Monday blogger

I think Mondays will have to be when I post, I have to set a time or I will forget. Last night we did a Youth let evening worship. I thought it went well, no major oops and a lot of good drama and music.

I tried to play softball last week and I think I re injured my hamstring, stinky, but the good news was that I found that I can still hit! I am going to a rehabilitation/sports medicine doctor and it looks like that will continue for at least a couple more weeks. It is hard for me to be restricted from running or moving fast. I even like walknig fast.

Last thing, my mother in law is in town, which is good. We get along great and I am thankful that we don't have a weird or difficult relationship. She'll be here for a little more than a week more and then head back to Seattle. So far it has been a good visit, I think we are heading in to DC Thursday.

Double duty

So we just opened up a new website for our students which is set up like a blog too. I am pretty poor at making regualr posts so I am going to have to take it up a notch!
One exciting note is that we are going to get together with my whole family this August at my sister's house in Michigan and just a couple weeks after that visit, we will get together with all of Colleen's famliy for a wedding. We have felt pretty fortunate to have seen our families as often as we have but getting everyone seen and Naomi spoiled all in one month will be great!

Had a parents meeting this past Sunday that I thought went well, nobody threw anything at me and lots of people smiled (but not so much at my jokes). This is a great gruop of students and parents, I'm looking forward to working with them for a long time

Since we last spoke...I pulled my hamstring (lots of bruising too). I hate injuries like this, I rely on my legs for so much. I am supposed to be playing on a soccer team and a softball team and now I am relegated to cheerleader. I am hoping I can be back in about a month, we'll see.

This week we are finishing our interviews for the summer intern. I think we will have decided by the end of the week. I am excited, I have had interns before but not as full time employees. It will be interesting to see how it all works out. Little do they know that they will get a free trip to Hawaii as a part of the package (choir tour).

My bloggin skills are weak, I'll work on building them up for the 2 people who read this blog.

Out Sick

So I had the flu for almost a week. I can't remember having a fever for so many consecutive days. I have been fever free since Sunday but the energy level is still low. I did get some exciting news just before bowing to the flu...the interior design of the youth area at the church is almost finished. Once we get it nailed down we can start work on it. All of the AV equipment is in and set up, now if I could only teach everyone to use it like I want them to...

Egg Hunt

Naomi had 2 egg hunts this weekend. The one Saturday morning featured tons of kids and eggs. Unfortunately she only got 3 or 4 because the big kids really went crazy but fortunately she didn't know it was a competition to see who could get the most. Sunday evening we went to a friends house and did one there too. This time she was a little more eager because she remembered the other eggs had candy in them. Life lesson here? People get excited if there's candy involved.

Samaritan's Feet

Yesterday some students and most of the pastors from church helped with a Samaritan's feet distribution. If you have never heard of Samaritan's feet, here's a rundown: You gather kids in a poorer neighborhood at a church, have fun stuff (games, VBS) for them to do for several hours. You bring in several kids at a time and proceed to wash their feet while sharing the gospel with them. Hundreds of shoes are donated, Nike makes a shoe without their logo that is used as the main shoe, for 30 bucks you can buy 2 pairs to donate. Saturday in DC they gave out 1050 pairs of shoes and at least 700 Monday. At the end of teh day when all the shoes are given out there is a worship service in which teh gospel is shared again and people are given teh opportunity to respond.
On the choir tour this summer we will be doing this, I am excited to see the students learn how to share their faith to a stranger and see how God uses that experience to raise their confidence for sharing their faith.
Phase 1 of the Youth Garage update is finished-the video portion. Next up is the audio, new sound baord, new mics, new snake, etc. The last phase will be putting on a new flooring and getting some new furniture and re arranging it to suit our needs.

Rec Life

By the time summer rolls around and we head out on the choir tour to Hawaii I will either be fit as a fiddle or broken in to little pieces. This month I start playing on our church league softball team and in a seperate soccer league. I am most concerned about the soccer league, it seems pretty competitive and my fitness level isn't where I want it to be. We'll see how it goes. It is really the first time since I started full time youth ministry that I have been a part of a fun/competitive/active sports team. Sports are an outlet for me mentally and physically and I have largely been without that outlet for too long (all the while adding to the spareness of my tire). Overall I am excited to get in to shape and have fun.

Great Job

So far the perks of this ministry position are awesome!. We happen to live just 2 doors down from the church. This means my wife and daughter can visit me any time they want, pretty much. This also means I am the only staff member who can go home for lunch. The other day I forgot something at my house so I just walked home picked it up and came back to work. Unfortunately this housing situation won't last so I can't imagine what it will be like to go back to the sack lunch. I had a turkey, ham or PB&J sandwich with doritos every lunch from 1st through 12th grade, Pretty much has killed my love of sandwiches. Maybe I can spice it up with a Coke.

Church Office

So yesterday we began working on an Office parody, the Church Office. I realize pretty much every youth pastor has this same hair brain idea, but it's new for us. one of the students, Joseph, did the video and we were able to do 3 episodes. It will be interesting to see if it turns out to be funny to other peopel or just to Joseph and I. I also wonder how many episodes we can do without it becoming really lame.

The fallout of NYMC

Like I said, lots of good stuff in the seminar I went to. It was about building and sustaining a healthy ministry. What I appreciated was the depth of detail we went in to from an organizational point of view. The administration of ministry or lack of it can greatly impact the health and sustainability of that ministry. I found that I was already doing lots of the stuff he talked about (which was encouraging, as if I am on the right path) but also gave me some pieces to fill in on the structure part. We didn't talk for a minute about which method of ministry is best or works best, it was a seminar anyone from any style of ministry could have taken and benefited from.

2 things in particular came up and I didn't realize their importance until thinking about it. He said healthy ministries have 3 types of leaders, the camp counselor types (kid magnets), the organizers/administrators, and the architect (vision person). I see my self as the architect and I think we have an administration type in place (Mary, my assistant that does a great job) but I think we could use more camp counselor types. We don't really have many college folk during the school year but we do have a good group of young singles. The second thing that caught my attention was the importance of setting and evaluating goals. As far as I know we don't do that as a staff here but I think I ought to get on it for my own good, even if Mary is the only one to check me on them. I see goals as helping guide me and understand the real priorities we have as a ministry. We'll see how long it takes me to implement these things.

NYMC

Wow. By far the most helpful conference on Youth Ministry I have been apart of (I have been to 6-7 so far). I loved teh seminar format, 8 hours on one topic, rather than the 90 minutes 4 or 5 times in a weekend. In other conferences I found that I wasn't excited about 4 or 5 of their offerings, they don't change them every year, maybe just 1 or 2 new ones. I still found the cost to be prohibitive for bringing a bunch of volunteers along. The session I went to was about building a healthy and sustainable youth ministry. I think every youth leader ought to go to this one 1 time in their "career". Lots of useable stuff without going in to programming. I'll talk more about it later, but just so you know it was awesome.

Forecast

I would love being a weatherman, as long as someone who watches you on TV sees the weather you predict you are gold. Anyone else get annoyed when teh weather forecast covers an area of like 500 square miles? This is especially true with snow and rain, some areas get a ton and some could get none. I think I am thinking about this cause I am traveling Friday and there is supposed to be some freezing rain in Alexandria, Philly and Cincinnati. Normally I wouldn't mind except I can see us getting delayed, especially in Philly. Bad airport for on time stuff, good airport to keep you busy.

Conference

This weekend Colleen and I are going to a Youth pastor/leader conference in Cincinnati. It's called the National Youth Ministry Convention, done through Group Publishing. It's set up differently from the National Youth Workers Convention (done by Youth Specialties) and it's smaller and hopefully better. I have to say that the second time going to the NYWC I was disappointed, not enough new stuff. If I were to go every year I have no idea what break out sessions I would do. So, this year I am going somewhere else, we'll see what happens.

good talks

I had a couple good conversations with students this weekend. I have only been here about a month so I am glad they feel confy enough to talk with me. I really want them to know that I am open to hear what they have to say. Same thing with parents. I don't want to just be safe for students but also for parents, sometimes they hurt for their kids more than their kids know and they could use soem encouragement.

our group

There are students from at least 27 different middle and high schools that are a part of our group. Those schools represent about 75-80 students. Our next big event is DNow, first weekend in April. Looking forward to it, we're talking about purity and playing laser tag. Good combo. Also I think I may have secured a great band for our labor day retreat, Jason Lovins Band. Right now we are looking in to seeing if a couple other churches nearby want to come with us, we'll see what happens

identity

So we are putting together a new identity for the Youth minsitry here and I think we came up with something. When we thought about who we are and what we want to be doing, what we want to be all about it came down to transformed lives. Now Transformers is a good name, for a movie, but maybe not so much for a youth group. What we came up with is Alter[ed]. The idea being that as followers of Christ we should be changed/altered and at teh same time we want to be change agents in the lives of those around us helping them to change/alter their lives. Now if we could just get some ideas on a creative logo...

I suppose it doesn't matter if anyone reads this. I mean who goes around reading other people's journal...um I guess all bloggers. If you just started reading my journal you will get some info on my family, my church, and my work, so basically it will be like everyone elses, except different. Feel free to comment on stuff I say but don't be worried if I don't respond back, how dare you have an opinion about my opinion! Ok but seriously feel free to explore my life and meander through my thoughts.