Month: February 2005

Cool lunch
One of the nice things about living in Detroit is being near the auto industry. I am not a “car guy” but I do like to find out what the people here are into… And cars are #1 with the men of Romeo.

Today I had a chance to have lunch with one of my tremendous LF volunteers and also take a look at some of what he does. I can just summarize by saying, I had no idea.

After lunch
After we enjoyed some classic greasy spoon food on Van Dyke, we headed over to the Warren Campus of the GM Tech Center. This is a true campus… Massive. A mile square at least.

I checked in and got my handy ID badge. From there we had free reign to check out what amounted to a GM Chop Shop. All throughout the building were areas that took apart car or tested their cars. I guess I expected to see a lot of this. They also mock up new cars in the same building, but there wasn’t any of that going on now. I did get to see the new Hummer H3 and a few other new things for 2006 and beyond. Perhaps most impressive to me were the cars they are working on using hydrogen cells. At auto shows you get stuck way behind these things, but at the Tech Center I got to kick the tires a bit.

The only other thing that struck me as odd, but as I thought about it made perfect sense. GM buys their competitors cars, tests the tar out of them, and then takes them apart (completely) and studies each part. Such as, my friend designs the seats for GM vehicles. So he looks at every seat in all the cars on the market, worldwide.

Overall
This was a fun trip for me. In a lot of ways, I have no idea what I was looking at. I am sure in some ways I saw things that were private or at least not released to the public yet… But I was just in awe of the whole thing. From now on when I drive by the Tech Center… I will have a new respect for what they do.

Yesterday, the church voted to bring Bob Bryant on as Senior Pastor at Romeo. He will begin officially on March 1st, 2005.

I don’t want to express all of my feelings about this. It is a great relief to have the search over with. It is a bigger relief to have the man in place that I have wanted in place for about 6 months.

Perhaps the biggest ting gained yesterday is that the church can get back to the business of reaching this community. Hopefully, we can stop all the in-fighting and politicking and go about reaching the 30,000 residents of Romeo with the life changing message of Christ.

Someone said to me yesterday, “No one is probably more relieved about this than you are.” That isn’t the case. I am openly happy about the move, but I am still Leary of the reality that most associate staff is rolled over the first 18 months of a new senior pastors tenure. It is my great hope that this won’t be the case. I want to be in Romeo for another decade or so… I want to see the full potential of Light Force and recognize that I am only at the tip of the iceberg of my effectiveness.

This morning in Sunday school I am having one of those locker room moments with the guys. I don’t mean that in a sick, sexual way. I mean that in the terms of us older folks as we look back and say, when was it that they pulled the girls aside and taught them all that “girl stuff.” Today is like that, we are pulling the boys aside to talk about guy stuff.

This morning is all about guarding your heart until you find the woman you want to marry. The idea comes from Solomon in Proverbs. But I want to point this out… Because it shows more wisdom than he intended.

As a young leader of Israel, Solomon wrote: (Proverbs 4)
23 Above all else, guard your heart,
for it is the wellspring of life.
24 Put away perversity from your mouth;
keep corrupt talk far from your lips.
25 Let your eyes look straight ahead,
fix your gaze directly before you.
26 Make level [b] paths for your feet
and take only ways that are firm.
27 Do not swerve to the right or the left;
keep your foot from evil.

He says, guard you heart… And to do that put away perversity… Or being perverted.

But Solomon didn’t listen to his own advice
We know this from Jewish history, Solomon didn’t listen to his own wise advice. Look at what happened to him!

1 Kings 11:1 King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter-Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. 2 They were from nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.” Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. 3 He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. 4 As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been.

Kind of one of those things that teaches itself, eh?

This is a pretty cool idea. I have asked to be interviewed by fellow blogger Joshua Michael. He has asked me these questions. If you would like to be interviewed by me and have it posted on you blog and will be glad to come up with some questions just for you. Just put in the comment section ?interview me?.

Here are my questions and answers:

1. What do you think is the most important priority for a youth pastor, other than spending time with God?
I think it is pretty simple but profound. Love the people. I have a self-talk phrase I use, “Love this person for who they are right now, not who you want them to be.”

2. What are three practical pieces of advice you would give a student to be sexually pure?
In our culture, is there a more pressing question for a Christian students. In the last 2 months I’ve heard “Oral sex isn’t sex is it?” and “I don’t like to date Christian girls because, we need to keep them pure, that’s why I date only non-Christians.” from two different students. Here’s what I teach about it.

• Are you fleeing sexual sin? In other words, the question should be “how far can we go before we are sinning?” It should be “Are you fleeing?“
• Is this relationship (hook-up, hang out, friends with benefits, going out, w/e you call it) uniting or dividing my relationships with my parents and my friends?
• Don’t fall in love. Go out in groups, have fun getting to know each other. But don’t get serious.

3. JR HIGH ministry vs. SR HIGH ministry: Give us plus and minuses for each.

It’s no secret that I tend to favor high schoolers. I wish it weren’t true, but I do.

Plus: Junior highers are more open to talk about their lives. They will also do and try anything. I love their awkwardness and their fast growth! I love that a 7th grader will wear make-up and flirt with boys but still play with Barbie’s! Senior highers can handle so much more content. With abstract thinking coming in… It’s a lot of fun. But I also love that they will always surprise you with something heavy or deep. They teach me a lot.

Minus: Junior highers smell.. It’s just how God created them. They are weird to be around. They will embarrass you as their leader. They’ll want you to pray for their dog right after someone asked you to pray for a mom dying of cancer. Senior highers are secretive, more complex, emotional timebombs, disappointing sometimes, and struggle with adult sins.

4. Do all blogs really go to heaven? What is your theological view on the salvation of blogs?

Thanks! No, all blogs don’t really go to heaven. But neither do dogs. But a lot of bloggers know Jesus and will go to heaven. That’s cool.

5. If you were to visit the “Hoosiers” gym from the movie “Hoosiers” what would you do first? (Note: joshua.michael has visited it before, and I must say it was pretty cool)

Besides shout, “Shooter!” I guess I don’t know. I’ve always wanted to go to Milan… One day I will. I love that movie because of Gene Hackman’s character. He was how I want to be a pastor. He took what was given him and turned them into winners. My favorite line is when he walks into the gym to see all those white boys shooting the rock and he says to himself, “Let’s see what kind of hand I’ve been dealt.” I identify with that a lot in ministry.

I grew up in South Bend and high school basketball was king. My high school team did win the state championship in 94 and I remember it like it was yesterday. I could tell you about almost every game that year, they were special. Those guys were incredible… Put together as 5th graders and played all the way through. Lee Nailon is still chasing his dream in the NBA. When Jaraan Cornell hit a 40 footer over Bryce Drew at the buzzer to go to overtime of the 1994 State Finals… (coming back from 10 down with :52) it’s still one of the happiest moments of my life. I wish each kid in my ministry could experience a high school moment like that.

I still cry at the end of Hoosiers even though I’ve seen it at least 50 times!

The Official rules of the Interview-Game

1. If you want to participate, leave a comment below saying “interview me.”

2. I will respond by asking you five questions – each person’s will be different.

3. You will update your journal/blog with the answers to the questions.

4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview others in the same post.

5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions

6. I will answer reasonable follow up questions if you leave a comment.

Tonight Megan made me proud.

She told her babysitter. “When you fart, you should say excuse me.” But she didn’t stop there. She added, “And if you fart when you are sitting on someone’s lap, you should say you’re sorry.”

Yep, a child of mine.

I don’t know the details, and I refuse to ask anyone. But I do know that a very popular member of my favorite forum got banned today for 30 days. I’ve never met him personally, I’m not in his clique, but I do like him a lot. But I still support the moderators decision… Even if he feels like he got shafted.

In typical fashion of the boards lately, people are responding with their emotions and not with their brains. Experience outweighs all else.

This has got me thinking of stopping my visits again. On one hand I know that over the past 2 years I have contributed some good things. On the other hand, all the in-fighting and time wasting is starting to piss me off.

Sometimes I just want to take a frying pan an knock some of them over the head and remind them that they are adults… Their world does not revolve around a stupid forum. Likewise, simply because they work with adolescents does not give you a license to act like adolescents.

I’ll stop ranting now. I have something cooler to think about.

Since Christmas time I have been selling used books on Amazon.com’s Marketplace. Since then, it has been a slow and steady pace to the sales.

To date: I have made @ $120 for youth missions at Romeo.

All in all, it has been a good experience so far. I have about 200 items currently listed for sale, with about 100 more that I haven’t had the chance to put online yet. The whole thing is quite interesting to me. For one thing, the prices are like 100 Wal*Marts competing against each other. Some of the books (not mine!) are being sold for $.01. Now, there is no way that someone is making a profit on that… So they must just want to pay people to take them.

Something I don’t like. Amazon gives books a preset shipping price. For most it is either a credit of $2.24 or as much as $3. But in order for me to quickly get things out the door, I have to pay $3.85 for USPS Priority mail. I know it is my choice to use that service, but the convenience of dropping a book in that cute little envelope is too much. I wish I could just make the amount $3.85 for each item. Don’t even get me started on heavy books. (I get a credit of $2.24 for a book that costs $8 to ship!)

All in all. It’s a great experience. If you’ve got a load of books and you don’t mind it taking a while, there is money to be made.

Last night’s Concert of Prayer & Pizza was incredible. The giggling gals did a fantastic job of leading, not pushing, the students through an experiential worship service. We had tons of junior highers last night and they participated and seemed to really enjoy it.

I can’t wait until we do this again in March. Incredible!

This isn’t a post about being held back in school, though I’ve always felt that it was my 2nd grade teacher who decided to hold me back… I should have skipped 2nd grade and 4th grade. That’s for another day.

Who holds you back from fulfilling your goals?
The honest answer for me is myself. I am my own worst enemy. I struggle with manic-like moments when the simplest things in life seem like huge deals. These trances have held me back from accomplishing some big goals in my life, and even here in Romeo. There are times “when opportunity strikes” that I am too busy or too afraid to act.

I would have to say that every single day I put off something. Generally, it isn’t because I have forgotten… It is because I chose to forget. I chose to hold myself back from momentum and difficult moments or I just plain chose to drop the ball. Those are my choices. My greatest holding back force is me.

Of course, circumstances often hold me back too. But I am enemy #1.

Point to ponder for today.
Today is our churches second day of fasting. We are fasting each Wednesday during lent. Over the course of my day I will be pondering the question: (Among the real and present things that must be done!)

What can I do to combat holding myself back?
Of course… Suggestions are also freely received!

the sign turned out much better than we had hoped once in place. It was a perfect delivery! I am awaiting a call from Bob as he leaves his house for work about 7 AM.