them into that action long term….right?

I hope you realize the simplicity of our potential Misison Adventures essentially has every tool we need to create a large-scale movement.

We’ve got a drive: Christ.
We’ve got a community: Local Churches/eachother
We’ve got tasks: Growing for the sake of our belief, NOT FOR the sake of GROWING.

After Godin talks about his newsletter accomplishment….he makes it this simple…something we understand is the key to youth– “They wanted to be part of something that mattered. Twenty years later that team still talks about what we built.” I see this is micro-scale with MA.

I like that he was 24 years old. He built a community around him by simply sharing his story. But, we can’t share a story without one group goal. Perhaps the mission adventures network needs to step up in unity, and say, “This is our goal”. I know we’ve done this, but if we intentionally connected more of our locals, intentionally gave them more tools to take home, intentionally let this become their own tribe…it’d carry itself away.

A crowd is a tribe without a leader. <—-Sound like the Church?
A crowd is a tribe without communication <—-Sound like world ministry?
Crowds are interesting, and the can create all sorts of worthwhile artifacts….but tribes are longer lasting and more effective. <—-Sounds like the original 12 disciples.

I put 300 as the image…because a small group of highly communicative and driven people took out 10,000…with ease. This is us. We’re driven…if only we communicated…

We need to motivate, bring together, then let MA’s youth…engage. They have to be the main thrust of accomplishment!

Tribes pages 12-20

New Tribes posts are up at NAMALT, click over and check it out if you dare. If you don’t here is the content below.

Pg. 12-16 by Kim. In this section, Godin challenges us to reconsider leadership. First, he confronts our fear of leadership, reminding us that we are all called to lead. We are not sit around and wait for the big wigs to get things done, but rather we must begin to lead right where we are. And people want to be led. They are waiting to be led by real leaders.

The truth is that leadership is not nearly as hard as we all think it is. It is hard work, but it does not require us to wait until we have all the training, experience and credentials. We must start leading now, from where we are and with what we have. This takes courage and determination. I think is where our potential lies with mission adventures, taking young passionate leaders and giving them an opportunity to lead. Of course they will make mistakes I know I continue to make many but realizing that we are leaders and we must lead in order to see change. The mistake that we confuse leadership with management. While we will always have to do some management, that is not what true leadership is about. It is about creating change (and the environment in which change can take root).

The other thing about leadership that the author challenges us on is the models around which we define leaders. We have learned all our leadership and organizational structure from the monarchy. In order to truly lead together, we must find a way to unlearn the beliefs and deconstruct the systems that keep “the king on his throne”. Rather, we are called to connect with people in meaningful ways, sharing with them the vision we are calling them to. This is done by telling them the story of the vision and inviting them to join in. It is why I think it is important that as MA leaders we remain as hands on in the program as possible.

Page 16-20 by Tia “Stability is an illusion” are the first words that pop out as you engage page 16. Seth goes onto describe that the world is restless in the face of stability. That the bar has been raised on quality and that the world desires new ideas and new opportunities.

For the past few years that I have worked with MA I have found it hard to come up with new ideas and really be willing to change the program. There is one side of me that desires new adventures and to take groups along with me. But with that change I fear failure, that I will lose teams because we change the way we do things. That things may be disorganized or unpredictable and I wont have control. But the truth is that this keeps my team from having a creative environment and it becomes stagnant. In many ways stability is an illusion because the Lord is always engaging new ideas and wanting to take us along for the ride.

If we continue to have the focus of stability we will lose the focus on the Kingdom, and ourselves in the process. As we embrace change the young people with in our tribe will be challenged to step and take on leadership. The question for me as a leader am I going to encourage it, or as Seth asks, “Is your organization (leader) stiffer then the Pentagon?”

When we do not allow others to rise to the challenge we need to wonder where are we missing the heart of the father, and his passion for young leaders with new ideas?