In my last post, I reminisced with you about the genesis of my World Race journey. Now I’d like to elaborate more on a few of the people who serve as the milestones of that journey – namely the staff. And all the staff at AIM and the World Race raise support [hint hint]. . .
Now, Jeff isn’t just staff on the World Race, but he oversees the mobilization efforts of AIM as a whole. Mobilization is just the SAT word for getting people to move. Not only does he write real good but he also excels in provoking thought. He may do the latter a little too well; one reader commented, “My brain hurts sometimes when I come to your blog.” But fear not, Jeff’s insights aren’t overly taxing on the intellect. He melds humor into his thoughts very well, as evidenced in a recent post:
The problem with experts is that they don’t exist.If you’ve ever watched an episode of The Office, you know that Dwight Schrute considers himself an expert at a lot of things — martial arts, firefighting, beet-farming, sci-fi trivia, paper sales, office safety, and so on. You name it, and Dwight has an expert opinion about it.
So while Jeff himself won’t call himself an expert, I will say that he’s “expert” at balancing big-picture vision casting with small-detail execution.
Then there’s Jimmy, who is a kind of progenitor in the World Race pantheon. He’s not only one of the earlier alumni, he serves as Program Director. Simply put, he rocks at what he does, and he does a lot. Most alumni know this first-hand during training camp as he shares his pastoral and teaching gifts; it’s almost genius when you get an even closer look behind the scenes of training camp.
This is one of the best descriptions of his “job”:
from left to right: carl, mike, jimmy and dan, jan. 2010 wr training camp, oct. 2009. photo from lindsay eaton.
My voice is to my generation. It says “Wake up! There’s more to life. Don’t bother me if you’re still trying to figure out if life can be more significant than the mundane you’ve been living. Come to me when you’re desperate enough to live a life free-falling into God’s plan. We can get there, it’ll cost you everything, but we can get there.
Speaking of voices, one you should learn to recognize easily is Matt’s. When he leads people in worship, you can hear his heart in his voice. In his blogs, the passion and conviction and wit with which he writes pierce through the screen. Matt’s is a voice of a generation crying out to the world to make way for the Lord. Personally, I just like the way he keeps it real, like this: The truth is that you don’t have to have it all together before helping somebody. You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to have a college degree. You don’t have to be rich. You don’t have to be poor. You don’t even have to be American.
His unwillingness to shy away from challenging topics yields resources like the ways God reveals and manifests Himself and rallying others to ministry. His honesty and openness not only refresh but usher in freedom to be honest and open – at least, that’s how I’ve been blessed.
photo by Nick Derington
There are more people behind-the-scenes of the World Race & AIM. Next time, I’ll talk about the women who hold down the fort. But know that, not only as an alumna but also as a “shareholder”, I can vouch for the return on investment made on the people who carry out the vision of raising up a generation of radical disciples.
