ignite 'n inspire

In my Families in Canada course, we study the life course from adolescence 'til death. As a beginning-of-unit activity, I often have my students define adulthood but rarely do I share my answer...Based on my current realities and observations, here are my thoughts. So far, it has been a complex myriad of emotions, events and growing pains. Recently, I bought a beautiful cake to my discipleship group gathering to celebrate some of the major events in our respective lives. We were celebrating three of their birthdays, one's engagement, another who passed her gestational diabetes test, one who is listing her home and another who just finished her maid of honour duties. We happily took pictures and had our three birthday ladies cut the cake. As we ate the delicious dessert, it did not take long for the conversation to shift, as we began sharing about our worries, stresses and prayer requests. As we lifted each other's requests to God in prayer, I thought this whole meet-up was ...

I met my younger self for tea this morning. I wore a black body suit and my favourite pair of blue flare jeans, with pink lip tint and my classic brown purse. She came in a black leggings, a coloured cami and blue jean jacket. With little red acne spots on her forehead and wavy dark brown hair, she apologized for being late because she just came from a youth fellowship church meeting. I laughed quietly at her anxious energy and admired her love for those around her. I asked how the meeting went and she gave me a thorough rundown- who attended, what she was excited about, elaborate plans on ways to make the fellowship program more engaging and build more connections between her church community. I soaked in all her youthful energy as I come to terms with my current reality. I'm a little burnout and tired from ministry and its endless list of obligations and responsibilities. Could I ask for a little bit of her zest and passion? Would she be generous enough to give some to me? She or...

After another season of long Saturday trainings, rushed work sessions and early morning debriefs, we once again have arrived at a very familiar finish line. The ride has been extra long this time— a seven-month journey with my mentor coaches and captains, and a whirlwind three months with Team Kaleo. In this marathon-yet-sprint-like journey, I believe the image of a mosaic comes to mind when I am asked to describe my journey this year as a first-time mentor coach and four-time coach. Why mosaic? 1) Mosaic art is created when smaller glass shards are carefully placed together to create one art piece.            Starting off with the mentor coach team-no one can deny that I got to work with the most experienced team amongst all the mentor coaching teams in this conference. I believe that our collective youth ministry experience is equivalent to the age of a very old senior! This team had a strong grasp of each other's giftings, strengths and weaknesses. Withi...