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y..e..l..l..

this morning the fam and i went to see noah play a flag football game. noah was great (here comes the proud parent routine) – he caught a kick off and returned it, made the only pass reception of the game, disrupted a possible interception, and did a tremendous job blocking. the best part was enjoyed the game, which hasn’t always been true.

this game pam, adam, and i sat closer to the cheerleaders than we have ever done before. i had never understood how much entertainment we had been missing by not sitting by the cheerleaders. the group is composed of girls in second and third grade who have no actually connection to the team. they are a cheerleading squad who merely picks one team to cheer for each week. the other team is merely left without cheerleaders – left to wonder why life has so greatly rejected them and why no one wants to cheer for them. i’m not sure how they decide to cheer for each week – maybe it’s which ever color rhymes with their cheers better, or maybe it’s a coin toss, but a decision is made and that decision determines which teams gets the support of the 7 to 8 girls who have come there to cheer.

of course, this random selection apparently throws the cheerleaders off every now and then. this became apparent by the fact that every now and then the girls would forget which team they were cheering for. so one cheer which went

    y.. e.. l.. l..,
    y. e. l. l. everybody yell
    go green, go green, go green! (noah’s team color)

by the end of the cheer the girls had forgotten which team they were cheering for and thus “green” was left out of the cheer and replaced with “who are we cheering for?”

as you can tell these girls were really into the ball-game and their spirit lifted everyone up in to the fervor of what is second and third grade flag football.

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do i offend?

i love tony campolo and mike yaconelli. it was a very sad day when yaconelli died. part of the reason i love what they have said is because they constantly challenge me. they force me to rethink things and i appreciate that greatly. of course, during the process of looking at things from a different prospective and considering why we as CHRISTians do and/or believe things they often end of ticking people of (sometimes i’m one of those people who are ticked off). i’m okay with this because i understand it’s part of what they do and i believe i know their hearts and the care and concern they have for followers of CHRIST. they’re goal is never to just make people mad – instead they point out something wrong and then have options for making it right. they offer answers rather than just causing controversy. they have earned the right to “tick” people off because they have and do care so much for those who follow CHRIST. they don’t say things just to tick people off. instead, their controversial statements are always a part of brokenness and sincere desire to follow CHRIST better.

so here’s the point i have been leading up to – recently i’ve been running into more and more youth ministers who seem to enjoy being at the center of a controversy. sometimes it seems that they make statements just to tick people off. there doesn’t seem to be a real purpose to the statements other than causing an argument that the speaker than can the respond by saying how “sometimes it’s hard to hear the truth.” they get to be a “rebel” and feel like their standing against something but their actually just “rebels without a cause.” they want to be campolo and yaconelli but they never have answers. they have the ability to tick off people but nothing to offer past that. oh this makes me furious.

of course, the worse part of all this is that i find myself doing the very thing i hate.

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when bad things happen to people who deserve them

i don’t wish bad things to happen to anybody but i have to say that i laughed real hard when i heard about ashlee simpson’s vocal track / lip synch mess up on saturday night live. if you haven’t seen it here it is for your viewing pleasure. i really don’t wish ill towards celebrities who posses very little real talent (a group of which i believe ashlee simpson would be a part) but i do enjoy it when it is shown for all to see how little talent some professed celebrities actually have. that’s what happen saturday night.

of course, the best part is that ashlee simpson has previously addressed the issue of lip-synching by saying the following:

“i’m totally against it (lip synching) and offended by it,” she said. “i’m going out to let my real talent show, not to just stand there and dance around. personally, i’d never lip-synch. it’s just not me.”

none of this really matters. ashlee simpson will still be able to lip-synch all over the place and be a celebrity, have her photo taken constantly, and be allowed to talk with authority about things which she actually has no idea about. teens and pre-teens all over the world will still think that she is incredibly talented, has her life all together, and will want to be like her. it’s just nice every now and then to see that no matter how many people brag about the emperor’s new clothes there’s really nothing there but a naked old man.

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sabbath retreat

i’m beginning to work on a sabbath retreat for my students based on the sabbath retreat that youth specialties stopped doing earlier this year. right now i am just planning this thing out. i’ve never done anything like this before and therefore i have ben hoping to find other people who have done retreats like this and use their experience but it appears that very few others have done this type of retreat either. a few people have helped with some suggestions and i have found two resource websites that i believe will be truly helpful – the youth ministry and spirituality project who used to head the sabbath retreats that youth specialties put on and practicing our faith put on by the valparaiso project on the education and formation of people in faith.

here is a list of what i am hoping to do during the retreat as of right now:

  • journaling – each person will journal 30 minutes a day
  • cooking – each person will participate within the meals of the day
  • digital photography – each person will be responsible for going and taking pictures of something they see that amazes them – these pictures will then be shown to the group and described.
  • a group movie each night – this will then be discussed for spiritual meaning.
  • quiet & solitude – each morning will be started with solitude. we will have to teach the kids how to do this.
  • reading – each participant will have to bring one book that they simply want to read – it can be for no other reason than simply enjoying the book – not for personal growth or school.
  • large group study through the lost sheep – similar to what I did with the youth ministry staff and what mike yaconelli did during the spiritual formations conference.
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i can’t believe i don’t know this stuff

i’m pretty sad and pathetic when it comes to this blog – software-wise. last night i finally learned how to add a little padding around the images that i place within this thing. for those who don’t know what padding is i’ll explain. padding is the space around your image that keeps the text from being right up against the image. adding padding to the blog is real difficult. you have to add the line “img pad=’10px'” to the blog. real difficult huh? it took all of ten minutes and that’s only because i didn’t know what i was doing. if i had of known it would have taken 45 seconds.

i’ve been doing this blog for over a year now (an eternity within a world of blogs that usually last two months) and i still don’t know much else than how to type in the text. i would change this whole thing over to “movable type” if i actually knew how to transfer my old entries into it and how to set up movable type in the first place. movable type is supposed to be better and would allow me to use “blogging software” to update the blog without actually going to the blog and also allow me to use “rss” to check the other blogs i read. of course, i don’t know how to do this nor do i even know what “rss” is so it appears that i will be stuck with bblog and reading the other blogs manually.

it’s sad that i really used to be a sort of computer geek (my dad and brother have always been bigger geeks than me – and bigger computer geeks too!).

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drawn to me?

for some reasons i always end up in conversations with people who are homeless. tonight i had to go to our local chevron to get some air in my front, driver’s side tire (i go to this chevron because they have free air and water unlike most of the other fuel stations around us). while i was pumping up the tire a heard someone say, “hey, what’s your name?” when i looked up there was a guy that i assumed was homeless looking across my hood at me. i told him my name and and asked his – it was “mack.” well, mack started asking me for directions to highway 61 and the best way to get to la place, louisiana. after, discussing that for a minute or two he asked if i was heading that way. i wasn’t (don’t worry mom i don’t give hitchhikers rides) which he said was good because i shouldn’t pick up hitchhikers anyway. mack then began to tell me the story of why he was trying to get to la place. mack used to work on a ship’s crew. he hit some bad luck and made some poor decisions and life went pretty sour. he’s now trying to straighten things out and has the possibility of a crew job in la place. so we talked while i pumped up my tire and then talked a little longer. i then bought him some coffee and wished him luck. mack went back over to his tree that he had been sitting under when i arrived and sat down in the dark.

i don’t know why but i regularly have conversations with homeless guys in public places. this is fine by me because i like people who just so happen to be homeless – this is why my family and our youth ministry have a strong relationship with the beautiful feet homeless ministry of fort worth, texas. still i seem to have an unusally large amount of interactions with homeless men and women in public places. i think that if i got four other middle-aged, white guys and formed a 5 person caucasian line up for one homeless guy to look at that he would come over and talk to me first 9 out of 10 times. you’ve heard of “animal magnetism?” well i have “homeless magnetism.” maybe i smell different from most other people or i dress ratty? i’m not sure, i just know that i draw homeless people.

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go soxs

i’m not the biggest fan of major league baseball but i do get interested in it when the playoffs arrive. if the detroit tigers aren’t in the play-offs (which they never are anymore) i usually just pull for the st. louis cardinals (whom i love from my time in missouri) or the team that i believe has the greatest chance of beating the atlanta braves, whom i despise (this has a lot to do with ted turner and the whole “america’s team” thing – who elected them?). i rarely care about the american league but that’s not true this year though because the red soxs have won me over. i can not believe they have come back in the alcs from three games behind. the past three games have been incredible, full of suspense and excitement. i mean really, tonight we even had police in riot gear on the field. if major league baseball was always this exciting everyone would watch it. i’m sure fox sports has loved this because i am sure that these games have helped their ratings.

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zombie fun

i’m on the tail end side of a cold today -which basically means that i feel much better than i have the past two days but i still don’t feel that hot. so i’ve basically sat around today, slept, and watched video trailers. i can’t really recommend the movie that i’m going to blog about because i haven’t seen it or read anything about it but i can say that if it is as good as its trailer then it will be a great movie. the movie is shaun of the dead and you can find it’s trailer here. unfortunately, sometimes the trailers are better than the movie – i hate it when that happens.

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why do people hate america? – tony campolo’s “church of fools” sermon

why many people in the world hate america.

first, let me say that i love tony campolo. next, let me add that i also love the ship-of-fools website. so it is obvious that i was thrilled when i found out that tony campolo “preached” a message at the “church of fools” that is put on by ship-of-fools.com. campolo preached the following message “why many people in the world hate america.”

in the message campolo suggests that the main reasons that many non-americans hate america is because we have not lived up to our potential. we once were the country that set the standard and every other nation wanted to be like. we stood for freedom and justice. now, we come across as a big bully who is only concern is cheap products and oil.

makes you wonder about being the “city on a hill” doesn’t it?

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the diner table

i’ve read several places that the only common factor that rhodes scholars have is that they typically have been raised eating with their families at a common table – some have said four times a week. i can’t find research on this so i can’t prove it is true and i’m not sure that being a rhodes scholar is the “end all” of life but i do think this common factor points out how important eating together is. you’ve probably noticed similar statements in other media that you have encountered. if you have watched “super size me” or read the book “fast food nation” then you have read and watched similar comments. the family table is beginning to be recognized as an important part of a healthy lifestyle. here are some of the reasons why:

  • the common table encourages us to eat home made food rather than processed food – home made non-processed food is better for you.
  • the common table encourages social interaction – we live in a society that encourages “get and go” eating that has very little social interaction because it is done so fast.
  • the common table strengthens the family – it’s hard (but not impossible) to separate yourself from your family when you are sitting 18 to 24″ away from them.
  • the common table forces us to look at each other – rather than focusing on a t.v and merely being in the same room with each other.
  • the common table slows down life – an incredibly difficult thing to do in our face paced world.
  • the common table encourages eating less fattening and sugary food.

now i know that basically this blog is read by my parents and the only person they have at home is shirley the demonic cat, but i want to encourage anybody else who might read this thing to commit to eating at a family table – if you’re a teen – ask your parent(s) to do this or decided that you will do this for your kids when you have them, if you’re a college student – maybe you should form a “family group” around you and eat together as much as possible, if you’re a young married person – start regularly eating at a common table now so that it will be a habit for the rest of your life, and finally if you’re my parents – then invite that stupid cat to the diner table and maybe she’ll become somewhat less satanic (this would be a true miracle). in this day and time eating at a common table as a family is not an easy thing. of course, i believe the benefits are worth the effort.