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the “it’s over” blues

ever since college i have had a problem dealing with “big events” being over. in college these big events were my finals. for me each quarter’s finals were an “all encompassing” event. every last bit of my energy and focus went towards them. when i was doing something else (being with my family, going to church, working, etc) then i was focused on finals. it consumed all of my free time. i loved it because it meant i always had something to be working on.

retreats, mission trips, and other youth ministry events do the same thing for me now. when i have a major event coming up i never have to wonder what i’m supposed to be doing. any spare moment can be used in doing something for the event. a better advertising scheme, developing the small group material, determining how to better support my leadership, etc. there is always something to do.

the problem with this is when the event is over. i shouldn’t have alot of free time that i have been used to doing something with. for a few days after an event i am in a sort of malaise while i get used to the normal non-rushed schedule of life without a major event. it happens every time.

the whole thing drives my wife crazy. she sees me get up and look around like there is something to be done and then go sit done again. then i do the whole thing again. surely something has to be done. there has to be something i have forgotten. of course, there isn’t because the event is over.

after a day or two i will actually be able to rest.

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my new favorite show

i have to admit a dirty little secret. i love the reality t.v. show my big, fat boss. i haven’t seen all of the shows so i can’t speak for all their content but the two episodes i have seen have been hilarious. i love the fact that the show’s producers constantly try to throw “curve balls” at the pseudo-contestants within the show. it’s great to see them try to make sense of things and then have the producers change directions on them again and again.

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i haven’t given up blogging!

i just figured that i would make sure all of you know that i have not given up blogging. we’ve been (jessica, alan, and i) hard on the JESUS project retreat that starts tomorrow and that has taken up most of my energy and time over the past three weeks. i will begin posting again after the retreat.

i would like to report that tonight my family and i saw a red hat society at the city cafe. if you are new to the concept of a red hat society then i’ll explain. these societies are basically groups of older women who like to wear clothes that don’t match (i.e red hats with purple clothes) and then parade around in public. i’m not real sure what the joy of being mismatched is but i hope it is a large joy because these women truly seem to enjoy being in front of others with clothes that don’t make any sense. more power to them.

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the JESUS project – plain white t-shirt

i don’t really ever use this blog as a promotional tool for the youth ministry but i figure that there is nothing to stop from doing it and no rule against it so i’m going to promote something right now. november 19-21 is our annual fall retreat – the JESUS project. this year’s theme is “plain white t shirt” and we are going to focus on living simpler lives. randy riggins from clearpoint church in pasadena, texas will be speaking and coby rosson from our henderson, kentucky world changers project will be leading us in singing. it is always a great weekend.

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incredible

my family and i went to see “the incredibles” today and it was great. i love pixar. their movies are consistently great. “the incredibles” lived up to this standard.

as if one movie wasn’t enough pam and i then went to see “friday night lights“. it was a very good movie though the cinematography is so shaky that i thought i would get car sick. it was meant to be shaky and i liked the effect for a little while but it kept going through out the whole movie. i felt like i was on a two hour long roller-coaster.

if you haven’t seen friday night lights it is a movie that’s not so much about football as it is about commitment to sport going awry. all the adults involved in the movie push these 17 year old kids to the point that the kids lose their chance to be teenagers. the adults are all completely wacko. they treat the sport as though it is the only thing in life that matters. personally, i love passionate people. i am constantly amazed by people who commit their lives and energies to reaching a goal. i love college and pro sports because of this. it is a pleasure to see people work incredibly hard and overcome physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual obstacles to achieve their desires. i’m fine with people being fanatical about college and pro sports. in fact i admire some of this.

of course, high school sports are an entirely different thing. it always seems like the fanatics within high school sports are adults who are just trying to push teens to accomplish goals for them. i can not understand parents and adults chewing out coaches simply because the coach didn’t play their son enough or because they didn’t like the plays that were called. i’ve seen it happen. some people take high school sports far too seriously.

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GOD told me to do this

i hate it when people blame GOD for them backing out of their agreements. every now and then i will have a chaperon or volunteer that will tell me that they need to back out of a commitment they had made to the ministry because GOD has told them to. usually, this means that they are quitting a retreat, bible study, or mission trip or maybe they are bailing on a some teaching they had said they would do. the problem i have is that if you dig a little deeper it’s not real hard to find the real reason that they “have to” back out of their promise. maybe it’s a ball game that they were given tickets to, or it’s an event with friends that they would miss if they went to the retreat, or it some other great opportunity that they really want to do.

actually, i don’t have a problem with any of these reasons. i understand that sometimes things are just going to “pop” up and you have to adjust your commitments based on what happens. i just hate it when people blame GOD for their desire to back out of promise. come on, grow a back bone! don’t make GOD look bad by making it appear that HE changes HIS mind all the time. If GOD was the one WHO lead you to say “yes” (because i never take “yes” answers without at least a week of prayer on both my part and the part of the person i have asked) then GOD isn’t going to cause you to bail on that commitment later. i just hate it when people blame GOD for their own decisions.

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the election

i am so ready for the presidential election to be over. the reason for this is not because of the constant press coverage of it. instead, it is because of CHRISTians who continually tell others how GOD has picked their candidate. most of these CHRISTians have been conservative and have told me that it is my CHRISTian responsibility to vote for george bush. i’ve heard CHRISTians say that if you are a bible believing CHRISTian then you have to vote for bush and i’ve heard others say that they have no idea what will happen to the world if john kerry wins the election. this is ludicrous! CHRISTians on both sides (conservative and liberal) have picked their issues and decided that only those issues matter to GOD.

sojouners, a website dealing with faith, politics, and culture has an interesting advertisement based on that. here’s the advertisement.

no matter who wins the election for president of the united states of america GOD will still be on HIS throne. GOD is the only governing authority that i trust and i will place my faith in no one else.

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how to fake being sick

it’s interesting to see what type of internet searches end up linking to this blog. there have been some odd ones in the past. today i believe i have been “googled” for the subject of which i may be the most proud. if you google for “how to fake being sick” (you need to have this phrase in quotes) then this blog will appear on the first page. i found this out by back tracking a visit made from a search engine. we have had guest visiting us on this blog simply to find out how to fake being sick. this whole thing comes from a post i did back in january about the family being sick. it’s nice to know that my writing on this blog has helped people with serious needs. 🙂

of course, it is a little sad that our world has now reached the point that people now have to search the internet in order to figure out how to fake being sick.

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all saints eve

happy reformation day aka happy all saints eve aka happy halloween.

as most of your know tonight was halloween and you may not know this but alot of people like to dress up in costumes and go from house to house begging for candy. it’s an odd custom but people seem to love it. as a kid my family and i loved halloween. each year we would convert our house into the best house in the neighborhood to get candy from. we created a dummy that we would hang with a noose from the biggest tree in our front yard (btw, the dummy was not my dad – HA). our yard was littered with graves bearing dressed up mummies, vampires, and various other ghouls which would come to life whenever anyone passed by them. then we would take our stereos and play sound scary sound effects out of our windows. when i was a kid i was convinced that it was the scariest thing the world had ever seen.

of course, that was looking through the eyes of a kid which also seem to make things bigger and better than they actually are.

when i was in high school at northview high school we had several places that we were convinced were incredibly scary. one of those places was the “witch’s grave.” this was a a tree that had a hole in it and inside that hole were the supposed remains of the witch. the “mythology” around the tree/grave was that hundreds of years ago a witch had been killed and buried in the hole of the tree. her skull was still supposed to be in the tree and if you were truly brave you could reach into the hole of the tree and touch the skull of the witch. of course, it was actually just a dog skull or something similar. it was truly scary when i was 16 years old and it was midnight. so everyone and their momma would drive over the the farmer’s property where the witch’s grave was found and then reached into the dark hole to touch the skull. it was incredibly chilling at the time.

it was even more frightening since the only time i went to the “witch’s grave” we were chased away by the owner of the property. we went to the tree and jumped out to go touch the skull. as we were convincing each other to touch the skull the farmer came out of his house and started screaming for us to leave. if we hadn’t of been convinced by his screaming we were definitely move to action by the shotgun in his hands. the deciding factor was when he shot the gun off in the air. we hoped in our vehicles and got out of their as fast as possible. i’m not sure how scary the “witch’s grave” actually was but i know for a fact that the shot gun was very frightening.

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the fair

this afternoon the terrell family went to the greater baton rouge state fair to experience the wonder and majesty that is the state fair. everyone needs to experience eating greasy corn dogs and then going on the tilt-a-whirl. there is nothing quite like riding a fair attraction that was placed together by a worker making minimum wage. apparently, the fair has standards for the workers who run their rides. these worker standards seem to be as follows:

  • all fair employees who operate rides must hate all kids and barely attempt to hide this hatred. it is even better if you frequently shout at kids for no apparent reason.
  • all fair employees who operate rides must hate all other human beings and barely attempt to hide this hatred. an easy manner in which to display this hatred is to sneer at anyone who ever asks you a question (no matter how good the asked question might be).
  • all fair employees who operate rides must be able to convey to all those who ride their rides that the operators have very little idea how to operate their rides. looking at the ride’s control in obvious dazed, confusion is a great way to make the riders worry about your skill at operating the machinery.
  • all fair employees who operate rides must be more concerned with watching the things going on around them than they are with actually watching their rides. talking on your cell phone is a great way to ignore your ride.

i’m not sure how they test for these qualifications, maybe they give a personality or dexterity test to figure out who would be best in these positions. all i know from my experience at the fair today is that they seem to have done a pretty good job at getting people who meet the above qualifications.