Teaching Once Again

It has been some time, but I am finally going back to teaching this Friday. I'll be giving a sermon to the youth from Jonah 1:4-16. The prep so far has been going well and I'm looking forward to sharing God's word once again.

While looking over old sermons, I realized that I have picked up several habits that I previously didn't have. I have developed a Christocentric hermeneutical preference-- i.e. I look for the places where grace, substitutionary atonement, and other Jesus-related themes occur in the passage regardless of whether or not it explicitly speaks of Christ. I have also begun to minimize my use of illustrations as a teaching tool. Perhaps on the other end of habits is my tendency to run out of time for preparation. Hopefully seminary will, somehow, have an indirect impact on my teaching so that I could more accurately and faithfully share Christ with the junior highers.

I'll be prepping from now until tomorrow night. If you get the chance, please pray for me!

Brief Article on Project Destiny's Development

Project Destiny just rebooted for another cycle of planning. I've re-signed for another year of directing. Praise God for the opportunity.

The following is an article I wrote about Project Destiny, recently published in "BCEC connections" (apologies for unedited inaccuracies ... let me know and I'll change them). Full names have been replaced with initials.

Another summer has passed and with it, another season of Project Destiny has come to a close. 27 married, single, college, and high-school age counselors. 51 campers from all over the Boston area. Once again disbanded…but WAIT--It’s not over!

Project Destiny is the name of BCEC’s middle-school day-camp that has been running for 15 summers now. It exists to glorify God by serving the Chinatown community and sharing the Gospel to the campers who come, as well as to provide ministry training and experience to the counselors who volunteer.

The idea for PD was born in 1994, when the pastoral staff saw a need for middle-school summer programming in the community and asked for volunteers to put together a camp. Several lay-leaders, many who were professional teachers, responded to the call and formed Project Destiny. Over first few years, the format became a program of academic classes and educational field trips combined with morning “charting”—a time of learning God’s word through skits, talks, and testimonies. For counselors, the model became one of living together in Christian community while serving in a common purpose.

Over the next decade, H.G., director of PD for all but one of those years, sought out ways to integrate the outreach of PD with the regularity of church. One of the hardest things about being a counselor in those days, and still even now, was putting so much love and prayer onto our campers and helping them to know Christ, only to see so many of them never return to church. The converse was also true—one of the delights of being a counselor was seeing the occasional kid becoming a part of our church. Towards that end different efforts were made at continuing a fellowship or afterschool program during the school year.

In 2005, Pastor E.L., youth director at the time, took on the responsibilities of director. Over the next three years, he continued to seek out ways to integrate PD with the regular youth ministries, such as connecting Summer Teen Conference to the end of PD, recruiting youth ministry volunteers from Project Destiny staff, and increasing the amount of preaching during the camp so that students would be used to the format of the regular youth group.

Over this past year, we had one of the most exciting developments in BCEC’s community outreach history—the hiring of a full-time staff member dedicated to coordinating and running an after-school program. From October to June, V.C. shepherded and taught a pilot group of youth, most of whom had been campers in PD 2007. That small group grew to include new comers, who in turn came to Project Destiny during this past summer. In answer to prayers,God led BCEC to extend the position and the program for 2008, so students who began coming to church through Project Destiny, the day-camp, will have the opportunity to continue coming to church through Project Destiny After School (PDAS), the after-school program!

It is in this context that I am pleased to report that in 2008, 51 students came and heard the Gospel this summer. They were loved, served, and prayed for by 27 faithful counselors. Most of those 51 chose to attend Summer Teen Conference as well. Some of them have been coming to our middle school fellowships-- JYF and TWR. Some of them have begun attending PDAS. Through these ministries and others, I pray that the Holy Spirit may continue to work in their lives and grow them in their love for God. And may the church continue to glorify God through its work of proclaiming the Gospel in our community.

photos: a. Students looking over a claymation short film they created; b. End of year Family Night