New Season: What's Next for the Diva Family

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens. Ecclesiastes 3:1

We write this post with both great excitement and deep sadness. We know it’s no surprise to you that our lives are constantly changing. Change is true for you and true for us too! There is a season for everything. It’s with that in mind that we share with you the changes happening in our lives and ministry. After serving with Cru (Campus Crusade for Christ) for 20 years, our commitment to go anywhere and do anything for Jesus has led us to a new step of faith.

One of our ministry highlights: 
Leading a STINT team In Shymkent Kazakhstan 02’-03’ 

Transitions
While this step of faith comes with uncertainty, as we’ve prayed and sought wise counsel, what seems clear is that God is closing the chapter of our lives where we work full-time with Cru. So, effective July 2nd, we will no longer be full-time staff with Cru. We will, however, both continue to serve and work part-time with Cru and Epic Movement. We will transition to part- time staff with Cru on October 1st. In our decision making process over the last year, God has affirmed in us that He has called us to invest in leaders. He has shown us again and again He wants to use us to help pave the way for others to realize deep personal change so we all can continue to work together to have greater and greater impact in the community around us for the Gospel.

What’s Next

A perfect place for Erin to get to influence leaders will be to continue to serve part-time with Cru and Epic Movement, helping give shape to our intern and new staff programs. She will be able to work from home, allowing her contribute in this significant way as well as continue to give leadership to the shepherding of Nicole and Ryan. Don will continue to serve the Epic Movement staff leaders on a part-time basis, helping to ensure their care so they can more fully serve the Lord. The exciting and new part is that Don will be spending the majority of his time influencing leaders and individuals by building into their lives through his counseling practice at Soul Restoration Project. 

Soul Restoration Project

Soul Restoration Project is a non-profit Christian organization started by Don, Erin  and a colleague Catherine Morrill in 2007. SRP's mission is to help people experience restoration and growth in the innermost parts of their soul so hat they can have a more significant impact in the world. Don and other therapists at SRP offers healing and growth resources through professional counseling, workshops, groups and speaking events at local churches. 

Don's specialty or areas of focus include:
*Men's Identity and Sexuality
*Sexual Addiction
*Grief and Loss

*Missionary Care

You can find out more about SRP at: http://www.soulrestorationproject.org

Thankful
Many of you have walked with us, encouraged us, supported us through the years. Words cannot express our gratitude to many of you for your faithfulness, earnest prayers, financial partnership and friendship throughout this chapter of our lives. Your role has been significant for eternity and for us personally. We really could not have done this without you. When we think about the ripple effect of the thousands of students and staff we’ve had the privilege to influence for God’s kingdom, we can’t help but thank God for you and your investment. One day we will stand side by side with you in awe of how God used our partnership for His Kingdom! 

Grateful for your love and support,

Diva Family 2012: Nicole 5; Ryan 12mos. 

On the road to fruitfulness in its mission, Epic is about… Kingdom Foundations: Love

By Don Diva
Any discussion about reproducing leaders and leadership development ultimately must attend to the fundamental question of motivation.  What is behind how we relate to others, and what is foundational to the vision we hope to see fulfilled among our generation and the next?

For servant leaders and followers of Jesus Christ, the answer is love.  The Scriptures put it quite simply, “We love because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)  Love is something that we must experience first from God, and it is something that we then express through action in our relationships, communities, and beyond.

But for a number of reasons, our picture of love can be distorted. Love can sometimes be tied to our performance and production.  When I first became a Christian my freshman year in college, I heard about God’s “unconditional” love, but experienced mostly expectations and conditions from family members, teachers, and ministry leaders.  I felt the enormous pressure, of only being accepted to the extent of what I could produce.  This deeply impacted my life and leadership.  What I knew in my head about God’s love, and how I actually loved others, were sadly different.

But though God’s love is unconditional, that doesn’t mean He doesn’t care about what we do, or how we live!  Love is not warm and fuzzy affirmation or flattery, apart from God’s truth.  Henri Nouwen writes, “To love without condition does not mean to love without concern.”  Love involves vulnerability and risk, especially as we speak hard truths to one another.  Our efforts to love can often leave us frustrated, angry, or resentful.  They always carry the possibility of rejection and hurt.  Learning to love others, and to receive love in turn, requires the tenacity to pursue what is best for ourselves and others.

As leaders, we must understand that we reproduce what we live out.  If we qualify love with underlying pressures of performance or production, we will create a generation of leaders who model those values.  If we view love as paternalistic (i.e. “coddling”) or people-pleasing, that will be the foundation of the way others are treated.

We must also recognize that our impact and influence originates out of our own capacity to love.  If we fear what comes with loving, or if we are really not experiencing God’s rich and unconditional love for us, it will be evident in our actions and relationships.  It will reflect in our struggles to truly partner with our peers, to assert ourselves maturely in the face of authority, or to let others take responsibility for their own lives.  Our broken images of love as pleasing, performing, tolerating, or controlling all must be redeemed and give way to God’s perfect love that calls for worship and obedience of God Himself, and a deep honoring of one another as God’s image bearers.  That means living connected to God and other people — whether Christian or non-Christian; whether of our own ethnicity and gender and class, or of another.  This is what it means to live in community, as we help one another experience God’s love, growing together in grace and truth.

When it comes to reproducing leaders, we must remember that for us and for the next generation, the foundation and motivation for what we do in ministry is love — God’s love.  To be truly fruitful on mission, we must always ask the questions, “Are we connected to God’s love and becoming more loving ourselves?” and “Are we helping those around us ground themselves in God’s deep love, so that they might become leaders driven to serve others out of that love?”

Knowing God’s heart means radically and concretely announcing and showing that God is love.  When we live that out in mission, we cannot help but be His agents of healing, reconciliation, new life and hope wherever we go.  And this not only will lead to others being attracted to the God we serve, but to the reproduction of resilient leaders who are secure in their identity: gracious yet truthful, confident yet humble, and able to see people’s shortcomings yet believe in them.  This kind of love will raise a generation of those who will embody Jesus’ love, who was Himself full of grace and truth (John 1:14).  Twenty years later I continue to taste this unconditional love of the Father, and am grateful that this love is endless.

Discussion questions:

• What did love look like growing up in your home?  We have all experienced distortions of love, whether conditional love or “people-pleasing” love or paternalistic love.  What is one distortion that you see more clearly now, in contrast to God’s true love?

• Is it difficult for you to think of the idea of loving unconditionally, alongside the idea of speaking truth?  What’s a recent example where you might have emphasized one, while sacrificing the other?  How might you do it differently, if given another chance?

• What might others around you (i.e. your peers, mentors, and those you lead) say about the way you love?  How does this impact the way you lead meetings, do evangelism, or other concrete things in ministry?