Way to get fired from Youth Ministry #427

needless to say, I'm guessing that the youth pastor paid a bunch of taxes on this one!


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Why I do what I do

This doesn't happen nearly as much as we all need it. But every once in a while it does. and when it happens...it's so nice.

I got a wall post from a former middle schooler of mine at Riverlawn. This kid...

he's now a young man (18)...(and don't i feel old saying that)...

nevertheless, this guy's name is Blake and he has some amazing parents. He was such a great kid. One of those kids that you know is going to be successful in everything he does.

and he posted the following on my facebook. So cool. What an encouragement.

Hey man whats up. I was in the Word the other day and i was looking at paul and timothy's relationship. i as i read about them, your name poped into my head and i all i want to say is thank you. paul reached out to a young, curiose, and somewhat naieve timothy. That is what you did for me seven years ago and now i have started a basketball outreach at my church and forty inner city kids are hearing gods purpose for their lives. I am also part of a mentoring program where leaders are being made on the jh level. I am not telling you this to brag but to say i would not be where i am today if it wasnt for you. you invested and now god's kingdom is reaping the benefits. God bless and there is crown waiting for you in heaven. I dont know why god laid this on my heart but let it be a blessing to you.BlAKe

My dad and the Wii

My mom and dad spent part of a week with us last week and what an awesome time it was.  So great to see them and spend time together and for my kids to get to know them.  We don’t get to see them nearly enough.  Although we’ll be heading down to their place in Rio Rancho, NM for thanksgiving.  Should be really cool.

 

One thing that blew me away was how much my dad LOVED the Wii!  He played a couple nights till 2 a.m.!  It was a fun way for Noah to connect with him and fun for all of us to do together. 

 

Man, when you have 75 year old people playing 4 hours a day, bowling, tennis, golf, and baseball…you have got some kind of amazing product!

 

The end of the rainbow...it's in my backyard!

Last week it was raining and I happened to step outside to see something I’ve NEVER seen before in my life:  The end of a rainbow!  I don’t mean a prism or some man made rainbow.  I mean the real deal!  And while I always thought it was a pot of gold, leprechauns, or at least Lucky Charms cereal to be found at the end of a rainbow, I was kind of depressed to see it is actually my neighbors crappy house. 

 

Just what is he keeping in there?!

 

I don’t know if you’ll be able to see it, but you can see that the rainbow is actually in FRONT of the trees.  So cool.  What a promise.

 

Eucharist

In college, I remember doing a report about communion and the origins and practices thereof. In talking about the Eucharist, I remember one scholar explaining the meaning behind the word as, "Whenever the early Christians got together to celebrate the Lord's Supper it was always in an attitude of thanksgiving."

At NEXT a couple weeks ago we began our time of worship by writing down things we were thankful for as a prelude to worship. We wrote each idea on a post it note and then put it on the wall.

Some of the things people wrote were funny...some sad...and some just absolutely moving.

Here are a couple of them:

YS Product Review: TRIGGER

One of the reasons I absolutely LOVE YS is that they are ALWAYS hooking up the youth worker! A couple months ago I particiapted in Marko's Biggest Loser competition, and YS ended up sending out 4 FREE resources to everyone that finished! so cool.

One of the resources was a DVD called, "TRIGGER."

What a cool dvd. I really enjoyed it. Since I only work with middle schoolers, my review is going to be shaded that way.

On the DVD there are 5 vignettes to get conversation going. They are all REALLY well done. Very engaging. Unfortunately...for middle school...I think only a couple of them are usable, namely "1000 Things Went Right Today" and "Plugged In."

In "1000" they take a look at a wall of post it notes that students and faculty posted in an office in Colorado. It is a REALLY cool idea that I actually did with the emergent group that meets in our church a couple weeks ago. I can't wait to do it with the middle school.

In "Plugged In" it makes a GREAT parrallel between television and the power of God. REALLY good. I think it'll take some prodding to get the MS to get it, but it's very powerful, no pun intended.

The other three are really good too. I think they would be AWESOME for high school and especially young adults.

Call and Response: More on Childhood Slavery

My high school friend Sarah Garcia pointed me to a new movie coming out called, "Call and Response." Even though the start of thier trailer is predictable, the point is made and it's great to bring this issue to the spotlight. Here's a link to thier blog.

Her husband, Daniel is the College/Outreach guy at Hillside Church in San Jose, CA. (Back in the day we did a GREAT video scavenger hunt there, back when it was just called "Hillside EV Free" with an awesome youth pastor named Fritz).

Anyway, the movie has a number of Hollywood stars in it and it should be thought provoking. I've had this in my inbox for a while but with the Nightline story, I thought it'd be good to blog about it.

Another reason why I love middle school ministry

I got an email from one of the grandmother's at our church regarding her grand daughter that is going to live with her for a while.

She had this to say about our church's youth ministry:

"The main reason I would like her to come to First is that I am impressed by some of the things that are happening there. I was really pleased that the kids wanted to have a prayer ministry at the block party. It is wonderful to have them actually in ministry. Ministry has been my passion almost all my life, and it gives more joy than anything else. It would be wonderful for her to learn this early in her life."


She's actually talking about our MIDDLE SCHOOLERS! I've been meaning to blog about this for a couple months so I'll try to get on it soon.

Abolition and Pentacostalism: Nightline

The last two nights have been really cool on Nightline.

Last night it was "How to buy a child in 10 days" and they weren't talking about adoption. They took a guy to Haite where they followed two young girls in the sex slave industry.

Tonight they talked about Todd Bentley, a tattooed "faith healer" leading a (cough...cough) "revival" in Lakeland, Fl.

This is a time when I really envy high school pastors. If I were one, I'd take both these episodes and show them to my students and debrief them, one at a time. You could have so much good conversation and real issues surround both subjects.

With middle schoolers, they'd be interested in seeing some tattooed dude yelling "BAM" and having people fall down and be healed...but mostly for the awkwardness of it. Most of them would see it as comedy.

I do think that I'll show them the "buying a child" one. Although, it looks a bit edgy. I didn't get to see it, but I'm gonna order a transcript. It'd be a great launching point to give out Zach Hunter's books again and remind them that he was in junior high when he started his movement.

The Number One Position: Love and Logic Day 3: Afternoon Session

Jen switched seminars for the afternoon and got a hold of a GREAT one called "The Number One Position: Solutions That Go Beyond Classroom Management." This was by two incredible teachers from Kearney, Nebraska (Exactly..."where?"). Thier names are Sam Stecher and Mark Johnson, and thier web page does not have enough on there!

These guys were SO good, I'm thinking of driving up there on my own this summer to meet with these guys. It's only 5 hours away and they gave Jen some stuff I had never considered but could be dynamic. I'd like to know more about it though, before I jump in.

Here's a couple things I thought were really cool and could translate amazingly into middle school ministry:

1. Every day they started thier classrooms with a cheer that they made up. (Maybe I'm still living in Softball Coach land, but I really like that idea, especially coupled with the Brain stuff from ealier).

2. Nicknames: Only special kids get nicknames. Think about it. Only the kids that really connect get a nick name. By fault, kids who don't get a nick name, feel, to some extent, less well-liked. (I thought this was a bunch of garbage until Jen went through a couple nick names of students we've had, and now I kind of feel bad for the kids that didn't have them!)

So you can either not give any kids nicknames...or do what they did. They gave EVERYONE a nick name. So much so, that at parent conferences, sometimes he couldn't remember the kids real name!

One teacher gave each kid a nickname. The other one had the kids pick them out. The bottom line was that EVERY kid felt special because every kid had a nick name.

In a lot of ways I think this would be so cool. I think students would LOVE to feel that way. And it could really build community. We are taking our kids to the Lake next week and it's be a cool time to introduce that idea.

I could also see it turning very inward too...very self focused...exclusive. The dream would be for it to be totally inclusive and that kids would feel so special they'd want to bring thier friends too.

Rules for nicknames:
1. The kid has to like it.
2. It has to be approved by the adult.
3. A kid can change/drop the nickname anytime for any reason.

Teens and the Brain: Love and Logic Day 3: Morning Session

So much great stuff that Jen got today out of the Love and Logic course from the session she did this morning called Teaching and Learning in a Brain Friendly Classroom, by Larry Miller.

Larry said a lot of great stuff but one thing in particulair was this:

Kids retain the first 10 minutes of class and the last 5 minutes. All the rest is a blur.

So...knowing that...how does that effect our Sunday Morning times as well as small groups?

A couple thoughts:

1. Put a lot of time, effort, intention, and fun, in the first 10 minutes. It is going to set the precedence for what a kid remembers.

2. Put a lot more work into what I leave kids with, a challenge, and a reminder of God's wild love for us.

3. One of the ways of recapturing the "middle ground" is to divide up your class into "acts" like a play. Use creative disturbances to keep the attention span (about 12-13 minutes for middle schoolers) and they'll remember the first 3 minutes of each "act" and the last 2.

We do a lot of this anyway with middle schoolers, but I appreciated the reminder to mix things up. I probably fail at this more than I admit.


Here are a couple other freebies from the class that Jen passed on to me:

~our brians are actually light pink, not gray. They are seen as gray after death because all the blood has left it.

~Our brains dehydrate first.

~Blueberries are the absolute best brain food. Lots of antioxidents (sp)

Love and Logic Recap

Wow.

What a HUGE help in parenting and a great reminder of core student ministry values.

There is so much to say...went to 2 of the 5 days of the Love and Logic conference.

Here are some key student ministry reminders:

1. Discipline is meaningless without relationships.

2. Instead of taking bad bahavior personally, be empathetic to the student's anger/frustration/dissappointment.

3. Give appropriate discipline...for example: instead of calling out a kid in front of everyone, embarrassing/shaming them (unitentionally or not), and then kicking them out of the room, go up to them while teaching, quietly ask them to stop _____________, for you. If they don't, quietly ask them to leave the room and come back when they are ready to act appropriately.

Really, I'm butchering the process. There is SO much more: http://www.loveandlogic.com/


The other tips/tricks are in regard to parenting...and let me just say, what a huge help this has already been. Instead of reacting, or in my case "Over-reacting", to bad behavior, they encourage an empathetic response and delayed consequences.

For example, tonight, one of angelic children did something and before I quite possibly would have freaked out and given them some rediculous punitive consequence. Tonight I said, in a very nice and empathetic response, "oooooooh, that stinks. I'm gonna have to do something about that. But we'll talk about it later. Try not to worry about it."

this angelic child came upstairs and said to me, "I'm really sorry for overreacting earlier. It's just that, ever since you and mom started going to this parenting conference, you are acting really different and I don't like it."

eh eh eh....cha ching!

Love and Logic

This week Jen and I are spending time at the Love and Logic Conference that has been held in Wichita for the last 20 years. Evidently it's been around since 1977, but Jen and I only recently heard about it from one of our youth coaches, Nicole, who wento to a similar conference and wondered if we knew anything about it since it was so similar to how we parent.

Since then, Jen bought some of the books and has read them, and today we went to the first day of the conference for educators.

it is SO interesting! what a huge help! It is a little difficult as we are there primarily to relate it to middle school ministry. The whole conference is for teachers, but we are taking the principles and trying to apply them in the ministry setting.

Bringing "Serving" back

I'm gonna have to start Sunday School with this THIS week!

Charis' first swim

"The Bug" as we affectionally call Charis took her first swim today! Of course, being three, she's been swimming and playing in pools all her brief life. But she doesn't go ANYWHERE close to the pool without her trust Spider-Man life jacket.

I've gotten her to try to do some swimming without the jacket, trying my best to immitate the YMCA instructions that both Ciera and Noah have gotten.

Today, Charis swam, by herself, without the aid of anything, for the first time. it was so cool.

(The video is supposed to be 16:9 but I haven't figured out how to transfer stuff over correctly, obviously.)

The MPG test...results after the first fill up

Last week I blogged about changing my driving habits in hope of saving some cash.

So here are the results of last week:

Drove 287.2 miles.

Filled up with 9.448 gallons.

Avg MPG: 30.39!

The Geo Prizm usually get's over 27 but not quite 38 so I basically got another 3 miles out of each gallon, which comes up to about 30 more miles or a free gallon of gas.

Is that worth being passed up by what seems like EVERYONE on the way to work? Do I really enjoy the peace of mind of knowing I'm not going to get a speeding ticket?

so far...yes and yes. And I'll take the extra $4...which equals close to $200 a year.

Sword Swallowing and Jesus

I don't know Dan Meyer or his "story." All I know about Dan, I found out this morning as I recieved some marketing about how I can "Reach my city" by inviting Mr. Meyer to do his sword swallowing act and share his testimony and breath some fire.

Now, if God can use bmxers, skaters, bands, magicians, and roided out old jocks who can bust out of handcuffs and tear phone books in half, I'm sure God can use a sword swallowing fire breather dude, regardless of my own critical attitude.

What I do know about Mr. Meyer, is that his marketing company should consider a better clip to show his talent than the one they sent in the email.

However, here is the jist of the dialog from the clip:

Piers Morgan: (While showing clips of Mr. Meyer) This year we have the most talented guy we've ever seen. You'll see him at the end of the show, but we just think he is absolutely amazing! I was talking to Simon Cowell, and we both think that this guy is going to be America's next big talent!

Matt Lauer: Is this the guy? (refering to Meyer)

Piers Morgan: oh no. It's not him. It's not the guy with the swords.


Here's where you can watch the clip for yourself. The dialog happens at about 1:05.





Here's a better clip that they should have used:



Pretty cool that he was a missionary in India! I'm guessing from the look of his sweet "Nature Boy" Rick Flair bleached blonde mullet, that he must have watched a lot of Superstaion TBS while over there. I wonder if he suplexes the devil as part of his gospel presentation?

I am such a geek

This is a pic of me and Drake W., one of our new 6th graders at the Lake Daze sneak preview last week.

I love video games...but I just don't have time to play them.

We have, however, picked up a wii. Noah loves playing it whenver he can which is just usually during an hour of Jen's piano lessons. Ciera could care less. and Charis watches it. I play after the kids go to bed...maybe once a week.

My friend Jeremy reminded me that the wii has wireless internet on it. So now, I can totally be a bigger geek and play my friends on Mario Kart! I totally stink...but it'll still be lots of fun.

I play so seldom that I bought Mario Galaxy the first week it came out...but since I haven't beaten Super paper mario yet, it is still in its shrink wrap. I think that's a full year almost!

The end of another season of Giants' baseball....er, I mean softball

Monday night was the end of Ciera's softball season. What a fun night! Ciera played great at her positions, she had a great first at bat that resulted in a walk.

Her second AB went like this:

Ciera, a right handed hitter steps into the plate...the count is 2 balls and one strike...fireworks can be seen in the outfield...the pitch...she swings...it's a pop up that sails to right side of the diamond...it's just out of the reach of the pitchers mitt!

Teh second baseman picks up the grounder and fires to first but it's too late as Ciera has already passed first base.

It is very hard to not feel like I've let down the girls and parents in delivering to them a 2-12 season. I will be making some significant changes next year that I'll blog about in a few days.

But for now, it was so fun all season long to watch Ciera grow and develop as a player and to see her get a good solid hit to end the season with. What a joy it is to have kids!

Noah's got one more game tomorrow night. Should be fun!