Austin Walker

Leaders light Fires
Posted on May 28, 2012 by Juan Cruz Jr
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Friday night my wife, neighbor, and me started a fire. It took it several attempts to start the fire.

We had  a lighter, fire-wood, a starter log, we even used newspaper to help speed the process of getting the starter log…well started…so that the rest of the fire-wood would burn.

At first we used the lighter, trying to get the corner of the starter log going to see if it would spread to the rest of the fire-wood. That didn’t quite work.

We then took newspaper and made balls out of them, and put them around the starter log and the fire-wood. That didn’t work either.

We then put newspaper under the starter log, and lit the newspaper, and that did the trick.

We lit a fire under it!

What methods do you use to get your team fired up?

Do you tug at the heart strings?

Do you use logic and play to their sense of reason?

Do you play to emotion?

There is a wrong and right way to light a fire under your team, if the struggle of getting the fire in my backyard started is any indication.

The different methods of heart, mind, and emotions are not wrong , as long as they are not used to manipulate people for selfish reasons.

People want to be a part of something great, something awesome, something that is beyond themselves. It really is an innate yearning.

In order to light a fire under, or within people, you must articulate your message, and lead to the following:

1. The team’s sense of purpose.

2. The team must feel they are contributing to the purpose.

3. The team’s mission.

4. The goal they have to reach.

5. The team must feel that their work is being valued.

What else do you believe will help light a fire in people?

Zzser

Read more…

I will admit, in my last posts I have been withholding some of my true feelings about the circumstances of my/our life.  I have this Youth Pastor wife thing going, where I feel like if I say everything I feel, it will hurt someone or insult someone.  This feeling of having to censor my thoughts is all from me. But it stops here.  My feelings are Mine.  Im sorry if they hurt you or make you angry, but they are mine.  I claim them and take responsibility for them.

Being a youth Pastor’s wife is hard.  Its probably one of the roles of my life that I struggle to figure out the most.

I grew up in a small Baptist Church with awesome people.  I had great friends, most of whom I still see on a regular basis.  I had adults that cared about me and a church family that wanted to see me succeed and supported me on my different summers in service to God.  Church was awesome.  I LOVED going to church and I LOVED being a part of the church.

Today my feelings about church are vastly different, because God has called Austin and I into ministry.  Church isn’t the same safe place it used to be.  While I am certain there are people who still care about me and my family, it feels much different.  Where I used to feel the freedom to be me, I now feel the pressure to keep it together and keep my comments to myself (even though I struggle keeping my comments to myself)  While I am thankful everyday that God brought us into ministry there are days the church makes that call much harder.  There are days when I feel like NO ONE on earth could possibly understand what a family in ministry truly does.  I feel like the many sacrifices we make, financially, time spent as a family, etc., go unnoticed and taken for granted.

People who aren’t in ministry are probably rolling their eyes and thinking, “why is this chick always complaining about her husbands job?”  I hope you see my heart.

The church is a good place.  Its a place to come and sit with Jesus.  Its a place to send your kids where you know they’ll be safe.  Its a good place.  But the best and worst part about the church is the people. Some of the people totally make my day, most days.  How about the couple from our church who partners with us in ministry every month by sending us a card and a check, just because they know we can use both the prayers and the money.  What a blessing.  Or the people who were buying us gift cards for food when we couldn’t afford to buy our own groceries?  What a true blessing.  We are truly blessed by the church in many amazing ways.  But I am also hurt by the church.  Peoples comments about Austin or the work that he is doing.  The multiple conflict resolution meetings he has to have because people think that he is out to get them or their kids.  All the time that he spends away from us and yet they continue to ask for more with little in return.  That hurts.

Church is our life.  Jesus is our life.  Helping kids know Jesus is our life.  When you have a family crisis and need someone for your kids to talk to, Austin is happy to be there.  When your kids go away for a week at camp, Austin is there.  When you don’t know whats going on with your kids, Austin is there.  When your kid has a dance recital, band concert, soccer game, prom, etc. Austin is there.  He is there because he LOVES your kids, not because its is his job.

We wouldn’t trade our life or our call to ministry for anything.  While I am still trying to figure out this calling that God has led me to, a youth pastors wife, I find it to be bringing me closer to Christ.  The people of the church hurt me, they make me mad and they irritate me sometimes but it reminds me that I need to turn to Christ.  He is the only one who will never disappoint.  He is worthy of all the praise and glory and honor.

We are blessed to serve a church full of people but are honored to serve God, above all else.

-Calli-

I still remember the glorious day when I traded in my crappy blackberry for my beautiful, iPhone. It was a remarkable day because my husband had been waiting for a long time to get one himself and he let me use the upgrade on our account so I could get one. (isn’t he awesome?). But seriously, an iPhone is unlike any other phone I’ve had before. It really does everything. It makes me feel less need for my iPad (we like Apple) or an official computer.

Over the past couple of weeks I have felt like my, dare I say “love”, for my iPhone has gotten out of control. I find myself always on my phone. I check my email, check Facebook, check craigslist for a camper, check draw something…. The list goes on. I will admit that their are many positives including keeping our insanely busy family calendar synced and online for both Austin and I to see and being able to read books on my kindle app.

I have said it time and again, “iPhones are life changing”. But is the change good or bad?

I think it could be either. I think it could help keep you organized and top of things or it could steal your precious moments with your family because you don’t know when to turn it off. I seem to fall into the last category. (sadly).

I have been reminded lately that time really is too precious to waste. These little years with my boys will most likely be the highlight of my life (even though it’s hard to picture) and those little boys are much too important to ignore for some stupid email. I have tried to stop saying, wait a minute, or hold on. My boys deserve the very best of my days and I try to give it to them..( trust me, I don’t always succeed). I want them to remember a mom who played with them not a mom who watched them while she check Facebook!!!

Ok. So it isn’t all the iPhones fault. It’s mine!!!! Shoot. I lack self control. It’s something that God is teaching me…. Rely on him for the things I need, the rest is just filler. I don’t need to be constantly filling my time(or my face) with things that don’t matter.

What’s more important, the people we really do life with or the people we stalk on Facebook? Don’t our kids, spouses, friends, family’s etc. deserve our very best?
I don’t have it all figured out, but I think I’m headed in the right direction…..

Join me?

For all you married folk, do you ever really take time to look at your spouse? And really SEE them? I have been trying to do this in my own life, but with my kids.

Austin and I are in a chapter of life and marriage where our universes intersect every now and then. We are busy people. Our schedules are opposite, which works for us in terms of child care, but not in terms of seeing each other during normal waking hours. He is a night owl. He thrives after 11pm. I like to go to bed really early. Like 10, at the latest. He loves to spend as much time with large groups of people as possible, I am perfectly content to stay home alone…. So we’re opposites….. (God’s funny that way, isn’t he?).

Austin has a crazy busy job that he loves. Working with youth happens to take up a lot of your nights, so the boys and I try to go and spend time there, with him. I love seeing him in his element. He has a serious gift. The man can preach the Word, like seriously. My favorite time of the week is attending the Sunday evening service at our church, Overflow. This last week I found myself totally lost in what he was saying and just watching him. Watching the almost 100 kids that were intently listening to the message that God had given him. I really SAW him.

He was a kid when we got married, we both were. Some would say we are kids now ( I just found out on Friday that I’m 27, I thought I was 26…!). We were excited for a life together, but had no idea what that looked like. We were excited about our tiny apartment and loads of brand new small appliances. It almost feels like a whole different life… Here we are, almost 6 years( what???) later with 2 kids, living in his parents basement(ha). Who knew then where we’d
be now? I sure didn’t. It’s been quite a journey. But thinking back to our wedding, I can’t remember what I thought was in our future. Kids, probably. Stay at home mom, probably.

I know I didn’t have youth ministry as an option. I’m so thankful that God was persistent with us. We are so blessed with where we are at. We have an awesome community of friends, even if they are all 10 years younger than us. We have an amazing church family who supports the heck out of youth ministry and my husband.

I feel completely blessed to call Austin my husband. He strives to be the best husband he can, and trust me I don’t make that goal easy, most days. He is patient, loving, wise, fun and gentle. He’s just as handsome today as the day I met him, back at the Halloween dance in college.

Austin, I’m so thankful for your constant persistence in our story. You constantly show me how to love like Christ. You really are the best. I love you, boo boo.

-Calli

To my Sweet Silas-

I seriously can’t believe you’re two!!!  The time passes so quickly.  I can still remember how little you were when we brought you  home from the hospital, I could hold you with one arm.

So many things about you then have translated into who you are today.  You were such a good baby, hardly fussed, slept REALLY well and were ok with just hangin by yourself.  You are still a good boy, although you do put up a fuss every now and again.  You still sleep REALLY good, we enjoy that about you.  You are still VERY content to just play quietly by yourself, no need to have a bunch of people watching.

It has been so fun to see you grow up.  I feel like everything is easier with you, maybe its because you are the second child and I SORT of have it figured out?  Or maybe its because you are such a gem?  Could be both!  Either way, you are a PURE joy.

You are growing into such a boy.  You are getting so tall.  Daddy and I commented the other night (while we went to watch you sleep) that you are getting so tall.  You still have VERY blonde hair and the prettiest blue eyes I’ve ever seen.  You look a lot like your Uncle Tony when he was a little kid.  Even though you are tall you are Very thin.  You are in the 5th percentile for your weight, thats pretty little!  You’d absolutely never believe that if you saw how much you eat.  You can PACK it in.  Its actually pretty impressive.  You have the longest eyelashes of anyone I know, including your dad and he has pretty long eyelashes.  You have funny little feet.  Your second toe doesn’t quite fit on your foot.  It just rests on the third and big toe, hard to explain but I wonder if it will be like that forever.  Guess we’ll see!  You constantly have bruises on your face and body.  You fall A LOT.  Emerson threw a truck down the stairs the other day and it hit you square in the lip.  Your tooth went into your lip and you only cried for a few minutes.  You’re a champ!

You have such a silly spirit.  You LOVE to have a good time.  You smile all the time and laugh non stop.  It forces me to see the joy in things when I would be otherwise irritated.  You Love to be tickled and have the best belly laugh when it happens.  You aren’t affraid of much. Where Emerson hesitates in life you jump in with out a second thought.  You don’t mind a little rough housing, in fact the rougher the better.

You talk incredibly well for a 2 year old, well in comparison to Emerson at this age.  You talk all the time and LOVE to say, “mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy…..”  Mommy and Daddy are constantly trying to get you to be quiet in the car. You can say, Mommy, Daddy, Emerson (but you call him NEE NEE), tony, grandma (ma ma), Grandpa (PA PA), Truck, night night, Nyki, Lukey, Boo Boo, Ty Ty and the list seriously goes on and on.  Your favorite word is by far, “LOVIE”.  You have grown beyond attached to your little Lamb Lovie that you’ve had since you were a baby.  Its getting a little out of hand.  Whoever decided that making a lovie WHITE was a good idea should be shot.  Your Lovie is nasty looking.  I’ve tried buying new ones but nothing can replace the REAL Lovie in your life.  You look a little like Linus from Charlie Brown (google it).

You still suck your thumb and look so cute when you do it.  You SCREAM with excitement when Mommy or Daddy pick you up from the nursery or Nyki’s house.  You are so hard on your clothes.  Emerson was so gentle on his clothes and you are ruining them for the both of you.  Hope our next baby (no I’m not pregnant) is a girl.

Silas you have a real love for life.  You Love people.  You don’t care if you get spanked every other second that is better than having to leave the party.  You were at church with Daddy and you ran up to the janitor (who you’d never met) and hugged him.

You are a sweet boy but you only give mommy Love on your time and terms.  I have to pretend I have an owie on my lip to get an extra kiss every now and then.  (yes I really do that).  But you ALWAYS have extra love for daddy.  He is by far your favorite.

You have gotten really into trucks and love anything and everything that have to do with them.  You would spend ALL night looking and truck books with me and pointing to the differernt trucks.  I tell you what they are and we go through the whole book several times.  But its not just with trucks, you have a desire to really learn everything and anything.  I  enjoy seeing the spark in your eye.

The last great love in your life is Emerson.  You two really love each other.  You play and laugh all day long.  You do ocasionally fight and take toys but we are learning to share and not push.  You might be smaller but what you lack in size you make up for in feisty-ness.

Silas, I could go on and on.  You are such a truly special boy.  I am so thankful for you, every day.  You have the sweetest face I have ever seen and I am so blessed God chose me to be your mom.  Thank you for all that you add to our family.  I pray for you everyday and look forward to the years that God has planned for us.

Love you Baby Boy,

Mommy

I have a couple different titles in life, Christ follower, wife, mother, friend, employee, sister, daughter… Etc. I’m sure there are people who share many of the same generic titles as I, but no one has the same specific titles. Wife to Austin, Mom to Emerson and Silas, friend to my mom( ha that was funny…). Employee of Vermillion Bank, sister to Tony, Daughter to Tim and Lynn. Those are MY titles. I have been observing some interesting life lessons in the midst of my days and I thought it would be considerate to share them with you, the general public.

Wife to Austin:
- its important to laugh at his jokes and make an effort to see his humor. It’s important to him. This doesn’t mean I give pitty laughs, but try to appreciate his humor.
-the man gets his good jeans dirty. Drives this woman nuts, but I’ve tried to let it go..(key word is tried)
- he tries to make me happy all day, everyday. I’m trying to remember this more often.
- Just because he doesn’t like the zoo or chuck e cheese (or any kid activities) doesn’t make him boring, it just makes him a country boy who would rather plant a garden or chop down trees. Different isn’t bad….

Mom to Emerson and Silas:
-when it’s bed time it takes every ounce of energy to get those two in bed with a gentle spirit.
- boys have ALOT of energy
- those two have the sweetest and most gentle spirits of anyone I know.
- they give me mass amounts of love everyday and make me laugh
- to them, dirt is one of God’s best creations
- it is possible to wash their shoes 3 times in 2 days

Employee at Vermillion Bank:
- people lack communication skills. If you come through the drive thru, use words… Don’t just assume your friendly bank attendant can read your mind.
- don’t talk on your phone the whole time while in said drive thru, it’s rude…
- the people of Hastings are some of the kindest people I’ve met. ( I got several compliments on my outfit today).
- I love my customers, they make me smile.

That’s a long enough list for now…

How many of those things can we relate to our walk with God? I think I just expect him to know what I need without actually talking to Him. We make messes in our life everyday and He is always there to clean it up.

We can all learn from our daily interactions…. What have you been learning?

I am currently reading a book on mothering. It’s called, Loving the little years. If you know me well you know I typically stray away from books that are practical and head straight towards a fiction book. I had several friends recommend this book to me so I thought I would give it a try.

This book has changed the way I look at the toddler years. I don’t think it’s a secret that toddler hood isn’t my favorite step on the mom journey, but this book has given me a new perspective.

1. Toddler-hood isn’t about me. It isn’t about how irritated I get or how little sleep I get. It’s about the precious souls God has entrusted to me. Point received

2. Teaching our children is our most important job. They will be world changers if we teach them how. The important lessons start now with little things like sharing, listening and being kind.

3. Feeling overwhelmed is giving into what the devil wants us to think/feel. In truth Everything Christ gave us we can handle with his help.

4. I need to have an outlet for my frustrations so they don’t get taken out on the boys. LOTS of deep breaths

5. Our kids are individuals. We mustn’t link them together. There is one Emerson and one Silas who live in my house. They are two separate humans with their own unique set of needs, skills and talents.

6. We need to teach our kids the gospel everyday in our words, our actions and the way we treat others.

Seems like a lot, huh? (and I’m not even done reading it yet). I can tell you that this book has given me a lot of encouragement. It has really spoken to me and where I’m at in life, right now.

I’m thankful for a grace giving God who gives us the lessons we need, and that our kids need us to learn.

I’m hopingI can be a better mom to my lovely sons everyday. Thank you Jesus for the tiny souls you’ve entrusted to me.

As many of you probably know I have the privilege of being the Director of Student Ministries at Hastings United Methodist Church in Hastings, MN. 3.5 years ago we launched a student service called Overflow. This service has given me the opportunity to preach on a regular basis. When we started Overflow, I was so excited to have the opportunity to preach. I loved listening to great preaching in my own life and felt that I had the skills to be to be a great preacher myself someday. What I didn’t think about was the fact that to become a great preacher I was going to have to preach a lot learn a lot and experience the hardship of on-stage train wrecks. I can remember the beginning and how poorly I felt after the message. I had been blessed with one of the most talented musicians I have ever met, Brian Elliott. He was producing music that was of extremely high quality. I believed then and still believe today that God brought Brian to Hastings at exactly the right time. There was and still is such a need for a service aimed at students and he is the right man for the job. The worship music was awesome and the messages in my opinion were far from that. I was feeling inadequate. After a message on obedience to Christ, I remember thinking “well….no one knows anything more about Jesus than when they came tonight”. Oddly enough People kept coming back week after week, clearly the holy spirit was hard at work taking the garbled, fumbled words that I was producing and transforming them in to a picture of the gospel of Jesus. (or the music was good enough for those in attendance to tolerate the 10 minutes of watching the Youth guy fumble his way through a message). I can remember sitting in my office thinking “when are these messages going to get better, when am i going to start being able to clearly and accurately tell people about Jesus?” The very next day i received my answer I was reading twitter and came across a tweet from Tim Keller, a pastor of a great church in Manhattan. he said this “No matter what you do, your first 200 sermons are going to be terrible” This oddly enough encouraged me. It gave me the motivation to keep on doing my best and working hard at improving the messages quality and clarity, in the hope that they would get better ar some point. Tim Keller in my opinion is an amazing pastor of a successful church, and if he is saying that no matter what I do my first 200 sermons are going to be not just bad but terrible it’s going to take some time to find my sweet spot. It also told me that his first 200 must have been terrible too, and now he is a great preacher. In response to that tweet I have worked very hard to improve my speaking abilities. I did not sit back and believe that the 201 message was going to be magically amazing. I believe that God has been doing a great work in me and been using me as a conduit to speak his words to people more and more clearly as I do it more and more. I don’t always feel great about how my messages go but i leave the stage wanting to simultaneously cry and throw up far less often than I used to.

I have been looking back over these past 3.5 years of preaching and have been wondering what kind of preacher I am? I have been looking at the speakers that I love listening to and wondering why it is that they speak so clearly and effectively to me. I have come up with a few things that they all have in common and I wonder if you feel the same way that I do about the great preachers in your life. I should probably tell you who my favorite preachers are first. Well my top 5 favorite preachers in no particular order are: Louie Giglio, Doug Fields, Andy Stanley, Efrem Smith, & Kerry Bender. All of these preachers have a different preaching styles, congregation demographics, congregation sizes, and they are from all over the country. I have found that there are 3 things that all of these preachers have in common. They are all Passionate, Simple, and Authentic. I think that passionate and authentic must go hand in hand when it comes to preaching since you can’t be truly passionate about something that you don’t authentically believe in. All of these men talk about Jesus and who He is and what He means to them in their own spiritual journey. They also speak clearly to what our response to the grace and mercy that Jesus gave us on the cross needs to be, most importantly they speak simply. All of these preachers speak about Jesus in clear and simple terms. They are humble enough to speak in language that their prospective audience and I can understand. They have the ability to speak on complex topics in simple and understandable language, just like jesus did thousands of years ago. The more I learn about Jesus the more I realize how simple his message of redemption was/is. The world can and will know Jesus if we will just speak in a language that people will understand. I want to leave you with A quote from Pastor Kerry Bender “Great communicators bring the people to one point that is unforgettable.”

-Austin

I would love to hear your comments on who I should add to my list and why.

Who are the people/preachers that speak to you the clearest?

What is it that they do to connect your heart to the heart of Jesus so well?

I dropped the ball….

I appreciate the grace you all extended me while I was on vacation and was posting sporadically. But let’s be serious, I’ve been home for a whole week (almost 2) and I haven’t written many posts. To be honest, I think about posts A LOT. There are a lot of things that I come across in my days that I think would make excellent posts. I think the Mondays with Mom and Wednesdays with Wifey topics are hurting me, though. You see, I have these amazing ideas for posts about Mothering on Wednesdays… thats the day I am supposed to be all “wife like”… So for now, let’s just change my two posts a week to Calli’s Corner (can you tell I like alliteration?) I will try to continue writing on Mondays and Wednesdays, but this will give me more freedom.

SO here we go…

I read an interesting article that was featured in Rolling stone online magazine about teenagers in a community in Minnesota. It happened to be about the school district where I was raised. I was raised in Champlin, MN and attended Champlin Park Senior High School. I was proud to be a rebel and loved the community where I was raised. If you haven’t read my posts before, I am also a Christ Follower. This article highlighted the lives of several LGTBQ students in the area. It followed them through several high school years. During those several years the Anoka-Hennepin School district experienced several suicides at the different high school campuses.

Many of the students that committed suicide in that two year span were LGBTQ students and were bullied by their peers. They also lacked support and safety at school. Teachers looked the other way because if they were to show favor to either side, their jobs would be in jeopardy. The school district had a rule in effect that a teacher couldn’t speak or show support to LGBTQ students because a Christian group in the area put up a big stink about it.

(please note that I am summarizing the story to my best recollection and it may be different than it was written)

My Point:

I feel irritated that students aren’t safe in school. I am raising two boys and I look forward to sending them to school someday. BUT I don’t want to send them to school if they aren’t going to be kept safe. They are my greatest blessings and I would hope that teachers would see them as that more than just a job.

I feel irritated that Christians are painted in such a poor light. Why can’t we just act normal every now and then? Why do we have to look so radical (in a negative way) that people think we are insane? I may not agree with a LGBTQ person’s lifestyle, but is it my place to cast judgement? God has called me to LOVE. He will do the rest… I think we have lost sight of that….

I grew up in the same school district with some gay friends. I had wonderful teachers who supported everyone no matter what they believed or what lifestyle they lived. What happened to that community?

I think we as a Christ Following Community need to figure out where God has called us on this mission. Is denouncing the LGBTQ community worth so many kids taking their own lives? I don’t think that it is. We need to teach our kids that LOVE is the only thing that matters. People don’t want to join something that is judgmental, they crave LOVE…

I want my boys to grow up in a world where they are safe. I know in my head that I can’t protect them from everything, but in my heart I never want to see them get hurt. I want to see them accepted if they are smart, or athletic, or in choir, or band… I want to see them excel at what they like and not be hindered by what another kid thinks of them.

We need to understand that our views or judgements of the LGBTQ community isn’t going to make them wish they were any different, its going to make them HATE us. They want to be accepted, just like everyone else. Best yet, we need to figure out what we believe and teach our kids. Do we believe in love? Do we believe in standing up for others? Do we believe in befriending everyone? Our kids are direct reflections of what we teach them…

How do you think your kids will reflect you?