Story Time

Monday nights, 7pm.

4609 Ledesma Road, Austin, Texas 78721

We are starting up our story telling dinners. For the next five weeks different friends/neighbors will be telling stories of Kings and Queens from Biblical times. Everything will be oral. It should be refreshing and interesting and diverse.

So, expect dinner, expect to tell stories and to hear them. We will go down the road a few blocks to TC’s, for Blues Night. Bring a friend or two.

moved

I am keeping my wordpress blog more up to date:

http://fireseedanthology.wordpress.com

Characteristics of Fireseed

Spiritual Dimension

1. Prayed for by students, volunteers, staff, interns and supporters.

2. We are expectant of God to do the miraculous among us.

3. Volunteers are outward focused and have a vision for their friends, peers, and younger friends serving with us.

4. Volunteers and staff submit lives under the authority of Jesus Christ, they love Him and others.

5. Volunteers and staff are growing in their faith, knowledge and works in Christ.

6. New involved friends have personal opportunities to hear and experience Christ, His teachings and what God has done in the lives of volunteers, staff, and interns lives.

7. New involved friends’ input and service is valued.

8. New involved friends are free to question.

9. New involved friends are loved and know it.

10. Friends are experiencing healing, hope, and surrender to Christ.

11. Friends are being connected to a healthy, local church body.

12. New Movements are happening organically.

Story Runners

"What's happening is this – most of today's younger generation and even many of the baby boomers of the 50's, 60's, and 70's prefer to learn through spoken and visual means rather than written word.

Studies have shown this trend. A 2004 study reported that “literary reading in America is not only declining rapidly among all groups, but the rate of decline has accelerated, especially among the young.” This reflects a “massive shift toward electronic media for entertainment and information.”

But this wave is much deeper than a learning style preference, more than just preferring to watch TV and listen to music. There is also a strong move towards relational, non-linear learning.

he problem is that most of our preaching, Bible studies, evangelism and discipleship are reader-oriented and linear-sequential in thought. Also, the post-modern's learning style involves a more 'poetic' language than a scientific language."

This is from http://storyrunners.com

The Fireseed Anthology Project is in parntership with Story Runners. Together, we are seeking how to reach our post-modern culture in the west and beyond.

More Ideas Austin:STINT

So here are some more brainstorms of things we could do as a team as we walk through the gospels next year an invite students to join us in experiencing following Jesus.

August

The Temptation of Christ/preparing for Ministry

Open our year with a 40 day fast as a team. Use our time of planning and training also as a spiritual focus on prayer and fasting in conjunction with the start of Christ's ministry as He was led into the wilderness. We may also be doing a week of orality training (learning the stories of Scripture through oral means and being able to communicate them to our culture-) during this time.

September

It seems like at the start of Christ's ministry he performed a lot of healings, etc.

We could explore what it would look like to offer a prayer/love in action focus to the sick and broken hearted on campus and in the city. Maybe we would come up with unique ways of ministering to Freshman. We could invite students to come with us to hospitals, nursing homes, aids victims, etc.How could we bring awareness of global disease around the world to the campuses in Austin?How could we be a blessing to these people? What could we do to love them? How could we pray for them? How could we do these things creatively?

October

Jesus' teaching on Loving Enemies/Sinful woman who was forgiven much

Could we initiate a "forgiveness drive" on the campus'. Sharing this teaching of Christ...could we challenge those claiming Christ to love and forgive boldly...perhaps especially within their family relationships and broken friendships. What tools, creative ways,art, discussion groups to propel this?Could we use tools like short films, La Busqueda...project it on walls at night on campus?


Parable of the Sower, Lamp on a stand, To Him who has much more will be given
.....public art pieces, stewardship games?


November

Feeding of the 5,000

Focused effort of feeding the Homeless in Austin and mobilizing students to get involved.

Mt. of Transfiguration

Team Retreat somewhere to connect with the Lord and rest

70 Sent out/cost of discipleship

Maybe we invite students to "leave their families" for Thanksgiving and do a ministry to those without families, or something like Katrina Relief ministry that week...maybe we go somewhere together.....maybe we prepare meals for the elderly, orphans, or refugees without families to celebrate with. Then we come back an debrief and celebrate what God has done. As always, You would invite those who are exploring Christ to experience/serve with you...


December

..........to be continued....

STINT/AUSTIN

Please pray about joining our STINT team in Austin beginning in August. If you are staff, please contact Melinda Carter and/or Scott Nannen at their uscm account.

If you are planning on interning with Campus Crusade for Christ and this project, please contact us and apply preferably by March 20. Go to http://apply4internship.com to consider/apply. We are not listed yet...but hope to be soon. Just type in Austin/Fireseed as your location.

But...Please let us know if you are thinking about this.

If you are a student...you will also need to apply for a year long STINT by March 20. You will take a year off of school to do this and live in Austin, Texas.

The Fireseed Anthology

A collection of inciting stories of Jesus, His disciples (then and now), and those who will become disciples.

The Purpose

To explore, experiment,and express the stories of Jesus (within the context of the grander story of God and His people); to become part of the story and to invite others into the story.

The Hope

To effectively communicate the gospel to a postmodern culture and seeing lives transformed as they enter into the story with us...Following Christ together. Seeing those who have never known or experienced the abundant life Jesus offers to become fully surrendered to Him and bring others with them.

Website

This would be the space for documenting the stories(of team members and others) of the different experiments, of pastor's input to Jesus' stories, of creative expressions of the parables, public art pieces,etc. Its a web-like "Real World" of the team and those they interact with and how they interact with Jesus and His teachings.

It would include a blog, a video, art and photo gallery...Interviews, etc.

The Website would also be a good way for people to find out more about the stories and gives them an entry point into the story. It's a place for people to find information about the projects, to get ideas for their own experimentation,etc.

It would be an outlet for and catalyst to gathering stories - a circular situation (get stories/put them on the website, update the website because there are many stories to be told).

Gathering Stories

One of our first entry points on campus will be conducting interviews/getting accounts of stories with students. We will talk with them about their own stories that mirror Christ's parables,get them to tell the stories of Jesus in their own language if they know them...ask about cultural stories that they might know from books or other people that represent the parables/stories (real life prodigal son,e tc).

We would also want to gather stories from pastors on their understandings of the teachings/stories/etc.

When we conduct these interviews,etc. We give the people we talk to the link to their web site so they can view what we filmed later...and also invite them into the project.

Inviting others

"Make disciples and some will become converts"- Dallas Willard
"Follow Me" - Jesus

As we experiment with following Jesus through the stories of the Bible, we will engage with students on campus and invite them to come with us and participate with us in these experiments.

We will be teaching them about Christ through experience first but also through story telling, reflecting the Biblical Narrative. They will taste what it is like to follow Jesus through these varied exercises, projects, public art displays and services to those in need....They will learn the story of Jesus and His teachings within the context of the Grander Story of God, Creation, Fall, Redemption,etc.


So...again...we are not teaching based on knowledge and reflection...but primarily through experience and then story telling. Action - Reflection

Study

As a team, we will be studying the grander Story of God within the Scriptures. We will look to outside resources such as the One Story project (http://onestory.org) to help us learn the stories of the Bible and develop skills in oral Bible teaching methods.

As each "experiment" will focus on one story of Jesus or parable that He taught we will always want to "set the story up".

As people come to interact with the project we will give oral presentations of the context of this particular story within the greater story of God and people. Learning these things will be an integral part of everything we do...and a major part of our discipleship.

We will become equipped in knowing the Stories of the Bible being able to communicate them in a variety if ways.

Church Resourcing

We will be going to local churches, pastors,etc. to get their take on the different parables and teachings of Christ to inform our "experiments".

These interviews, etc will be documented on the web.

This will benefit not only the Fireseed Project...but hopefully give the students and others within the Austin Community exposure to the spiritual resources within their reach.

We hope that this project will create a bridge to the local church. We also hope that on some of the different projects we could partner with different local churches.

Notes in the Project

Jesus is central and the central "character" if this collection of stories (The Fireseed Anthology)

"We even shared our lives with them" = hearkening back to Paul's words...as we will be documenting, exploring, trying, failing, praying, living through Jesus' stories and teachings our lives as current day disciples will be exposed to others on the web and in the city. We believe this authenticity is what is needed to reach this generation and to invite others into the process.

Members will live in community and in close proximity to one another (like an overseas STINT). This will promote team community and a spirit of fellowship and sharing "all things in common"...as well as a welcoming environment, yet modest, to invite others into.

We want to encourage students to join in the experiments with their natural groups of friends and acquaintances rather than focusing on the individual. They could possibly be challenged to join us in the different experiments in the form of teams. We believe that we live and grow best in the context of community and that multiplication will happen more effectively within their organic relationships.


Prayer and Christ's leading are key. We want to be praying for the miraculous and the movement of God's Spirit...because that's' exciting...right?

Functions within CCC

Research and Development - These experiments, studies, trials will serve as research for the rest of CCC on how to effectively reach Post Moderns in the West.

Resources - As we develop ideas, websites, conduct interviews, etc. These will serve as a resource for the rest of CCC and the church in reaching Post-Moderns...hopefully offering fresh ideas.

Campus Ministry/Movement Building - We will be on the field, doing hands on ministry and (Lord Willing) creating new spiritual movements on the college campuses in Austin.

The Fireseed Anthology Project is an extension, a growth shoot off of the Campus Ministry reaching students that we have yet to reach..."so that every student will know someone who truly follows Christ."

Experiments with Jesus' Teachings

Experiments with the Gospel/Parables- one of the main focuses of the Anthology Project would be experimenting with Jesus' teaching and parables to live out, obey, follow these things in our lives today. They would be based on specific stories of Jesus and adapted to challenge us in our living today by the same truths He spoke of then. The team would be studying the teachings of Christ and would discuss ways to experiment together. We will invite students to join with us in the experiments as we interact with them on campus and in the city.

These experiments would take on different expressions and forms. This might include city wide events, public art pieces, service projects and outreach to those in need, film....etc.

For Example:

-giving away all you have and giving it to the poor - as the team comes across this teaching/event within the gospels they will wrestle with it. They will documented as they decide what they will do. Will I sell my grandmothers furniture...The team would really experiment truly with doing this. Selling everything and giving it to the poor. If someone held things back..filming the process, why, the results. We would invite students on campus do to the same...on a large or small scale. Perhaps we would have a city wide/school wide garage sale and give them money earned to the poor in the city.

-loving enemies/forgiveness

-praying all night (like Jesus did before His crucifixion...when the disciples fell asleep). we would walk through these stories and experiment with them in our own lives as a team inviting students in the city to join us in these different experiments.

Jesus' crucifixion around Easter. Creating a public art piece where you build a very large wall with wood representing Christ (abstractly) and then have balloons filled with red paint that you would offer to people to throw at the wall. There would be a strange sensation as you throw these balloons knowing that it is like you are throwing them at Christ. The team would share the story of Christ and the Cross...and explain the role of sin ,etc...and the betrayal that each of us has with Christ...etc. Letting people experience this in a public setting.

+ others

Team Roles

As I think of a team for The Fireseed Anthology Project...I like thinking of each person working out of his/her giftings...and that defining (somewhat) their role on the team. So...as staff and students consider joining the team...they would consider different roles that they would serve. I think perhaps this is Biblical and would lead to a greater effectiveness.

Possible Roles?