Photo by goto10 via Flickr (Creative Commons)“Let’s go watch freshmen arrival day!”
I have a sick sense of humor. But I loved being on campus the day the new freshmen arrived at Moody. And one year I really did take the day off to enjoy the drama and help out a little bit with confused parents and freshmen.
It’s a day full of highs and lows. For incoming freshmen its a huge day when their parents drive away and they have to figure out life without the security blanket. For parents you can tell its a bit rough. Well, not for everyone. But its rough for some parents!
The joke was that you could tell birth order by how many people made the trip.
First born: The whole family came even if they drove from across the country. Mom, dad, and siblings all waited in line for the dorm room keys and welcome packet. Little brothers wandered the courtyard while mom and dad made nervous small talk with other parents. After they get all of their kids stuff into the tiny dorm room, they explored campus a little before taking their child out for one last meal together. They walked, ever so slowly, back to campus. If mom can think of anything they’ve forgotten she will stall it by making a trip to Target. But in the end, before dinner, there would be tears as they drove away. The first born would hold it together at least until the car was out of sight.
Middle child: Typically, one parent made the trip for boys and both came if it was a girl. Since they knew what to expect they would make their child stand in line while the parents unloaded the car. With keys in hand they did the whole routine a bit faster. And the whole thing was noticeably less emotional. They would drop everything off in the room, make a quick run for lunch, and try to get out of their child’s hair fairly quickly. Interestingly, it was usually the child who was left crying on the curb as the parents drove off. Almost in shock… as if to say, “But when you dropped off Chip you stayed a lot longer, you just left me here?” Once a middle child, always a middle child. Suck it up, kid.
The baby: This was an either or scenario. And the truth was that I would just hang out on freshmen day to see how it went. Some families just sent dad. You could always tell this scenario by where dad had parked. He would pull into the visitors lot in the family minivan and park in the 15 minute zone. Immediate loading and unloading only. Dad would get out of the van looking at his watch. He’d carefully unload all of the kids stuff onto the sidewalk while the child raced to go get a cart. Typically, the child would return just as dad was finishing up. The child expected dad to load up the cart and go upstairs… just like they had with the other kids. But dad would look at his watch, then point to the 15 minute parking sign. He’d give a hug to his baby and get in the car. Stunned, volunteers would help the student with her things while dad zipped out of the parking lot, and the child cried. Dad would give one look back and race off with a huge smile. The other scenario was equally funny. Mom and dad would make the journey, unpack the car, give their kid a hug… and hold hands as they basically skipped back to their car. As they pulled away, the windows were rolled down and Barry White was blasting. Something tells me mom and dad got a hotel room nearby… just in case their child needed them, of course. Freedom!
My first freshmen day
I was an atypical freshman at Moody. Since I needed to pay my own way through school, I actually had moved to campus in May of my senior year to start working full time. (I skipped the last 2 weeks of school, then came for graduation.) But about two weeks before classes started they allowed us to move from our summer dorms onto the floor we’d been assigned.
This meant that I was the only one on the 7th floor for two weeks. (Uh, since I had a master key, I confess I moved in a few weeks early. Don’t tell the dean.) Since I wasn’t arriving for freshmen orientation and I was done with my campus job, I actually lost track of which day people showed up. Somewhere in there my RA had came. But he had gone to a retreat and was never around. Essentially, I was by myself on a floor with 16 rooms. It was a big empty space and I’d had fun figuring out things to do in my spare time.
Somewhere in those two weeks it became a habit that I’d not carry clothes to the showers. It was funny as an 18 year old to walk the long hallway to the bathroom naked. Who am I kidding? Given the same choice I’d probably do the same thing today.
So, on freshmen check-in day, I was leaving the bathroom and heading back to my room. I had my towel over my shoulder and that was it. As I went to put the key in my door I heard a gasp. Yup, a first born was checking in down the hall. Mom, dad, and kid sister had an interesting first meeting with their sons floor mate!
Oops.
After that, I got dressed and went through the line to officially check-in. The girl in front of me wouldn’t stop talking. She thought she had met her husband. And I got introduced to the idea of a stalker.
When I’m “on” I have the ability to poke holes in everything. I always see things from another point of view. I can find fault in any system, organization, strategy, person, nation… darn near anything.
My personality is a double-edged sword. Sometimes I see things so clearly and I think, “If things are going to change I need to change THAT.” That’s the positive side of my personality. The negative side is that I am slow to look at myself and say, “Before I can point out the speck in that persons eye, I need to deal with the plank in my own.” Matthew 7:3
So that’s my prayer. When I am anxious for change I need to pause and ask God, “Change my heart, first.“
You might need to click on the image so you can take in the awesomeness of this moment. This couple was completely oblivious.
This was Sunday, early evening, at La Jolla Shores. (The most kid-friendly beach in San Diego, one of the best beaches in California.)
There were families and young children everywhere.
Lisa (former youth group student of mine and retired RA from Grace College) couldn’t resist the cameo. She tried, it was too awesome.
My favorite part of this picture is the kids playground in the background. We’re not talking about a secluded beach spot for a private make-out session… this literally is in the middle of family-friendly central.
They cleaned it up by the time we took this picture. There was a time when she was on top of him. And also a time when when hands were in all sorts of places.
Yeah, it’s weird we took a picture. You never stop being a youth pastor and this is always funny. It’s like a middle school girl farting in the church van. You just find it funny!
It’s been a crazy productive week. Not only in my work life, but also in some fun stuff at home.
Our garden continues to bring us joy as well as an over-abundance of fresh produce. And the recent egg recall has only solidified our desire to get a few chickens and produce our own eggs. With almost a full season of success under our belts we are also looking for opportunities to expand the garden. I have two spots in mind, one in our yard that our landlord/neighbor had strawberries in, and our other neighbor has an abandoned lot with some old garden plots in it that we’d love to sharecrop with.
Yesterday, I pulled out our massive yellow tomato plants. They were producing 5-6 pounds of tomatoes per week and we just couldn’t keep up with them. So I’ve turned off that factory and we’re repairing that area of the garden for another summer planting of something less invasive. (It was nearly 20 feet tall!) I harvested one last batch of tomatoes and we have them laying in the sun today… sun dried yellow tomatoes!
The kids have about 2 weeks left of summer break. We are slowly coming around to the idea that this means we need to start school shopping. The good news, it’s pretty easy at a school where everyone wears uniforms! But, every still needs new shorts, shirts, shoes, and backpacks.
Kristen is officially in the second trimester with baby #3. She’s feeling a lot better as morning sickness subsides. We’re still in denial that we are going to need to buy all that baby stuff again. And my head kind of explodes when I realize that our Passat isn’t going to work with 3 kids. That said, we’re totally jazzed about this baby. Big surprise to us, but we’re going to enjoy it!
Last weekend we upgraded our DVD player to a BluRay player. By upgraded I mean that our 1999 DVD player finally stopped working and we didn’t have a way to watch movies for a few months. We watched our first BluRay movie the other day… it’s amazing! Plus, it works seamlessly with Netflix online. (We already used the Wii for this)
Since I’m being random, another early marriage purchase that just died is our toaster. Since we haven’t bought or looked at toasters since 1997… we both giggled that you can now get toasters that double as egg cookers. We might just have to do that. It’s a whole new world!
In web news, I’ve been very productive. I re-skinned Kristen’s blog last week. And I also totally designed and launched a site last weekend that I’m very excited about. On top of that, we’ve reactivated Beyond the Zoo. It’s funny looking at the stats of BTZ. Even though we haven’t put much up on the site it still gets great traffic from Google. (50+ visitors per day, not bad!)
I just couldn’t take it any more.Our yellow cherry tomatoes were so severely overgrown, and no one would eat them, so I pulled out the two plants. You know its gotten bad when your harvest has filled all the baskets and bowls in the house and you’ve resorted to the bags the oranges came in. Yeah, that bad!
I’m hopeful that the space I’ve created will give room for our two heirloom tomato plants to finally reach their potential.
It felt very weird to hack away at a perfectly healthy plant just because we couldn’t stomach eating the fruit it was producing any more. As I pulled the vines out of a tree it had grown into (almost 20 feet from the base) I just kept wondering what kind of fruit I’d rather have planted and wished it had grown this much. Strawberries? Grapes? Apples? Snicker bars?
With yellow tomatoes gone with now have some significant areas we need to replant in the coming weeks. The big question in our minds is, “Do we plant for another summer harvest or do we get and early start on a fall garden?”
Places is a Facebook feature that allows you to see where your friends are and share your location in the real world. When you use Places, you’ll be able to see if any of your friends are currently checked in nearby and connect with them easily. You can check into nearby Places to tell your friends where you are, tag your friends in the Places you visit, and view comments your friends have made about the Places you visit. Use Places to experience connecting with people on Facebook in a completely new way. link
Facebook has a very well done FAQ are for Places, I’d recommend checking it out and educating yourself.
How to Adjust Privacy Settings
For most people, your default settings are going to be fine. By default, you can use a mobile device to tell your friends where you are at. Additionally, by default you are allowing Facebook to point you to other people who are checked in at the same place.
For people into social networking, this is fine. I actually like that if I check-in at Starbucks I can know who else is there because I might actually like to have a conversation with them. It doesn’t creep me out that I could check-in at Ikea and 20 other people in Ikea who aren’t my friends could know I’m there.
But a good majority of people don’t use Facebook for social networking. They use it for existing friend connections. In other words, while Facebook is designed to help you expand your network by meeting new people, there are tons of people who want to “protect their privacy” and not network with anyone outside of people they know if real life.
That’s a personal choice and Facebook allows for that. (Even though its outside of the original design of Facebook, they’ve made concessions.)
Now, let’s adjust those settings!
Step one: Go to the Privacy Settings tab in your account settings. Here’s the link. This is an overview of all of your general settings.
Step two: Click on “Customize Settings.”
Step three: Scroll down to “Places I Check In To” and click “Customize.” This will bring up a box where you can select exactly who you want to see where you check in at. If you just want to play with it to get used to it, but don’t want other people to see it, change it to “Only Me.” Changing it to “Only Me” is as private as it gets if you want to check in places. You’ll notice you can also block specific people from seeing where you check in at. Think about who you want to block specifically and list them there. When you are done click “Save Setting” and you are done with this step.
Step four: Enable or disable the “Here Now” feature. If this whole thing creeps you out, I’d suggest disabling this setting. But also keep in mind that if you want any of the cool freebies that retailers/restaurants may come up with for checking it, you’ll need to keep this enabled. (I’ve gotten plenty of free stuff by checking in via Yelp and even Twitter.)
Step five: Scroll down to “Friends can check me in to Places.” This is probably the feature that will get the most people in trouble and will make people the most angry. Say you sit down for lunch at work with a co-worker. You check in and you tag that person as being with you. Now, if you didn’t have that persons permission, all of their friends know that they have checked in at a place because that check in posts to their wall. Also, if they haven’t adjusted their settings in step four, now anyone on Facebook at that location can know they are there. On the other hand, if you feel good about your selections on step three than this is no big deal.
Done. You can go back to your profile, having adjusted your Places privacy settings to your liking.
What does Adam recommend?
Bear in mind that I’m a pretty open person. But I still value some levels of privacy, particularly because I’m a husband and father. Truth is, I don’t even anticipate using this feature unless I’m somewhere cool and want to brag that I am there.
Here’s my selections for the steps above:
Step three: I’ve selected “friends only.” I do wish I could select by groups of people. Because I have a friend group labeled “People I Haven’t Met Yet” and I’d prefer that they couldn’t see my location. But until Facebook fixes that, I’m going with “friends only.“UPDATE: If you have a friend group you’d like to exclude from your check-ins, you can just type them in the field “Hide this from these people:” Here’s what it looks like on my privacy settings page. I’d recommend NOT choosing “friends of friends” because that basically opens up your location to anyone in the world.
Step four: I’m a big fan of getting free stuff. So I’m keeping this enabled because it doesn’t bug me and I’ve enjoyed many a free meal. There will soon be lots of iPhone applications that call to this so I want to see where it goes.
Step five: I feel pretty good about step three. And I also feel pretty good about the places I go and the people I go to them with. So I’m going to keep this enabled for now. Let me tell you though, if someone false checks me in somewhere shady and we’re going to talk. This little feature is going to land a whole heap of people in a whole heap of mess. So, if you aren’t sure about all of your friends, I’d recommend disabling this one.
Some Places Etiquette
Never, ever, EVER check-in at home. I want to hit people in the shins with a hammer when I see that. Not only are you broadcasting to people where you live, complete with Google Maps directions, you are also telling people that you are home… and when you check-in someplace else, you are tell them YOU AREN’T HOME! Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.
Only check-in at public places. Just like it’s dumb to check-in at your house, it’s really rude to check in at your friends houses. Checking in at a private residence is rude, even if the person says they don’t care. Just don’t do it.
Always ask before checking in your friends. It’s just polite. Maybe they don’t want their friends knowing they had a latte while at work? Just ask.
Check-in sparingly. I know it feels like a game. And games are meant to be won, right? But if you check-in to places 20 times a day you look really, really lonely. My rule is that I only want to check-in places that I think are cool. Sea World? Cool. The local gas station? Not cool. Since I like tiny, family-run businesses… I’m going to check-in at a lot of those because I know it helps them out. I think mom and pops are cool.
Be weary of promotions. With 500 million users and integration into Google Maps retailers are going to go nuts trying to get you to check-in. (As a Google Adwords user, let me tell you… Google is going after us to do promotions!) Don’t be surprised to see deals popping up everywhere. A check-in deal is fine to me. But if I have to tag a bunch of people or write a specific status update to save $5… that’s too far. Don’t subject your friends to that.
Never check-in anywhere after 10:00 PM. Remember when mom said that nothing good happens after 10 PM? If you are out with your friends, it is just better to not check-in. Nothing good is going to come of it.
Remember: Everything you post online is public! All check-ins, all that GPS data, all those tags, all those status updates… they are ultimately public information. You parents can see it. Your boss can see it. The college admissions office can see it. Your significant other can see it. Your future mates can see it. Your children will be able to see it. Even if you’ve made all of your settings private, that data all ultimately belongs to Facebook and they can do with it whatever they want. (And it could always get stolen from them!) If you don’t want those people to see it… don’t post it.
Still proud to call Andy a friend. I love his missiological heart and I love how he’s making a deep impact in a place where most Christians are totally afraid. Kristen and I are not just fans of The Marin Foundation, we lend our practical support wherever we can.
What do you think about this video? Am I the only one that wanted to know what Pat Robertson had to say off camera?
And for the most part the list did what I was hoping it would do. People took notice that YS had taken notice of blogs enough to rank them. And the net effect has been that many who had stopped taking the genre seriously are now take it seriously again.
It’s hard to explain and its impossible to pin it on just the rankings. But it was clear that youth ministry blogs were on the decline. Now they are noticeably getting stronger.
Am I taking credit for that? All I’m saying is that publishing the rankings didn’t hurt the genre.
Here’s a few observations: (In no particular order)
The quality, quantity, and effort put into youth ministry blogs has increased in the past two months since the rankings went public.
There are lots of new youth ministry blogs to index– awesome!
The method used to calculate the top 50 will continue to refine.
It looks like I only missed a few sites that could have hit the top 50. (This was my big fear!) I did ask those who voted on the top 50 to tell me who was missing, that group brought up only 2 blogs that weren’t indexed. For a first public shot… that’s not bad.
For 2011, I’m glad that I’m just the math guy and I get to turn over the influence ranking part (33% of the overall ranking) to the 2010 top 20 bloggers.
Basically, everyone from #11-20 wants to be in the top 10. Which is fantastic because it forces EVERYONE to grow and get better just to stay in the top 20. I’d be impressed if anyone can crack the top 5… there is a big statistical hurdle between a top 5 blog and the rest.
I’ve noticed a lot of folks in last years top 50 are making changes. They are getting right with Technorati and Google. They are making sure their RSS feed works. They are probably doing some SEO stuff. In other words, the whole class of youth ministry blog is getting better not just from a content side… but from a set-up side.
I think I’m going to exclude from index if they haven’t updated in 30 days. It’s tough because it takes me a couple of weeks to get through the data. So I might just index everyone and scrub the data right before I send the top 50 for influence ranking to the top 20.
Those of us on the list have had some weird effects. I know I’ve heard more bizarre product pitches in the last two months than I’d ever heard before. And marketers have definitely taken notice. Crazy town.
Yes, I think it is possible for a new blog to make a first year appearance in the top 20. Because some of the indexes that go into the composite score take time to build… I sincerely doubt anyone could amass the traffic to go from launch to the top 10 though. But I’m sure its possible.
I’ve had to laugh at the humility thing of those on the list. Lots of people on the list don’t know how to react. Christians try to act humble when they are proud. I think it’s OK that they are OK being on the list. It’s not like they politicked to get on the list… no one knew it was coming!
Speaking of politics, unlike other rankings in our world, the YM blog ranking is open. If anyone thinks their blog has a legit shot at getting into the top 20, let me know so I can start indexing it. Last year, I indexed more than 100 blogs. I have a feeling I’ll be indexing 200+ in 2011.
A lot of people have asked me about adding Twitter/Facebook numbers into the mix. I’m resisting that urge for a number of reasons. I actually think blog indexing and social media indexing are two different things. Truth is, size of a social media circle is completely meaningless.
A few weeks ago I mentioned something our youth ministry does over the summer. We hire a group of high school students to run our children’s ministry outreach program. Here’s a highlight video they showed in church at the end of their experience.
I’m so thankful for the impact these students had on our community! Of course, they didn’t do it alone. The whole staff of Harbor was fully engaged as well as a big crew of adults from the church as well as some other missionaries from InterVarsity’s urban project.
I just couldn’t take it any more. Our yellow cherry tomatoes were so severely overgrown, and no one would eat them, so I pulled out the two plants. You know its gotten bad when your harvest has filled all the baskets and bowls in the house and you’ve resorted to the bags the oranges came in. Yeah, that bad! 
