March 14, 2005

dnow summary – at least the first summary

these are the initial thoughts on the discipleNOW that we had this past weekend:

our host homes and leaders were great this year. i heard very positive experiences during the weekend. i do think that next year we will use the concept of an event blog at a much earlier date to encourage even more idea swapping. this year’s blog seemed to help some in communicating with the leaders and thus doing it even earlier should help even more.
andy neely (the youth minister at springhill baptist church in mobile, alabama) was great. he did a wonderful job of communicating.
ten shekel shirt was great. they did a superb job of leading us in worship and i throughly enjoyed hanging out with them. lamont (the lead singer) and austin (the drummer) are both very passionate about social justice issues – especially modern day slavery in southeast asia and eastern europe.
we got rid of the polaroid scavenger hunt that we had done in the past and instead went to a wild goose chase on l.s.u’s campus. it went very well. the kids were completely worn out and we may need to shorten it just a little next year.
i need to work on improving the student center sound system. we had to borrow some equipment from the ring and the stuff we borrowed was junk we should have had already. in the future i will add a 31 band graphic equalizer (i’m considering the behring FBQ3102 and the dbx 231) a compressor or two (i’m looking at the behringer mdx 2600 and the dbx 266xl), and a few other sound system nic nacs.

March 14, 2005

march madness

one of the greatest times of the calendar year arrives this wednesday – march madness. last year we setup a bracket system for anyone involved within the youth ministry to participate within. i figured i would do the same thing again. if you are interested email me and i’ll send an invite to you. you will have to register with cbs sportsline but they’re very good about not bothering you. you can view our “brackets’ at http://the-view.mayhem.sportsline.com/brackets.

of course, i’m not really sure that there is any need for anyone to fill out their brackets because last year i throughly dominated everyone else. here’s my bracket for this year:

March 14, 2005

this is absurd

about 6 weeks ago i was given a ticket by a sheriff’s deputy for not having an inspection sticker on my truck. i deserved the ticket so i don’t really have a complaint about that (though the deputy was not one of the nicer law enforcement agents i have ever met – most of whom are usually very decent people). today i went to the east baton rouge parish court house to pay the fine. i was amazed to find that the fee was only $20. of course, that’s not what i actually paid, nope by the end of the day i had paid $127.25 only $20 of which was for not having an inspection sticker. the other $107.25 was other fees that were supposed to be some how connected to the cost of my ticket, such as $77 for court costs (which if i had actually gone to court would have made a little sense), or $10 for jury compensation (i’m not real sure how they fit a jury into the very small room that the clerk was in but since i was charged for it i’m sure there must have been a jury somewhere in the room), or $2 for the supreme court (i must be more important than i realize since the supreme court sits in on my traffic tickets). my actual fine for driving without an inspection sticker was a mere 1/5 of the additional costs placed on the ticket.

something is wrong with this.

March 14, 2005

stanley grenz

you’ve probably heard this by now from several different sources but i figured i would add my memory to the collective consciousness … stanley grenz has gone home. i loved his writing and was really impressed the one time i was able to meet him. i was in seminary when allot of grenz initial theology of community started coming out. he came to campus for a lecture series. after his message grenz came to the systematic class i was in at the time and spoke for awhile longer. after that i and tons of other people gathered around to hear still more. it was pathetic because we were all just trying to meet him. i was most impressed that he put up with it all. since that day i have continued reading his stuff and being challenged by it. he’ll be missed.

March 14, 2005

it’s over

the dnow is over now and i just woke up from sleeping. i went to bed yesterday at 3:00 p.m. and woke up today at 11:00 a.m. quite a nap! anyhow, i just want to publicly say “thank you” to everyone who was a part of making the weekend happen. the host homes, home leaders, random support people, and jessica and alan gave up a whole lot of energy and time and i for one greatly appreciate it. we’ll soon start discussing plans for next year’s discipleNOW.

now i’ve got to start catching up with all the normal stuff of life that i missed this weekend. for one my blogliines rss reader is full of new blog entries that i have to catch up with. i started out with 350 unread entries this morning and i have finally twiddled it down to 121 unread entries. of course, these entries are from the people who typically write long entries.

if you are wanting to view the videos from the weekend again here they are:

you’ll need realplayer to view the videos.