• Get your own smile!

    Osteenad
    I just saw this and thought it was fun enough to share. It’s true, no one smiles quite as pretty as Lakewood’s Joel Olsteen.

  • 2007

    The first couple days of this week the church ministry staff is away on a mini-retreat. We do this because we take to heart the advice that "in order to work on something you have to get out of something." Sometimes, in being so wrapped up in what we’re doing with the church we need to just get away from the place to more clearly see what we need to do.

    So what’s new in 2007? Well, we’ve made a plan! While we’re not ready to reveal the plan quite yet… I will say that it is both aggressive and simple. We’re not looking to make any changes but instead improve on the changes of 2006. What we’ll work on will be "big enough" that it will impact every single person at the church and yet subtle enough for some to say "YES!"

    Of course, it’s Wednesday. Which mean Light Force is tonight. (After the annual business meeting) I am always excited to spend time with LFers. (I’m start to call them "lifers" at least in my brain.)Tonight, I will finally let everyone know our plans for the Christmas break. This probably didn’t come soon enough for some of our students… but that’s life.

  • Mystery Dad

    Megan finally allowed me to volunteer at her class today. I had a great time getting to know all of the kids and helping Megan’s teacher. Let me just say that I have no idea how one lady handles a class of 26 five and six year old so efficiently. There were a millions bits of order all over the place.

    I especially liked helping kids with their phonics since that is how I learned how to read as well.

    Maybe, if I am a good daddy, Megan will let me visit again.

  • What Megan Learned in KidsTown Today

    Not sure what this had to do with Luke 1, but Megan learned in KidsTown that she couldn’t marry Paul. Glad she learned that. Especially before the wedding plans got too far along.

  • Weird day in Chicago

    Since Andrea mentioned it in a comment, I have to keep up the appearances that I favor Andrea of all other LF alumni, so here are a couple of links to what she was talking about.

    Chicago1
    Law Firm Rampage Has Officials Puzzled
    Um, "law firm" and "gun rampage" aren’t two phrases you see next to one another very often. Should I be more concerned about working with Pastor Bob? Should we frisk people when they come in?

    Rockford Bomb Plot Foiled, FBI Says
    This one is just plain odd. Not trying to demean Rockford… but Rockford, Illinois is some kind of terror hotspot? Who knew? I mean, I can’t even find a picture of the mall on the web? That’s just a weird story.

  • Brady for the Heisman?

    Bradyquinn4
    I don’t actually think Brady Quinn will be winning the Heisman today, I think that Troy Smith is a slam dunk for it, but some guy over at ESPN has put together a pretty funny mock speech. (There is a speech for all of the candidates, check them out by following the link… also, this is just the beginning. There is more of Brady’s too.)

    Brady Quinn – QB, Notre Dame

    I want to start by saying
    that it is an honor to win this award and an honor to be here, just as
    I’m sure it is an honor for all of you to meet me, Brady Quinn:
    quarterback of Notre Dame and dreamboat extraordinaire. And, yes, it’s
    correct what you’re thinking – I am even more handsome in person.

    (Pause to look at cameras. Gaze deeply into them. Work it, Brady. Work it. Give them what they came for.)

    There
    are so many people I want to thank. First of all, my parents for their
    love and support. And I don’t want to forget my sister Laura. You look
    beautiful tonight in your half formal dress, half Packers jersey. Your
    sense of fashion has always inspired me.


    I’m not sure what this is all about… but apparently a lot of people think Brady Quinn is good looking. I mean, the guy plays football? For only $9.99 a year, you can register the domain "www.bradyquinnishot.com" Hurry, supplies are limited. Seriously, what’s up with all the weird goo-goo eyes about the quarterback for Notre Dame?

  • Thank You Mr. Rumsfeld

    RumsfeldI’m not the most pessimistic person in the world. In fact, I am perhaps the only American left that believes in our president and thinks that the war in Iraq is good for Iraq.

    It obviously not a popular thing to say. Even today, when Donald Rumsfeld was conducting his last town hall meeting at the Pentagon, he was cut off by all the networks. After nearly 50 years of public service, the politically minded schmucks running the networks haven’t changed.

    All the networks managed to show a tearful outgoing Secretary of Defense. The news hounds struggled to keep the cameras rolling as the first question came about "What have you read while in office?"

    In a moment clearly planned, the next question was from a proud father and soldier who stood up and said, "I would like to thank you for…" Then CNN cut him off. They instantly went back to the negative news on the war in Iraq. A quick flip to MSNBC and FoxNews showed the same thing. Fox actually cut from Rumsfeld to the scary music and "another bombing in Baghdad." Puke. I’m just sick of it.

    At the same time, it almost 22 months until the next Presidential election… and the news agencies have already anointed Barack Obama and Hilllary Rodham Clinton as the democrats best chances at taking the White House.

    Jonvertical
    Excuse me?     Do the American people need to be dared once again? I know that they think that electing Bush twice, despite the presses best attempts to prevent it was a fluke. I actually think that the liberal media is the worst enemy of the Democratic party. I’m no politician, but I think that the most electable person in the country may be a celebrity such as Jon Stewart. 

  • Issues in Youth Ministry

    Issues_in_youth_ministry_border
    A few weeks back Tim Schmoyer asked me to give him my thoughts on Youth Ministry from a "big lens" perspective. He actually has a huge "What Needs to Change" series going on his blog… a fantastic idea and there are loads of good thoughts from a broad spectrum of youth ministry professionals, academics, practitioners, and thinkers. Read all of the authors comments.

    Here’s an except of what I wrote:

    In what ways does youth ministry need to change?

    • I think as a profession we need to develop some standard goals. Why
      do we do youth ministry? How does one get the label as a professional
      youth worker? What are the standard things ALL youth ministries should
      be doing? Stuff like that.
    • Youth workers need to care less about attracting kids and care more
      about fitting their youth ministry into their church model and visa
      versa.
    • Youth workers need to get serious about training their adult volunteers.
    • We need to get past games and music and into something deeper. In
      the 1980’s Dan Spader, president of Sonlife, said “It’s a sin to bore a
      kid with the gospel.” I want to revise that to say, “It’s a sin to
      never teach a kid the gospel.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve
      heard a kid from other youth groups who visited our YM say that they
      have never heard the bible taught to them. When ministries begin
      teaching solely topically, they are truly missing out on something big.

    Kudos to Tim for pulling this together. And thanks for asking me to contribute.

  • Snowman fun

    Not sure what this means, but it was just sent to me and I like it.
    Snowman

  • MainStreet, Light Force in Action?

    Last night was our 3rd MainStreet. MainStreet is a big kids event where we invite parents into a kids world to learn biblical virtues.

    Something I adore about MainStreet is the amount of involvement with our middle and high school students. Last night, there were a few skits that where 90% Light Force students performed and 10% of adults were involved. I can’t articulate it accurately, but seeing them being so integral to MainStreet just rocks.

    One bit of feedback we’ve heard at all 3 MainStreet’s is "Can you ever top this?"
    My simple response is always… we’re trying to do each MainStreet better than the month’s before. Each month we sit down and take apart the whole evening. There were about 15 things that we improved on from last month… and most of them were things people "felt" and didn’t see.

    So, will the next one be better?     Yes! Will it be bigger? We don’t know yet. It depends on a lot of factors.

    And for the next 48 hours or so, in all honesty, I don’t want to think about MainStreet.