LukeDooley.com

For 24 hours I’ve thought about how I could possibly capture for you in words what I experienced on Monday night at a Valentine’s dinner/event that I produced entitled LoveStories. In case you don’t know, LoveStories was a combination fundraising dinner and  storytelling event that was centered around the theme “Love in Strange  Places”.

For me personally, LoveStories was  special for countless reasons. You  see, this event for me represented a  bold step of faith towards a yet  unknown future. To the casual observer it may have appeared to be simply a fun evening for a good cause, but for me it was a trial balloon. A trial balloon that had years of fear, doubt, and frustration tied to it. 24 hours after launch it appears that th

e balloon is still rising, entering new atmospheres.

Please don’t hear me say that this evening was all about me. This was surely not the case. Instead, this event was all about….

• The 7 beautiful girls who live at Mimi’s House who will benefit from the $1,000 dollars raised by attendees and generous friends of the event.
• The 6 bold men and women who stepped onto a stage and laid open their hearts to share part of their story with 50 strangers. Stunning stories were told.
• The 50 people who came together to laugh, cry, eat food, drink wine, and ponder their story, and the unexpected places they’ve encountered love.
• Stories which unmistakably shared common threads of faith, hope and love.
• Fires in hearts and minds that were stoked to live a story filled life.

This was but a glimpse into the magical evening of Monday, February 14th 2011. There will be more thoughts to come in this little dusty corner of the internet. I hope you’ll come back to read more. I promise there will be more… more on LoveStories, and more updates in general. I’ve been called out, and I never back away from a challenge.

I just posted on our team blog for our Journey to Guatemala.

Check it out here!

If you follow me on Twitter, you have been inundated with tweets marked with a hashtag that reads: #story10. Some of you may be wondering: 1.) When will he stop doing that. and 2.) What does it mean? Allow me to explain.

I am in Chicago Wednesday – Friday of this week to participate in a really cool event simply known as STORY. I am actually leading a team of 11 volunteers that are handling the outdoor logistics (parking, greeting, etc…) of the 2010 edition of STORY.

Several have asked something like: “What is this STORY thing all about.” To answer that, I’m going to transpose some words written by my friend and STORY founder Ben Arment. These are the first words in the STORY conference book:

As a member of the creative class in ministry, you have the challenge of telling others about an invisible kingdom, an unseen God and a hidden underworld. This is no small feat – communicating the unseen. The greatest story ever told can be the hardest to tell. But when you consider the possibilities, they’re limitless. This is why STORY exists… to provide fuel for the creative class. STORY is not about fomulaic creativity. There are no blanks to fill-in, no how-to instructions, and no stock videos to download. Our goal is to inspire and equip you with the highest level of creative possibilities.

Now my words: STORY is unlike any other “church conference” in the country. It’s simultaneously incredibly creative and highly personal. Each attendee is treated like an honorable guest from arrival to exit. The communicators are not pastors from big churches. They are filmmakers and authors and brilliant minds from the “secular” marketplace. STORY pushes the limit of heart, mind, and soul through stunning technological visuals, powerful moments of worship, and challenge talks.

To find out more about STORY and to see one of the coolest websites you’ll ever run across, go here: www.storychicago.com

To follow the event on Twitter, follow the #story10 hashtag.

To watch exclusive backstage content as it unfolds, visit here: www.storyunfolding.com

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the relationships in my life. The more I think about it the more I am struck by the variety of people that I am connected to. Specifically, I am encouraged by the awesome stories that are being authored all around me.

I deeply appreciate the multitude of friendships and acquaintances I have, and I love how tools like Twitter and Facebook (and silly iPhone Scrabble game) bring these relationships into the forefront of my life on a daily basis. Here are some people I consider friends:

• A young executive in Cincinnati who is one of the youngest managers in his company.
• Missionaries in Guatemala and Russia who give their lives to far away people.
• A bank executive who wields his influence in the Church as masterfully as he does in the corporate world.
• A married couple who are youth pastor and executive assistant who are both on staff at a very large, very influential church in San Diego.
• A former college basketball star who played 7 professional seasons oversees.
• A dynamic motivational speaker who produces amazing school assemblies and impacts youth culture in Southern California.
• An entrepreneur who takes huge risks and creates awesome environments for church leaders and communicators of all types.
• A college student in Florida who moved 1,000 miles away from home without a car, because he’s pursuing God’s call on his life.
• A husband and wife in Kansas City who are changing the landscape of the adoption system in America.
• A pair of musician siblings in Nashville who are chasing their dreams, and fully embracing the starving artist lifestyle.

These are just a few of the cool people in my life. I haven’t told you about the amazing youth leaders, parents, and 9-5′ers in my life.

Who are some of the interesting people in your life?

These things are connected: A conference, a magazine, a flight, and dogsitting.

This Fall I attended (actually served at) a brand new conference/event called STORY. I volunteered for 2 reasons: 1.) Then digital (now real life) friend of mine named Ben Arment was the founder and architect of the event. 2.) There is something about the word ‘story’, and the concept of stories that stirs something deep within my soul. I knew I needed to be at this event.

At the conference everyone received a bag with all kinds of promo, conference info, and a free issue of a magazine called Collide. This particular issue of collide had the word ‘STORY’ written on the front in a very cool font (liken it to dangling a shiny object in front of me). I liked it, but apparently not enough to read it.

I’m typing this blog on a plane via the WordPress app on my iPhone (I love technology). Up until now, my iPhone and all of its marevelous apps has merely served as means of providing a soundtrack (John Mayer, Switchfoot, Johsua Radin). This is primarily because I have been reading the afformentioned magazine. Turns out this issue contained all sorts of articles that captured my attention, and directly addressed a topic that I’ve found myself engrossed in lately: The idea of leveraging our lives to tell a story, and our participation in a Grand Story.

I think that it is no coincidence that I have chosen to read this 6 month old magazine while on a plane travelling to Florida where I’m spending the next 7 days primarily alone, at my friends house in Bradenton caring for his dogs while he is out of town. I have a full plate of work planned for these 7 days, but I’ve made the commitment to myself, to others, and to God that a primary purpose of this trip will be focused dreaming, thinking, and listening.

I’m listening to, observing, and participating in The Story. I’m confident the next 7 days will be providential for my life, ministry, and future.

I’m bad at resolutions. Hopefully I’m better at goals. This past Sunday we had our first full group Student Ministry gathering with our student community at Journey Church. I knew that I wanted to share something that would inspire our students to begin this new year with a new perspective on what it takes to be in an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.

The main point of my talk was that I did not want our students to rely on myself, our church, and other adult leaders in their life as dispensers of spiritual knowledge. Instead I challenged them to allow our moments together to inspire them to seek God at a new level on their own. From their I shared these points ideas centered around the idea of setting some personal spiritual growth goals for the new year:

1. You have to know where you’re going before you can get there (write it down).
2. Your direction determines your destination (your actions determine where you actually go).
3. Share with someone. Accountability is key.

I then had each student write down some goals. Some actions steps to go with those goals. Then they shared some or all of them with the group. It was awesome!! I loved hearing what the students felt like they needed to do in order to take the next step in their personal relationship with God.

Being faithful to my own principle #3 above, here are my goals:

1. Read the whole Bible (this is partly a personal desire, and partly necessary requirement for a pastoral process I am going through.)
2. Study the Redemptive Story of God at a deeper level (this is a concept that I have been engrossed by lately…)
3. Further develop and understand my personal theology. Some people use their theology as a weapon… I’m not interested in that. I do however feel like it is important to know what you believe, and why you believe so. I think this is an ever evolving process.
4. Intentionally develop and disciple another Christ follower. Every believer should have someone in their life that they are loving on, and journeying with. It’s a calling on each of our lives.

Those are my goals for 2009. They scare me. They excite me. How about yours?