SERVE Part I

Hmm. How to start a post on my favorite ministry week of the year. I may not get it all down in one entry, but I'll see how far I can get.

For the past three years, I've trekked up to Sioux Falls, South Dakota to be the "Spiritual Leader" (guy who gives God talks) every night at a week long service project called SERVE. Kids from around the U.S. and Canada come to work in the community for the week. They work during the day, and worship at night. It's a fairly simple set up.

It's quickly become my favorite week of the year. I get to work and hang around with my favorite ministry team on the planet, (Troy, Dawn, Luke, Mark, Dan, Dustin, Danny, David, Jason, Adam, Chelsea, Michelle, Kristi, Ashley, Amber, and many, many others.) all of whom have become close friends. I get the best worship band I've ever worked with (Jonah's Wale / Sons of Thunder) to lead into my talks. I get to laugh like crazy the whole week. I get to see God move in some pretty amazing ways.

This year's SERVE kicked off on Saturday, June 18th. For those of you who read the last post, you may be saying to yourself, "Wait, didn't you emcee a music festival that day?" Yes, I did. So on just a few hours sleep, I headed up to Sioux Falls and got there around midnight or shortly after. The one thing I've quickly learned about working with the Sioux Falls crew is, there is generally an amazing lack of sleep involved, and this year was no different.

We were staying at the Christian school in Sioux Falls for the week, and, while walking up to the front door after arriving, I was greeted by several of the fellas who were waiting up for men and wanted to try out their brand new air horn. It was pretty loud. I think I disappointed them though, with my lack of reaction as I was pretty stinking tired when i finally rolled in.

Many hugs and "Hellos!" were traded as all the guys had stayed up to welcome me back. (Most of the gals remained asleep, but I won't hold that against them.) Even though it was late, and I hadn't had an enormous amount of sleep in the past week, I headed to the worship room to get ready for the Sunday morning service where I'd be speaking to about 1000 Sioux Falls folks from all the Churches that were supporting SERVE for the week. Dawn came in while I was preparing and gave me a welcome back, as she said she couldn't sleep. So we talked a bit about the week, got real jazzed up, and then I tried to head to bed only to find that now it took me a while to fall asleep since Dawn had gotten me so riled up about the week.

Sunday morning service went great. I saw lots of old friends and SERVE supporters. It's an outdoor service that they've held at the fairgrounds for the last two years, so it's a great environment (if just a tad windy) to have worship in. In my ever continuing struggle to make Troy, Dawn, and Luke question their hiring of me, I started off my talk with the question, "Who here's ever had the dream that they were naked in a public place." You'd be surprised how many people at church on Sunday morning wouldn't raise their hands to that simple question . . . or, well, maybe you wouldn't be so surprised. But we survived the service and a good time was had by all.

Then it was on to Falls Park where we looked at the waterfalls, took a group picture, ate some great burgers, and laughed a lot more. It was a warm day . . .

Then back to the school for Sunday night worship. I used Dan as my talk illustration, covering him with mud, calling him a leper and then watching as he washed clean in the river Jordan. Your basic talk stuff. I got to find out during the week just how brave of a soul Dan really is. From mud to blood, there really wasn't anything Dan wouldn't do to help me out for a talk.

Monday night was good again. Luke, Dan, and Dustin all volunteered to be mighty men for King David who almost died to get some water.

Tuesday, Joshua was "Achan" for some of God's love. Dan stepped up to the plate and donated a little blood (while I chose not to watch). We had a FOUR HOUR WORSHIP SERVICE. It was amazing and it was crazy, and I will write more about it later on, but now I think i'm going to finish out this post with just the overviews of the worships for the week.

Wednesday we got a little Crazy for Nehemiah with some help from Dustin and a pile of bricks.

Thursday we traded some spiritual mantles to raise our spirits.

And Friday, Luke put on his "tough face" as Elijah took on 850 prophets that were not of God, and won.

Worship was pretty amazing every night. As far as I'm concerned, with Danny, Troy, Dawn, David, Amber and Jason leading the music, we had pretty much my "Dream Team" of a worship band. As one wise man was heard to say last week, "They rocked my face off." And I would have to agree with that sentiment. Many noses, lips and eyes were dusted off at the end of the week as we were constantly picking them up off the ground.

And I've barely touched the surface of what the week was, yet. So, with those tidbits to go on, and this post growing too long for my tastes, I will rename this entry, SERVE Part I, and close for now. Later I'll talk about the service projects we hit, the fellowship I had with my favorite minsitry crew, and some of the super cool students I got to hang out with for the week.

Till next time,

Jason