national gluttony day

anna's victoryalyica's victory

today in honor of gluttony i got to be the chauffeur for my niece anna and alycia (our resident youth ministry gangsta) on their quest to eat the one pound hamburger at “cheeburger, cheeburger.” i had serious doubts about them being able to do this but i was proved wrong. here alycia and anna hold up their pictures of victory. truthfully i got sick just watching them eat that much. i still can’t believe they got it all down.

sing it barry


alan, the assistant youth minister at parkview is speaking at the ring tonight on growing in our love for CHRIST. i tried desperately to convince him to start his message off by asking for the lights to be dimed and playing barry white’s song “can’t get enough of your love” but he is too much of a chicken to do it. it thought it would be a great intro and set the perfect mood. as we all know setting the perfect mood is really important when it comes to love. 🙂

coward #2

garbage
it’s been a long, enjoyable day with my family (both nuclear and extended since pam’s nieces are staying with us for the week) but i needed to take a second to call a coward a coward. another anonymous postcard concerning the drama that is presently going on in our church arrived in the mail today. previously we have had anonymous letters but now someone has started sending out anonymous postcards. the picture above is today’s postcard which as usual has no return address as well as nothing on it indicating where it has come from. COWARD! i hate anonymous letters and anonymous postcards. i took the picture of the postcard after i had thrown it in the garbage. that’s what becomes of anonymous letters and postcards.

evil boy scouts

pouring
today pam, the boys, my nieces, and one of the neighborhood kids went with me to global wildlife in folsom, louisiana. while we were there i heard a story from the tour guide that reinforces how evil the boy scouts are. here’s the story.

awhile back a group of boy scouts went to global wildlife really wanting to see one of the lamas at the park spit. you see lamas spit at whatever they feel is threatening them. it’s one of their defense techniques. the boys scouts really wanted to see this defense and thus they grabbed the lama’s ears, thumped it, hit it, and pulled it’s tail in an attempt to get the lama to spit. eventually they succeeded in ticking the lama off and it began to spit. that’s when the boy scouts learn some new and valuable lessons concerning lamas.

first, lamas don’t actually spit. no it’s not spit that shoots out of their mouths but rather vomit. the vomit stinks and continues to smell for quite some time even after you have tried to wash it off. imagine getting sprayed by a skunk and you’ve got the right smell.

second, the boy scouts learned that lamas don’t spit just one time. no lamas apparently really like spitting at their enemies and thus do it with great vigor. so lamas continue to spit/puke on their enemy until it has run away from them. if the boy scouts had been on foot they could have actually run away from the lamas and thereby ended their vomit dousing. unfortunately for the scouts they were on a trailer being pulled by a tractor and the tractor had stopped at the lama’s spot for everyone to be able to feed them. thus the trailer wasn’t moving and the angry lama took full advantage of the trailer’s stationary nature.

thirdly, the now smelly boy scouts learned that lamas like to defend each other and thus when one lama spits on an enemy all the other lamas join it to protect their friend. so all the other lamas in the area joined the ticked off lama in continually spitting at the now covered in vomit troop of boy scouts.

finally, the rancid scouts learned that lamas are not easily tricked. the scouts sought cover in the only spot of defense they could find – under the bench that they had been sitting on. this meant that the bench was protecting their topside and the canvas tarp on the side of the trailer was protecting their side. unfortunately, there was a small open crack between the floor and the side tarp. the lamas soon found this crack and began spitting through it. by the end of the trip the boys scouts had learned not to mess with lamas.

6th grade kidnapping

over the past few years i have had the feeling that each year i haven’t done a good enough job of connecting our new 6th graders with the youth ministry. they’ve always seem to come around when they were in 7th grade but i just haven’t been able to get them into everything while they were in the 6th grade. this year i want to things to be different. so the youth staff came up with the idea of “kidnapping” the 6th graders for the first wednesday night of the summer. we sent letters out to their parents explaining that we wanted to come pick up their kids and make a big deal about their first night within the youth ministry. the parents were on board and we were excited. all we had to do was actually kidnap the kids.

so here’s what we did:

  • alan dressed up (somewhat against his will) like the “old man” character from the six flags commercials.
  • we got a school bus and loaded it with youth and signs bearing the 6th graders’ names.
  • we drove up to each spot that the kids were at and picked then up with blaring music (“we like to party” by the vengaboys – the six flags commercial music) and alan dancing – it drew quite a few stares.
  • we then brought them up to the student center for ice cream and hamburgers.
  • we had a “sixth grade advice” video made for the evening.

the results have been pretty good. thus far everyone who has responded has had very positive things to say concerning it.

donut day

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it’s “donut day” according to our local krispy kreme store. so go celebrate by buying a donut (or getting one free at krispy kreme). i actually prefer meche’s and jay’s donuts to krispy kreme but anytime a donut is free it tastes wonderful.

sixth grade kidnapping

the individual signs
thanks to everyone who came out and made the “sixth grade kidnapping” a fun time. i appreciate those who helped make signs and rode on the bus to help make our new sixth graders feel welcomed and comfortable within the student ministry. you are all great people and i appreciate you.

the signcatherine6

the view – june 1, 2005

tonight we “kidnapped” our new sixth graders (i’ll describe that when i get home in about 30 minutes or so) and brought them to “the view” (our wednesday worship service). i’m trying to do a better job of connecting our new sixth graders in the group. i don’t really feel like i’ve done a good job of it in the past.

we made two videos for tonight: 1) for announcements and 2) for a fun introduction for our sixth graders. they’re real rough since i had only an hour and a half to make them in.

dance party u.s.a.

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all of us in the youth office (along with lauren g. & laura p.) were working on “the view” for tomorrow night (the first official night for our new sixth graders) when jessica & jonathan broke out into grooving. i’m not sure i will be able to sleep tonight because of the nightmares of their dancing.

trinity service

jonny baker mentioned on his blog home’s trinity worship service. i wish i had seen it before we did our service on the trinity.

SIDE NOTE – if you are involved in creating, directing, and/or organizing times that lead to people worshiping GOD then you should actively read jonny baker’s blog. he regularly creates and find the most amazing stuff.