Month: June 2005

This is the kitchen. To say it needs some TLC is an understatement! 

This shows some of the detail work that we could bring out if we decided to do this house. 

This is the barn. Apparently back in the 1800’s this was used to house visiting horses. Hard to believe this is in the heart of our town! 

This is the front of the house we are looking at. 

Let me start off by apologizing about the last post. It was poorly written with several massive typo’s. I suppose I had a couple of folks talking to me as I wrote that one.

VBS
Kingdom of the Son got kicked off this morning. I’m sure later in the week the numbers will be more important. But today everything went really swell. Lots of kiddies, good times had by all. Check out our first days video by clicking here.

More on the house?
There is a lot going on. We plan on looking at the house on Tuesday. Since we’re complete morons to buying a house I have little idea what to really look for. We’re also starting to think about the financing and worrying about our credit. We’ve learned that we could make a penalty free withdraw on an IRA for up to $10,000. That will come in handy. If we proceed I think I’ll even post the link to it. But for now… I’m being a pessimist.

Light Force
We’ve got Light Force this week. It seems like a million years ago since we’ve met. Though it’s only been 12 days! Hmmm… I must be a youth pastor!

A couple of days ago I mentioned that we might be interested in purchasing.

A friend of mine lives a couple doors down from that house, so I asked him to let me know what he knew about the property. Today and church we finally got to chat about it. He told me that no one was living there and that it hadn’t been on the market as long as I had thought. So, I was pretty passive about the whole thing.

After church we had our church picnic. (Which rocked!) As I was making my way around the tables and greeting people, the same friend said, “Hey PA… you know that house we were talking about? These guys own it. I forgot you knew them.” I was floored when I realized that the people who own it are a part of our church family! Too cool.

Long story short, Kristen and I will go check it out this week and decide if it is something we can do. They were saying that they had hoped that the divided house would become a single family home with the new owners, but keeping it as a rental for a few years might be good too. Since it is literally downtown Romeo as well, we see it as having some really explosive growth potential. The house next store has been converted to a real estate office… if we held onto it for a few years we may be able to roll it over into commercial space.

So… we’re pretty excited about this new news. We could actually be buying a house? What’s up with that?

Ready, set, go
This morning is Romeo’s annual Village-wide Garage sale. It’s one of the small events that makes Romeo cool. There will be a couple hundred garage sales crammed into the village part of town. Kristen and I are looking for a couple pieces of furniture for our house. We need a nightstand for our bedroom, and I am on the look-out for a toddler bed for Paul.

In other news
Today is a busy day. After the garage sale I’ll be taking some students down to St. Thomas for their annual sand volleyball thing. If that’s not enough… After that we will be going to a student’s graduation party.

“Behind the scenes” news
Kristen and I have gotten a lead on a house. It’s been on the market for a long time and since it is an estate… We’ve gotten wind that they may be willing to come down on the price bigtime. It is exactly what we are looking for. Big old house that needs some work. Big yard, perfect location, infinite income potential in the village. Better yet, while is it well out of our price range it includes a rental which would make it affordable for us. If it were to fly it would be the miracle we’ve been waiting for on a house! Even if it goes no where it has been fun to talk about.

Date Night
Since I was such a bad husband on Tuesday night and played golf instead of taking Kristen our for her birthday, I thought I would surprise her by getting a babysitter and taking her out to a movie. (For another day… But did you realize that it costs me over $50 for a date these days? Wow!) I left the office around 6:00 pm last night and shortly there after we headed to our favorite movie theater, the AMC 30 in Sterling Heights.

More than a boxing movie
I didn’t know that we were going to a movie about boxing until we were in our seats. As we sat there through the 247 previews I leaned over and asked, “So what’s this movie all about anyway?” She said, “It’s the boxing one with Russell Crowe… It looks great.”

The story is of a washed up former contender who falls, just like everyone else, into the dark Great Depression. As the months and years fall away the one time great boxer gets hurt and eventually has to stop boxing altogether. With his sole source of income for his wife (Renée Zellweger) and 3 kids gone, he is just like everyone else…Tryingg to get by with no money.

It all bottoms out when they fall well behind on all of their bills, lose the kids, and a brother-in-law to a police skirmish. Broken, he goes back to the cigar filled room of Madison Square Gardens and begs for money. The one time prize fighter is reduced to begging.

But, since this is an American story of an Irishmen and not an Irish story of an Irishmen, luck turns for the family. He gets a fight by chance and the comeback begins.

Better than Rocky?
As I left the theater, misty eyed and ready to shadow box in the car on the way home, I wondered if this was the best boxing movie of all time. Better than When We Were Kings? I think so. Better than Raging Bull? Move over Martin, Ron Howard beat you. Better than even Rocky? I don’t know if this was better that Rocky…Butt it was miles apart from Rocky II, III, IV, and V. (Though I’ve always had a soft spot for Rocky IV! “I must break you.”)

PA’s recommendation
I think this is a movie worth seeing. It’s fairly clean, (only one cuss word, but plenty of using the Lord’s name in vain) no nudity or sex or anything homosexual…Prettyy rare to have a major movie with none of that. It’s got a fantastic story for both men and women. All in all I’d put this in “must see” category. It will leave you chearing.

Off the tee there is a lot of terminology used. Let’s look at this beautiful golf hole and see what it has to offer for us. Follow the different colors of flight lines and check out what each of these different shots are called.

It all starts on the tee box itself. The golfer must place his ball (white dot) somewhere between the two markers. (blue dots) From there, the goal is for the player to hit his ball on the fairway. (The lighter green grass) This will give him the best approach shot to the green.

Center cut: (white) This is just a straight shot. Obviously this is the most desirable of the options. The ball flies high and long. Today’s large drivers specialize in high launch angles and maximize distance.

Slice: (red) This is the most common mistake golfer make. The ball starts off on target but an off center backspin causes the ball to drift into the right rough.

Hook: (yellow) A hook is caused by off center backspin to the right. Though a hook generally travels farther than a straight shot it often leaves the player in poor position.

Topped: (green) This is caused by severe top spin. The ball doesn’t go very far and is highly embarrassing. Also called a worm burner.

Pull: (pink) This is caused by severely off centered backspin. While it may roll a long way, it is wildly out of control.

One of the many things that small church youth pastors get dragged into is involvement in VBS. I’d like to know where VBS started… And I’d really like to meet the guy who invented the thing. Why? I don’t know, there are some questions I’d like to know the answers to.

• What was the original intention of VBS? evangelism? Discipleship? Torment? Felt need?
• Why stress a week of VBS and not a lifestyle of child evangelism?
• Why 5 days? Why not 3 days or 14 days?
• Should it look and feel like day camp? That’s the way it looks and feels to me. Even as a kid I didn’t really like it even though I went. I guess I always felt, as a kid, that it was just a week of babysitting.
• Did you ever think that VBS would become a sacred cow for most churches or did you intend for it to be a fad?
• Why is it that I can motivate kids to invite friends to church and even have them bring an offering during VBS and then NEVER again?
• How did you intend on connecting those visitors and new baby Christians to the body of Christ?
• Why does every church in town have to do it? Why can’t we all just do one massive VBS instead of the other churches kids coming to mine and visa versa?

Gosh, that sure looks like a rant… Doesn’t it? I don’t mean it to look like that… I just really want to know those things about VBS.

Perhaps the biggest thing that happens this next week is that people in my church have decided I hate VBS. This is kind of weird to me. Perhaps it is just a perception thing, but perhaps it’s been my inability to communicate how I’ve had to adapt here at Romeo.

When I came on board the mandate was to build Light Force into something that could/would become multi-staffed within a couple of years. Well, all of that came crumbling down when PM left in October 2003. So that very first VBS I was here… I saw my role differently than I do now. Then in summer 2004, they scheduled VBS the first week of golf practice. (I got double booked) So that further carried the perception that I don’t like VBS… Since I wasn’t here all the time.

This year is another story. I am involved with VBS. I’ve been doing all types of support stuff and will be a team cheerleader… But I still carry the perception that I don’t like VBS. The funny thing is that it isn’t true. Do I love VBS? Not really. I wish there could be a better way of doing the same thing, so I would just put myself in the category of “I think VBS is a phenomenon that is cool” but I wouldn’t say I either love or hate it.

I want VBS to become a catalyst for great children’s ministry @ Romeo. While Light Force has led the way and helped to be the shining star when things were down & out here… I am so excited to see these other areas spring to life… Even though it clearly means that Light Force has been put on the back-burner. The reality is that in order for Light Force to get back on track with it’s multi-staffed pace, we need 2 things to happen.

1. The church has to grow enough to support 5-6 FT staff people before I’ll be allotted a junior high or high school pastor.

2. The students in Light Force need to take the challenge to share their faith with their friends.

Until both of them happen, I will be involved with VBS in an ever-growing, ever-deepening commitment to making VBS better and more intentional. To grow to where I want to grow, I need to grow through this vehicle. Liking or disliking it has nothing to do with it. But for the record, I like VBS.