• You never stop being a youth pastor…

    You might need to click on the image so you can take in the awesomeness of this moment. This couple was completely oblivious.
    1. This was Sunday, early evening, at La Jolla Shores. (The most kid-friendly beach in San Diego, one of the best beaches in California.)
    2. There were families and young children everywhere.
    3. Lisa (former youth group student of mine and retired RA from Grace College) couldn’t resist the cameo. She tried, it was too awesome.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. 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!

  • Of BluRay and Websites

    It’s been a fun week.

    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.

    We moved our CSA pick-up from the North Park farmers market to the Little Italy Mercato. No judgement on one farmers market over the other, I’m just excited that I get to go now since the pick-up is on Saturday.

    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!)

  • Tomato Apocalypse

    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?”

  • How to adjust privacy settings for Facebook Places

    What is it?

    Facebook describes it this way:

    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

    In other words, its a bigger and instantly more popular version of Fourquare, Gowalla, and Yelp. With 97 million American teenagers owning a mobile phone, this has the potential to be huge.

    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

    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.

  • Andrew Marin on CBN

    [video link]

    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?

  • The state of youth ministry blogs

    It’s been a couple of months since I published my list of Top 20 Youth Ministry Blogs at the YS Blog.

    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.

  • New Heights Project highlight video

    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.

  • A or B thinking

    Wipeout is a metephor for life

    The thing that I really love about Wipeout is that I can see myself being on the show. There is something about the story of the show that makes me want to insert myself into the narrative. I don’t know about you, but when I watch the show I’m constantly thinking about how I would react to a situation or how I would have done it differently.

    Watching other people fall, fail, and probably get hurt is attractive to me.

    There is something so train wreck about Wipeout that makes it interesting and intruiging.

    I want it. But what is “it?”

    Why can’t I stop watching?!?

    3rd person perspective

    I like it because I am not in it. The reason it is so funny on television is because the people on the ground are in the first person and they are forced to think linear about Wipeout while at home we are in the third person and can see everything.

    They only get to see what is in front of them. They don’t know how other players have completed the obstacle. They don’t have the view we have at home. We are above the action while they are in it.

    They are trying to problem solve the maze of each apparatus in real time first person.

    We are the humans watching the mouse work its way through a complicated maze. When you have a third person perspective, the game is easy and the mouse looks stupid.

    Person after person makes the same mistake and you are left to just scream at the television… “Don’t do it that way! You’re going to fa… Oh, did you see him fall? Ouch!”

    The Wipeout mousetrap forces the participant into A vs. B thinking while the third person perspective clearly shows the answer is either A or B.

    Sometimes the answer is C

    My life is sometimes an episode of Wipeout. Life often feels squished into a maze of A & B choices.

    But I’m learning more and more that the answer in A & B circumstances is actually C.

    • C: None of the above
    • C: All of the above
    • C: Another idea

    This is why life isn’t Wipeout.

    Life feels like a series of A or B choices. And if you get them right, you’ll succeed in life.

    But that’s incorrect. Life is full of choices that look like A vs. B. But C is often the only right answer.

    Stuck?

    I know a lot of people who feel stuck right now.

    They don’t feel like life affords them a lot of options.

    “Do I continue down this path or do I start something new?”

    “I hate my job but the economy sucks and I don’t want to be unemployed right now.”

    The trick is not settling for A or B when the answer might be C.

    The answer is– adjust your perspective.

  • Jalapeño

    We’ve got a large crop of jalapeños coming in. That’s why I was a bit surprised to spot this little red dragon as I was getting ready to pick some other stuff tonight. Most of them are long and green, but this one must have hid under a leaf while it matured and came out short, stubby, and bright cherry red.

    In the next 2-3 weeks we are going to start harvesting 5-10 jalapeños per week. And since I’m the only one in the house who likes things really hot, I’m just not sure what we’re going to do with them.

    That said, Kristen is always quick to find a recipe that matches what’s growing. I’m sure she’ll come up with something.

  • Too much of a good thing

    One thing we are learning as new gardeners is that you have to time a crop so that all of your fruit doesn’t ripen at the same time.

    Right now, we’re sick of yellow cherry tomatoes and summer squash.

    You know you have too much of a good thing when your children won’t pick things that are ripe and your friends won’t take what you are offering.

    Our plan for next year is to be a little more patient in how we plant things. We’ll start seeds at one or two week intrevals so we can better space out our harvest. While we do want to have a lot of eggplant, we don’t exactly want to go from no eggplant to 25 in a week!

    Another concept we are thinking about is to form some garden partnerships. We think it would be fun to agree to grow 4-5 items in abundance with the intention of sharing crops.