Category: light force

Some of the best moments of life have come in doing youth group. Conversely, some of my least proud moments have happened in youth ministry too.

One thing that "just comes with the title" is that my kids are sometimes treated poorly by careless words and careless actions of the students I love so much.

A few examples:

1. When Megan was one week old, a high school student smacked Megan’s head against a metal door frame accidentally. She wasn’t injured seriously but she did cry for a long, long time.
2. A couple years back the guys teased Megan (then 3 years old) until she was left bawling and them laughing.
3. Megan and Paul are constantly ridiculed and made fun of "in fun" when they are around "daddy’s friends." Sometimes this doesn’t seem to effect them, other times they simply tell me they don’t want to be around "daddy’s friends" for a while.
4. Tonight, Paul got flipped over by a student and his head thumped on the floor. The oblivious student simply walked away not ever really realizing that Paul had been injured.

The point isn’t that middle and high school kids are bad with students. And in no way am I upset. But it speaks to something that I am becoming increasingly aware of... my career choice effects my kids in ways I can’t always control. Everyone knows about the social pressure that "pastor’s kids" feel. That is actually manageable. But there are other unintended consequences (like getting dropped on your head) that I’m just observing and thinking, "How can I both model biblical parenthood and allow kids to potentially accidentally hurt my kids feelings…. or even bodies?"

The simple answer is, "we trust God will watch over our children." At the same time… where does protection come into the equation?

That about says it all. It was a great trip. I look forward to seeing the fruit of it in the coming months. New friends, old friends, getting to know both better and 1000 miles of driving.

It’s worth mentioning that this was my most flexible, best behaved,
fun-loving, and solid trip yet. Right now I’m looking forward to reconnecting with my family and getting ready to worship in the morning.

T-minus 5 weeks, 2 days until our anniversary trip to Northern Ireland.

This weekend is pretty big for little Romeo. In just a few hours we will have our Good Friday service, The Journey.

And everything is looking forward towards Easter morning. We’ll jump right into a fresh series for the Easter season called "Hearing God." A sample of where we are going with imagery is here. I’m very excited about the graphics of this series. Not just because I created them… but mostly because I think people will really get the ties between the terminology of cell phones and connecting with God.

Need a taste of tomorrow’s MainStreet? Check this out.

Yesterday I got a chance to finish the KidsTown website. It’s not that it wasn’t working properly or wasn’t updated… it was that some of the drop down menus weren’t working properly. So, everything is up and running there. This is a big relief as something is supposed to be in the next Romeo Observer about MainStreet.

It seems cold season is pretty late. Last night we had a record low attendance at Light Force. But we started listing all the kids who were sick… astounding.

With spring finally showing its long shadows and warm weather, let’s hope this was just a fluke.

Today we have kind of kicked things up a notch. We have gotten our fliers for the Easter service in a number of businesses, the sign is getting looked at, and we’re now getting more involved with online advertising.

Weird reactions
Because this is a "different" form of marketing for churches in our area… we’ve gotten slammed by a couple of businesses. In particular, the local library not only said no, they said "your trying to trick people into going to church." Um, I don’t get that reaction at all. If someone is already looking for a church to attend on Easter Sunday, aren’t we just making it easy for them to find us and check us out?

More reactions to come, I am sure.

So… how have I spent my day? Most of the day I’ve been working on our Easter website. Go ahead and check it out… Easter in Romeo.

Easter this year is all about Hearing from God. So we figured… why not entice people to come with something fun? Pretty soon you’ll see the logo to the left pop up all over town on bulletin boards. And yes… we will be giving away iPods at church on Easter. Go to the site to register now.

Better than that… why not take a few moments to forward that link to a few friends in town and invite them to come and win an ipod?

I’m very excited about this. Instead of having a big "show" on Easter Sunday… we’re essentially putting on a "high volume" regular worship service. And just to make sure that the kids don’t feel left out… we’re offering the same prizes for kids down in KidsTown. 7th graders and up can win a 4 gig Nano and kids can win a 2nd generation shuffle.

See, our job is to make it easy for people to invite their friends. Your job is to invite your friends. Get it?

Last night was a very cool all nighter. I’m on the record as not really liking the whole all-nighter thing, purely for the obvious reason that I like sleep and any event that promotes me not getting sleep is a problem… but last night wasn’t about me!

I asked our students to bring their friends… and they did. Not only that, the whole night was positive, fast-paced, (well, for a few hours it was!) and accomplished it’s primary goal of introducing new students to Light Force in a "foyer" kind of way.

I’m still sleep depraved, but it was a great night.

That’s about all I have to say after another great MainStreet. If anyone has any good snaps from the night, please let me know so I can get them up on the site.

Next month, a western… I’ve already got a million ideas!