Category: personal

we did another announcement video last night for the view. click here to see it.

now here’s the rant.

i’m fed up with youth ministers thinking it is cool to trash on the church. it seems like right now it is hip to be disenfranchised with the church. i hear people talk more and more about how they are fed up with the institutional church but not with CHRIST. this then leads to youth ministers complaining about how the church is so broken. i end up finding this in the blogs of allot of younger youth ministers (not that i’m very old – i’m only 36 and have only been doing this since 1989). it seems to me that their posts are basically saying “if only all the church members were as well rounded as i am then it would work right.” their vast experience of two churchs and four years of youth ministry has taught them how screwed up the church is and now they have decided to try and write about it like mike yaconelli. they write in their blogs as the “old sage” about how messed up working in and with the church is and how they have to go accomplish “real ministry” in other ways. they constantly grip about how much they have lost by working in and with the church (and never reflect on how much they have gained). every time i read a 24 year old writing this crap i laugh myself silly.

so i have only one thing to say … “GET OVER IT!”

the church is screwed up! everybody knows that. it’s full of bitter, mean, vengeful, backstabbing, adulterous, stupid, sinning, gossiping, fallen people (of which i am definitely one). these people will hurt and lash out at the very ministers who are trying to help and shepherd them. every CHRISTian should know that the church is full of screwed up people merely by the fact that they are allowed into the community. we are a community of the screwed up.

yet, the church is also the bride of CHRIST and HE is passionately in love with HIS bride. JESUS has chosen to work in and through really screwed up people like we have in the church and sometimes that sucks. but that’s who JESUS has chosen to love and use and therefore because of my love for HIM and my sense of call from HIM i choose to work with and in HIS bride. being a minister means working with and loving difficult people (rob bell refers to them as “human sandpaper”). that’s simply apart of the job. it’s fine and dandy (i like that phrase) to vent every now and then but goodness don’t set your personality around doing that all the time. you’re talking about the bride of CHRIST after all. amazing things happen within the bride of CHRIST and ministers get paid (sometimes at least :)) to have a front row seat for much of it. what could be better than that. we get to see CHRIST forgive and renew the bitter, mean, vengeful, backstabbing, adulterous, stupid, sinning, gossiping, fallen people within HIS. sometimes HE has to forgive and renew us allot of times before we understand how new HE has made us and before we see how much HE loves us.

kind of ironic that i just vented about people venting. 🙂

btw, don’t get me wrong about yaconelli, i loved him. he was a much needed voice within the body of CHRIST. it’s just that it bugs me when “young en’s” try to sound like yac. he had earned the right to speak like that. he had been through years of ministry and hardship and he was definitely still very much in love with the bride of CHRIST. it merely seems stupid to me for 20-somethings to try and talk like that. wait until you’ve “earned (your) spurs” through more than 4 years of ministry before you try to talk like a 30 year veteran. i’m not there yet and thus i’m still learning how this whole thing works.

here are two new videos that i made for our wednesday night youth worship service, the view:

nicaragua mission trip summary video

summe ministry summary video

i hope you find them interesting. we’ve really been able to use the video camera allot more than i had originally thought.

nameless youth pastors

i just ran into this website / blog. i haven’t read everything so i can’t say i agree with everything but i definately understand some of the feelings that are being expressed.

the past three weeks have been confusing ministry-wise. i have experienced some of the most affirming ministry compliments i have ever received and yet at the same time i have been as dissatisfied with ministry as i have ever been.

the “pats on the back” have poured in over the past three weeks. i’ve had parents and students complimenting what we have been doing within the student ministry of parkview. these compliments haven’t just been “oh, my kids had allot of fun at that event” or “my kids really laughed allot the other night.” no, people have mentioned specific things that have brought them closer to GOD. in fact, one student even went to the point of making a powerpoint presentation complimenting me and giving it to me on a cd-rom. every time i’ve turned around someone has complimented what we’ve been doing.

the problem is that i feel completely dissatisfied with where i am at right now because none of the other ministerial staff at the church seem to recognize the youth ministry as important. i seem to always be getting the “i remember when i was a ‘youth director'” phrase. the problem is that i’m not a youth director. i’m not just using the youth minister position as a way to “move up” to another position. this is what GOD has called me to. it is the most important ministry in the world and i wish that some members of the church staff would recognize its value. i love these people. i think the world of them. yet, i’m tired of what i see as a lack of respect. i’m sure that i’m probably just misreading everyone, but it is how i feel right now.

i wish these feelings would hurry up and fade because its hard to remember the “pats on the back” when i’m feeling so defeated.

sometimes youth ministry is the greatest ministry on the face of the planet. other times, it is still the greatest ministry but it simply doesn’t feel like it. august 8th we advertised “crud wars” in the church bulletin asking for donations of “rotten” food that would then be thrown at people. it’s an annual event that i stole from “edge youth” in katy, texas (i would assume they stole it from someone else). anyways, one of the people at the worship service who saw the advertisement decided to send me their “two cents worth”. they placed the following note in the church offering plate:

with so many starving people in our state, you find time to have a food fight. now that’s religion.”

of course, it was not signed. ARGH!

sometimes no matter what you do someone is not going to be unhappy. if this person had actually looked at the food we were throwing he/she would have known instantly that we weren’t stealing any edible food from a starving person. it was all rotten, wasted food that was brought by the kids. nope! it’s just simply easier and safer for her/him to criticize. i hope who ever it is feels holy.

of course, this person never saw the 115 kids who showed up for worship that night. i guess he/she missed the five teens i was able to baptized that sunday. they were probably too distracted by the announcement in the bulletin describing the possibility of food being wasted. or maybe he/she was disturbed they’re plans for feeding the homeless within baton rouge. i’m sure they spend all their free time working for the needy and giving away they’re own food. since, this person is so concerned about the needy i should invited him/her to our next inner city mission trip.

it’s real easy for people to leave anonymous remarks rather than actually making a difference.

the past two days have been boring – which is good because that was my goal for these two days. i haven’t really done anything except stay around the house. therefore, i don’t really have anything fun and exciting to write about. thus i will write about one of my real passions.

now i am definitely passionate about JESUS CHRIST, and i am passionate about my family, and youth ministry, and chili dogs – i have a video that discusses the 100 best chili dog places in the nation and i want to eat at every one. yet after those popcorn would probably be the next love in my life. i know it sounds stupid but i really love making stove top popcorn at my house. no microwave junk popcorn for me. my popcorn has to be made in a “whirley pop” popcorn popper. it the only way to fly. you have to use the right oil – coconut is best – and you need to have the right popcorn – i prefer white popcorn which i think is lighter.

i know it’s probably stupid but i really do love it.

our students, staff, and i got back form our world changers project this past saturday. wednesday at the view i showed the following “summary video” wrapping up the whole event. these “summary video” are pretty easy to do. they really don’t take as much time as you would think.

as much as i love my teens i have to admit that they do not listen to announcements. they are incrediblly reverent and interested once we get started but they ignore everything that happens before we say “let’s pray”. that’s why we have started using video to convey announcements. This week we exploded things (an idea i blatantly ripped off from youthgroupvideos.com. click here to see the video

since the new year i’ve been playing racquetball with bill pruitt so that i could eventually accomplish my goal of quitting paying racquetball twice a week (i had to start playing twice a week so that i could eventually quit playing – this is a goal i know i can eventually reach). over the past couple of months i have been regularly beating him. nothing bad but i have had a running streak of consistently beating him. since, i don’t have much in my life to brag about it felt good to know that i could always fall back on beating bill in racquetball. this has been my conversational “ace in the hole”. anytime i entered a conversation in which people were bragging i knew that i had my racquetball victories to fall back on. they might brag saying “i’ve just discovered a cure for sinus congestion” (a discovery they should be very proud of) but i knew that i could respond with “well, i consistently beat bill pruitt in racquetball”.no matter what someone else was proclaim as great i’ve always been able to declare my wins against my pastor in the adult equivalent of “wall ball”.

this was true until earlier today.

i lost to bill pruitt in racquetball. i could make up a mirade of excuses but the truth is he beat me. sure my game was off, i had a burger king whopper sitting on my stomach, i was dealing with emotional strife, my ankles were bruised, my eyes were blurring badly, my kidneys were bleeding, my dog had just been run over, i had just ended a fight with my kids, and my hairline was receding. yet none of that matters. bill beat me somewhat fair and square. it’s a terrible, no-good, rotten day

for the next two weeks (May 29 through June 12) i’ll be doing the summer youth ministry thing so i probably won’t be updating this blog very often (if at all). i will update i after that with some of the stuff we’ve done and tell you how it went (or how it completely filed – either way works for me).

i’m working on a evangelism video for the end of the summer. i’m going to combine video and pictures of every teen that asks CHRIST to be his/her lord via our ministry during this summer and combine it with david crowder’s “heaven came down” from the lime CD. i want to make it in the “ken burns” style that he uses for his documentaries. i’m convinced that the greatest incentive for my kids to share the gospel will be a reminder of the glory brought to CHRIST through what has already happened. in addition to this, i believe the video will be something thatthe parents of each of these kids will want to have. i’ll write out more details as it comes together.

i got to do a wedding yesterday for a former student. i love doing wedding for kids i love. it’s a priveldge to be asked to be a part of such an important day.