sick

i feel miserable. i’ve been suffering through a 101.7 degree fever today. i’ve done nothing but slept all day. this is the first time i’ve looked at the computer (or done anything other than move from the bed to the couch) and typing this is actually wearing me out. i think i will have to stop now and sleep around two hours to recuperate. if you have an orange tree that is bearing fruit and wouldn’t mind bringing me some freshly squeezed orange juice i would appreciate it.

i love them

i love tony campolo and i love jordon cooper. campolo i love because he is campolo and there is nobody else like him (though there are many of us who pretend to be like him) cooper i love because he constantly finds good article and links and pastes them on his blog.

yesterday jordon cooper posted part of an interview with campolo concerning his book “speaking my mind“. as usual with campolo the interview was great. here’s just a snippet of the interview.

if john kerry or george w. bush were to call you up and ask for your guidance on issues facing america today, what would you tell each of them in turn?

to kerry, i think my major issue would be “do you understand us? do you understand evangelicals and why we’re so upset about the pro-life issue? do you understand why we believe all life is sacred?” i’d encourage him to do justice and to do righteousness.

to george bush, I’d say “the GOD of scripture is a GOD who calls us to protect the environment. i don’t think your administration has done that very well. the GOD of scripture calls us to be peacemakers. we follow a JESUS who said those who live by the sword will die by the sword, who called us to be agents of reconciliation.”

i would point out to george bush that the CHRIST that he follows says “blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy”-which doesn’t go along with capital punishment.

i would say different things to each candidate, but i would respond instantaneously to the invitation to speak to each of them. all the way to the white house, i would be praying, “GOD, keep me from chickening out. help me to not be so overawed by the high office of these people that I fail to recognize i answer to a higher authority.”

you really should read the rest of the article it is great. campolo has a way of hitting the “nail on the head”. he does a great job of avoiding becoming the mouth piece of the right or the left. he’s for CHRIST rather than a conservative or liberal ideology. i love that.

sometimes ministry is just too funny

my wife, pam, loves working with the 9th & 10th grade girls within our student ministry. she leads one of our sunday school classes for the age group and does an amazing job with them. some time in the past her group started sharing nicknames and other things that they had been called in their past. when pam was in eighth grade some of her classmates decided it would be great to call her “pampon” – combining her name (pam) with the feminine hygiene product (tampon). it was a real middle school thing to do.

in a moment of openness pam told this nickname to her girls. of course, being 9th and 10th grade girls several of them started calling her “pampon”. it is a great inside joke. only the girls in her group know it and they only use it in a “family” manner that is full of love.

today pam went to the grocery story and as she was walking out to her car she heard “pampon” shouted out by one of her girls that saw her across the parking lot. all the other people walking across the parking lot got a good laugh out of the name. “pampon” is a great thing to have to answer to.

pinewood derby 2005

the ice cream cartoday was the pack 205’s annual pinewood derby. if you’re not familiar with a pinewood derby just imagine 100 kids and their dads taking a piece of pine and converting it into a gravity led speed demon. it’s an emotion ridden day. kids enter with high hopes and then slowly but surely all but 20 get those high hopes unmercifully crushed. it’s a great family day.

i know this from experience. the first year i did a pinewood derby with one of my children was horrible. our car raced four times and it never once crossed the finish line. it was horrible.

slowly but surely we have improved. this year noah wanted to get the “judges’ favorite” award and as i discussed earlier he wanted an ice cream sandwich car. so we built it. it looks very much like a real ice cream sandwich. we spent most of our time working on the design and very little working on axles. the axles really are the thing that determines how fast you car goes. you have to sand them down and then polish them if you really want your car to go. i did a little of this but not near as much as last year. last year i spent a week polishing the axles. this year it was only a day. i was pleasantly surprised when noah’s car racked up 2 second places. that was the good news. the bad news was that he then earned 2 fourth places. still not too bad.

the best part was that noah’s car was hands down everyone’s favorite. there was no doubt about him winning the “judges’ favorite” award. it happened just like he wanted it too. you can go here to see noah with his medal for “judges’ favorite.”

17 iconoclastic laws of crap

i graduated from southwestern baptist theological seeminary, a fact that i used to be proud of. now a days i’m not as excited about my alma mater. paige patterson is now the president of southwestern and the changes within southwestern that worry me have happened mainly during his watch. but let’s not talk about those things right now. instead i want to talk about patterson’s “youth ministry” article in the january/february 2005 southwestern news alumni magazine. patterson was once a pastor (i think it was back in the 80s but he was at least once a pastor for a few years) and as such he is expertly trained to write the lead article in a southwestern news volume that is supposed to be all about student ministry.

the title of patterson’s article is “iconoclastic student ministry”. here’s dictionary.com‘s definition of “iconoclastic:

  • one who attacks and seeks to overthrow traditional or popular ideas or institutions.
  • one who destroys sacred religious images.
  • the original iconoclasts destroyed countless works of art.
  • characterized by attack on established beliefs or institutions

judging from the title of patterson’s article it is apparently meant to destroy the art of youth ministry. if that’s not his point i would at least guess from the title that he thought that the words of his article would destroy the status quo of youth ministry. who knows? for your reading entertainment i have decided to post his 17 steps for iconoclastic student ministry. i’ll also post a few of my thoughts in italics after his points.

  • don’t try to entertain young people all the time – i agree with this one though i love him calling the teens “young people”
  • call a man as your minister to youth or youth pastor in charge of youth ministry – patteson thinks its okay for a woman to be an associate but not the person in charge. according to him the leader really needs to be a male – what a load of crap.
  • teach young people how to share their faith – i like this one too but i would prefer to show them how to share their faith as a natural, non-forced, non-used car salesman part of their life. JESUS “sells” HIMSELF. he doesn’t need me to force HIM on someone else. HE just wants me to open my mouth and honestly dialogue with people who have real needs. HE will be their answer.
  • teach young people basic theology – i love this “young people” stuff. we better teach youth that CHRISTianity is all about believing the right things rather than exploring theology with each other and hitting hard questions. 😉
  • chior tours and social projects are worthy activities for young people, but do not make them an end within themselves – patterson says that everything must be judged by wether someone comes to CHRIST or not. apparently feeding the hungry is only GOD honoring when at least one of the hungry people becomes a CHRISTian
  • lead your young people to ask GOD about HIS will for their lives
  • teach young people the whole biblical revelation – wow, i wish i had thought of this. i wonder which part of “whole” he is really hinting at
  • teach the young people what the bible says about sex – sex is the big “no-no” isn’t it? apparently teaching our teens not to have sex it’s more important to patterson than helping them to get involved in “social justice”, or having a growing relationship with CHRIST
  • teach young people to love JESUS and GOD’s word the bible – who knew? JESUS and the bible are equal?
  • make men out of the boys and women out of the girls – i guess this beats the alternative. i do love the fact that patterson’s idea of a man involves the guy regularly using a gun (a previous article)
  • the pastor must spend time with the young people – i agree totally but i would add that the pastor must never ever call them “young people”
  • be sure to include parents in the youth ministry equation – i whole heartedly agree
  • be sure most of the the young people are in regular services with everyone else in the church – i can’t complain with this one
  • teach young people the meaning of sacrifice – no complaint here
  • have a regular time for Q&A with your young people, and do not duck their questions – i wonder if one of the questions will be from one of my girls asking me “why is it that GOD has called me to be a minister and paige patterson says i can’t be?”
  • keep your sense of humor and have a good time – reading patterson’s article gave me a good laugh
  • finally, lead the young people in some great adventures – i agree with another one

as you can see patterson’s article has shaken the foundations of youth ministry as we know it. i only hope i can be half the youth minister that paige patterson is. 🙂

my wife is psychotic

about 10 minutes ago the terrell family just finished the first ever “terrell howl off”. it all started because pam, my wife, desperately wants montana, our 1 year old basset hound, to “howl“. hounds are great howlers when they are mature. montana is only one year old and has another full year before she will be considered a mature basset. i figure that’s why she doesn’t howl. her voice hasn’t changed yet (yes basset’s voices change as they mature) and nobody wants their voice to crack while they’re howling.

still, pam really wants montana to howl. in her attempts to figure out how to accomplish this goal pam has done what she usually does when ever she faces a problem – researches the problem. pam is excellent and getting on the web and finding the right material to answer whatever question she has. so she read up on the world of bassets. she dug into the vast amount of basset hound literature in search of the answer to the age old question “how do i get my basset to howl?”

what she found out was that bassets like to sing in chorus. these smart dogs like to be with others when they let loose of their melodic howls. apparently releasing their voices alone is just not as much fun and bassets are all about fun. so this left us with only a few options:

  • we could get used to having a basset who doesn’t like to howl.
  • we could start a howling support group where bassets of all ages, sizes, and ear length could get together and howl freely.
  • we could buy a few more bassets just for the purpose of getting montana to howl.
  • or we, the terrell family, could pretend to be bassets and howl in order to get montana to howl.

pam, of course, chose the last option.

i truly think the whole thing kind of scared montana. she looked real concerned and confused when pam started the holwing. montana went from “confused” to “excited” when pam cajoled the rest of us into doing it. i would love to say that it didn’t work but i can’t. my wife is strange but she does know how to accomplish what she wants. so we now have a basset who howls.

youth ministry advertising

i don’t do this much but i figure i’ll post some advertisements for the youth ministry. here’s what is coming up within the youth ministry.

  • the feminar is coming up february 4th & 5th – this is a “girls only” lock-in. you’ll study GOD’s word and do “girlie” things that i have no idea about. you’ve got to be a girl to come to the feminar.
  • the disciplenow is coming up march 11th -13th – the disciplenow is where we separate into groups of 10 to 12 for the weekend and the go to homes to spend the weekend studying GOD’s word. each night we’ll come together for worship that will be lead by ten shekel shirt and andy neely. it will be a great weekend – it’s always a great weekend. everyone is welcome to come to the disciplenow.
  • beautiful feet mission trip is coming up march 31st – april 3rd – each year we go to the beautiful feet church of fort worth, texas and join them in their ministry to bring justice to the homeless of fort worth. you have to be in the 9th grade or above to go on this trip. i love going.

this ends our public service announcement.

the view – january 26, 2005

clint's birthday lunch

alan had my camera at the beginning of the view tonight. i thought he had taken pictures of the set up for the view tonight. i was wrong. thus this is the second week in a row that i do not have pictures of the set up of “the view” tonight. thus i’ll describe it. i used matthew 5 tonight dealing with salt and light. therefore we decorated the student center with containers of salt and candles. it was cool because it confused most everyone who walked in.

we finished the “kingdom” series of messages tonight. i took a cue from the ron sider article i mentioned earlier. tonight we talked about betraying the kingdom by not living out the miracle of the new birth that happens when someone becomes a believer. this was not a “be more moral” speech. rather it was a “change your loyalty” message. i wanted to start my message with a flash animation discussing betraying your promise. i spent about two hours on it this morning and was kind of proud of it. this of course, meant that it didn’t work when it was supposed to. they finally got it working after a brief intro from me.

here’s the message opening animation for your viewing enjoyment. SIDE NOTE – if you are british you may view benedict arnold as a hero – i have no problem with that the point of the video was not to vilify arnold, rather it was to talk about being a traitor to your kingdom.

today was clint’s birthday. jessica, alan, and i took him out to “the italian pie” for lunch. since clint is a sunday school teacher it’s kind of work for me to take him to eat. i love my job that i get to consider taking a friend out to lunch as work.