Month: January 2006

  • good times for LF and YMX

    Lf_bug It was a good day for both things that I am a part of and care about. Tonight’s LF was pretty solid. A bit weird since there were some middle schoolers missing with a meeting at the schools, and there was a smell of "winter duldroms" since students were well, down. Weird, but OK and part of the school year cycle.

    Ymx_alt_nostroke It’s also been a good week for YMX. We’re up to 172 members… pretty good for a newbie site. We’ve had a lot of hits and a lot of activity. I can’t get over nearly 26,000 posts in the forums. 26,000? Holy crap that is a lot of action. We also settled on a new logo and I am excited about a full run of meet-ups coming along.

  • Tuesday was a long day

    The day began at 6:00 AM and ended at about 10:00 PM. Tuesday’s are cool because I spend a lot of the day with students. Of course, interspersed with that is a lot of the "other stuff" that I do for the church. Tech stuff, pastoral stuff, yada yada yada. All in all, this made for a fast Tuesday.

    Missions minded church or mission minded church? This is a thought I was left with after last nights mission committee meeting. I hope that it will strive to be a church that first owns the mission in Romeo and as an extention this mission goes to "Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the utter most parts of the world." Still got some thinking to do on that thought.

  • Inner City Impact: One of the best

    IciWay back before Inner City work was hip, Bill Dillon started ministering to kids in the Inner city of Chicago. Now, 25+ years later, Bill’s vision of real ministry doing real discipleship is still plugging away one life at a time.

    I have grown to love this simple yet profound ministry. Their methods have never been cutting edge, but they just get the job done. For the past two years I’ve enjoyed getting to know this ministry as we’ve taken our group there for short term trips over Spring Break… and I just can’t get enough. (We don’t know for sure if it is going to work out in 06, more on that later.)

    But my point is that longitudinal simple ministry will always get the job done better and more effectively than a flash in the pan. Also, some people want to know "Are short term trips valuable to host ministries?" Absolutely. If a company is wise, they will integrate these short-termers into their long term goals. Mission agencies that make a business out of short term trips are well, short-sided.

    So… check out Inner City Impact.

  • Student Leaders… How do you “make them?”

    Studentleader I’ve published an article on YMX. I can’t take any pride in getting published since I am the publisher of the site and all… but I thought it was good enough to deserve the billing. [Read the article here] I originally did this as a project for a grad school class… but I always hoped that it would lead to both a larger reading and begin, in me at least, a broader examination to the question.

    Here’s an excerpt: For student ministry, the question is not, “should we create an environment like Jesus did for training and mentoring student leaders?” But rather, “In our context how do we go about this and when do we know the groups we lead have arrived at a place where student leaders can be fostered?”

  • the blog merger

    It’s been about 2 months now since I stopped the madness and started keeping one single lone blog. When I thought about doing this I was really concerned that changing my audience… combining them really, would ruin my blog and my sense of blogging. It hasn’t. In fact, it has made it better.

    Along those same lines. There is a troubling thing going around the "student world" of blogs. There is this thing that basically goes like this… "Write notes to 10 people of things you want to say that you would never say. Turn off comments and just say it." This is stupid on so many levels it almost isn’t worth commenting on, but I will anyway.

    Why is it dumb? First of all, it is dumb to say something rude that you know the person is going to read. Yes, get over it… there is no anonymity on blogs! (So if you are blogging something and you don’t want your mom to read it, don’t blog it!) Secondly, just because you turn off comments for a post doesn’t mean people’s feelings are not hurt. To see stuff that reads, "I hate your guts and I wish you weren’t so annoying" isn’t going to help. Why not just tell the person for real?

    This stupidity (great thing about blogs is that I don’t have to sugarcoat, right?) isn’t limited to students. I see something very similar on some of the pastoral blogs I read. Then they wonder why their words get them in trouble? Genius!

    As for me, I am happy to have everything nice and simple. One blog, and I am careful to not say things that I wouldn’t want my mom to read. (Heck I even gave my mom the URL… as if "adammclane.com" isn’t public enough.)

    Here’s my recommendation: If you are blogging, realize it’s public and the things you say there are real.

  • “Am I Cursed?”

    Dr_philEarlier this week in Light Force we looked at Luke 8 and discussed demon possession.

    The very next day, Dr. Phil talked about the same topic on his show. [See show] I tuned in during the early part of the show and actually agreed with a a lot of what he said. Primarily, I agree with him that there really is an evil force in the world and that it is possible that people can be possessed by demons. I ever respected his keeping the integrity of the shows purpose and attempting to keep a fairly religious topic as simple as possible. Even though I don’t like Dr. Phil overall and wouldn’t recommend watching him all the time, I didn’t mind this episode.

  • Another add to the portfolio

    Well, I have had some nail biting to do as this young investor had to make some choices! I’ve got100% of my stock portfolio in tech stocks. So obviously, I wanted to get out of some tech and get into something else. But what?

    Calgon My answer ended up being Calgon Carbon. This is a company that helps communities clean up their water sources. This companies exhibits two qualities I like in an investment, something I can tell people I own and not flinch, and a company which is profitable.

    My "dilemma" was that I am stock on Sirius right now and I may even end up selling my position Monday depending on how it reacts on Stern’s first show. My thoughts were… "Double down on Sirius or get out altogether." I chose option 3 and split my position. Nothing too shocking, but it is a minor deviation in my strategy.

  • The Howard Stern effect

    Stern Well, the big day for Howard Stern (don’t even think about looking at his website!) is coming this Monday as he goes on Sirius uncut and uncencored…. though I have a feeling the FCC will figure a way to cencor him by years end.

    What I like about Sirius, and why I am still a stock holder even after Jim Cramer told me to sell last week is that it is clear "the Stern factor" will greatly change satelite radio. And the numbers are backing this up. They said they’d likely have 3 million subscribers by New Year’s and they had 3.3 million.

    But I like that they took a massive risk and it has so far paid off. As for Jim Craimer’s comments about Sirius being oversold, I understand that too… but this is a long position for me.

    Stern1 The flipside of Howard Stern is David Stern, the NBA’s commisioner. He is conservative and if it weren’t for the NBA draft no one would know who the guy was or what he looked like. When I think about David Stern, I think "safe play" and little profit. When I think of Howard Stern I think big risk and maximum potential for payout.

  • The internet at church

    For about the last two week the church has been experiencing problems with our internet connection. So if it’s taken a bit longer than usual to hear back from us that’s why. We’ve ordered some parts and everything should be back to normal early next week.

  • reaching dark kids through a light model

    I had this thought as I drove from the church to my house today. As I sat in the turn lane waiting for a green light I looked to my left and there was a clean cut kid sitting on the barbers chair getting primped up. Anyone looking at him would think he was a good kid. I have a feeling that if I talked to him I could probably get him to think about coming to LF pretty quickly.

    As I looked to my right I saw a kid, probably the same age, wearing a black trenchcoat with half his head shaved and the rest of his head died red and pulled back in a pony tail. Everything this kid emitted said "leave me alone and I don’t want anything to do with you." If I am honest with myself, I don’t think that that LF would be attractive to this student.

    Those two young men made me think of this.

    How can I reach those who want darkness with a ministry that is light? I mean, it wouldn’t be authentic for me to learn a bunch of "goth" stuff or whatever… but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about students who are into that.I just don’t know the answer here, but I do know that when I look at those two students I just wonder… can I just reach them both?