running one mile at a time rather than two, as we expected.  But we still found time to have fun.   For more information about the torch run, see the article on the YWAM website. 

In China, 90 million believers are part of these models because of persecution.

In Colombia, this model is being used as a tool to reach youth.

All across the huge populations of Asia this model is part of church planting movements.

In the West this growth is being driven by Christians transferring from traditional churches.

“Church” is taking on a different meaning for the emerging generation across the globe.

The term “simple church” is really just a new term applied to the original model. New Testament Christians primarily met in small groups in homes. When the apostles went to a town they often preached in the market place or synagogue, but the discipling took place in more intimate home gatherings. Acts 2:42-47; Acts 4:32-34; Acts 18: 4-7.

Many believe that more than 1 billion people will come to Christ globally in the next 10 years. If that is true, the primary form of discipling will need to happen in the easiest environments like homes and schools.

What does this model look like?

How does this work in the universities?

What does it look like in different cultures?

How could I help pioneer this type of church planting movement?

If I’m currently a pastor, how do I facilitate the simple church models?

Does this work in other environments like businesses?

“You need to have a main focus on the revelation of Jesus”

The “Virgin of Guadalupe” in Mexico City is a place that many Catholics from all over the Latino world come to pray.

Actually it’s been much more than a week or two of work to prepare for and hold the grand finale known as “the 50th at YWAM Kona”. From the very beginning of the preparation for this years’ 44 different YWAM jubilee celebration events on every inhabited continent… we knew one thing:

“IT”S NOT ABOUT US – IT’S ABOUT JESUS”

When I sat down with Loren and others to brainstorm the theme of the events surrounding YWAM’s 50 year anniversary, we all wanted this to be understood and to focus on the amazing things that the Lord has in store for us and our YWAM tribe. So when “the Flame Goes Forward” came out of our discussions, I was sure that this was “it”. So we’ve celebrated God’s flame going forward in song, in videos, in dance, and in every media we know how to use (and a few we figured out along the way like ipad apps and live video mixing on VDMX). In the end we saw thousands gather physically here in Kona and virtually on webstreaming to be inspired and to give glory to the one we are celebrating… JESUS.

I’ve never been so challenged technically, physically, emotionally or mentally by any one event… but spiritually I felt a real peace.

1. pass around USB stick
1.5 show technology video as preview – do introductions
1.6 about me
2. share about KISS and Crap Design
3. Tell about CMS vs. traditional html
4. sign up for wordpress at wordpress.com
5. make a post with the dummy articles & photos provided

6. create a flickr.com account
7. sign up for youtube.com
8. upload 2 photos of your choosing (remember C.R.A.P. principles)
9. embed an MTM video
10. customize your blog
11. add paypal buttons
12. add a link to www.UofNkona.edu
13. customize template – choose “neat!”
14. find the url of the header image
15. download image
16. tweak in photoshop or gimp or photoshop.com or create a new image the same size (700 x 200 pixels at 72 dpi)
17. go to appearance>custom header  – and upload your new header
18. congratulations, you now have your own blog website with a custom header – and you know how to add/edit text, photos and video!

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About me:
SDC at YWAM Burtigny – with Joseph Avakian who taught us GoLive and how much better dreamweaver is
4.5 years design experience with Mercy Ships Switzerland – running the direct mail program and setting up websites for a majority of the 13 countries represented
1 year of creative direction at YWAM Resonate – the Woodcrest campus in East TX
1 year here in Kona, designing the UofNkona.edu site, YWAM50.com , photogenX.net , IslandBreeze’s new site, Calvary Community’s new site and many others.

CRAP Design:

* Composition:  2/3rds 1/3rd, Triangles not squares
* Repetition:  use the same 2-3 fonts & sizes, 2-3 colors, same justification, or at least be consistently inconsistent!
* Alignment:  Vertically, Horizontally, to the page, etc.
* Proportions:  1, 2, 3… or sometimes just 1

K.I.S.S. Keep Is Simple Stupid

No Gaudy colors that don’t fit, no cheezy fonts, no filter effects in photoshop (unless you REALLY know how to use them), No clip art, No filling up every piece of space on your page.  Use white space!

Look through the photos… find 3 examples of a good 1, 2, 3 image.

• graphic design theory and photoshop
• web design
• Simple blog websites with WordPress
• Powerful, full-featured websites with the Joomla CMS (Content Management System)
• photography concepts as applied to web
• audio as applied to web and video production
• video applications for web

By the end of the week you will be able to build dynamic, full featured web sites with custom images, video, original music compositions, animated photo galleries and social networking features.  Sounds challenging?  It will be.  But we will take it one step at a time to make this easy enough for all of you.

Infusion teens in Kona, Hawaii

1. pass around USB stick
2. share about KISS and Crap Design
3. Tell about CMS vs. traditional html
4. sign up for wordpress
5. make a post with the dummy articles & photos provided
6. create a flickr.com account
7. sign up for youtube.com
8. upload 2 photos of your choosing (remember C.R.A.P. principles)
9. embed an MTM video
10. customize your blog
11. add paypal buttons
12. add a link to www.UofNkona.edu
13. customize template – choose “neat!”
14. find the url of the header image
15. download image
16. tweak in photoshop or gimp or photoshop.com or create a new image the same size (700 x 200 pixels at 72 dpi)
17. go to appearance>custom header  – and upload your new header
18. congratulations, you now have your own blog website with a custom header – and you know how to add/edit text, photos and video!

SDC at YWAM Burtigny – with Joseph Avakian who taught us GoLive and how much better dreamweaver is

“4.5 years design experience with Mercy Ships Switzerland – running the direct mail program and setting up websites for a majority of the 13 countries represented”

1 year of creative direction at YWAM Resonate – the Woodcrest campus in East TX

1 year here in Kona, designing the UofNkona.edu site, YWAM50.com , photogenX.net , IslandBreeze’s new site, Calvary Community’s new site and many others.

Youth on the Volcano

The youth had a great time this summer here in Kona, Hawaii.

UofN Kona Campus - Youth With A Mission

The Discipleship Training School (YWAM-DTS) is more than YWAM’s entry-level course; it is a wild pursuit of God and His heart for the nations! As a student, you will be joined by individuals from around the globe and various walks of life. Together, you will be immersed into a community dedicated to effectively reaching the world with the Gospel.

Your adventure begins with a three-month Lecture Phase in which you will discover what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. Renowned speakers along with devoted staff will encourage and challenge you to experience the abundant life God has to offer. His call is all encompassing, involving every aspect of your life, and He is passionate about you! You will quickly find your heart begin to beat to the rhythm of His. Loving Jesus, yourself, and others will soon become second nature as we send you to the nations.

Outreach Phase is an intense two-month (or longer) opportunity for you to apply what you’ve learned. No location or people is off limits. You, along with a team of fellow disciples, will seek to advance the Kingdom of God through fighting injustices and through proclaiming Christ’s love. You will feed the hungry, clothe the naked, mend the brokenhearted, free the captive, and heal the sick.

We at Youth With A Mission Kona invite you to begin your personal journey in encountering God. If you desire to know Him and make Him known, come join us! We guarantee you will never go home the same.

Developing passionate people who desire to engage the arts and entertainment industry.

ENCOUNTER GOD. ENCOUNTER YOUR CALL. KNOW GOD. MAKE HIM KNOWN.

Does your heart cry out for transformation and revival in a place where those who work in it influence the world? Broadway, Bollywood, Hollywood, Grammys, Oscars, Tony’s, studio lots, orchestra pits… Is God calling you– has He called? Actor, dancer, painter, writer, director, chef, Pastor, Minister, or any area of passion! Are you already working in the industry or believe God is calling you there?

If so, then come and get founded in God’s Word and His purposes. Allow God to transform your heart, strengthen your character and your walk with Him, so that you can create and communicate Who He is through your life.

Read more…

Dear YWAM global family…

Darlene and I greet you, as we lean forward toward 2010, our YWAM Jubilee. This will be a great year of opportunity, as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Youth With A Mission around the globe.

You may have heard that Darlene and I will be making six “Founders’ Journeys” to meet together with our YWAM family in approximately 40 locations on every continent throughout 2010. These will be 3-day events, and at the end of this letter, I’ll tell you how to find out when and where the closest event to you is planned to take place.

But this letter is not about our small part; it’s about YOU taking advantage to use this 50th year—the WHOLE year—to create opportunities to bring people together around our Great Commission calling and “go until it’s done.” Use it to highlight our mandate, not only to reach every creature with the Gospel, but to disciple whole nations through the spheres of society.

I would like to encourage you to create multiple events throughout 2010 with your team…at your campus/center…in your nation…in your region. You may want to consider a group to focus on each month of the year. Here are some ideas:

1.    Bring together YWAM alumni—people who have participated with you anytime in your history.
2.    Bring together donors—those who have given and prayed so that you could exist and thrive. Create a banquet of gratefulness, just to say “thank you for obeying God.”
3.    Do a similar event for parents of YWAMers, to say “thank you for giving/sending your greatest treasures, your children.” Gather people according to their sphere of calling:
4.    yes, of course pastors and leaders within the sphere of the Church, but also
5.    marketplace Christians involved in business,
6.    civic leaders, both local and national,
7.    those involved in education,
8.    the arts and other areas of interest/calling. You can easily come up with 12 gatherings—one for each month of the year! At each event, provide people with information about YWAM worldwide as well as your local ministry. Share with them encouraging updates on major trends, moving the completion of the Great Commission forward (for ideas and updates, go to www.call2all.org).

Don’t try to do just a “one size fits all” event and clump all the categories of people together; rather, we would encourage you to create many smaller events throughout the year as suggested above, so that you can really focus on meeting together with specific groups of people and having more personal interaction, hearing their stories, praying with them, and encouraging them too to “go until it’s done.” This will draw you into serving other Christians, helping them to disciple their sphere, and it will expand your own discipleship ministries.

Don’t wait for some central YWAM office to organize all these 50th events! YOU do it at the grassroots level—with your team, at your location, in your nation, within your region. Remember YWAM Foundational Value #7: YWAM is called to “be broad-structured and decentralized.” This is how we thrive and multiply. And this is how YWAM’s 50th anniversary celebrations will be the most productive–by encouraging, championing and equipping people to go forward through lots of decentralized events and opportunities.

Within your region, you may want to take advantage of Darlene’s and my Founders’ Journey visit and organize one or two of these events on either side of our 3-day module. We would especially encourage the possibility of a YWAM alumni gathering around that time, so that the participants can flow right into or out of the Founders’ 50th Event. But none of the specific events I have mentioned above will be the focus DURING our modules. Our purpose is to have a “family reunion” and spend time together specifically with our YWAM family members, as well as casting vision for the way forward.

The Founders’ 50th Events will have three parts: on the first evening, we will CELEBRATE God’s goodness to our mission over the PAST 50 years. The second morning, Darlene will lead us in a time of rehearsing with gratitude the history and values of YWAM. That afternoon, we will rejoice in God’s faithfulness in the PRESENT—with a special focus on the host nation/region. The local organizers will need to have pulled together the local/regional history timeline, along with videos and photos so you can present to God and to us your current ministries and fruitfulness. Then, that second night I will share exciting vision for the FUTURE. The third day, we will move into a time of COMMITMENT & COMMISSIONING, praying over new ministries to be born, new ventures for God, and for fruit that remains through our individual and corporate Great Commission efforts. Together we will re-commit to “go forward until it’s done.”

We will not be posting one international calendar with all the dates and locations of the Founders’ 50th Events. We feel that this would not be wise security-wise, due to the number of our precious YWAMers who will be traveling to each location in this age of increasing persecution and anti-Christ activities (see 1 John 2). In order to find out which Founders’ 50th Event will be nearest to you, contact your Regional Director. He/she has been provided with the dates and locations of the Founders’ 50th Event nearest to you, and should also be aware of other 50th events being organized within your region.

www.YWAM50.com will have the latest information on these events and you will be able to use and share media materials, logos, etc. between the various regional events on this site. Also, as the Founders’ Journeys begin to circle the globe next January, we will start posting exciting updates on the site. Details will also unfold on this website for the culminating 50th Anniversary Event, which you’re ALL invited to in Kona, Hawaii November 29 – December 4, 2010. For more information, contact YWAM50Kona@gmail.com

We look forward to being with you next year! We expect that the Founders’ 50th Event in each location will be unique. Yours will be the story of how God has proven Himself in your past and present–expressed through your culture, ethnicity and diversity–and what He envisions for your future.

We have great anticipation in our hearts that this will be a catalytic year for Great Commission purposes. The best is yet to come!

Your brother and co-worker,

Loren