Two years ago we began preparing for THIS day!

On March 20th, 2013, right around 5pm, we pulled into the back driveway of a snowy Lake Ann Camp, having just completed a 2,500 mile van ride from Salem, Oregon. We had spent five days on the road seeing family along the way, and the kids looked at their new home for the first time (Traci and I had seen it just once before). We were all nervous, we were all excited and we were all...VERY hungry! We grabbed dinner at Papa’s J’s pizza across the street and spent the first night in our new digs. No mattresses, no couches -- no furniture of any kind -- but a lot of hope and energy about our future in God’s grand plan. Today, one day shy of what would have been our second anniversary at the camp, we’re officially launching the next phase of our lives and ministry. Who knew that two years ago today, we were already preparing for this moment?

Thankfully...God knew!

Traci and I have been on this wild journey, and we count it a true honor that so many of you have journeyed with us! When we left Salem in 2013, we left behind a great church with awesome friendships and meaningful relationships, and we headed to Northern Michigan, unsure of what was waiting. Our hearts truly ached to leave a place that had been home for over 12 years to our family, a church that had been the only ones our children knew and a city where most of my family still lived. Montana was the furthest “east” any of our family had settled.

On March 20th 2013, Lake Ann Camp became our new home and we quickly settled into life and work God had so clearly called us to. Although our time at LAC ended abruptly with heart break just two years later, the time of ministry God gave us was awesome! We wouldn’t trade it for anything. And clearly, through it all, God was already preparing us for this day.

So today, we are excited to officially launch Overboard Ministries, full-time, and begin chasing after the big dreams that God has placed in our hearts.

Back in April of 2011, I published my first book, Project Joseph. In the process of writing the first manuscript, I began researching how to get the book published. I read blogs (started this one, too), interviewed authors, called publishing companies and submitted several letters with a copy of my book. Through many rejections, one letter was returned by a publisher that had clearly done two things: first, the respondent had actually read my book and second, he had taken the time to send a personal response.

I know publishing houses don’t have time to read every submission and don’t have the man-power to personally respond to every request, but I was grateful for this one letter. In it, the reviewer of my book encouraged me to complete the manuscript and finish the project to completion. He told me that his company published a very narrow style of book, and my writing wasn’t in that style. However, he assured me that it was a book worth writing and that I should pursue it all the way to publishing.

That letter is one of the main reasons Overboard Ministries exists.

As we approach the four year anniversary of Overboard Ministries this April, we have published 9 books by 8 authors, and 3 more books will be out within the next month or two. We have several projects lining up in the ranks, and by the end of 2015 it is likely we will have close to 20 books in our arsenal! But publishing books is only part of the dream of Overboard Ministries.

Honestly, when Traci and I first began to dream up the Overboard Ministries concept, we hoped that the publishing arm would become a financial tool by which we could fund other facets of the ministry. We thought Overboard would involve:

1. Speaking to high school and middle school students
2. Investing in couples and marriages through classes, seminars and retreats
3. Ministry to those in ministry -- coming alongside pastors and their wives
4. Mentoring youth pastors and those going into full-time student ministry
5. Publishing books that are intensely biblical and intensely practical.

But these things aren’t being done to simply maintain the status quo. Overboard Ministries is about helping believers live their God-designed lives out of the comfort of the boat, and out on the water where Jesus is building His Kingdom. We want to challenge students to live-out their faith in radical ways on their school campuses, sports teams and in their own homes. Traci and I have a passion to see couples put faith in to practice in how they approach every aspect of their marriages. We know too many pastors (and wives!) in ministry who have been so beat up and wounded, that they’re simply existing day-by day; we want to encourage them and help restore their passions to dream God-sized dreams for their organizations! I have met too many youth pastors who fit the young youth pastor stereotype (it’s not a good one!). I love to help young guys develop a faith-driven philosophy of ministry that will challenge students -- and parents! -- to put faith into practice every day, while also helping these guys develop long-term ministry strategies. And our books must continue to be intensely biblical and intensely practical, challenging readers to make their faith an everyday experience.

As God has walked us through this amazing journey together, and brought us to the place of taking this thing full-time, Traci and I know that Overboard Ministries will only be as strong as the team He continues to put around us. So many of you have encouraged us over the past two months with financial gifts that have brought us to tears, and many more have overwhelmed us with words of encouragements, powerful passages of Scripture and timely texts. THANK YOU.

So we’re asking you to continue your relationship with Overboard -- with Traci and me -- as we move into the next phase of this ministry. We are looking to gain true partners in ministry in two main areas: prayer and financial support. First of all, we know the heart of Overboard is going to be our prayer team. Not just people who say, “hey, I’ll pray for you...” (I’ve been guilty of that more times that I care to admit!), but people who will add us to their daily prayer list, will read over our regular prayer updates and will ask God to do amazing work in, and through, us. CLICK HERE to be added to the Overboard Ministries prayer list.

Secondly, we are anxious to find people who believe in Traci and me, and the vision we have for Overboard, and who will come along side us with monthly financial support. We have supported friends in the past, so we know what a huge commitment this is, and yet we also know the joy of sharing in the work of others through our financial gifts. While prayer is the heart of Overboard, monthly support is the backbone. Would you consider supporting Overboard Ministries with a monthly gift? Whether it’s $10 a month or $1,000 a month, your investment in Overboard is an investment in the work that God is going to continue to do through this ministry. (Maybe for you, you’d like to make a one-time gift to help jump-start our work today. That’s awesome!) All gifts are tax-deductible through our partnership with Ripe for Harvest, and if you want to be a part of our monthly support, click HERE. (choose one of the payment options, and then select "Joe Castaneda" from the drop-down list)

I believe God loves it when His children step out in faith and express audacious goals! Our audacious goal for raising support is this: we want to find at least 100 monthly financial partners between now and April 30th (just six weeks away!). That number seems so obnoxiously large to me, but our God is so obnoxiously bigger than anything I could ever dream up! A big verse for me the past few years has been Ephesians 3:20 (in The Message) “God can do anything, you know, far more than you could ever imagine, guess or request in your wildest dreams...” I love that! Our audacious goals are nothing in God’s eyes, and so even as we set this one, we know He can do more.

And as our team, our Overboard family, grows, we long to keep our relationship a two-way connection. Traci and I are already preparing a prayer wall where the names and faces of our supporters will be prominent so that we remember to pray for, and support, you, too. From day one we want to build lasting relationships so that all of us can share in the great work that God will do as Overboard Ministries moves forward.

I can’t wait to share with you all that God is going to do, and I can’t wait to hear about all that God is doing in your life as you come along side and partner with us. If the past few months have been any indication of what He has in store...then the next part of this journey will be an adventure worth sharing!

Go ahead and take the plunge, life is always better on the water!

Check out this 10-minute video that explains even more about Overboard Ministries, and be sure to visit our web site to learn more, or to join our team: www.overboardministries.com

Practical Orphans

Two weeks after our wedding ceremony, Traci and I packed up my little blue pick up truck and drove the four hours from Salem to Seattle, where we began our first real jobs together. I started as youth pastor at Bethany Baptist Church in Kenmore, WA and Traci began teaching in a nearby Christian school. The honeymoon was over and we were off and running.  

After spending the first five months of our married lives in the home of some Texas snow birders, we found a little apartment about one mile from their house and set up our first home. It was such a fun period of life where we owned next-to-nothing, barely had enough furniture to have guests over and we could actually fit all of our earthly belongings into my 1987 Toyota pick up.

It also didn’t take long before we were fully immersed into the work of youth ministry as we were fully embraced by our new church family. Our new home was set up, our new jobs were becoming normal and our life as a married couple was beginning to develop habits and patterns that would stay with us for the next 17 years...and we had no clue what we were doing!

About six months into our ministry in that Seattle church, we had a significant crisis hit the church. By God’s grace and with His help, our pastor navigated the crises masterfully and our church bonded together in such a special and powerful way. Our students drew closer together and also began to worry about the spiritual condition of their friends. By the nine month mark in ministry, our little youth group of 20 high school and junior high students had grown to over 40, and most of those new teens had never set foot in church.

We loved hanging out with those students. They asked unfettered questions (like, “will I go to hell if I smoke marijuana?”) and spoke their minds freely (“I thought you [speaking to me] were going to be wearing a robe and one of those white collars...you dress kind of normal for a pastor”) as they wrestled with the new things they were learning. But it was during this time that Traci and I became keenly aware of a type of teenager we had not known before; one Traci and I would soon be calling the “Practical Orphan.”

Practical Orphans aren’t orphans in the true sense of the word. Usually they are still living with both of their parents, or at least one bio-parent and one step-parent. But Practical Orphans have no connection with their home. They aren’t orphans, per se, but practically, they live like it. Their homes are places for food and shelter, sometimes, but they spend as much time as possible away from their family. Often they try to medicate with drugs and alcohol, pornography and sexual pleasure or with busyness and activity. They try to make life as “fun” as possible so that they don’t have to face the realities they live in.

In our apartment complex we found two young children who were also Practical Orphans. The first time we met Michael and Tiffany they were riding bikes in the very busy, very crammed, parking lot of our apartment complex. Their mom was Traci’s age, but she was very uninvolved with them. There wasn’t much space for kids to play, and they couldn’t use the pool without mom’s supervision, so it wasn’t long before Traci and I had became their favorite playmates. I still remember the laugh Traci and I had the first time the kids came over, knocked on our door, and asked if we were available to play.

Soon they would come to our apartment for snacks, we would occasionally take them to the pool and it wasn’t long before their mom gave us permission to take them with us to church on Sunday morning and wednesday night (for our children’s program). They loved church, and responded well to the love that was freely shown to them.

As a single mom, “Heather” had a lot on her plate and she wasn’t handling it well. She often yelled at the kids, constantly referred to them as a burden and struggle, often while they were standing right there. We tried to get her to church, too, but she was more-than-happy to let us take the kids off her hands so she could be without the parenting stress they created. We found Michael and Tiffany to be a joy, and in fact, when we moved away, we were heart-broken to be leaving them behind. We learned that they continued to attend church thanks to the effort of another church family, but after a couple of years, we lost track of them. They were, the first Practical Orphans that had touched our lives.

During that same season, however, we began to engage others in the same situation. Eric was a young man who was basically living on his own at age 17. His family situation was brutal, and he came to church with one of our other students. Eric always reeked of cigarette smoke, he wore one of two heavy metal band shirts every day, and was barely hanging on at school.

After his junior year of high school, he was kicked out of his house for getting into a fist fight with his drunk step-dad. He managed to get about half-way through his senior year when his mom announced she was getting a divorce and moving away. Eric didn’t want to move, all his friendships were in the Seattle area, and living with his mom wasn’t the safest environment for him -- she too was an alcoholic. So Eric was couch surfing at the house of friends trying to make it to graduation.

He had been coming to youth group for a while, and Traci and I couldn’t bear to have him living like that, so we took him for the final four months of high school. It was a tough experiment for all of us but we wouldn’t change it for anything. We taught Eric how to take care of himself, how to wash his clothes, how to do homework on a computer, how to study how to manage money and what it meant for him to have a relationship with God. We loved on him and helped create conversations and solutions to his addiction to pornography as well as some substance abuse issues springing up in his own life.

We celebrated his graduation, and grieved his departure soon after. But like Michael and Tiffany, Eric had left an impression on our hearts.

To this day, Traci and I have tried to love on students who needed a little extra encouragement. Sometimes their families were just going through a hard time, sometimes they had parents who traveled and they were home alone, sometimes they were abandoned and sometimes they just needed a place to think about things differently. The names and faces of these children are woven into our married history almost as much as our own kids; these Practical Orphans have changed our lives.

James 1:27 says this: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction...” In this passage, James in contrasting the difference between religion that leads to self-righteousness, and religion that is pleasing to God. On the one hand, people think they are “good with God” because they are religious, that is, they practice doing religious things. But James is pointing out that religious things that don’t change how you speak (26) how you live (21-25) or how you view the hurting people around you (27) are worthless.  In other words, having a relationship with God should make your religious practices very tangible and real.

For Traci and I, this has meant loving on the Practical Orphans that God has put in our path. We don’t just want to talk about religious things and have lives unchanged by that talk, we want to engage a relationship with God, so that our religion is seen in what we do, not just what we say. We will be the first to admit that we have struggled to do the right thing every time, yet we continue to ask God to help us live out our faith in the way we serve and love others.

The Overboard Life requires a genuine faith. The world doesn’t need more self-righteous religion, it needs more people living out their religious practices through a profoundly life-changing relationship with God, that comes through faith in Jesus Christ. For us, that has meant embracing Practical Orphans, but what does that mean for you? How does God want you to live out your faith? In what areas has God given you a burden? You can’t live out my passions, and honestly, I don’t want to live out yours! Instead, embrace what God has put on your heart and pursue it with faith and action.

Go ahead and take the plunge, life is better on the water!

Dating Traci

I first met Traci when I was in 8th grade, and we started “dating” when I was in 9th (she was in 10th...you know, that older woman thing!). We dated for just a little over eight years before we got married. In fact, our 8th wedding anniversary was a big event for us because we had officially been married for as long as we had dated.  

When I look back at our dating years, there is a funny growing and maturing process that took place (any of you guys about to make some wise crack about me and maturity can go ahead and make that now). What we thought “love” was in 9th grade, was vastly different than what we knew about love while we were both in college. Of course, getting married, working through challenges, having kids etc... expands your love in even more amazing ways!

Good relationships are interesting that way; they don’t stay the same year after year, but instead, grow and change with the people involved in them. People who “fall in love” with a person and then “fall out of love” with them because of how much that person changed, sometimes miss the point of what it takes to have an amazing relationship -- learning to grow together through change.

Traci has kept a big bag of love letters that I wrote to her through our high school and college years. Some of these are just a tad bit embarrassing and reveal an incredible amount of sappiness (and not the good kind, either), and others reveal why I shouldn’t ever dabble in the genres of creative writing and poetry. When I read some of the notes I gave her while we passed each other in the halls at school, I see an immature young boy trying to impress his girlfriend by committing a love to her, that he doesn’t possibly understand. I had no idea what the phrases “I’ll love you forever” and “nothing will ever come between us” really meant; I was just trying to express what I understood and felt about love at the time.

In college our letters took on a new depth, especially as we dated long distance while attending different schools throughout our college years. We had a few little breakups during that season of life, and both of us had opportunities to engage other relationships around us, but really our resolve to stay together didn’t change much. What did change, however, was the way both of us were growing up. We were being shaped by our experiences, by struggles with friends and family, by new information, by jobs, by the experiences of others and through what each of us were learning in our personal relationship with God.

As Traci was maturing and changing, our relationship was changing; as I finally started growing up emotionally and maturing in my outlook in life, our relationship changed. And that’s really how great relationships become great -- they become stronger through change. Instead of trying to hold on to what love looked like in high school (gag) Traci and I have embraced the changes that have occurred in us physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually and have committed to a deeper, loving relationship than we had before the changes.

And that’s probably the biggest lesson I’ve learned from when Traci and I started dating some 25 years ago! Commitment to a relationship (marriage, friendship, work, children etc...) isn’t a commitment to stay the same forever, or a promise to never complain, always be positive or never have any grumpy days. Commitment in a relationship is a promise to keep growing, to keep helping others grow and to work hard to hold the course through the changes that will come.

Change, is what is supposed to be happening in all of us as we walk through this life. In Ephesians 4:15, Paul writes, “Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ...” Growing up is a good thing! But growing up also means change. Growing up means letting go of childish ways and thinking, and embracing new thoughts and a new understanding about life. As we draw closer to God we shed our old concepts of commitment, love and relationship, and embrace people around us the way God embraces us. I know Traci loves me more today, not because I’m amazingly more lovable, but because she has grown in her walk with God and understands love better today than she did 25 years ago when we went on our first date.

Are you changing or are you working hard to try and keep everything the same? I know people who live their lives trying to avoid change, trying to control everything so that life remains relatively the same for them. I, for one (and Traci for two!), am glad that I have grown up from my high school dating years. I’m thankful that I have a better understanding of love and commitment, and that my devotion to God, Traci and family is marked by a new maturity and a deeper wisdom that can only come through change. I don’t want to be the same guy tomorrow that I was today, and while I don’t always like the circumstances or events that cause change, I like the end-product as I grow up into Him -- the One who gives me life.

Go ahead and take the plunge, change is always better on the water!

The day I met my wife

In the fall of 1987, I had one of those movie moment experiences in my life. You know, the ones where the beautiful girl walks in the room and everything goes into slow motion? It’s that scene when the hot chick looks right at the camera, flings her hair from one side of her face to the other, and says, “hi.” You know what I’m talking about?  

Traci and her family had just moved from Wenatchee, WA to Salem, OR and they were living a few miles out of town. They started attending our church and one evening my parents invited her parents out to eat. So my mom and dad drove us out to their place where my sister Naomi and I stayed with Traci and her sister (and a friend named David) while our parents got to know each other at dinner.

As I walked into Traci’s house the world started moving in slow motion, the beautiful girl did the hair thing and I was hooked. Yowzuh! The problem was, I thought she was quite a bit older than me, and I was pretty sure she was out of my league. Don’t get me wrong, I knew deep down inside she was already madly in love with me and was already planning our marriage, I just didn’t want to break her heart that things probably weren’t going to work out for us -- we were doomed lovers from the start.

You can imagine the crushing blow to my ego to find out, years later, that Traci didn’t have the same initial response to me that I had for her. I’m still working on that with my therapist, but we’re doing remarkably well in our marriage despite this rather significant setback. Anyway, I went home from her house kind of in love with her. Although during my 8th grade year I ended up “dating” another girl I had actually just met my future wife.

Shortly after I entered high school the following year, Traci and I had  become friends. I realized she was 20 months older than me, but because of her late September birthday, she was only one grade up. This fact restored hope in my heart, and I set out to make sure she and I dated before my freshman year was over.

That was no easy task for a number of reasons. First of all, Traci was the “new girl” hottie in youth group -- a bunch of guys had hopes of dating her. Secondly, there was the minor problem that I didn’t have the same slow motion impact on her that she had on me. Third, I was younger than her. Fourth, she thought I was “cute,” kind of like a puppy is cute. You don’t date your puppy.

Well, before my freshman year was over, Traci and I began dating. It’s always a little awkward when you’re a guy and the girl has to drive on your dates because she’s older than you, but when you get the girl, you can endure those hardships for a season. Ok, so it was like a year of hardship because I didn’t get my license until the following spring, but I still had the girl.

It’s funny how little high school dating has to do with actual relationships. Despite the fact that we dated for all of our high school years and most of our college years (with a few short breakups in there), we have always told our children and the students we’ve worked with, that dating in high school is a horrible idea. In fact, over nearly 17 years of full-time youth ministry, I know of just one high school dating relationship that ended in marriage.

High school dating is relatively easy. Basically you have the opportunity to alway show your good side, and to not have to endure the slow, mundane or painful parts of life. It’s not that you don’t have those moments, but you don’t have to live in them together. You might help each other go through a tough time, but when you don’t have to live in it together, you really don’t understand the full impact of the situation. Likewise, most of our dates were out of the house and out on the town, eating junk food, watching movies etc...  High school dating is really insulated from the realities of life.

Unfortunately, I think too many of us approach our relationship with God the same way we approach high school dating. We want the benefits of having a God nearby, but we don’t want the commitment that a real relationship requires. I loved dating Traci, but I also had freedom to explore other relationships, to ditch her for my guy friends, and when she was really grumpy (not that she ever was...in case she’s reading this) I dropped her off and hit the pool hall or arcade with my buddies. I loved having a girlfriend, but I also liked that she wasn’t around all the time.

Today I’m glad Traci is my wife. We’ve learned to put up with each other, not just to get by, but to really enjoy the depth of a loving, committed relationship. (On our 17th anniversary I wrote a blog post entitled about the 17 Reasons we have a great marriage that went mini-viral and was viewed by thousands and thousands of people.) She knows my weaknesses and loves me anyway, we have closed the doors to exploring other relationships, and have determined to work out any difficulties that arise, when they arise, in our commitment to make our marriage great.

That’s the kind of relationship we must have with God in order to live the Overboard Life. God can’t be our “go to” date when we want to have a good time or when we need someone to talk to. Instead, He has to be the One we are committed to above all else. We have to determine to keep him #1, to stay connected through daily routine, to turn to Him first in heartache and celebration, to embrace Him as Father and friend, and to recognize that our lives take on the greatest meaning when they are spent doing what He wants us to do for His honor and glory!

Are you dating God right now? If so, I’ve got some bad news...God doesn’t like to date! God is interested in having a meaningful relationship with you and the good news is, He will never let you down. He won’t fail you and He will never turn His back on you. You might not always understand Him in the moment, but He promises to make your life the best it can be when it’s left in His care, according to His time. And that is the heart and soul of what it means to live Overboard -- trusting God with your life!

17 down, 23 to go.

Go ahead and take the plunge, life is always better on the water!