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!

The MPG test begins

Alright, just got done changing the oil and filling up the tires on the ol' mini van and Geo Prizm. Now it's time for the test.

My personal driving habits are less than economical. That's the nicest way to put it. so after reading about how to get better mileage, I'm putting it to the test.

I just changed the oil.
Tires are at the correct pressure.
I'm accelerating slowly.
I'm pretty much coasting to a stop.
I'm driving the speed limit.
I'm driving conservatively.

My car averages a little better than 27 mpg but not quite 28. so I'm interested to see what a difference these changes will make!

Lake Daze Sneak Preview

In just a few hours we leave to take our brand new 6th graders on an overnight trip to a lake where we’ll do some tubing, fishing, swimming, and hanging out. This is our first time doing this and we are excited to see how it helps them form as a group. We have over 2/3rds of our new students coming so we’re pumped.



After wearing them down on the lake we are going to play some games, get to know them, and then give them some tips and tricks on how to make it through middle school by using the model of 10 middle schoolers you don’t want to be.



Then we are closing our time with a great verse from Paul in 1 Cor. 13 where he talks about “When I was a child, I acted like a child.” And encouraging our kids to move from the children’s ministry mentality into a an attitude ready to grow in their faith. Should be a good time!



10 Middle Schoolers you Don’t Want to Be Like



AKA: 10 tips to make the most out of your time in MS





Wild Willy: Out of Control


Super Christian Christy: Pseudo Spiritual


Smelly Sam: Wear deodorant!


Super Cool Kevin: No one cooler than this guy.


Clique Carey: Sticks to one group


Super Talker Tina: Won’t stop talking


Catty Catherine: Putting people down


Ninja Natalie: Always practicing her ninja moves


Selfish Steve: Only caring about himself


ANYONE OTHER THAN YOU!

Weekend of Giants Games

This weekend was a blast! Got to take Ciera and Noah to thier first Giants games ever! Wish they could have won! Man that was terrible. But being at the game with my fam, few things are better than that.

Sooooo much to blog about...but here are the highlights and here's a link to the best of the photos.




~First game with Ciera and Noah. We had nosebleed seats. but a season ticket holder let us have his tix 17 rows above the Giants' dugout. Best seats I've ever had!

~Our whole family going to Sunday's game, all decked out in Giants' gear. Lots more Giants' fans at the game than I expected.

~Getting to wear the jersey I bought with fantasy baseball winnings finally. I intentionally bought it to small as motivation to lose weight. I'm still too big but it worked out okay. And the nods from other Giants' fans and comments from Royals' fans made it so worthwhile.




~Seeing Lincecum, the Giants' phenom, warm up and pitch on Sunday. Can't believe the Giant's blew a 7 run lead. no. I do belive it. I got some sweet action shots of his wind up.





~Teaching Ciera how to score a baseball game. She did awesome! she kept it going through 6 innings! The game, btw, lasted more than 4 hours. We were still in the 6th inning after 3 hours. I have so many memories of going to Giants' games with my dad and he ALWAYS kept score and he taught me how to as well. Very meaningful.




~My buddy Jesse told me the Royal's had a new scoreboard. I had no idea how amazing it was. blew me away. totally hi def. This pic looks like it's a video game. the screen was crystal clear and the images were HUGE. There are more pics of the scoreboard via the link above.

~Texting Jeff, Jesse, and Bill during the game while they were watching it back home. So fun. Man, I miss hanging out.

Iowa Flooding

So a buddy of mine asked me last week how my in-laws are doing with the Iowa floods. The above picture was sent from my father in law, Ron. This is across the river facing thier house. This is after the flood has begun receding. It's still at 6 feet when normal is 2.

Jen's parents live in Waverly, iowa, one of the first towns flooded by the Cedar River. But, because the news in Wichita only really reported on Cedar Rapids (an hour or so away) and Des Moines (2 1/2 hours away) we never really thought of them being in danger.

Of course, the fact that the Cedar River runs THROUGH thier back yard (literally, thier back yard) I should have been clued in.

The section of river that runs through thier back yard is almost entirely shallow. 3/4 of it is between 9 inches and 2 feet. The other 1/4 is no deeper than 6 feet.

Well, at it's height, it was over 30 feet! dang!

Here is a picture of thier house after the flood. You can see that it is a two story home and they've done so much work to it! The basement/or bottom level has a retaining wall around it for when it does flood.





Mom and Dad knew it was coming so dad built on as high as he could to the retaining wall. It didn't work. They were able to get almost everything upstairs except for a couple couches they just tied to the rafters. The water came up 3/4 of the way...what is that...like 6 feet of water into the bottom level. And it destroyed the two couches.

Also, in the middle of the picture you can see a set of four french doors. this is my parent's new bedroom doors. The ones to the left are white and the ones to the right look greyish/blue for some reason.

Here's is how high the water became:

















This is looking back at the other porch to the left.



















this is the top of my dad's hangar where he keeps his tractor and ultralight. It's DOWNHILL from the house. Mom said that he was able to lay a sandbag on top of the hangar roof from the jet ski when the water was at or near it's highest.


















they are doing good. They are an official disaster area which inlcudes showering at the red cross and eating fema food. Thanks for your prayers for them!

Weekend Plans

So last Saturday I’m running to the hardware store and I’m listening to the Royals game and I hear them advertising for the upcoming series with the Giants….

Uh……excuse me….what?

As soon as I get home I jump on the royals website…IT’S TRUE!   The Giants are coming this weekend for their second series with the Royals ever.  I missed the first series.  I’m not missing this one!

I told Jen and she was pumped for me.  I told the kids and they were ECSTATIC!  This will be their first giants’ game ever!

I have to work Friday night (DANG IT!).  The kids have some make up games to play on Saturday morning, so after the games, we’re gonna drive up to KC.  I’m gonna drop Jen and Charis off at our friend’s house and I’ll take Ciera and Noah to the game Saturday night.

Then I’m taking a vacation day on Sunday and we are going to the afternoon game! 

I’m so pumped!  The kids both have replica jerseys to wear to the games.  And last night I FINALLY tried on my Mike Matheny/Will Clark home jersey…knowing that I’ve taken the last month off of exercise and eating well (that means eating a bunch of crap and not exercising), I was a little afraid that the jersey wouldn’t fit.  But I tried it anyways!

AH YEAH!  It’s a little snug if I button it, but if I leave it unbuttoned, I’m golden.  I’ve waited YEARS to wear this jersey!   And now, my first time, will be with Ciera and Noah at their first Giants game.

I can’t wait!   All 5 of us will go to Sunday’s game (Charis’ second Giants’ game).  The other cool thing is that we paid $15 bucks each for Ciera and Noah to be in the Royals “Blue Crew” and in this cool kit came a back pack, a watch, a cool VIP pass, a cool Royal’s hat, and tix to the KC zoo and two vouchers for $17 tickets.  For some reason, each kid got TWO packs each.  So we have 8 free tix which is all we need for Sat and Sunday.

I’ll make sure to post some pics on the blog.  What an awesome weekend!

(photo credit:  Ben Margot/AP)

 

Father's day came one day early for me!

On Saturday Noah had his first hit in machine pitch! Machine pitch is the next step up from T-ball. He had 3 games before where he got up only a few times and each time he struck out. And he was swinging really weird. He was pretty bummed. Didn’t want to go outside and practice or anything. I talked him into playing soft toss on Thursday before a game and he nearly got a hit at the game that night.

So he had a game Sat, and we went outside and played soft toss and I could feel he was really close, watching the ball better, better swings, etc.

So Noah get’s up in the 2^nd inning….whiff on three straight pitches. But they were good swings…nice and level…his timing was just a bit off.

Top of the 5^th inning…Noah’s team, the Blue Dragons, haven’t scored and are down by two runs.

Noah’s up to the plate.

The pitch…

The swing…

WHACK!

Line drive that bounces right between the 3^rd baseman and SS. Noah runs to 2^nd base and the LF overthrows the 2^nd baseman, so Noah, after over running 2^nd and stopping, runs to third. He rounds the base and heads home for his first hit, and his first home run! Sure, in the mind of every adult, it was a double and an error. But in his head…and for all intensive purposes as this level, he hit a dinger.

SO AMAZINGLY FUN! Jen JUMPED out of her chair, “RUN, NOAH, RUN!!!!!”

After Noah got back in the dug out, I went over to tell him how proud I was of him (which I was doing even when he was whiffing like his old man) I asked him, “Noah, how did that feel?”

In the funnest, sweetest, and coolest voice ever, with eyes full of joy, he replied, “Awesome!”

“Yeah, it was awesome, Noah. Good job!”

“Dad, I hit the 2^nd home run of the season!” (another kid had hit a home run a couple games ago)

I thought it was awesome to just play catch with my kids…Like it was an emotional thing because I didn’t have a dad to play catch with when I was a kid. And I totally meant to blog about how cool it was.

it is so fun to watch them play and enjoy the game. I hope that I never push them away from the game.

It was a fun day to be a dad.