Category: personal

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.

hello there faithful participants of this blog style conversation (basically this means my mom and dad). it’s 1:25 in the morning here in baton rouge (ignore the blog time – it’s wrong and i don’t know how to fix it) and i’m posting while doing some last minute work on the d-now that’s coming this weekend. i’m presently looking for pictures on flickr that could convey the idea of freedom. i’ve found some cool pictures but i still need more for the weekend.

anyway today was adam’s birthday. i just think it’s wierd that i have an 11 year old son. pretty soon i’m going to have to live in fear of him figuring out that he could whoop me. for now i can still take him though.

here’s what the worship stations looked like for the view, wednesday, march 9, 2005. the stations were done by rebekah (obadiah) and meagan (micah).

here’s my drawing of what i want to do with this week’s “worship station / welcome table” at the view. we’re dealing with jonah and the table is supposed to symbolic hit on some of what we are going to do.

this week as been a good example of why youth ministry is the greatest of all ministries. i’ve done everything from serious counseling, to message preparation, to relationship building, to coming up with a creative / artistic (slightly) manner of covering the windows of the former “cry rooms” now storage rooms. i’ve worked with teens and adults who are in pain, youth workers, other pastoral staff, janitors & maintenance crew members, and parents. it’s simply great. nothing else compares.

in the back of the student center we have these four huge windows that look into the former “cry rooms” of the church. these rooms are now storage rooms but they still have the glass and you can look into the mess that is in them. i finally came up with the idea of using “the rasterbator” (a program i learned about via a professed agnostic’s photoblog – how’s that for irony). “the rasterbator” takes images, rasterizes them (reduces them to various size dots), and then print the image to whatever size you want on normal paper. we’re pasting the rasterized images in the windows of the “cry rooms.” the image below is what it looks like right now. the thing i like about it is that when you turn the “cry room” lights on it produces a nice soft glow that back lights the rasterbated images.

it’s the week before our discipleNOW and therefore i have a huge list of things that have to be finished.

• finish the video intro for friday night worship.
• finish the video intro for saturday night worship.
• prepare basic outline for summary video that will be shown sunday morning.
• maintain contact and answering questions with the dnow leadership.
• set-up improved sound system.
• set-up borrowed and scraped together improved video system.
• hang a 18′ wide screen from the back wall.
• spend as much time as possible with my family.
• spend as much time as possible with GOD.
• desperately pray that it doesn’t rain saturday.
• enjoy the fact that no matter what i get done or don’t get done amazing things will happen simply because of the fact that those involved within the weekend are willing to look to GOD during the weekend.

i really want to get everything finished. i want the weekend to be amazing from a technical side. yet honestly it is very freeing to realize that even if all the technical stuff flops it will still be a great weekend simply because the people involved within it will answer JESUS’ quiet and persistent knock at the door of their lives (revelation 3:20). teens and adults will begin to follow the way of CHRIST a little better not because of any great thing that i have orchestrated. rather it will be because those involved in the weekend have simply slowed down enough form their overly busy lives to actually see GOD at work and hear HIS voice. it has taken me a long time to realize that even though GOD choose to use me HE still doesn’t depend upon me. it will not be by my effort that anything good happens. instead i am greatly honored to know that GOD chooses to work through my feeble efforts to help with HIS good. ultimately everything is on HIS shoulders. i’m very appreciative of that.

of course, i’m still going to fret about all the stuff i have to do.

SIDE NOTE – a friend and fellow youth minister dropped by today asking some questions about the sabbath retreat we did in january. i’m glad he did, and not just because of the fact that he helped us carry the 18′ long projection screen that i still have to hang. i was glad because it was nice to think back through that weekend. it was a great chance to watch GOD and my youth do something special. anyways, thanks j.t. for coming by. i hope y’all’s weekend is just as amazing.

i hate it when GOD puts me in my place. tonight i wanted to steal an idea from doug pagitt and solomon’s porch and have a group discussion on the scripture that we will use for next wednesday’s view service. solomon’s porch does this each week and they call it bdg. i liked the idea and thought it would work well with the personality of our group. i announced it last night after “the view” and hoped that a person or two would show up since i had not mentioned it before. the plan was to discuss the book of jonah and together figure out some of what GOD wants to say to us from the story.

the problem is that this morning i was asked if i could provide a ride to the group. it was a person that i really thought would be a lag on the conversation. i wasn’t expecting much from this individual and wasn’t really excited about being “stuck” taking him there and back. i don’t know why i’m so stupid. i should have learned from past experience not to underestimate people. hopefully i have learned my lesson this time because the comments my friend added to the conversation were incredible. if anyone was a “lag” on the conversation it was me. my friend was amazing. i’m not sure that i’ve ever understood jonah until now. how can i be so consistently stupid?

monday i posted my drawing of what i wanted our “welcome table to look like for the view, our wednesday night youth worship service. here’s the picture of what happened with the actual “welcome table.” you can’t see it on the picture but the plumb line is there.

the thing that amazed me was the “worship stations” that the youth developed. they were incredible. one teen did hosea and had an amazing station on brokenness and forgiveness. the other teen did shadow boxes of joel. they were both incredible. i was deeply moved personally and so were many of the others who participated in the stations. these kids blew me away with the depth that they pulled out of these things. i can’t wait to see what next week’s stations involve.

of course, part of what got me was the fact that i was expecting less from the teens. i really figured it would take a few weeks for them to “get it.” that’s part of why i did the “welcome table” as a station. i wanted to give them an example. boy am i stupid. they understood perfectly what was involved in the worship stations. i should have never doubted them.

here are a few pictures of the kids’ worship stations. if you follow the link to the flickr photos you can actually see where i have tagged the images telling what is in each image.

last year i resolved to quit playing racquetball twice a week and though it took me 12 months to reach my goal i was finally able stop playing racquetball twice a week this past january (2005). it took me being sick, and then the boys being sick, and then bill being sick but for awhile i was definitely able to stop playing. unfortunately everyone is well now and thus i had to start playing racquetball again. today was the first day.

having not played racquetball in two months both bill and i were definitely a little “rusty.” this showed in the manner in which we played. we went the wrong way, gave up on balls that we could have actually got, and never really hit the ball where we wanted to hit it. i think that’s why bill pegged me with the ball. he hit it as hard as he could and i was only five feet away from him. it hit me dead on my right elbow. i think it probably hurt but i really don’t know.

have you ever accidentally hit your funny bone? if you have then you know the tingling feeling that you get. now imagine someone hitting you on your funny bone with a racquetball at full force. my arm went completely numb except for the overwhelming tingling feeling that kept on going up and down my arm. i had a huge red mark on my arm that was probably very painful but by the time i could feel again the pain from the racquetball had subsided (i think because of course it may have actually never really hurt).

i think bill did the whole thing on purpose. that’s why i decided two things 1)to beat him and 2)to hit the ball as close as possible to him through out the game just to keep some fear in him. it was fun to watch him jump and fun to actually beat him. of course, i still can’t feel my arm.

wednesday we’re starting at “the view” a message series on the minor prophets. it’s really supposed to be more than a message series though because we are going to have experiential stations set up around the room each week walking people through the 12 minor prophets. i stole the idea from jonny baker who did a worship session on the minor prophets that we have since adapted with some help from him. there are nine of us doing this (8 people doing the 8 minor prophets that i’m not talking about). i was so jealous of the fun that they are going to get to do by prayerfully developing a station that i decided i would do one on each of the four prophets that i am talking about (i just didn’t want to miss out). i’m using the “welcome table” that we build each week for basic ministry info as a way to convey the prophet that i will be speaking on. we’ll see how this whole thing goes.

above is the drawing i made in my moleskine of what i want to do with the “welcome table” while i’m speaking amos. i’ll post pictures wednesday of what really happened.

here’s the series of mesages and the stations for each one:

march 2 – amos

station hosea – haley
station joel – julie

march 9 – jonah

station obadiah – whitney & sarah
station micah – meagan

march 16 – habakkuk

station nahum – sergio
station zephaniah – brittany

march 23 – malachi

station haggai – pam
station zechariah – rebekah

i saw this on flickr and thought it was hillarious. the life of a storm trooper is simply not easy.