• Getting rid of garden snails

    The pitfall of organic gardening is that chemicals are easy!

    Our garden doesn’t have many enemies. The household cat keeps rodents and lizards away. And the combination of hummingbirds and parrots seems to keep all other bird pests from doing too much damage.

    Our biggest problem has been garden snails. (Helix aspersa) Since it has been an especially mild and wet spring we have even more snails than we did last year. And they can be very destructive to our garden. They eat holes in tomatoes and eggplants, and they have destroyed many leaves of our various attempts at salad greens.

    When I asked Farmer Bill over at City Farmers for the solution he laughingly said… “You need a French friend. They love snails.”

    Things that have worked “just OK”

    • Minimize watering since they are attracted to moisture. (Works in the summer, but this spring has been especially damp)
    • Eggshells (Not sure this worked, but it was easy and probably was a decent fertilizer)

    Other organic solutions (none of which we’ve tried)

    • Get a duck or chicken (We are very tempted to get chickens)
    • Line your garden area with copper wire (A little too expensive for me, would work if we had raised beds)
    • Grow marigolds between your vegetables since all sorts of pests don’t like the smell of them. (Really like this option, going to try it)

    Have I mentioned we still have a problem?

    Literally, the last step before finally going on Craigslist to pick out a chicken coop is to keep trying to find organic remedies for this problem.

    The Grapefruit Trap

    I was doing some reading over at Pat Welch’s blog to see if I could glean a tip from a San Diego County gardening expert. She educated me on a few items I didn’t know.

    1. She struggles with them, too. So I don’t suck.
    2. They hibernate in the citrus trees.
    3. She recommends a grapefruit trap as a potential solution.

    Thanks so much for writing to share your success using upside-down grapefruit peels as a trap for slugs. I like this trap better than beer or boards. Problem with boards is you have to scrape the slugs off the bottom of them. YUCK! But with half-grapefruit peels you can just pick them up in the morning and throw them away, slugs and all.Source

    So, that’s what we are trying. Our garden grows a very bitter grapefruit that is quite pretty but otherwise wasted. So I went out and cut some in half, took out most of the fruit, and placed them around the garden. I can’t wait to check them in the morning!

     

  • How to Grow Artichokes in Southern California

    Several other great videos for SoCal gardeners on Pat Welch’s YouTube channel.

  • Dealing with discouragement

    Last Sunday, I wrote about some of the discouragement I was feeling. Anxiety. Self-doubt. Questioning my abilities. Questioning decisions I’ve made. Paths I’ve chosen. I wish I could say that was just a moment of self-doubt and second-guessing. And I wish I could look back on that 7 days later and laugh.

    But I can’t. It seems I’m passing through a little season of discouragement.

    And it sucks.

    It is completely antithetical to reality. My head knows it but my heart doesn’t seem to care.

    As I look out my window right now, the Eastern sky is about to burst with the morning. With the blue sky to later burn through the morning mist– I’m reminded that discouragement comes from Satan.

    Discouragement is Satan’s ministry to me. He wants to distract me and destroy me. He wants to get a foothold. He’d love nothing more than for me to give up.

    3 Ways I’m Dealing with this Season of Discouragement

    1. Looking back – I reread two posts this morning that really helped me put this whole thing into perspective. The first came from July 2010. (5 Ways to Encourage Your Church Staff.) The second needs more context as it was written nearly 6 years ago. A lot was changing in my life. We moved to Romeo in 2003 with hopes that big things were to come at that little church. It had grown from about 100 people to about 400 people when I was hired. Then four months after I arrived, the senior pastor resigned and we quickly went from nearly 400 to about 175. In the midst of that, my new boss (a person I had lead the charge to hire) didn’t have the same high-view of youth ministry I had. So, in turn, I was getting pulled away from the thing I loved most, youth ministry, and pushed into more of an assistant pastor role. On top of that, I’d go to my local network meetings and because Romeo was seen as this little town in the country and because my church didn’t have 3,000 people like everyone else at the table… I was often completely ignored. In the midst of that I wrote a post called, Am I OK with “Just OK?” As I reread that post this morning my own words from 2005 put tears in my eyes. I have dealt with seasons of self-doubt before and yet here I am, STILL STANDING in the simple knowledge that God is the author and I am not!
    2. Looking around – I’m in an amazing season of life. The last six weeks since Jackson’s birth have been some of the best times we can remember. That little boy has been an amazing gift to our life. Not just in welcoming a new child. But also in how he’s brought our entire family closer together. On top of that, it’s been an amazing six weeks of blessing from our friends as we’ve relished in watching Jackson act as a joy machine everywhere we’ve gone. As I think back over the last year, I just shake my head at how much God has shown Himself. It’s more than just Jackson, (and Ruby, Eliza, Xander, Sofia, Lucy… and the other babies who have arrived into our life) it is in my work, in our community group, in our neighborhood, at our church, at the kids school… God shown Himself clearly and repeatedly.
    3. Looking forward – This Winter and Spring I said no to a ton of things. I missed two YS Palooza’s, I missed a PlanetWisdom, and I missed a few other conferences/opportunities because I wanted to be home for Kristen and the kids. I love those things. And I’m already looking forward to getting out and doing the thing I love most more this Summer: Meeting and encouraging ministry folks. More than that, there are some really fun things on the horizon with our family & our church. Even our garden gives me something fun to look forward to.

    Here’s the excerpt that made me smile this morning. I love when my 2005 self preaches to my 2011 self:

    How come so many youth workers look up to Mike Yacanelli, but when it comes down to it… They don’t have the balls to live like him? They read his books, they chuckled at his joke “I am the pastor of the slowest growing church in America” but they wouldn’t ever put themselves, their talents, their families, or their reputation in that situation. Let’s face it, a lot of youth workers out there HAVE EGOS THE SIZE OF THEIR YOUTH GROUPS. They are snobs who wouldn’t ever want to work with broken and busted churches. They hear what church I work at and head for the hills because we are too small, too broken, and can’t offer them anything of value. So the reality is, that they are in ministry for themselves and not for others. They have been trained and are getting experienced so that they can have easier jobs with more stuff and less problems. The concept of “others first” or “do unto others as you’d have them do unto you” is foreign to them. A lot of the “big guys” I know have bought into and perpetrate the lie “bigger is better.”

    Read the rest

  • Reminder: Back-up your blog

    This morning I woke up and my blog was down. With more than 6 years of content here that is scary.

    It was a healthy reminder to me that it was time to back-up my blog. (After fixing some corrupt tables)

    This is your reminder: If you haven’t backed-up your self-hosted WordPress blog lately, you need to do it.

    Don’t know how?

    No problem! I wrote a tutorial for you over on the McLane Creative blog.

  • Team Meeting Strategy

    The team meeting.

    It’s one of those necessary evils of most organizations.

    No one truly enjoys them but it’s also critical for teammates to get an idea of where you are at regularly. Whether you are a start-up with 3 employees or a conglomerate with thousands of employees across multiple offices and departments, this is one of those ubiquitous things you do.

    For as long as I’ve had these meetings I’ve heard people complain about them. But the simple truth is I don’t know of a better alternative. How else are you going to know who is doing what, what needs to  get done, and how we are doing as a team?

    Forms of team meetings

    I break it down into two distinct styles:

    1. The sit down – Get the coffee, even the shortest version of this is an hour.
    2. The stand up – Get the coffee, but we aren’t going to sit so it’ll only last 10-15 minutes.

    Style of team meetings

    I break it down into three types:

    1. Report to the boss – Everything is presented to or directed at the boss, who responds and digs deeper as needed.
    2. Catch up with the team – Everything is directed at the team, those who need to ask more questions do so.
    3. Hybrid – Most team meetings are this, there’s a little bit of reporting to the boss, and hopes of collaboration.

    Adam’s rules for team meetings

    1. Be prepared – Typically these happen weekly. If you don’t show up ready you don’t take your job seriously.
    2. It’s a briefing, keep it brief – When I show up I want to have my facts handy, I try to stay on point, and I want to plainly communicate the whole truth. Facts, numbers, problems.
    3. Don’t hide failures – I like to make sure I communicate where I’m struggling, where my problems are, etc. Hiding that only leads to bad things.
    4. Open to questions – Even when I screw up, I make sure to ask if anyone has any follow-up questions.
    5. If you aren’t the team lead, don’t take over – I don’t like it when someone dominates this meeting that isn’t in charge of the meeting.
    6. If you are the team lead, moderate well – When I’m running these meetings I make sure I keep them moving. I’m never afraid to interrupt and say, “That’s a sidebar, let’s meet later.” Or “it would be better if you two just talked about that and reported back next time.“
    7. The meter is running – In my mind, I calculate the hourly rate of these types of meetings. If there are 10 people who average $30/hour, are we getting $300/hour worth of benefit here?

    What about you? What are your rules for team meetings?

  • Ashley Judd – Children are not for sex

    Powerful stuff. I hope change is underway in Georgia.

    GenerateHope is an organization which helps reach out to women who have been sexually trafficked into San Diego County. As Ms. Judd points out, its more common that you’d like to think.

  • unFrozen

    Jesus told this simple story, but they had no idea what he was talking about. So he tried again. “I’ll be explicit, then. I am the Gate for the sheep. All those others are up to no good—sheep stealers, every one of them. But the sheep didn’t listen to them. I am the Gate. Anyone who goes through me will be cared for—will freely go in and out, and find pasture. A thief is only there to steal and kill and destroy. I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of. John 10:6-10, The Message

    There’s a joke told about church people– they are referred to as “the frozen chosen.”

    In some very real ways that description is sadly true.

    I know too many people frozen. They are stuck and can’t move forward. In the guilt of their sin they know with their heads that they are forgiven but struggle with moving forward… They are frozen in their regret. They quiet, honest corners they cry, “How could God love me when I’ve _____.” They are frozen in fear that if they somehow move forward– forgiving themselves a little– the same temptation will befall them again. They are frozen from dreaming.

    They are frozen from living.

    From imagining with wonder the possibilities of what God could do through them.

    They are frozen spiritually, going through the daily motions of life.

    And they live life to the least as a result

    If you are frozen, John 10:10 is for you.

    The frozen feeling is real. Under your own power you are frozen. You aren’t free. You are bound by the penalties of the messes you’ve caused. The thief is winning and will continue to win. You feel powerless in the weight of your failures. You can’t move forward, backwards, or to the side because you really, truly, are frozen.

    Yet, Jesus came so you could be unfrozen. Whether today is the first day you’ve put your trust in Christ or your 20,000th, you are in the same position. Paul (and the Holy Spirit) captured your psychobabble pretty well, didn’t he?

    I can anticipate the response that is coming: “I know that all God’s commands are spiritual, but I’m not. Isn’t this also your experience?” Yes. I’m full of myself—after all, I’ve spent a long time in sin’s prison. What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can’t be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God’s command is necessary.

    But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. Romans 7:14-20, The Message

    The reality is that only you, in the power of the Holy Spirit, and with the freedom paid for by Jesus, can get unfrozen. Going to church won’t unfreeze you. Listening to a million sermons won’t unfreeze you. Tithing won’t unfreeze you. Serving at the church won’t unfreeze you. Giving the poor won’t unfreeze you. Nothing you can do externally will unfreeze you.

    The heat and power to unfreeze you can only come from within.

    Somewhere, near that place where you aren’t quite sure if it’s your own self-talk or the Holy Spirit speaking to you, you need to conspire against yourself and get unfrozen. The source of the heat lives inside of you. You need to trust it and boldly allow it to work.

    And when you do? In Jesus’ words, “I came that you may have life, and have it abundantly.”

    (John 10:10, NASB, personalized the “they” for “you.”)

  • The Joy Machine

    It’s been five weeks since Jackson was born.

    It’s hard to remember what our family was like without him.

    The fun part about Jackson, to us, is how much of an unexpected miracle he is to our family. With both Megan and Paul we carefully planned their arrival. I remember sitting down with Kristen and doing the math with the calendar about a year before she was born– “If Megan is born on May 12th, that will be the day after my last final. That will give us the best opportunity to spend the most time with her before classes begin.” With Jackson, the element of surprise changed everything. Even today we laugh thinking about having a 3rd baby. He wasn’t in the plan. He just showed up!

    One thing I’ve noticed with Jackson that I didn’t notice with the other two is that a new baby isn’t just a joy for its parents and immediate family, he brings joy to every corner of our community. You see it on the faces of people everywhere we go with him! His arrival literally makes people smile.

    Infectious Joy

    • Our extended family loves seeing him.
    • Our neighbors love seeing him.
    • People in our neighborhood who saw Kristen walking while she was pregnant stop her now to see him and smile.
    • People at church love seeing him.
    • People at both of our jobs love seeing him.
    • Long time friends from all over the world love seeing his pictures on Facebook.
    • The kids classmates and other random people at the kids school love seeing him.
    • The guy at our favorite smoothie shop loves seeing him.
    • Random people whom we barely know, stop us in public, because they love seeing him.
    • People we’ve never met but are our Facebook friends and Twitter followers love seeing him.

    He is a joy machine!

    One little baby has brought joy, spontaneous joy, to any entire group of people. I’m thankful to God for allowing me to observe it this time.

    You are a joy machine, too

    I’ve started to think about this observation in light of other people in my life. At one point you brought Jackson-like joy to your community. People oogled over you at the grocery store. Your parents neighbors counted down the days until you were born. People your parents barely knew smiled when they pushed a stroller around your block.

    The same is likely true of you today. Even if you don’t see it– you bring joy to your community. People look forward to seeing you. Your impact isn’t just in your work or in the people you think it is, it’s so much deeper and wider than you can imagine. The guy at the smoothie shop (or coffee shop) you go to regularly looks forward to seeing you every day.

    Don’t forget that. You are a joy machine.

  • Living what you believe

    In some circles, what I’m about to say, will cause people to snicker:

    I’m an Evangelical Christian. I studied at Moody Bible Institute. I tend to approach the Bible from a traditional, literal, cultural perspective. I’ve work at Baptist churches. With altar calls and hand raising. I know all of the words to a whole slew of hymns. (Well, most of the words.) And I kind of like them over the never-ending repetition of some of the new stuff rolling out.

    Yes. I am “one of those.”

    Except.

    By “one of those” I mean that I take the Bible at face value. Which isn’t all that radical. But, I suppose, what is radical is that I hold that in authority over the culture that evangelicalism has created.

    As I read the Bible day-by-day I refuse to be bound by the trappings of a church-created culture. Church culture holds no stone to the boulder of Biblical authority. For too long the church has stood for the wrong things for the sake of protecting their little-k-kingdoms in the face of BIG K calls to action. As I study Scripture I see that Jesus didn’t just come to earth so I could raise my hand and say a prayer which was a magic token to eternal life. As Ephesians 2 teaches, it’s no more important to “present the Gospel” as it is to “present yourself as the Gospel.”

    Jesus didn’t die so that I could run around sharing Good News. He also wanted me to be Good News. To stand up for the poor, to give special attention to children, especially orphans, to put women on equal footing with men, to seek justice for the oppressed, on and on.

    I refuse to over-emphasize Pauline epistles and forsake the radical words of Jesus in the Gospels. Or, for that matter, to ignore principles taught the Law which Jesus says he didn’t come to replace but to fulfill.

  • One hundred seventy-seven

    It was really cool to find out that my blog was indexed and currently ranks as #177 of the top #200 church blogs. Always nice to be recognized- thanks Kent.

    Based on how he measures, there are two things you can do to help me move up on that list.

    First, subscribe to my blog via Google Reader.

    Add to Google

    Second, if you have a blog, tumblr, postereus site, or anything like that, it actually does help both my page rank & Yahoo links ranking if you have a link to me somewhere.

    More importantly…

    It’s really cool to see the noticeable addition of youth ministry blogs into the Church Relevance rankings. Here’s a list of youth ministry bloggers on the list, with their YS ranking in parenthesis.

    To have 10 youth ministry blogs in the top 200 is really cool. I’m excited about that.

    As I’ve said about the YS rankings. There is room for you.  You have a voice– speak your mind!