{"id":940,"date":"2011-01-26T12:00:45","date_gmt":"2011-01-26T17:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/ywupdate\/?p=940"},"modified":"2011-01-25T16:58:20","modified_gmt":"2011-01-25T21:58:20","slug":"jump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/ywupdate\/2011\/01\/26\/jump\/","title":{"rendered":"JUMP"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ben Pease – Youth Pastor, Salem Covenant Church, Minnesota<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/strong>I glanced at the title of Efrem Smith\u2019s book and saw the words, \u201cJump Into a Life of Further and Higher.\u201d\u00a0 Knowing Efrem mostly from his speaking but also a bit personally, I knew this couldn\u2019t be a self-help book pitching \u201cactualizing a better you.\u201d\u00a0 I suspected instead that the book would focus on taking bold, sometimes surprising leaps of faith in our public lives in the service of God and for the good of God\u2019s people.\u00a0 This book is indeed about that, but it is also about so much more.<\/p>\n

Smith\u2019s premise is that all of us have walls holding us back from what we have the power to be and do, and are in fact called to be and do.\u00a0 Based on the story of the African impala, which can be trained by zookeepers to be restrained by a three-foot wall, Smith explores the common hindrances in our lives that, while being very real, do not impose the restrictive limits that we or others have granted them power to impose.\u00a0 Efrem does speak powerfully to kingdom-oriented and often counter-cultural acts to which we may be called to jump up or in.\u00a0 He begins his argument, however, with a jump of identity.\u00a0 Smith calls this the jump to the \u201cbeloved self.\u201d\u00a0 By posing the questions, \u201cWho am I?\u201d and \u201cWho loves me?\u201d Smith addresses the multi-layered issue of connection \u2013 connection to our true selves, to Jesus Christ and to the Church.<\/p>\n

Smith argues that only after making the jumps to a proper understanding of the beloved self and to healthy connection with the beloved church are we truly ready to engage powerfully and meaningfully in our call to the beloved world.\u00a0 Using the civil rights movement and his own life and ministry experience as examples, Smith demonstrates that leaps that are both significant and well-directed indeed often start with a transformed individual connected to a reconciled (and reconciling) wider group for the purpose of Spirit-led, God-empowered impact in the world.<\/p>\n

As a youth pastor, I sometimes find myself asking a question that I hear echoed by colleagues in ministry: \u201cI feel this urge to jump into something new\/different\/bigger\/smaller in my life and ministry, but I am trying to discern whether God is truly calling me to make that jump.\u201d\u00a0 Efrem\u2019s book reminds us that, while some of our life jumps may have us taking to the streets and transforming cities and nations, others don\u2019t require that we leave our homes or offices, as we jump the barriers between ourselves and God\u2019s intentions for what we do and who we are.<\/p>\n

Report This Post<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ben Pease – Youth Pastor, Salem Covenant Church, Minnesota I glanced at the title of Efrem Smith\u2019s book and saw the words, \u201cJump Into a Life of Further and Higher.\u201d\u00a0 Knowing Efrem mostly from his speaking but also a bit personally, I knew this couldn\u2019t be a self-help book pitching \u201cactualizing a better you.\u201d\u00a0 I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[204,281],"tags":[235,273,20209,316],"class_list":["post-940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflection","category-resources","tag-ben-pease","tag-efrem-smith","tag-reflection","tag-story"],"yoast_head":"\nJUMP - ECC | Youth Worker Update<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/ywupdate\/2011\/01\/26\/jump\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"JUMP - 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