tonight at the view we are commissioning one of our own to go to nicaragua for a month and work with our friends there in spreading the good news of the kingdom of GOD.
here’s the flash file that i’m using to open our discussion on acts 13:1-3
the general lee
wether you are a “dukes of hazard” fan or not you have to be impressed with the stunt driving within this video. it’s pretty impressive.
just click here to see the video.
mohler on public schools
here’s what southern seminary president albert mohler says in his commentary article “needed: an exit strategy” concerning how souther baptists should respond to public schools:
I believe that now is the time for responsible Southern Baptists to develop an exit strategy from the public schools. This strategy would affirm the basic and ultimate responsibility of Christian parents to take charge of the education of their own children. The strategy would also affirm the responsibility of churches to equip parents, support families, and offer alternatives. At the same time, this strategy must acknowledge that Southern Baptist churches, families, and parents do not yet see the same realities, the same threats, and the same challenges in every context. Sadly, this is almost certainly just a matter of time.
i have a friend who is a fan of mohler so rob please forgive my comments on your future seminary president. anyhow, mohler’s statements are stupid. come on. do we really need to pull even more into our little “CHRISTian” ghetto? more and more we pull into ourselves in an attempt to “protect” ourselves from the “evil” influences of the world and thus more and more we have absolutely no effect on bringing new believers into the kingdom of GOD.
wouldn’t it be a great thing if the southern baptist convention resolved to become increasingly involved within the public school system to help correct it’s problems? i guess that probably won’t be considered very strongly.
when you die
i once heard someone tell a story of hearing a preacher tell a bunch of college kids the following:
when you were born you cried and everyone else was smiling. the question you have to ask yourselves is if you have lived such a life that when you die you will be the one smiling and everyone else will be crying
friday, i went to the funeral of my uncle david (actually my great uncle david). it was obvious to me at least that he had lived such a life – a life of meaning and purpose. the room was full of people who were truly thankful for the part that david played in their lives and were going to miss him. it wasn’t a small funeral. the room was packed. it wasn’t packed because uncle david was a celebrity or a person of importance or note. it was full because david had consistently lived out a life that was faithful.
i’m sure david was smiling friday and i know that there were many people in that church auditorium that were crying.
emergent?
i really wish that there was a group in baton rouge like worship freehouse or grace. there may be one but i’m unable to locate it. it would be nice to regularly get together with some people who are dealing with the same mental struggles that my wife and i are. it would be nice to hang out with some people who are struggling through what it means to be the bride of CHRIST.
good dog
friday i had to drive from coosa county, alabama to kiln, mississippi to be with adam during the parent night of the boy scout camp he had been on. along the way i decided to stop and get a diet coke. i stopped in a really small area of mississippi. one that had a real “deliverance” feel to it. i stopped at a convenience store and walked in to get my desired drink.
have you ever noticed how sometimes you can just sense that something is a little different a person? you may not have had any conversation or interaction with a person and yet for some reason you know that that person is going to be interesting in a weird sort of way. i love those people. you always get the best stories out of them.
well the 20-something year old cashier at this store was full of that “interesting person” vibe. i knew the second i saw her that should would be an odd person to be around. i grabbed my diet coke and walk up to her and made a little small talk. she calculated what i owed for the drink and told me the price. i paid her and started to turn to leave. that when she said to me “now go be a good puppy.”
i guess some of y’all may have had this statement made to you but i haven’t. i’ve never really be trained in my life to know what the correct response to such a statement is. so i did the only thing i knew to do. i stopped, turned around, and stared at her in complete confusion. i guess i figured by looking at her i would be able to determine what in the world she meant. i couldn’t. so i just kept on staring. the cashier apparently noticed my confusion and thought that i had merely not heard her. so she started to say the statement again but this time she waved the back of her hand at me like she was shooing something away. she waved her hand and once again said, “now go be a good puppy.”
i still didn’t know what to do. in fact, at this moment i still can’t figure out what the correct response to such a statement is. at that time i just turned back around and walked out of the store figuring maybe she was reminding me not to pee on the floor. all i know is that i’m trying to be “a good puppy.” whatever that means.
happy father’s day
for some interesting reading on father’s day go to this wikipedia entry.
after you read the history of father’s day go and treat your dad nice. it’s the right thing to do.
SIDE NOTE – i just set up a yahoo group for the student ministry. i want to see if it works as a good tool for spreading word about what we do. if it works we’ll keep it and if it doesn’t we want. if you want to join and help figure this thing out just click the link in the side bar of the blog.
messed up biblical characters
this week the church has been holding it’s v.b.s. and as a part of that some of us within the youth ministry office were asked to dress up like biblical characters and be a part of some skits. here are a few pictures. now i ask you – have you ever seen scarier looking biblical characters? surely none of the great heros of my faith looked like this.
God’s given me a gift. I shovel well. I shove very well.
it’s strange how GOD answers prayer. for at least the past year and a half i have been praying, and wanting, and desiring to split our student ministry into a middle school and a high school group. we average 70 to 100 kids on wednesday night and it’s not the usual mix. instead of being about 55 to 60% middle school and 45 to 40% high school we are always more like 60% high school. each year we loose middle school students and gain high school students as the year goes on. it has been obvious to me that we are doing something right for high school students, but something that doesn’t connect as well for the middle schoolers.
but here’s the issues. our church has this butt kickingly large private school that uses ever other part of the church on wednesdays till 6:00 p.m. and we start our worship services at 6:00 p.m. so for the past year and a half i’ve been talking about the need to split our group but unable to figure out a place to have a second group. that was what was going on until yesterday. this week is our v.b.s. and the student center is being used by one of the groups. in the past i have taken down all the v.b.s. decorations and then put them up after we were through. i wanted to do something different this year so we moved to the stage that is in the new gym area. we closed the curtain on the stage and it became another room. in fact, it became a very cool room. it had a real “beatnic” feel to it. on the stage we had the following:
- directable par64 stage lights & colored floods.
- a projection screen that covered the entire back end of the stage.
- room for 70 to 80 chairs.
- drapes all over the place.
- a thick sound dampening curtain on the front end of the stage (which we used as the back of our room).
- a pace that is actually acoustically better than our present student center.
on top of now having a room that would be great for an additional service that room is located right next to a full gymnasium which gives us a great place to do some games and expend the energy that is coursing through the veins of our middle schoolers. it’s perfect for doing a separate middle school service. in fact, i got so excited about the whole thing that i have already asked our adult leadership to begin praying about the possibility of the whole thing and i’ve called 5 out of the 7 people that i will probably need to talk to in order to make it happen. after a few weeks of prayer if things still look good we’ll move to doing a test run sometime in august or september. we’ll try the whole thing out for 4 to 6 weeks and then get everyone together to see how it went. then we’ll either test the whole thing again, scrap it, or put it into action.
so here’s the plan as of now:
- pray and pray some more – prayer has led to this option (an option i thought was impossible a mere month ago) and prayer will lead to it’s answer.
- gather the leadership necessary for this to work and get them caught up in the vision of reaching our middle school students in a way that is new to us.
- gather the resources needed (sound system, video system, computer, game supplies, etc.) we have allot of this already.
- organize the whole thing – this service would need to run like clock work and have everyone involved in the leadership of it on the same page.
of course, i have some strong fears about this thing too:
- i fear the group growing. i know i’m supposed to want the group to grow but truthfully growth means that i don’t get to be involved in each kid’s life and i hate that. a wednesday night that becomes more attractive to our middle schoolers and really meets their needs probably means that we will draw more youth. this is a good thing but also means i head even more down the path of being an administrator. i don’t like that path.
- while two groups will eventual lead to two more connected groups it does initially mean that there will be a feeling of disconnectedness. we’ll go from being all together to being separate. a group that used to be one will become two. that’s got to feel weird.
- i’m scared of organizing this whole thing. because of the time crunch of using the stage everything at the beginning will have to be mapped out to perfection. there are allot of details that have to be mapped out and that scares me.
i guess that’s all for now. i’ll write more on the move to a middle school service if GOD leads and the whole thing develops.
open wide
how cool is this? i just posted this picture automatically from flickr. i’m able to do this on my blogger site (a ministry blog that discusses the details of what we do within the youth ministry) but until now i haven’t been able to do it on this blog. yet, another cool advantage of the new bblog code. again, how cool is that.
btw, the picture is the photo on my flickr site that has been “favorited” the most (in other words, it’s the top picture from all my photos that has been marked the most as one they want to remember).