Ryan Latham

This morning we had the great honor of speaking Hope for the Homeless youth ministry team at the Dream Center. What a great time. The team there are so inspiring and challenge me to view the church and ministry so much bigger. It was fun eating the cafe’ at the Dream center and getting tour of the place. Thanks to the team there for letting us come out and share.

Caitlyn and the team did a great job of leading us in a time of worship.

Me and the leaders for Hope for the Homeless youth. Sharing vision and dreams. It’s a great place to expand your expectations of yourself and your ministry.

I got this the other morning and I thought it was tight, “leadership is investment, if you invest enough you will reap of great harvest.”

Zig Ziggler says this, “you can have anything you want if you help enough people get what they want.”

“death in me is life in them”

Our lives are about giving them away. The more we give away the more God provides for us. It is so great. Thanks God for the selflessness that you are.

The Lord woke me up this morning with this thought, “the greater the resistance the greater the strength.”

It is like when we workout in the GYM. If you want to grow and get bigger you must tare and rip your muscles by lifting a heaver amount of resistance (weight). This hurts and in painful that is way we get sore after a “good workout”. After the workout the body brings in extra amount of nutrients to help heal the tares and rips in the muscles, resulting in growth, size.

Our job as Christians is to make sure that we are spiritually putting ourselves in the GYM, and increasing the amount of resistance that we are dealing with. So that we can grow. When we face spiritual resistance and we are ripped, and torn by the resistance (or pruned) God sends the Holy Spirit in to heal the hurting areas so that we can grow. Just like the GYM God picks those areas that need to be grown. He knows which areas that need the resistance, pride, patience, purity, your thought life, those areas He will send resistance to grow you where you need it.

If we decide that we don’t want to go through the resistance then we will never grow.

When your in the physical GYM and you are lifting an amount of resistance more than that of which you normally lift you use a spotter. The spotters job is to help you keep “good form” and to talk you through the pain, so that you focus on the positive encouragement of your spotter and not the pain of your muscles ripping, and tarring. Also the spotter often helps carry a little bit of the weight, just enough for you to lift it, but not too much to hinder the ripping process. A good spotter knows how much pain is good for you and when you are going too far.

In the Spiritual GYM we need a spotter as well. One that encourages us to get through the pain, one that at times helps carry the burden, but most often helps us to focus not on the resistance but the goal. A spiritual spotter knows when the tears are tears of growth, and when it is to much.

When you “do life together” you know when someone is in the GYM lifting a burden bigger then they have lifted before. Just like in the GYM go and help them get through and PUSH through so that God can come in and help heal the pain and hurt.
As Christians we are called to go through hard times of resistance…”it’s for your own good”.

What resistance are you going through today? What areas is God working on you? Do you have a “spotter”? Let’s face resistance with a positive mindset so that we can grow and take over the world for God!!!!

I am booking dates for the next school year. If you are interested please let me know. I’d love to come out and do some leadership development, a youth service, camp/retreat, a chapel. Lets talk and see if we can make something happen for this up coming year.

3000 Passionate World Changers Part 2 051309 from Crossroads Christian Church on Vimeo.

DO WE CHASE???!!!!

So here is an e-mail I got this morning. This is a student that was in my small group when I lead one as a college student at my home church where I grew up. I left in 97, 11 years ago. This is one of those students that would have been lost without a small group format. I want you to understand that we were a High school ministry of 250-300. Me and two of my friends lead a group of guys that were in 8th grad when we started and then when I left were sophomores. While I was his small group leader we had 3 different Youth Pastors (only for the first year did we have official small groups after that the new pastors didn’t do small groups, but I kept my guys going).
The second youth pastor his first night there that Joey (this kid in the e-mail) couldn’t wear his hood (of his sweater). This boy Joey was a BIG, STRONG, HARD dude. He wasn’t all that into church, our group sat in the back row most of the time, but I called him almost every day, picked him and our other guys up from school, and we would go out and play laser tag after school, like 1-2 times a week. On the weekends a lot of the times the guys would stay at my house and we would go out and play laser tag, or watch movies. We would do this like twice a month. We picked up the guys and dropped them off every Weds, and Sunday. Now remember that I was in college full time and worked 2 jobs (I worked at the church as a janitor for a year, then I did professional theater for 2 years, and I worked weekends doing hazardous waste clean-up). Also the other two guys that were leaders with me where not going into “ministry” and they both were in college full time and worked full time jobs!!!! Also our church was Wednesday night Youth service, 2 Sunday morning services, and a Sunday night service, and our pastor was in his 60’s-70’s. Does the church sound like Lancaster First? I say all this because I want you to know that I lived your life, not PAID to do it, working, going to school, and no one in the church or Youth knew how much we gave.
At one point my guys didn’t like the new youth pastor for they throw oranges (a lot of oranges) at his house. I had to walk them through that tough one. We took these guys out on Halloween and hung out, we went pumpkin bowling (not something I am excited about), we toilet papered their friends houses, on, and on… We just did life together. These were definitely not the super Christian Kids. But we loved them and cared for them. Their parents called us whenever there was a problem or if they needed help with anything. We often paid for them to go to camps. We were the Youth Pastor to these students. They didn’t care so much about the fact that we had 3 different Youth pastors in 2 and half years, because their pastors (us) where still there. So the question is this, who had more life change? The Youth Pastors that had the name as the HEAD guy, and the paycheck, or us the small group leaders, no title, no paycheck, and no glory?
After I left, that same church had 5-6 different youth pastors in 4 yours. These students went through a tough time. And the group went from 250-300 in the high school down to about 15-30.
I haven’t talked to any of these guys from my group in over 11 years…yet the power of CHASE lives in their heart. Now it’s your turn to CHASE the next JOEY, maybe someday you will have an e-mail from your Joey saying, “I FOUND U….”
You must believe that all the gas money to pick a student up, the phone calls, the money for a soda or food, helping them get to camp or a missions trip…IT WILL PAY OFF!!! You are investing in their future, Christ’s future, and your future!!! Just like me you may never (11 years later seems like never) get a, “thank you”, or a, “You’re the best”. But know that CHASE builds a bridge for them to walk over to meet Jesus. Go out tonight and build some bridges! Thank you for giving of your time, talents, and treasures, to TRULY change the world. PR

Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2008 3:42 AM To: Latham, Ryan

Subject: I FOUND U……..

“bro i found you…. hope u remember me its me joey tellez from first family.. looked you up on the web wow you got a family and a beautiful wife good job bro and your still serving God.. that s great…. as for me im married too…now 4 like 8 months its chill me and my wife were not christians when we met i was into drugs and all that mess and God got a hold of my heart and my wifes heart so yeah man ….. u r a great guy and i miss ya ….. hit me up…oh yeah ill send ya pixs………………………….. by the way i sing at church on occasion for worship and played on the worship team for a year but ive been working on music to touch the lost LOVE YA and cant wait to here from ya”

I just got done reading a “note” on a girls facebook that had questions about high school for her to answer. There where 2 questions that she had me in the answer. The first one was, What is your fav. memory of high school. She said a few things that involved me, one of which is the “Party’s” at my house. Now she was not apart of the first wave of parties at my house, that involved drinking and things like that. She was apart of the REAL parties, the ones where everyone is so real, having so much fun, that you wouldn’t want to have anything illegal there to confuse the excitement of being real. There was no need to mask or hide, there was real love, and caring for people. The conversations mattered, and you could remember them as well. The relationships where real, not just because someone had beer at there house.

Now check this out here is a girl that had a person (me) in her life that believed that being real, and true to who you are was fun, and exciting. I believed it so much that I convinced a lot of people that they didn’t need to go out and party all the time with beer and things. I know your thinking yeah it was just easy for you…YEAH it was because I used my influence to change a whole high school drama department. I changed my part of the school. The part of the school that God gave me, I changed it. For many years before the drama department would go out and PARTY! after the shows, after drama practice (during drama practice, we had a choir teacher who couldn’t smell, so that made smoking weed real easy), lots of the school would come to “closing night” to show up at the “cast party” and get drunk and smoke, etc. I know this because I was apart of this for 2 years. There was major pressure to be apart of this party mentality, “EVERYONE WAS DOING IT”. But when I gave my life to God I changed and I started to change everything around me. When I became the leader of the group (by influence) drama practice was “clean” nothing illegal. Cast parties were “clean” nothing illegal, road trips were “clean” for the first time in years. What happened was that it became COOL to not have to do that stuff to have fun.

DID i do some magical thing? No. Did I sit everyone down and tell them my new plan? NO, I didn’t have a plan, I just wanted to be clean and I wanted to hang out with all my friends. So I did. I just had the cast parties at my house where they knew it would be safe and there wouldn’t be illegal things. Instead of going to peoples houses and getting drunk after practice and shows we would go out to eat at a restaurant, or again come over to my house. Look, everyone is looking for a place to go, something to do, so give them something to do, give them somewhere to go.

I just got an idea, I know that many of you are now getting a little older and your still in this place where you feel the need to party like your still in high school. Learn from this Facebook note. You don’t need to. Remember the days when none of that mattered, what mattered was being real and needing to mask all that. I cant do it for you now, but you can do it for yourself.

Here is the second question that stood out. “Something that makes sense now but didn’t then? Why it was okay to hang out at Ryan Latham’s house all night but I had to be home from dates by 10pm…”

Why? I created a safe place where nothing bad was going to happen to people, parents trusted me and my house. Trust me you can do it. So, What part of your school, your job has God given you? Do something about it? make the changes needed around you. BECOME REAL! Stop masking, and start living.

So in 1 Kings 15 there are a couple lines that make we real happy, and a little nervous. V.5, “For David had done what was right in the eyes of the Lord and had not failed to keep any of the Lord’s commands all the days of his life– except in the case of Uriah the Hittite.” WHAT!? David, King David? The guy that had like a million wives, and concubines? The guy that killed a guy (I know thats the exception, BUT THATS A BIG EXCEPTION). But he slept with his wife, and lusted like crazy. Thats the guy that was fully committed and is like the example of loving God. David is the man, but he’s the man who makes a lot of mistakes, yet is fully committed.

V.14 “Although he did not remove the high places, Asa’s heart was fully committed to the Lord all his life.”
So cool, He didn’t everything right and he wasn’t able to restore the health of the nation. BUT his heart was for God. He loved God and wanted to please Him, thats what made him pleasing to God.

This is good news because I don’t have to always get it right. I don’t have to always bring health to the world. There are times when I miss opportunities to do what is right. Like this morning I was on my way out of the parking lot and I watched on of our ladies that work her pulling boxes out of her car, I thought, “I should stop and help her”. BUT I didn’t. There are times when I feel like I should say an encouraging word to a person and I don’t. There are times when I feel like I should get involved in peoples lives and I don’t.

This is when those verses get a little scary, is my heart pure, and committed to God? Is my heart really longing to please Him like David, and Asa? Man I sure hope so. I think thats the point, it’s not about what we do, but about who we are, and what our desires are.

This is also hard for me, because my life verse is James 2:20, “faith without deeds is dead”. So my bend is actions, so often I am about outward actions…but the heart is a big deal that we need to make it the focus, and let our actions be lead by the heart.

How to eat an elephant of a project
Judges 3:12-30

I am finding that there is a force that stops and paralyzes people. It takes some of the greatest and most talented people and makes them frozen and paralyzed. It is being asked to eat an elephant.
These large animals are giants and stand so tall, and powerful, yet they are so venerable, and easy to kill. This is a great picture of our large projects that make us so excited, and fill us with passion, yet if we see the elephant we miss the sushi, the bite sized rolls.
Many of you have heard the story about a villager who was asked how do you eat an elephant and the villager answered, “one bite at a time”. This is a great story and one that I am really seeing has so much power, and brings about freedom.

Recently my team and I have been faced with some pretty big tasks, for us, Elephants.
I will tell you about our mission’s team and the elephant that has paralyzed them for months. As many of you know my great passion in life is to raise up next generation leaders. As I am doing this I am learning many things about people. One of which is you have to be able to notice when someone is staring at an elephant and is holding a fork, starving. They have the fork and they have the hunger to eat, but the elephant is way too big to even try to start to eat. So they sit there staring at what they know they need, yet unable to eat.
So, our missions team which is headed up by three great leaders have been staring at the elephant of $18,000, missions dinner, etc. for months! It’s this great big elephant. As a mentor I have tried to help them to move forward, but the Elephant loomed. So yesterday we got out my trusty whiteboard (thank God for whoever invented that) and we broke down the Elephant, all the numbers and the events. It turns out that this elephant really is a sushi roll once we broke it down to the smallest pieces we could.
I want to encourage you as a leader to learn the art of eating an elephant. Here are some ideas of how I eat elephants that has helped me to overcome the freezing power of major situations.

Here are a few thoughts about how to kill the elephant:

1 THROW-UP:
a. Judges 3:12 Once again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, and because they did this evil the LORD gave Eglon king of Moab power over Israel. 13 Getting the Ammonites and Amalekites to join him, Eglon came and attacked Israel, and they took possession of the City of Palms. [a] 14The Israelites were subject to Eglon king of Moab for eighteen years
b. There is a great moment from Remember the Titians, when the head coach is about to go into the Big game. But before he leaves the locker room he throws up. Here he is staring at what he knows he wants and needs, but fear, excitement, the unknown, for just a moment causes all everything to leave him. Many of the great coaches in history have said that this has been true in their lives as a coach. So as I coach and mentor I have learned the art of throwing up!
c. The first thing that I do is get a whiteboard and have a throw-up meeting. I say to the team, give me everything that we know about this elephant, in no order, no details about each thing, just everything that we know, things that we know we don’t know, questions we still have, what process’ do we need to follow, etc. Get it all on the board.
d. Start with the end in mind. You must know what the fish line, the goal looks like. What is it that you need do, what job do you need to sire for, or how much to we need to raise. In this case it was $18,000 for a mission’s trip, and we leave with this many people on this date!

2) SIZE IT UP:
a. 15 Again the Israelites cried out to the LORD, and he gave them a deliverer—Ehud, a left-handed man, the son of Gera the Benjamite. The Israelites sent him with tribute to Eglon king of Moab.
b. The fear and excitement have left your body, now you must look the animal in the eye and begin to size it up. You must understand the animal before you can conquer it.
c. Begin to back it up, what are some of the known steps that need to be taken to make your project happen? Go back to your throw-up list and begin to organize it. But please start with the finish line and go backwards.
i. Due dates, timelines, people to call, etc. At this point don’t get specific about all the steps for each event, just put the events, process, whatever it maybe in order and then move on. The goal of this is big picture outline.
When we did this, we were able to see that some of our main fundraisers were coming after due dates for money to be turned in… something needed to change. At this point the real elephant had not been cut up, we still had $18,000 to be raised on the board, and just dates with no specific financial goals given to them.
ii. The elephant is still large but we are sizing him up and we can now see fear in his eyes as we are gaining ground on this larger then life animal.

3) THE DEADLY STRIKE:
a. 16 Now Ehud had made a double-edged sword about a foot and a half [b] long, which he strapped to his right thigh under his clothing. 17 He presented the tribute to Eglon king of Moab, who was a very fat man. 18 After Ehud had presented the tribute, he sent on their way the men who had carried it. 19 At the idols [c] near Gilgal he himself turned back and said, “I have a secret message for you, O king.”
The king said, “Quiet!” And all his attendants left him.
20 Ehud then approached him while he was sitting alone in the upper room of his summer palace[d] and said, “I have a message from God for you.” As the king rose from his seat, 21 Ehud reached with his left hand, drew the sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the king’s belly. 22 Even the handle sank in after the blade, which came out his back. Ehud did not pull the sword out, and the fat closed in over it. 23 Then Ehud went out to the porch [e] ; he shut the doors of the upper room behind him and locked them.

b. You must find out where you need to attack to make this elephant fall? There is no since in trying to cut small pieces out of an animal that is alive and fighting back. So find the blow that will end the fight, and fear! You must be able to see the large mountain of an animal fallen before you, as you stand in victory. How do you know where to stick? Some thoughts, what will lift the lid that is holding you back? What causes the most fear?
c. Judges 3:12-30 (New International Version) Ehud

d. For us the money was the vital blow that would kill the animal, so that is where we went first.
i. For us $18,000 by a date. But we have 5 due dates between now and then. So what we did was break it down with each event. So here are our big ideas for getting us there.
Missions dinner with an auction, Bookmarks, Bracelets, Support letter. This is the heart, the area to attack.
Now, this is where the vital blow comes in, how much can we get from each of these events? Break it down per-event (simple I know, but so is shooting an elephant!).

4) SLICE AND DICE:
a. 24 After he had gone, the servants came and found the doors of the upper room locked. They said, “He must be relieving himself in the inner room of the house.” 25 They waited to the point of embarrassment, but when he did not open the doors of the room, they took a key and unlocked them. There they saw their Lord fallen to the floor, dead.
b. 26 While they waited, Ehud got away. He passed by the idols and escaped to Seirah. 27 When he arrived there, he blew a trumpet in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites went down with him from the hills, with him leading them.

c. Now that you are standing on top of this large animal proud of your seeming victory, but you still can’t eat the animal. So you must work more to begin to slice it into manageable pieces.
d. You can breathe right and see clearly. So take the rest of the things from the board and start to work on them. This is when it gets real easy to delegate to your sushi chefs. You killed the beast, now let the whole village help you and share in the victory.
e. Look at these events and look at your team. Who would be good at different parts of these projects.
i. Tim Elmore says that this is like playing chess and not checkers. In chess every piece has a different roll and different strengths, play them right and you win, play them wrong and you lose. In checkers every pieces acts the same. Play chess, know your peoples strengths and use them.
f. For us this meant looking at, who will order the bracelets, who will make the bookmarkers, what team of people will lead the dinner theater. Where as a leader is one of the greatest things I’ve learned from Andy Stanly. I asked the mission’s team, what piece of this Elephant; if I took it would help you the most?

5) ROLL:
a. 28 “Follow me,” he ordered, “for the LORD has given Moab, your enemy, into your hands.” So they followed him down and, taking possession of the fords of the Jordan that led to Moab, they allowed no one to cross over. 29 At that time they struck down about ten thousand Moabites, all vigorous and strong; not a man escaped.
b. Know that this elephant is cut up into pieces and your chefs have their pieces, you are now able to focus on leading the leaders. Making sure that it is getting done, and that each chef knows the orders.
c. At this point the main goal is to start over for each of the leaders and their processes for their pieces. So for each piece you will lead your chef though the steps above, so that they can make the perfect roll.
d. The missions team leader then meets with the girl who is ordering the bracelets, and the bookmarks, etc, and walks them through all the process to make their pieces the BEST POSSIBLE!

6) EAT AND ENJOY:
a. 30 That day Moab was made subject to Israel, and the land had peace for eighty years.
b. Sit back and enjoy your elephant!!!! Enjoy the trip, the person you hired, the money raised.
c. My life theory if I had one may be that a meal alone is no meal at all. So take your team of Elephant hunters with you and celebrate. Have a fellowship offering before the Lord.

Too much for now but it’s coming…