Rich’s Travels

Ok, I’m a John McEnroe fan I admit it.  This post comes directly from my good friend Brian Barela from his blog “The Necessary things.”  I love” people that continue to push the envelope as it relates to new ways of doing evangelism.  Check out this video on using twitter to do evangelism.  Sort of a 21st century way of doing what CCC calls “random evangelism:

Just created a facebook fan page called “The Street’s Ministry“.  Seems a little vain to create a fan page about your family, but this page is simply designed to connect those that partner with us to those that we minister to in the US and abroad.  With so many people on facebook today (over 70% of North America has a facebook account!), it just seemed like an easy way to stay in touch with our partners.  One of Kourtney’s and my values is to maintain not only regular but excellent contact with our partners.  Now, not only can we report on what we are doing, but allow those that we minister to report themselves directly to our partners.  Become a fan and experience firsthand what we are doing as well as interact and get to know the people we serve!  Enjoy!

The Street’s Ministry on Facebook

As you might know, we have been wrestling with health issues with Joseph since he was about 22 months old, battling his asthma very consistently. We learned last spring that he wasn’t growing as he should be, and he failed each of six Growth Hormone Stimulation tests. We know that it’s not Cystic Fibrosis, allergies, or a brain tumor as these were ruled out. However, asthma that is not well controlled and/or steroid use are potential causes for growth problems. We also have some strong genetic factors related to his asthma and growth issues that seem to be playing a role.

This summer Joseph grew 3 cm while we were serving in Colorado and had a huge respite from his typical asthma issues. While this could be totally coincidental, our doctor feels that there is a strong possibility that his asthma is exacerbated by humidity, and we’ve spent most of his life in very humid places (France, Florida, Texas, and Mexico). Consequently, our Pediatric Pulmonologist recommended that we spend the winter and spring in Colorado to see if he does as well in Colorado during the cold, winter months as he did in the summer.

We received permission from our boss, Ken Cochrum, Vice President of Campus Ministries for CCC, to spend the winter in Denver. Almost immediately, things fell into place. We found a wonderful Christian family to rent our furnished home in Orlando for six months. We were given an appointment almost immediately at National Jewish Hospital in Denver (one of, if not the top respiratory hospitals in the world). We have dear friends who direct a Classical Conversations group in Denver so the boys will continue their schooling with little interruption. God continued to open doors to lead us to spend six months in Colorado to get to the bottom of Joseph’s health issues. Our prayer is that we can reduce his steroid use, increase his lung function, prevent lung scarring, and hopefully prevent the use of Growth Hormone Therapy unless absolutely necessary.

I will be continuing my ministry from Denver. Our team is hosting our annual meeting with the main campus ministry leaders from around the world in Orlando this year, and I will return to Orlando the first week of December to participate. I will return most months for our team strategy meetings, and I can easily do my international travel out of DIA. The great thing about my role is that I can truly do my job from anywhere. I look forward to continuing to engage with ministry leaders globally as we seek to help grow student led movements everywhere…especially virtually!Thank you for your prayers and support of us during this journey. We thank God for your partnership with our family in the wonderful ministry that God has called us to. If you have any questions, please feel free to email or call.

I just returned from Turkey as I helped lead the program for ministrynet.  What a great time meeting up with so many practioners from around the world.  Here’s a great summary of what went on from my good friend Keith Seabourn.

Ministry Net and VLM Integration from Dennis Strellman on Vimeo.

Thanks for praying for my time. Pray for all the participants who came to ministrynet that they would continue to connect with one another and learn from each other even after the conference. Pray for them also as they go back to their leadership with some crazy ideas that their leaders would give them the sponsorship they need to lead in this new world of integrating virtual strategies with our traditional strategies!

Sorry it has been a long time since my last post.  Being in a car for over 10,000 miles and being away from home this summer can do that to you.  I did come across this video on tube and wanted to pose the question if this is the beginning of the end for face to face evangelism and its’ relevance.

Thoughts????

Here is some video of Rich and Joseph catching their first fish at Red Feather Lakes in Ft. Collins, CO.  So fun that they caught them at the same time!  Enjoy!  We are in Ft. Collins training CCC staff to go all over the world to bring the Good News in both word and deed.

Greetings from the Street family home in Fort Collins, Colorado. It’s not really our home, but an apartment close to the Colorado State University Campus.  Every other summer, we spend the summer here serving in some sort of capacity for Campus Crusade’s bi-annual training.  This year we are helping coach
“X-track”.  X-track is a way to prepare missionaries to serve all over the world. Kourtney and I have been asked to help prepare missionaries as they head out overseas on their first assignment.  Kourtney and I are able to reflect back on our experience in France as a way of coaching these families that are leaving in the next 6 months or so to go all over the world.

In other important news, Marilyn Adamson is a good friend of mine. Marilyn is the director of everystudent.com. We collaborate on many projects that have to do with using the internet in your daily life and ministry.  Now, she’s put some of her expertise up in a blog.  This is a must read if you want to learn more about integrating your online world with your face to face world.  Check it out here.

Haven’t completely figured out twitter, but you can certainly follow me on twitter.  Here’s the latest here:

“Rich on the train to Luxor in 1992″

“Rich on the same train in 2009″

Many of you who know me, know that Egypt has a special place in my heart. (and someone else’s as well!)  As an army brat(code for having grown up in a military family), I have lived all over the world and rarely in a place longer than 3 years.  So, to travel to a place continually for 17 years is really a strange concept for me.  In many ways, Egypt is like a 2nd home to me.  I just returned from Egypt at the end of April and, as usual, had a phenomenal time.

I remember the first time I saw and smelled Egypt that fateful life changing day in October of 1991 like it was yesterday.  From the taxi ride from the airport where I was horrified to have to put my luggage on the roof to seeing my first of many dead animals on the street, to hearing the call to prayer for the very first time to seeing the pyramids it was the beginning of an incredible friendship with a country that is a land of contradictions, contrasts and incredibly friendly people.  It’s hard not to love Egypt once you get used to unbearable poverty, dust, and the incessant car horns!

When I landed in 1991, there was no internet, no mobile phones, and just the occasional sign of western influence.  My friends and I rarely cooked but went out for dinner almost every night.  Our choices were Egyptian food or our choice of such fine dining establishments as KFC and Pizza Hut.  In 2009, my choices for just western food are McDonald’s, Burger King, Carl’s Junior, Subway, Sabarro, Little Caesar’s, Domino’s, Hardee’s, A&W, Baskin Robbins, TGIFriday’s, Starbuck’s, Chili’s and of course the mainstays of KFC and Pizza Hut!  And, almost all of those places offer free hi-speed wi-fi!  You can even go to the huge shopping mall at buy a blue ray disc of the latest western movie at the Virgin Mega store! Things do certainly change quite a bit over time.

However, with all that westernization the one thing that I also see changing is in the people.  Women dress more conservatively now.  Rarely did I ever see a fully covered girl in 1991, now it is pretty much a common site.  More women do wear their conservative head scarf than they ever did 17 years ago.  My Egyptian friends tell me that even some of the language that is spoken is more conservative and more Islamic in nature.  That is, Islam continues to be a major influence in the hearts and minds of the people there…especially the students.  Why?  I have my theories, but that is not the point of this post.

While I was there, I was asked to be a part of a team that would assess the campus ministry in Egypt.  I was to listen to students and others tell about their vision for Egypt and what they were doing about it. I heard a lot of optimism and great stories and results that give me hope for Egypt.  I was hoping to be able to encourage some of our students and staff there, but instead I was the one who walked away encouraged and hopeful (sounds familiar, eh?).  God has been doing quite a lot there in the last 17 years.  It might not be as big of an outside change as Egypt has undergone in its’ westernization, but I believe that God is not finished with Egypt and that He is doing something inwardly in the hearts and minds of Egyptians.  As Egyptians try to find answers to life’s questions through speaking differently, dressing differently or acting differently, these will only lead to more dissatisfaction.  Will you join with me in prayer for Egypt that students, in their dissatifcaction, will come to know the one that wants a relationship with Himself and that I will have wisdom in helping my Egyptian friends reap a harvest that will be unimaginable over the next 17 years?

 ”Eating at where else, but KFC!” (it was their choice!)

Time for another special Mythbuster edition!!

3)    Building numbers vs. building movements.  It’s not all about the numbers.

Ever heard someone talk about how many hits their website gets?  It’s one thing to have a website that gets lots of traffic (people coming to the site), but that is only a fraction of what is needed in order to have an effective web ministry.  How are you doing not only answering emails, but attempting to build movements?  One site does not make a fully functioning web ministry.  Perhaps you have a great everystudent.com website.  Congratulations!  That’s a great start.  However, it is  only the tip of the iceberg in getting to building virtual movements.  How do you get someone to go from a lost student to a fully devoted follower of Christ?  It’s going to have to be more than one site that can do it all (win, build send).

 My good friend Wourter in the Netherlands has a great analogy as to what this might look like.  I call it the rocks in the stream analogy.  I’ll try to do it justice.  He talks about coming to a small river with no bridge.  How do you get across?  Most of the time, there are small rocks that you jump onto in order to get across.  If you are with a group of friends it is rare that you use the same path to get across.  It all seems  like a pile of rocks, but people choose their paths based on their height, athletic ability (how far I can jump), confidence (how far I think I can jump or feel confident I can land a jump without getting wet!) or just sheer preference (it might be fun to jump to that rock) etc.  A virtual movement is kind of like that.  Students more than ever want to be able to choose where to go on the internet.  Also, not just where to go, but what format they want to be able to receive information (podcast, youtube video, mp3, etc.).  We need to put together a bunch of sites and strategies that are loosely connected and loosely directed.  That way, people can move from one stone to another in the same way that someone can move from a non-Believer to a fully devoted follower of Christ in 4 years! Not an easy thing to do, but if we want to be move beyond just sheer numbers to virtual movements then we have got to go for it.

4)       Virtual movements- it’s just a big event.  

I’ve heard plenty of students talk about how they use the internet on their campus.  After spring break (when the campus school calendar is notoriously slow) staff will set aside a week to advertise the internet.  They chalkboard blitz the entire campus, hand out fliers, put ads in the school newspaper etc. …all great things by the way. 

However,  building virtual movements is not a one week in the campus calendar type deal.  It’s not a big event (hosting Josh McDowell, Andre Kole, keynote etc.)  Building a virtual movement is something that needs to be done on a consistent basis..more like a weekly meeting on campus.  There is also more to building virtual movements than just advertising for a website.  With students today spending so much time on the internet (last survey showed 6 hours a day globally) we need to engage students everyday all day…not just for a week long blitz. 

5)      “Computers are going to replace me!”

A common fear among us older types is that if I start implementing virtual strategies then it will result in having a robot replace me in my job.  May it never be!!!!

In fact, just the opposite is true.    We can use the internet as  a powerful filter to get to interested students.  When I was on campus, I lived to talk to a non-Believer who had serious seeking questions about Christ.  We did surveys, weekly meetings, special campus events and everything under the sun designed to get  an interested student give us  a valid name and phone number so I could call them back and meet with them to answer their questions about Christ.  Now, I can have a computer filter that contact for me (the ugly work) in order to have more face to face (or online) conversations with spiritually interested students!  It doesn’t get any better than that!  Remember the Terminator myth…computers don’t build movements…Spirit filled Believers do!  All that work I did just to have one conversation when I can now have 2-3 a day through the power of virtual strategies.