I mispell things!
i absolutely love whoever came up with this t-shirt. it’s brilliant.
i can’t really think of a better more honest invitation to church. i like it so much i’ll probably rip it off … uhmmm … i mean borrow it, while giving full credit to the people who deserve it. 😉 anyhow, i’ll probably use it someday.
sometimes what i have in my mind doesn’t come across well when we actually do it. the above “worship station” is one such situation. wednesday night at “the view” i was talking off of james 4:8 about we believers focusing on one thing. soren kirkegaard says that “purity of heart is to will one thing” and i thought that would make for a great discussion. the message was okay – not great, not terrible. as a part of the message i wanted to set up a worship station in the back of the room to help people to consider what (or more importantly who) their “one thing” was. for me looking at myself in a mirror has always been a challenging thing. for some reason looking at myself for an extended time causes me to have to consider what GOD thinks of me and thus what i think of myself and how it relates to GOD’s thoughts. i was hoping to do a station that held the same effect for others. instead the whole thing came across as boring – at least to me. it just didn’t seem to make it from my mind to actual practice. sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.
SIDE NOTE – i think my mother is reading this blog now (which is fine and dandy but strange because i don’t really think that she would find any of this interesting). she usually reads my other blog. if you are reading this HI MOM!
i read aboutlifeway’s survey of top ten issues facing the church first on steve mccoy’s emerging sbc leaders and i was blown away. here’s the list (developed by visitors to lifeway’s website:
i can’t believe that social justice issues didn’t rate at all. how absurd is it that “leadership” makes the list and “taking care of the poor” doesn’t. what is wrong with us? how can we (southern baptists) ever hope to be considered “relevant” when we don’t fight for the needs of those who have been pushed to the margins of the world? i know we do allot of good in social justice issues (providing food, bringing clothing, etc.) but when do we actual fight for justice? maybe our “prayer” and “discipleship” would improve if we were focused on praying for the things that are important to our LORD and the marginalized are important to our LORD.
pam, my wife, is definitely one of the smartest, most incredible people i know but i am blown away by what i have to admit that she did tonight. this evening my wife, the mother of my children, the one who is presently working on her ph.d. in speech and hearing science at l.s.u., tonight this incredibly intelligent and attractive woman watched “dancing with the stars“. some moments simply amaze to the point of complete shock. this would be one of those moments.
just in case you ever have a desire to see photos involving “the view” or people in “the view” you can see them here. if you are a member of flickr or decide to join flickr you can also add your own “view-related” photos to the pool.
i know this is not a very informative or entertaining post but it is the best i can do right now. if you want etertainment then read eric’s blog entry for today and if you want information go to a news site or something.
our mission trip to nicaragua is july 28th to august 4th. we only have room for a few people and thus it is a “first come, first served” situation. in order to reserve your spot you need to turn in a $100 deposit as soon as is humanly possible. the past two years it has been an amazing trip spent being involved in the lives of some incredible people. i’m sure this year will be even better.
i can not stress enough that if you want to be a part of this week in nicaragua then you need turn in your deposit as early as possible. if you don’t turn in a deposit you’ll come to me saying “oh robert i want to go to nicaragua with y’all” and all i’ll be able to do is say “no nicaragua for you!” then of course, i’ll laugh in your face and push you down on the ground. once you’re on the ground i’ll probably kick dirt in your face and throw rotten eggs on you. it will all be very discouraging and humiliating. i wouldn’t wish that on anybody. so turn in your deposit quick like.
pam, my wife, is definitely one of the smartest, most incredible people i know but i am blown away by what i have to admit that she did tonight. this evening my wife, the mother of my children, the one who is presently working on her ph.d. in speech and hearing science at l.s.u., tonight this incredibly intelligent and attractive woman watched “dancing with the stars“. some moments simply amaze to the point of complete shock. this would be one of those moments.
we tried to take “the nieces” to alligator bayou yesterday for a real louisiana experience. unfortunately, it stormed the whole time we were there and they had to cancel that evening’s boat ride through alligator infested waters. of course, we spent an hour waiting before they actually canceled the ride. during that time we entertained ourselves as best we could. me and noah played “slaps” for an hour.
“slaps” for those of you who don’t know the game is an old school yard game. there are two versions that i now of. in the first version you face your opponent and place your hands face down on his/her upward facing hands. your opponent then tries to slap your hands while you are trying to move them away from being hit. the problem is that you can’t jerk your hands away until he/she actually tries to slap your hands. if you do jerk your hands away three times before a slap actually occurs then your opponent gets a free slap. the second version works with your opponent holding his/her hands together pointing at you. you hands begin against your thighs. you then try to slap your opponent’s hands while they try to remove their hands from danger. the three false jerk rule applies here also.
the beauty of this evening was that i was playing “slaps” against an eight year old. i don’t often have a definite advantage in life but i did in this game. my advantage was that noah had never played “slaps” before. i was older, wiser, and better at “slaps” than my eight year old son and because of that greater level of skill i decided to make him pay for all the times he had abused me. all the times he “accidentally” hit me in places that didn’t need to be hit. all the times he stole my bacon while i wasn’t looking and then tried to play the “i’m your cute little son” routine. oh yeah, he was going to pay. so we played “slaps” and i was going to pop him hard. i had decided that even when he started crying “dad, i don’t want to play anymore” we would continue playing. i would just kept screaming “this is good for you – it will toughen you up!” i was a man on a mission – to beat my eight year old son at slaps. pay back is a pain and noah was about to learn this.
unfortunately, noah stomped me like a stray grape and the backs of my hands are still sore this morning.
still, it was about as good of a way to waster an hour as i could think of.
the above photo is of the pet nutria they have a alligator bayou. he basically sits around and eats dum dums all the time. that was about as much animal excitement as we could get from the soaked evening.
budget crunches suck. our church is presently going through a small budget crunch right now. it’s not a major shut everything down “money crunch.” no, it’s a “let’s tighten our belt” budget crunch. it means that we need to spend less on what we are doing but we don’t have to stop doing everything. those far it hasn’t been a huge deal. i’ve had change a few things that we were going to do (i.e doing a different less costly mission trip, etc.) but i haven’t had to drop anything that we were going to do. until today.
since, i’ve been at parkview i’ve wanted to change the way we use interns. when i first came here i was given two intern positions. the problem with intern positions is that the intern almost always has another thing that has priority in their life (usually school or another job). whatever it is all that matters is that there is almost always something else (besides GOD, family, and their own being) that pulls at their priorities. because of this my experience has been that interns are rarely completely passionate about the youth ministry and often (but not always) what they do comes across as a job that they enjoy doing but not a passion that they have got to express. to a large extent student ministry is my “voice” (“vocation” comes from the latin word “voca” meaning “voice”). what i do is an important part of expressing who GOD has made me and thus i try to pour myself into what we are doing youth ministry-wise. interns are pulled in different directions and it’s hard to get one whose “voice” is youth ministry (mainly because they are just beginning to discover what they “voice” is). that’s why i moved to get rid of the two part time, year round interns positions and instead we now have alan the assistant youth minister whose “voice” is definitely ministry.
with the above paragraph said i love interns – just not for a full year. instead what i would like to be able to do is “hire” 6 to 7 interns ever summer. the difference between a summer and a year is that being an intern for a summer gives you a good taste of ministry. that taste helps a person to discover if ministry is their “voice” or not. that’s the reason that i would like to have 6 to 7 interns every summer – i want to be a part of helping future ministers discover their “voice.” this summer was supposed to be the first step toward that goal. the personnel committee approved 1 intern for this summer with the understanding of bumping it up to 2 next summer. i told them my whole desire of wanting to give kids a “taste of ministry” and they agreed with it and jumped on board. i even had the perfect candidate ready for the positions – a girl that i know would do a great job. the problem is that the budget went south and now the personnel committee has to focus on other things. so they nixed the intern position (because it had not started yet).
i don’t blame the committee – they were doing what they had to do. but it still stinks.
our mission trip to nicaragua is july 28th to august 4th. we only have room for a few people and thus it is a “first come, first served” situation. in order to reserve your spot you need to turn in a $100 deposit as soon as is humanly possible. the past two years it has been an amazing trip spent being involved in the lives of some incredible people. i’m sure this year will be even better.
i can not stress enough that if you want to be a part of this week in nicaragua then you need turn in your deposit as early as possible. if you don’t turn in a deposit you’ll come to me saying “oh robert i want to go to nicaragua with y’all” and all i’ll be able to do is say “no nicaragua for you!” then of course, i’ll laugh in your face and push you down on the ground. once you’re on the ground i’ll probably kick dirt in your face and throw rotten eggs on you. it will all be very discouraging and humiliating. i wouldn’t wish that on anybody. so turn in your deposit quick like.
