A short list of what I'm thankful for

An amazing and talented wife who now has nearly Ten thousand copies of her two books. (Becoming a Young Woman of God has 6,600 copies alone!)

Seeing our books on display at YS.

Hearing stories of how helpful the books have been.

Having the opportunity to minister to middle school students!

My sweet daughter Ciera who amazes me every day.

My sweet boy Noah who is one of my best buddies and is a mean wrestler and such a good brother.

Little buggy...Charis...my gift of grace.

Jeff, Bill, and Jesse and thier families

Good night! This list is already getting long. there are SO many things to be thankful. Especially when I consider that homeless folks sleep outside of our church...it's just a gift to have food, shelter, clothes, and an automobile.

I feel so rich.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Man, so many things to be thankful for. Right now we are in Amarillo, Texas on our way to see my parents, sister's fam, and my Sister-in-law. So many feelings.

I haven't been to New Mexico in almost 10 years. My parents retired out there after I went to college. My sister moved her whole family there two years ago.

I love being with my sister and her family. I rarely get to see my nephew Matthew or niece Samantha. So that will be good times.

And while we're here in Amarillo, I'll have to take my kids to the famous Cadillac Ranch!!!
























Happy Thanksgiving!

Joining the Advent Conspiracy

Here's an article I wrote for the church newspaper. It needs cleaned up, but you get the idea. Feel free to copy it and use it!

Make this Christmas Memorable with the Advent Conspiracy

Many of us woke up a little earlier on Thursday, grabbed some coffee and warm clothes, hopped in our vehicles and stood outside a big box store hoping to grab some great Christmas deals that we simply could not pass up.

Now we’re tired. There are still gifts to buy. A tree to put up. Our debt is higher and our joy for the season could not possibly be lower.

This is not what the story of Jesus’ birth is supposed to be about. Instead, it’s a story of hope, a promise kept, and amazing love.

This is exactly what the season of Advent and the Advent Conspiracy is all about.

In 2006 five pastors began the Advent Conspiracy to help their faith communities “Worship Fully, Spend Less, Give More, and Love All.” The simple idea is to give simple gifts and use the money saved to be creative and bless those in need.

Here are five simple ways to join the Advent Conspiracy this holiday season:

1. Spend half the money you planned and give the rest to a water/redistribution project like Living Water International. http://www.water.cc/

2. Take the money you save and purchase Advance gifts from the United Methodist Church. Gifts for as little as $10 can go a long way in demonstrating God’s love to a hurting world. Find more alternative gift giving ideas here: http://new.gbgm-umc.org/advance/give/alternatives/

3. Give your child or teen a specific amount of money to purchase a living gift from Heifer International. $20 buys the gift of chicks or shares of goats, lambs, cows, and more! http://www.heifer.org/

4. Purchase a gift card to Mead’s Corner where all profits go to help the Park School and children in Myanmar. (Mead's Corner is a Fair Trade Coffeehouse that is run by our church in downtown Wichita.)

5. With the money saved, consider sponsoring a child from Compassion International. For $32 a month a child receives food, clothes, shelter, schooling, and the opportunity to build a relationship with Jesus. Your sponsorship not only changes the life of one child, but their family and community as well.

For more gift ideas, information, and to “join” the Advent Conspiracy, go to http://www.adventconspiracy.org/

Great freebies from Simply Youth Ministry Today

Just got an email from the folks at Simply Youth Ministry. Good night, I love these guys!!! They are giving away 26 Teaching Outlines Vol. 3 and a Thanksgiving powerpoint game.

Can't wait to see what they give away for Christmas!

UPDATE:

Okay, just downloaded and checked them out. The thanksgiving powerpoint is terrible. However, the Christmas zoom in game and the Christmas sing along gang EASILY make up for it! I'll be using those for my Christmas party this year. You can find both easily on the same link as the lame Thanksgiving game.

And the free outlines...dude, seriously, FREE outlines. Nice.

First 2 Years in Youth Ministry

Man, I'm really appreciating this book by Doug Fields. It was sitting on my shelf for a while but ended up picking up a copy for a buddy of mine and decided to finally read it for myself. I'm only through the first 5 chapters, but man, what an encouragement. So many great ideas and so much good wisdom.

About 10 years ago I went to YS for their Critical Concerns Course that they do before YS conferences and got to hear Fields teach on this for 8 hours. We also brought him out to our church when I was at Riverlawn.

It was good then and it's still good. Definitely recommended reading for people starting out, and it's a great refresher for those of us who have been doing it for a while. I have so much to learn still!!!!!

Andy Jack is BACK

My friend Andy Jack is back to blogging. Andy is a Middle School Pastor in Oak Brook, Illinois. He's a great thinker, he's funny, super encouraging, and you might see his brother on Saturday Night Live some time.

LOVE the Advent Conspiracy

For the last two years I have written a LENGTHY article for our church newspaper about gifts to give students. It's a good idea. If parents are going to be spending hundreds of dollars on thier kids for Christmas, maybe they could invest in thier Christian journey.

So I write this article with lots of gift ideas and pictures so parents can buy gifts that will help thier kids.

I'm seriously considering abandoning that idea for this: The Advent Conspiracy.

I love thier tagline "Restoring the scandal of Christmas by substituting compassion for consumption."

Two years ago my sweet wife (man, she is going to kill me for blogging about this) decided that for Christmas, she didn't want any gifts. She wanted whatever money that was going to be spent on her to be used to buy food for children starving in Ethiopia. She figured that she had everything she needed and didn't want anything.

this was a TERRIBLE idea! She was going to ruin Christmas for the whole family!!!! So now am I going to have to forego any presents or gift certificates that I don't need, but really want? Am I now going to not get any tools?!!!

Yes, I'm kidding. It was such an amazing moment.

so last year, instead of spending $5-$10 on gifts to our friends and co-workers, we bought a share of a clean water well and gave people a card that said something like, "The gift of clean water was given in your name. Because of you, x amount of kids will have clean water for the first time in thier lives." I wasn't sure if this would go over like the Human Fund or what, but it was received really well (no pun intended).

So this year, I'm considering writing another article...only this time, I'm going to encourage parents to teach their teens about what really matters and to take whatever money they would spend on them for Christmas, and do something amazing with it.

I'm not sure our students who are really wanting Rock Band 2 or the Wii will really appreciate it, but I'm okay with it.

check this out for more info:



ht to JG.

Cool Post about Becoming from Marko

Honestly you could not ask for a better plug than the one I received today from Marko's blog. A couple weeks ago he had told me that he was using the Becoming a Young Man of God book with his 6th grade guys and when I read his tweet about having a great small group on Wednesday night, I had secretly hoped that the book had something to do with it.

Then I got a message from my friend Andrea yesterday that Marko had said something about the book on his blog.

However, the coolest thing about the post was that he wasn't trying to sell the book! He just walks through the experience with his guys and what he taught and how it connected. The book is more of an aside.

totally cool. I'm humbled. Thanks Marko.

Tim Lincecum Wins the Cy Young

It's not easy to be a Giants fan these days...heck, ever since Dusty took Ortiz out of Game 6 it's been tough! Sheesh, that's not even talking about the sweep in 89!

Nevertheless, good news was had today as Tim Lincecum was voted the National League Cy Young Award Winner. Way cool!

The funnest part for me, other than being a Giants fan myself, was that my kids got to see him pitch against the Royals this year. (Of course the bull pen gave up 9 runs to blow the game, but that's another issue.)

Well, if Mr. Lincecum ever reads this blog, congratulations! I hope my kids get another opportunity to see you pitch for the Giants again.

Here's the story from the Chronicle.

Here's the news conference in it's entirety.

Here's a GREAT article in SI.

And here's to Tim's dad publishing a book about how he taught his son to pitch so that Noah can be the next Giant Cy Young award winner...you know, if he wants. ;^)

Monday night fun

I totally wish we had espn. wish we could have seen the 49ers/Cardinals game. wish I could have seen the kick off return for a touchdown. and glad I didn't spend three hours of getting my hopes up only to have them dashed because of poor clock management. the niners.....man, it's hard to be a fan.

instead of watching the game, we went to Noah's first ever basketball game! last week a buddy of his called up and his team needed one more kid to play. Noah didn't have any desire and has never really played. We told him to sleep on it. the next day he was so excited! while he was at school I found out it's gonna cost $120! yikes! I told that to Jen and she said, "It's too late. He came home saying all he could think about was playing basketball!" eh eh eh.

so he had one practice last week. before that we were in the driveway going over double dribbling and getting ANY idea of how to play. Yesterday was the first game of the preseason tournament. And Noah scored half our team's points! That's right! the score was 33-4! (we had the four.) and Noah didn't actually score the points.

what happenned was that one of the kids on the other team scored a basket in the wrong goal. I was running the scoreboard and the score keeper was right next to me. he said, "Who was closest to the ball? What's your son's number? We'll give it to him." eh eh eh.

Voting and free coffee...or in my case, a signature hot chocolate

At a quarter to 6 I woke up my kids to bring them to the polls today to cast our votes together.  The last time I woke the kids up to go do something we were flying to Florida for a surprise trip to Mecca…..errrrr, Disney World.  This time?   Not so much.

 

But they were excited to go, and the promise of a donut and chocolate milk didn’t hurt either.  It was fun to take them in to stand in line with all these other people and to vote together, letting them see my form and push the buttons.  I feel old because Ciera will actually get to vote in the election after the next one…8 years, “should the Lord tarry.”  Pretty cool.

 

Krispy Kreme donuts are giving away donuts for those who vote.  Starbucks is giving away coffee.  Not being a coffee drinker I took my chances and went in and asked for a free Signature Hot Chocolate…BOOYAH!

 

May God’s will be done today.  Amen.

Noah's "Priceless" Halloween Costume

1 quart of yellow paint...$8.94

3 cans of yellow spray paint...$10.26

4 rolls of duct tape...$11.76

6 cardboard boxes...free

Making your son's wish to be Bumblebee the Transformer for Halloween a reality...priceless.

GREAT discussion about our role in God's Kingdom

Marko has a great post about a conversation he had yesterday during a DCLA planning meeting.

It's important to read the beginning to understand the context of the conversation, but here is the part that I thought was so good:

when his daughter was 2, he was doing some work in her room. and he noticed that she was standing off to the side, mimicking his movements. he thought this was sweet. then, he started painting some trim work, and she wanted to paint also. he said, “no honey, you’re a little kid, and painting is adult work.” she started crying, and his wife piped in, “just let her paint.” so he gave her a little brush, and a little bowl of paint, and she went to it, messily painting a small section of the wall. he kept telling her what a great job she was doing. he moved to a roller, and gave her a tiny roller also. while continuing to tell her what a wonderful job she was doing, he painted over the portion she had painted, so the end result was what he had always planned.
he said that this is what god does with us.

i tried to restrain myself, but said something like, “that’s horrible! it’s manipulative and a lie!” i went on, “i was hoping you were going to say, ‘when i got to the section she’d painted, i painted around it, framing it. it wasn’t as smooth as the parts i’d painted, but it was her contribution to the plan i already had to paint the wall. the wall was going to get painted either way, but i allowed her to contribute. AND, the wonderful thing is that, for years after that, we cherished that little less-than-perfect portion she painted, which made the wall something our family valued even more.”


Read the rest.

A quick Review of HSM3

Here's a quick review I wrote up for the church newspaper about HSM 3:

HSM 3 is the third installment of the High School Musical series but only the first one to debut in the theaters. The other two were shown on the Disney Channel.

The story takes place during the senior year of the main characters deal with college choices while trying to make the most of their last year together.

While many love to hate the High School Musical series, here are three things I love about this year’s film:

The lead relationship between Troy and Gabriela is positive, romantic, and portrays purity.

The head cheerleader is a bigger girl, who has “intelligence beyond compare,” and she loves to dance.

Finally, while the plot and writing are fairly poor with major gaps in the story, the music and dancing make it an amazing and fun movie to watch for the whole family.

Inside the world of middle schoolers

On Sunday one of my 7th graders handed me a disk and said it was full of a bunch of funny videos and a game. We use funny videos nearly every week as students gather together so I was pumped that a student would take time out to burn some videos for me to check out. And it gives me insight into their world, which is always a plus.

Included on this disk:

A video of dancing russians

3 episodes of "Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog" whose trailer can be found here.

A pirated copy of what must be Microsoft's worst video game ever, called "Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing." I guess many people consider it to be the WORST video game ever made. The video review on Gamespot was so bad the guy just sits there shaking his head the whole time and decides to end his life after playing the game.

And last but not least, this video gem from the 80's about anti-piracy.

Getting students to commit to something bigger than themselves

I LOVE this story blogged by Scott that tells about a bunch of teens doing something pretty cool. He closes his blog with this:

"maybe the problem with today's youth isn't that they aren't committed. maybe the problem is that we haven't given them anything of value to be committed to."

Definitely worth your time. It really affirms something I've been really focusing on these last few weeks.

ht to Kirk.

The Ultimate High School Muscial 3 Quiz

Following Youth Ministry rule #213, Jen and I went and previewed HSM3 this afternoon and created the Ultimate HSM3 quiz.

We are taking our students to go see it and then going for ice cream afterwards. We'll hand out the quiz and then go over it and award some lame HSM3 party prizes that I got from the Mart that shall not be named.

Feel free to use the quiz or leave your email in the comments and I'll email it to ya.

have fun!

1. What is the score in the opening scene:

Wildcats:_______

Knights:________


2. What game are they playing?

3. What is the first thing Troy says?

4. What is Chad’s jersey number?

5. What is Troy’s jersey number?

6. Who makes the game winning shot?

7. Who was the first girl Troy had in his tree house?

8. What country is Sharpay’s new assistant from?

9. What is the name of this year’s play?

10. Who taught Gabriella how to waltz?

11. How many different pairs of glasses does Kelsi wear in the movie?

12. What is the name of the Auto Salvage?

______________’s Auto Salvage


13. Troy brings Gabriella pizza and what?

14. What college does Gabriella get accepted to?

15. What city does HSM take place in?

16. What is Gabriella’s last name?

17. How many jumps does Troy make during his song?

18. Who submitted Troy’s name?

19. According to the drama teacher, what does Troy not lack?

20. When Chad goes over to Troy’s house, what is the name of the soda he pulls out of the fridge?

21. What kind of shoes does Zach wear for the prom?

22. How many times do Troy and Gabriella lock lips?

23. Who ends up going to Juliard?

24. Why are Sharpay’s and Ryan’s parents dressed so weird?

25. Who is the head cheerleader?

HSM3 Tonight

Tonight we'll be taking a couple of vans of middle schoolers to go see the premier of High School Musical 3. To be honest, i didn't know how our students would respond. I didn't know if they'd be too cool for it (which some are) or totally pumped about it (about half of my kids).

and then there are the kids who are too cool for it, but are secretly wishing they were going.

We are encouraging our kids to dress up in costume and we are going to give out prizes. Jen and I are going to the first show in town to preview it and make up some trivia questions for later.

We'll go early to get good seats, watch the movie, and grab some ice cream afterwards. Should be a really fun event!

A Ton of FREE resources for youthworkers

I was on PDYM last night and I came across a GREAT load of FREE resources. From a bunch of powerpoint games to countdown timers, lessons, sermons, admin stuff, ideas, and more!

This is definitely a part of PDYM that I love...giving resources away and creating a way for people to share resources.

Click here and download away!

Another great site is Pastor2Youth.

I had no idea my three year old was a reader of Marko's blog!

I came home from work today to see that my sweet three year old has evidently been reading Marko's blog!


Last week Marko posted about one mom's hip new tattoo:

And I guess Charis felt inspired.