Influence: Part 1

          This whole summer so far has been like a blur!  I finished finals on May 9th and that night got on a plane to head to Port Elizabeth, South Africa.  During that trip I learned a lot about leadership and a lot about “influence.”  It seems like everywhere our team went we were the “center” of all attention.  People flocked to us to see “what” in the world we were doing with a basketball in our hands.  655 people made indications for Christ.  I arrived back in the states on the 24th of May and left again on the 26th of May for our Middle School Mission Trip in Nashville, TN.  During this trip I watched our Middle School kids (MIDDLE SCHOOL KIDS!!!!!) do ministry by landscaping public schools, handing out water bottles and tracks, and doing a VBS in the middle of the ghetto… another story goes like this….

          Thursday night while we were in Nashville, we (myself, youth leaders, and 100 middle school kids) went to a Nashville sounds baseball game.  I was sitting there watching the game in the bottom of the 6th inning when one my students (hackeysack – as we call him) came up to me and said ever so slightly, “Hey Greg, may I go use the restroom?”  I replied, “Yeah bud, make sure you take a friend with you though….”  15 minutes later Hackeysack had yet to return from the bathroom…. I heard a bunch of people screaming down at the bottom left of the stadium (we were all the way across on the top right in the GA section)… AND after a closer look down at the people, I spotted Hackeysack (13 years old) standing on a chair in front of hundreds of people yelling, “ONE, TWO, THREE…” and then preceeded to watched  “THOUSANDS” of people stand and do the wave… twice… it was one of the greatest events I had ever witnessed in my life… talk about “influence!”  This 13 year old “influenced” a whole stadium to stand and do the wave twice around the stadium!

          I arrived back in Knoxville on June 1 and left the following day (June 2) for New Orleans with about 100 High School students.  I watched for a week High School students teach middle school students at Upward basketball camps, cheerleading (which is NOT a sport) camps, VBS camps, and other outreach events.  Our High School students were instrumental in being used by the Lord to lead 24 people to the Lord that week…  HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS!!!!… INFLUENCE!!!

Chad (the High School pastor I work for) and I have been going through a book together called the leadership lessons of Jesus.  There are 52 “short” chapters in this book on the leadership of Jesus in the gospel of Mark.  Through the events of this summer and this book I am reading, God has continually been putting this word, “influence” on my heart.  Leadership as a characteristic in the overwelming scheme of “influence.”  My prayer for the summer is that I “learn” to be an influence “everywhere” I go for the Kingdom… that I can continue to learn how to ”authentically engage” the world we live in… How are you influencing the world for the kingdom of God?

Enjoy this video below of Alan Duncan speaking Xhosa on our “roadtrip” from PE to Capetown… 

 Greg