Summer Fun with CFIA!
Nathan Blair passing the video camera off to Dan Thoemke.
2nd Greatest Film Update: Written by Courtney Thoemke The filming of 2nd Greatest, a narrative feature length film inspired by true stories, is finished and is now in the process of being edited and finalized by Kingdom Sights Studio. If you have not watched the full length trailer yet, here it is! See Trailer Here
Leverage- Teens Becoming Tools: Written by Courtney Thoemke (CFIA Intern from CSU) 
A couple weeks ago from June 24th to 26th, the annual Leverage Youth Outreach was held. About 30 youth from local Golden churches got together to serve the Golden community. They did everything from painting fences and decks, to repairing steps and building a Handicap accessible ramp in Mountainside Estates Mobile Home Park and Golden Terrace Mobile Home Park. It was amazing to see the youth going door to door, picking up as many projects as they could as they finished up the original projects we had planned. The kindness and passion to serve that came from every teen during this time was abundant.
More Take-Aways from Bob Lupton on Community Development Written by Casey Quinlisk (CFIA Intern from CSU) 
Bob Lupton, as mentioned in the earlier blog post, is the creator of FCS Urban Ministries. In February, he shared his ideas on community development with our CityUnite group in Denver and we want to keep unpacking his thoughts! Bob will be back in our neck of the woods on October 15th at the Power in Partnership Conference in Jefferson County. Bob spoke about geographic focus and how vital it is. “The more narrow your focus, the deeper the impact. The wider your focus, the more diluted your efforts will be.” In other words, concentrate on the small projects, rather than the massive. This will enable you and your team to provide the best possible assistance to those who need it. When the effort is in the big picture, the less you will be able to listen to those you are helping because there will be too many projects and requirements on your plate. Secondly, “When you address a chronic problem with an emergency solution you hurt people.” What comes to mind when I hear this is, the same mind cannot solve the problem it created. An emergency solution is a last ditch effort, a leap of faith, and often rushed. Emergency solutions are supposed to be accomplished as quickly as possible. However, when serving and listening to those who need help, sometimes slow and logical in order to allow for learning, rather than giving. When you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, but when you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. The same philosophy goes for community development. Simply giving and serving cannot help people for a lifetime. This idea ties into Bob’s third idea, “You can’t serve a community out of poverty.” Bob wrote a letter to a woman named Allison who needed help in understanding how to make the most out of a mission trip for the people in need as well as the volunteers. His first idea was “We go to Learn, not to Serve.” “Learners listen to others, servers do for others. Learners ask questions, servers offer answers. Learners marvel at the faith of the poor, servers pity the poor. Learners see ingenuity and servers see poverty. Learners affirm the worth of people and servers diminish their dignity.” Sometimes all people need is a shoulder to lean on and open ears to listen to their stories. Constant giving, Bob says, will only encourage begging behavior, something too many ministries are doing. Fourth, there is magic in the process of exchange. Parity is a higher form of charity. Working with kids has taught me that they listen best when you are at their level, literally. They respond much more when you are at their eye level. It allows them to feel equal to the person they are listening to, instead of often times being looked down on. Mission trips establish the same thinking. When working with people, parity, or equality, is huge. No one likes feeling like they are less of a person than someone else. Mission trips are a time to put the business world behind you and become equals with the rest of the world. Fifth, in order to improve education in at-risk communities, education cannot be the only task. The advancement of the whole community needs to happen; otherwise, those who become educated will simply leave the area and putting those who helped back at square one. Education and community development must go hand in hand in order to prosper like peanut butter and jelly, hot dogs and baseball games, and cookies and milk. Lastly, Bob discusses something very simple and obvious, give away as much as you can. Obviously Bob, that’s the whole point of a mission trip or community development project. But are you giving the right things? Time, effort, and love are all vital parts of why we do what we do, but what about physical things? Ministry credit, ownership, contacts, etc. in the business world, connections are everything. Whose hand you shake is sometimes more important than the grades you make. The same mentality applies here, by providing relevant contacts and sharing assets established friendship and loyalty. You don’t share contacts with random people, you share them with people you learn to love, trust, and want to succeed. Giving these to people who you are helping will give them a sense of trust and a will to prosper, since you who are equal to them, are providing more avenues for them to become the best person they can become. Bob Lupton is a logical, well orchestrated, and overall loving individual who really wants the best for the people in this world. He has elaborately thought, designed, and taught his findings and ideas to people in order to best help those who need it. Letter to a Short Term Missionary Bob Lupton Profile Photo Credit to Americans Helping Americans
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