It has been a long while since I posted, I have so much to talk about but it is so crazy making the transition to the school year. I keep adding more and more to my plate and then personal things are coming up so it just eats the time I have for posting. If I can get back into a rhythm I'll probably have a couple months worth of blog fodder easy.Anyways, I want to talk about something I briefly mentioned on twitter yesterday. A free yard sale. Now some kind and well meaning people (Candy Steele) told my I was a moron for trying to do something like that, and she also insinuated that I need … [Read more...]

I'm not one to do things the same two weeks in a row, but there has been a more or less standard format to Youth the past few months. It has been pretty successful but I feel like I have a great hang out that 50+ teens enjoy coming to on a regular basis without any real change for their lives. I believe a large part of that is that they aren't interested in change. I can't do anything but pray for that, but another big part is that they are largely ignorant.They don't know what Jesus is all about. I have done my best to teach them, but the format isn't really conducive to learning. We … [Read more...]

The end of summer is at hand and the school year is right around the corner. This summer was very busy, but lots of fun. I am going to miss it. I have applied to be a substitute teacher and I am on a couple of new boards plus a new business I am a partner in. I have a fall kickoff coming up and I am making some major changes to how things are going. The plan is to make Saturday nights look more like what Wednesday looks like now and to make Wednesday more discipleship oriented.Things are really moving right along and it is easy to get overwhelmed by everything there is to do. I think … [Read more...]

Katdish would probably come up with a really funny title for this post, and then promote it until a publisher decided to pick it up just to get some peace and quiet, but last I looked I wasn't an ADD half Japanese Texan female so …Anyways, I wanted to drop in a quick update on S. She went home after camp and honestly I was worried for her. Camp is a great place. I think it is pretty darn close to what happened when the 3 amigos saw Jesus transfigured on the mountain top. They wanted to stay there forever but Jesus told them they had to get down to where the people were. I get that. I … [Read more...]

Did anyone notice I was gone? Yeah last week was camp and so I didn't have any access to the interwebs. I like saying that word because it makes me laugh to think of people saying it for real. Anyways, camp was pretty frigintastic. We did our own small camp we called "Camp Unity." We did hiking and played some fun games, but more importantly we had some great teaching, preaching, and testimonies. The day was broken up very well. We had breakfast morning devotions and session 1 before lunch. That allowed a good amount of free time for just hanging out. I think that is pretty important. … [Read more...]

Wow, I didn't realize that the guest post would be up over at Stuff Christians Like. I have been a real slouch about getting my regular posts going here for the summer. Actually that is a great tie in for what I wrote over at SCL.Basically a lot of people think that being a pastor is a one or two day job. Not even full days when you think about it either. People that know me wouldn't dare ask "so what do you do when it isn't Sunday or Wednesday?" Well they wouldn't ask that with the idea that I don't have a million things n my plate. I do get the question quite a bit though so here is a … [Read more...]

I have been a bit overwhelmed the past few weeks. There is so much going on with the summer and everything and it is exponentially worse with a bunch of other things that are happening in the church and my life. In the middle of that God chooses to teach my some amazing lessons about forgiveness. A couple weeks ago I preached a sermon on forgiveness. It was youth night and I used the parable of the unmerciful servant. I need to get caught up on the backlog of CDs so I can upload it.I have been trying to get internet down in my youth building for sometime now and recently purchased a … [Read more...]

This was game night Wednesday. The last week of the month we play games all night. Usually the games are messy and even a little mean. I enjoy it and the students tend to have a great time. I decided to play outside the box tonight. Everything was pretty well mental but not a straight up trivia test or anything boring like that. I started with 9 volunteers then thinned the heard over a couple of games and finished with a classic outside the box exercise. Call a friendThe first game required volunteers with cell phones. This was most of the Youth but I got 9 up front and then asked for … [Read more...]

I got this from one of my students. It is a really neat idea and I thought I'd put it up on my blog. (My comments are in parenthesis like this)ok this is something my professor did today and it really made me think.. lets say that there are 16 main values a person can have.. they are: freedom, fun, faith, positive attitude, leadership, knowledge, integrity, respect, accomplishment, family, money, friendship, service, empathy, influence, and love..which one value would you give up to keep the other 15? pretty easy stuff....(ok so try it out. Of those 16 values which do you think it least … [Read more...]

Two post Saturday. Yes for all the times I miss you get a bonus post today. I really need help here so please comment with your thoughts though.I work with a ministry that I really love outside of my church. The ministry is "UNITE" and is about bringing youth ministries together because we can do more together than we can apart. It really is more than what we can do though. We have done several events since we formed last year and things are moving much faster than we ever dreamed it could, but the real heart of this is that we are one body.I feel that we often miss it when we read "The eye … [Read more...]