One of the main objectives for our trip to Haiti last month was to meet with local pastors, build connections and explore the possibility of coordinating an effort for American churches to partner with them. (My pictures of one such meeting here, here and here.) Thankfully, that objective is now coming to fruition due to Adventures In Missions’s leadership in Haiti.

There’s a couple reasons why I’m very excited about the opportunity for American churches to partner with churches in Haiti.

• Compassion International, World Vision, and many other organizations have already proven that these kinds of partnerships can be mutually edifying for the body of Christ, both for churches in America and in other countries.
• Relief efforts could go to a lot of different organizations in Haiti, but this is an opportunity for relief to go through the body of Christ in Haiti, directly to the people from people who are already known and trusted in their communities.
• Every single pastor I met in Haiti is a rock-solid spiritual leader. In fact, this man is probably the wisest pastor I’ve ever met. Just sitting near him, listening to him speak and pray left all of us on the team with a sense of awe. These men are tremendous spiritual leaders who are well respected.
• Through Adventures In Missions, you can visit your Haitian partnership church, both in the short-term and in the future.
• The need is so great in Haiti right now, especially as the rainy season is upon them with very few shelters. Our support can help the Haitian churches rise up and be both a spiritual and physical shelter in their communities.
• The average Haitian lives on an average of $400/year, so small amounts of money can make a very significant impact. That means American churches of any size, of any financial status, can make a huge difference.

Here’s a video from our trip about the Haiti Church to Church Partnership.

MORE INFO: If you’re interested in learning more about partnering with a church in Haiti, read more about the Haiti Church to Church partnership on Adventures In Missions’ website. An AIM representative will be happy to contact you personally about the partnership opportunities and talk through it with you, as well. Just use the contact form on their site.

Then come back here and post in the comments below if make a commitment to a Haitian church. I’d love to hear about it!

Two weeks ago Adam McLane and I were in Haiti sitting with one of our Haitian translators. The translator asked me, “Are you a youth pastor?” I replied that I am. He turned to Adam and asked the same thing. Adam explained that he used to be a youth pastor, but now he works for Youth Specialties. Our translator pushed back and said that Adam is still a youth pastor even if he doesn’t work at a church. Adam didn’t really agree with him and, without missing a beat, our translator shot back, “You are always a pastor because being a pastor is your spiritual gift, not your title. Even if you don’t work at a church, you are still a pastor.”

The conversation quickly turned to my last name and how I’m a Nazi like Hitler because I have a German last name (don’t ask lol), but I’ve been thinking about what he said. Being a pastor is not just a title we’re assigned because we’re on paid staff at a church — it’s our spiritual gift. There are numerous implications of this perspective.

First, I went to school for 7 years to learn how to use my spiritual gift of pastor/shepherd, but most of the things I spend my time doing each day fall into administrative tasks and organizing details, a gift I don’t have. Hmm… I would much rather be doing pastoral care for teens.

Second, and more importantly, this means that there are probably a lot more pastors in my church than I think, including teenagers! This puts a whole new spin on the term, “youth pastor.” Right now, I am not intentionally using the youth pastors in my ministry, nor training them to do pastoral care in their schools and future work environments.

I think this is will be part of the process of correcting the way I’m doing youth ministry all wrong, but I’m still thinking and praying through it. I greatly appreciate and welcome all your insights. The comments below are open.

Today was a special episode of LIVE YM Talk. Some of us on the “Youth Ministry Advance Team: Haiti” talked publicly about our trip. Joining the conversation was myself, Clint Bokleman, Seth Barnes, Adam McLane, Jeremy Zach, and Ian Robertson.

Some of the things we talked about:

• Stories of what we’ve been processing since returning to the States
• Addressed common questions, excuses, and criticisms of going to Haiti
• How teenagers can make a difference in Haiti
• What God is doing in Haiti and how it’s impacting us
• And a whole lot more…

You can listen to the whole conversation below or grab it in iTunes.

Play this episode

Subscribe to LIVE YM Conversations in iTunes

Next LIVE YM Talk in 2 weeks

March 8: There is no LIVE YM Talk on Monday due to me being at the Simply Youth Ministry Conference, so our next discussion in on March 8 when we talk about some of the recent questions and debates from MinistryQuestions.com. Join us and give your input to answering other youth worker’s ministry questions.

Join our next LIVE Youth Ministry Conversation!

[ See my other recent posts about my trip to Haiti ]

I’ve been generating a lot of media content about my trip to Haiti. Here are a couple things I definitely encourage you to check out. Even if you’re not considering a trip there yourself, at least listen to the amazing stories of what God is doing in Haiti. This is unprecedented revival for our lifetime!

Special LIVE YM Talk with the Haiti team

This Wednesday, February 24, most of the “Youth Ministry Advance Team: Haiti” team members will gather together for a special LIVE YM Talk discussion. We’ll share stories, experiences, and what we’ve been processing since the trip. We’ll also talk about implications for your youth group.

– Join us at 2:00 PM eastern time this Wednesday for the YMATH discussion!

All my daily video blogs from Haiti are on YouTube

Here’s the YouTube playlist of all my daily video blogs from while I was in Haiti last week. I basically walked around with my video camera the whole time and tried to capture snapshots throughout the entire trip, including some of my own processing of what I was experiencing each day. There’s about an hour and 45 minutes of footage, making it a good full-length film, eh?

I promise you, the stories you’ll see in my videos are not what the news media is covering here in the US, which blows my mind because I don’t know how they can ignore something like this.

– Watch the YouTube playlist of my daily Haiti video blogs

Haiti trip interview on YouthHacks Podcast

Adam McLane and I were interviewed together by Josh Cook and the YouthHacks Podcast team. It was a really good discussion about our trip. We shared a lot of stories, lessons, and how the trip has affected us. Definitely listen to the recording, even if you just play it in the background while you work.

– Listen to our YouthHacks Podcast interview about Haiti experiences

Pictures from Haiti

I got the rest of my pictures from the trip uploaded to this blog’s Facebook page, too.

– Check out my pictures from Haiti

– Here are Adam McLane’s pictures on Flickr

I talk with Bill Scott briefly about what God taught me in Haiti

Tonight I joined my good friend, Bill Scott, on his first online talk radio show and discussed what I saw in Haiti and what God taught me. I actually called in twice between other callers. You can grab the 11 minute audio clip in iTunes. Or, listen here.

– Download the brief discussion in iTunes

[ See my other recent posts about my trip to Haiti ]

I’m struggling on so many different levels. It’s hard to know where to even start with all the tension I feel about myself, the American church, and the state of spirituality among Christians here. I’m doing my best not to look down on American believers and the church with any sort of arrogance because, honestly, the attitude of my heart is really just brokenness for what I see. Jeremy Zach and I talked about this on a little walk we took before leaving the Dominican Republic: until I can share with more grace, my response right now is to keep my deepest thoughts to myself to avoid becoming overly-critical in a way that shuts down communication.

A couple times before we left Haiti, I actually thought, from a spiritual standpoint, that it would be cool to never return to America and just stay with the Haitians, except I knew that would definitely be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There’s a lot to be thankful here in America and a lot that is very positive — there’s no doubt that God has blessed us extravagantly and that our response of materialism and consumerism have affected us in ways I never even noticed until I was removed from it for a brief time. Maybe these things are so glaring to me now because I’m still hyper-sensitive having just come off the trip a couple days ago, but I know my heart for my own American people will never be the same as a result of my experiences in Haiti. We are so blessed, yet so poor.

America and Haiti are complete opposites right now. Haiti has such an overwhelming need for basic necessities and we have such an overwhelming need for revival. I want to be used by God to be a catalyst for revival here, but that task seems exponentially more daunting than the physical tasks that lie before Haiti right now. Cleaning up a collapsed city and providing life-sustaining supplies to hundreds of thousands of homeless people sounds much easier.

So, for now, I’m still processing, thinking, and praying with an intensity unlike I’ve never known before.

If you’re even slightly thinking about going to Haiti sometime soon to serve, you must go now! All your excuses are completely invalid: it’s very safe, you can absolutely afford it, you have the time, and you can make a big difference.

Do it. Now. Stop over-thinking it. Get off your butt and go. Seriously. Go.

[ See my other recent posts about my trip to Haiti ]

This morning I read from Psalm 114:7, “Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob.” That’s exactly what’s happening here in Haiti. The earth trembled at the presence of the Lord that is so obviously moving here in Haiti. I don’t know if it’s being covered by the media back in the US, but it should be because I’m not sure what else there is to report — everything we see here in Haiti is consumed by praise, worship, preaching, and a massive revival outbreak. Sure, there’s tanks and military people walking around with big guns. And many buildings are flat, but that’s just on the surface. The real news is that the hearts of these people are passionately worshipping God everywhere almost non-stop. It’s incredible.

When I get back to the US and can upload the daily video blogs I’ve been shooting all day every day, you’ll see more of this. I have talked to many, many random Haitians over the past several days and every single one of them talks about Jesus within the first 5 minutes of the conversation, even if you don’t bring Him up. When I ask if they are upset with God or questioning Him for the tragedy, not a single one says yes. In fact, it’s just the opposite — they appear shocked that I could even suggest such a thing. They are all worshipping Him for sparing their lives and for sending the earthquake to soften their hearts and deliver them from Santeria. There is literally dancing in the streets!

This whole experience continues to break my heart for the current state of the American church. We are so apathetic, so self-centered, so lethargic and focusing on all the wrong things. In some ways, I want to see an earthquake to hit our country, totally devastate us, strip us of everything but Jesus, and pray that our churches will pave the way for hope and rival in our nation instead of enabling the spiritual rut.

In America, when I sit in a small group and ask for prayer requests, first there’s silence while people try to think of something, and then 95% of the prayer requests will be for physical needs of themselves or someone they know. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with that, but here in Haiti, the physical needs are overwhelming — they live under bedsheets strung up by sticks and wire, have only the clothes on their back, and struggle to find food and water. Yet as I pray with Haitians, many of them do not ask me to pray for those needs, they ask me to pray for their spiritual needs. Just this morning several Haitians said to me, “Ask God to transform my heart,” and, “Pray God will make me a mighty man of prayer,” and, “I want you to pray that God will teach me the Bible more.” I don’t even know when I’ve ever heard prayer requests like that… or when I’ve even asked of those things for myself. So I pray for them, and they in-turn pray for me with a passion that makes my prayers feel so weak and insignificant.

I can’t wait to show you some of the video footage and stories we’ve been hearing in Haiti. Look for them later this week or early next week when I’m back on my own Internet connection and can upload them. Here in Haiti it takes 50+ hours to upload a mobile version of a video over wifi. 2K upload = fail. That’s why I only have two videos posted: Day 1 and Day 2.

Check out today’s photos

Again, I posted some of today’s Haiti pictures on my Facebook page. Check ‘em out!

Also keep your eye on the official “Youth Ministry Advance Team: Haiti” Facebook page and the official YMATH Twitter account for updates from the rest of the team members.

Today is our last day here in Haiti. Tomorrow we start the long drive back to Santo Domingo before we fly back to the US on Wednesday morning.

Also follow my Haiti updates here:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• YouTube

[ See my other recent posts about my trip to Haiti ]

I think I absorbed more today than I ever have before in a single day. The video summary I put together for “day 3″ (and will try to post at YouTube when our slow Internet connection will allow it) explains a bit more, but to summarize:

• Thousands of Haitians are coming to know Christ. The past three days were the country’s first National Day of Prayer. People were praying everywhere — in the streets, on the sidewalks, in buildings, in tent communities, everywhere. Sometimes they were groups of 20, sometimes groups up 30,000! I’ve never seen a country come together to worship and praise God like this. Even in our conversations with people, one of the first things they start telling you about is Jesus and how He saved them. Incredible.
• Everything you’ve seen about the destruction is true. It’s massive. I have no idea how it could ever be cleaned up. It will definitely take years before their old spaces are livable again. In the meantime, their only option is to live in massive tent communities in fields, streets, and anywhere else they can find.
• We talked with several Haitian pastors about how American churches can partner with them and their congregations. It’s a bit tricky because we want to make sure we don’t get set them up for dependency, but yet we want to come behind them, support them, and enable them to be both the heros and spiritual leaders their country needs.
• The way these people pray is amazing. It’s so full of passion, faith, and trust. It’s like, when they pray they believe God hears it and will respond. I know us Americans believe that, too, but I’m not sure we really believe it.
• One of the things that has stood out to me the most is a passage I read this morning in Psalm 104:32, “The earth trembles at his glance.” It seems like the Lord is looking favorably upon Haiti and it literally shook. I don’t want to go too far with that passage, but God is definitely working here and it is such a huge blessing to be able to have a small glimpse into His obvious spiritual transformation of this country.

There’s a lot more going through my mind, but it’s late and I need to get to bed. Can’t wait to get these daily video blogs uploaded for you all sometime soon so you can see what I’m talking about.

Check out today’s photos

Again, I posted some of today’s Haiti pictures on my Facebook page. Check ‘em out!

Also follow my Haiti updates here:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• YouTube

Unfortunately, the bandwidth here isn’t allowing me to post my daily video blogs right now, so I’m going to have to add those later. Sorry. I was planning to share most of my thoughts about the trip through video so I could personally show you things like I did in my last update, but after 30+ hours of waiting for my “day 2″ video to upload, it obviously was not going to work. Maybe I can find another wifi spot somewhere in the city that will have a more realistic upload speed.

Yesterday was my second day here with the Youth Ministry Advance Team: Haiti and it’s been both a blast and challenging. Fortunately, I think we’re being eased into the shock I’m sure will ensue tomorrow because we’re gradually making our way to ground zero, making many stops along the way, hearing people’s stories, and gradually seeing buildings that are first shaken, then leaning, then half-way crumbled.

We met a lady who lost her twins in the earthquake when a building collapsed on them. Both 6-month olds were killed instantly, and one of them was stolen from her arms by a man who thought she was holding his child. Furthermore, her left leg is severely broken and she has no more feeling in it. While she and her husband are doing whatever they can just to cope, when we prayed for them her husband cried out in the most agonizing sobs, “Why, Jesus? Why?”

There are stories like this all over Haiti. Some have lost all hope, but the vast majority of Haitians are very hopeful and looking to Jesus to save them.

Tomorrow we head into epicenter of the quake and I’m sure the destruction we’ll witness there will be unbelievable. Hopefully I’m mentally, spiritually and emotionally prepared.

Media to check out

Besides my video blogging above, I posted a little photo album on my Facebook page of day 2 here in Haiti.

Also check out this video of a Haitian named Rudy who sang to us while laid up on a hospital bed. Very moving.

[ See my other recent posts about my trip to Haiti ]

Also follow my updates here:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• YouTube

[ See my other recent posts about my trip to Haiti ]

Here’s my first video blog about my trip to Haiti with the Youth Ministry Advance Team: Haiti. All in all, a great day, but super slow internet. It took over two hours to upload the video from the Dominican Republic hotel. Hopefully bandwidth will be more favorable in Haiti tomorrow, but if it’s not, I may be difficult to upload them on a daily basis. Just FYI.

We’re having a great time this first day, but it’s been mostly travel. Tomorrow we head into Port au Prince and prepare for culture shock.

Also follow my Haiti updates here:

• Facebook
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• YouTube