• When the rain comes

    Rain
    It’s been exceedingly dry here in Romeo for close to 3 weeks. On the one hand everyone loves nice weather. It was hot all day and cooled down at night. But it was starting to look drought-like around here. Grass was turning brown. Dirt was cracking. Plants withered. It was time for some rain.

    This morning we woke up to darkness and a cool breeze. I can’t tell you how refreshing the damp air of rain is after a long spell of dryness. It’s a breath of fresh air. No… it’s better than that. I’m struggling to find the right comparison.

    It’s like ______________.

    p.s. If you haven’t been to weather.com and seen their new interactive map…. you should check it out. You can pretty much zoom down to see the weather on your block.

  • YMX Investment Club

    Invest
    It’s no secret that I think Kiva.org is super cool. The idea of little people like me giving microloans to people in developing countries so that they can improve their business… that just rocks.

    A few months back we started talking at YMX about forming an investment club. Not the type of investment club that invests money in stock… but an investment club that seeks to help people in developing countries get ahead.

    So today the investing began. Here’s our homepage and here is our Kiva portfolio. Any YMX member can join… send me an email and ask me how.

    Not a YMX member and interested in starting an investment club with Kiva? Shoot me an email!

  • Involved. video

    Here’s the video we used for yesterday’s service. Of course, the message of the video is pretty straight-forward… "I like being involved because…"

    I just love it when people are willing to cut loose a little. Perfect example here.

  • involved.

    Standout3_titleToday was a great day for our church as we asked people to step up and get involved. For those already involved… I hope they heard the message clearly, "We want reinforcements."

    I am especially excited that several people indicated that they want to be a part of restructuring Light Force.

    Here’s the starting point of the revisioning of student ministry at Romeo. "What we’ve done to this point has missed the vast majority. What we are doing now is great… just not good enough."

    I am geeked that people want to be a part of developing something for Light Force that is attractive to those currently not coming.

    p.s. I sarcastically thought to myself… "How do I get ‘less involved." Ha! I think we all looked good in our "involved." shirts. It was a win for little Romeo.

  • We gave in

    AirconI made a big decision for the family this afternoon. I turned on the air conditioning. We had been trying to hold out as long as possible. But with temperatures here in Romeo climbing towards 90 again the ambient temperature in the house is finally too warm to be comfortable.

    Up until this point the house has been able to cool off enough at night to last most of the day and stay pleasant. I think we’re at the point where the house is just going to hold the heat now for a while.

    I even put the little air conditioner up in Megan’s room and cranked that up. So far… it feels SO MUCH BETTER.

  • Because nut shots are just funny

    It doesn’t get any better than this. All you need to know is that 1 tennis ball fired at 130 miles per hour hitting you in the nuts… hurts!

    Frenchman Marc Gicquel had to retire after just one set of Friday’s
    quarter-final at the ATP Halle tournament suffering from the
    after-effects of Thursday’s injury to his testicles.

    Gicquel,
    30, lost the first set 6-4 to Finland’s Jarkko Nieminen before asking
    for medical treatment and admitted he was suffering from being hit in
    the most delicate of areas by a serve clocked at 208 kilometres per
    hour.     Story

    So, that was cool. He went on to win the match too. But then this is the second part of the story.

    But having spent Thursday night feeling ill and vomiting, the
    Frenchman said he did not have the energy to carry on against Finland’s
    Nieminen and had to withdraw.

    "I am very disappounted for
    sure," said a pale-looking Gicquel. "But I spent most of Thursday night
    not feeling well and I was sick a few times. I think it might have
    something to do with my injury on Thursday.

    So he wasn’t a superhero after all. I know getting hit down there can sometimes be delayed in its effect… but man… you know you got hit hard when you don’t get sick for a few hours.  Ouch! His opponent also apparently likes puns… because this is what he said:

    Nieminen was disappointed to have got through to the semi-final without
    being tested, but was looking forward to the extra rest against the
    fourth-seeded Czech.

    Note to self: Don’t play tennis against that guy without a cup on.

  • A weird assignment

    Ugly_tieI love my job. I love that I get to be creative and a little bit weird… so I get to be myself. Right now I am getting ready to run out and go on an all-time weird shopping trip. I need about 30 ugly ties.

    There ain’t nothing like it!

    That is all.

  • What is summer all about?

    Waterballoon
    Over at YMX there is a lot of discussion about summer in youth ministry. It seems that there are people who either love summer in youth ministry or hate it.

    In most youth groups there are two "seasons" where you do things completely different. Summer and School.

    • School youth ministry: This is "home base" for most of us. Coming to youth group becomes another cog in the wheel of structured life. What’s funny is that most students feel like youth group is the "unprogrammed" part of their day… so they like that.
    • Summer youth ministry: This is "money time" for youth ministry. Students lives are almost completely unstructured all summer long. Because a lot of students don’t work, church and youth group help them keep track of what day of the week it is. By contrast to the school season… youth group may be the only "programmed" thing they attend during the week.

    I guess I understand those who don’t like the break in their routine. It’s "easier" to just keep going with regular youth ministry. But I love the change of pace. We use it as a time to rest, revision, increase the connection time with students, and just do everything a little looser. I find this "soft time" of the year to be more productive for ministry. Odd since it’s less structured, but that’s why I like summers best.

  • New stuff is in the air

    There must be something in the summer air that has got me going… but there are all sorts of things swirling around my head.

    Sometimes I pray "stupid prayers" to God. I asked Him to take what I’m doing and blow it up for you. Maybe that meant "destroy" or maybe that meant "make it cooler than I can imagine." But He’s God and He is in the process of blowing some stuff up in my life.

    Let me narrow it to two categories.

    1. Light Force. I’m not satisfied that we are missing close to 3100 students from the schools we’re supposedly trying to reach. I’ve been praying about that a lot lately and seeking Godly counsel. I’ve come to a simple conclusion that flows directly out of what I taught for the last 28 weeks in Acts. We need to get busy spreading God’s virus in a dead and dying world without Christ. All that to say… in the coming weeks I plan on exploring a lot and meeting with a lot of people to talk about developing a new "foyer" environment for 7-12th graders in Romeo.
    2. Website-o-rific. Holy cow… I’ve made a lot of websites in the last few weeks. Most of them are still "shells" for what is to come. In the coming weeks I’ll be completely moving all of the churches sites/subdomains from fbcromeo.org to romeochurch.com. In the process of doing that I’m launching several brand new additions to the church’s family of sites. So there will be loads of cool new things to look at as we develop sites for our leadership teams, kids ministry, student ministry, young adult ministry, married couples ministry, and even our main church site. Holy cow… that’s a lot!

    As I  reflect back on 6 weeks ago… I was completely worn out and exhausted. I’m praising God that with a little rest and time away, I’m feeling charged back up… more creative and carefree than ever.

    God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out,
       his merciful love couldn’t have dried up.
    They’re created new every morning.
       How great your faithfulness!
    I’m sticking with God (I say it over and over).
       He’s all I’ve got left.

    God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits,
       to the woman who diligently seeks.
    It’s a good thing to quietly hope,
       quietly hope for help from God.
    It’s a good thing when you’re young
       to stick it out through the hard times. Lamentations 3 (The Message)

  • Senior Roast

    Here is the video I put together for tonights senior roast. 5 seniors showed up and a good time was had by all. OK, so there were a few instances of "classic overshare" but that’s going to happen at a roast.