Few things are more fun for me than hanging out with my kids and talking away. For this story… you need to know that Paul still has a hard time with his "s" words. The conjunction "st" gets pronounced more like "sd" and "s" words often come across as "sh" words.
So you can imagine the laughter in the house when Paul was wrestling me tonight and he proudly proclaimed, "I’m sitting on daddy’s head."
Late Summer is traditionally wild for me. I’ve got to participate in my summer activities and gear up for the Fall programs all at the same time. So, while most of my students are chilling at the pool, staying up until 3 AM, and sleeping in… I’m cracking the whip and falling into a pile at the end of the day.
What’s doubly crazy is that this year is twice as mad as usual! Why is that? Well, starting in September we are implementing a lot of changes to the youth group. "Changes, I thought we were a Baptist youth group?"
Yeah, we’re morphing (not changing really) the make-up and philosophy of ministry for Light Force. I am saving a lot of the details of this until a Parents Meeting on August 16th… but let’s just say it’s BIG and it’s really exciting for us.
The net result is that I have lots and lots to do and I’m trying to break it all up into bite sized pieces. I love everything I’m doing… just panting like a dog to get it done.
I just got back from the vet. Stoney is now sporting a very cool orange bandage. They took him in the back room and he came back a few minutes later. He was very good about it. He’s been pretty lazy today, but I’m expecting him to be back to his normal self in no time.
I think the whole world is keeping an eye on this Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I have to be honest as say that I don’t know who is right and wrong. Hundreds of people are dying, thousands have been injured, and nothing but anger has come to light.
I can see how Israel seems to be overreacting to everything. An enemy does something small and Israel responds with thunder. But I can also see how Palestinians are not being reasonable in the least. It’s just a mess.
Than this happened yesterday. How sad.
Buried deep in an article on CBS’s economic website, it seems that Congress is trying raise the minimum wage nationwide.
The bill calls for the minimum wage to rise to $7.25 an hour from $5.15
an hour, an increase that would be phased in over the next three years. [Read the rest]
Obviously, this hasn’t passed through the Senate yet… but raising the wages of our lowest paid employed persons out there is good news. It’s kind of sick to think that someone could work 40 hours per week at Wal*Mart and bring home less than $200 after taxes. This would take that 40 hour take home pay to about $250.
Postscript: This doesn’t mean our babysitters will be getting a raise. In fact… we didn’t know we could pay so little!
We are dogsitting for Nat’s massive hound dog named Flapjack. So far, it’s been really easy since he’s a nice dog. But the first day Stoney and Flappy did get into a little bit of a scuffle.
In the course of fighting there was a lot of scratching and biting. While Flappy didn’t get hurt at all, Stoney did get a bloody ear and his right dewclaw got messed up. I cleaned up and iced his ear. But we’re keeping an eye on his dewclaw. I’m not trying to be cheap, but I’d hate to go to the vet to have him charge me $100 to remove a nail that will likely fall off in a few days.
p.s. Still no Violet.
I’m not sure I even want to talk about this. But it has to come out somewhere and I think it has a good purpose.
It seems all my really good thoughts seem to come to me while pushing the lawn mower. As I sweated my lunch off this evening I started thinking about something.
Today, we had Dave take a look at a list of the 50 Most Influential Churches in America’s websites. Based solely on the websites, the top 50 seem to fit into one of the following categories.
Kind of weird eh? Go ahead… find them for yourself.
This is just one of those observation posts. It’s what I’m seeing from the corner office of my life.
The summer between high school and college is both exciting and depressing at the same time for graduates. Unlike any other class, I got really attached the class of 2006. And, whether they like to admit it or not, they got attached to Kristen and I. It was a great 3 years with them. I love them, I don’t regret my time invested in them, I can’t wait to continue being a part of their lives as we begin the transition from Pastor-Student to Pastor-Adult. It brings me a lot of joy to have been apart of their lives and to know that I get to be a part of the next stages of their lives somehow. (If they let me share it!)
But their time with me, at least in the form they have known it, is ending. It’s a natural cycle in youth ministry as graduates leave and new students come in. We have no other choice but to let the graduates leave and pick up our boots and begin investing in the next group. Every single year it is hard on the ones leaving. Trust me, it’s hard on Kristen and I as well.
What about them? Perhaps the hardest part for the class of 2006 is knowing that the things they were working so hard on are not completed yet. Being a part of the beginning process is never as much fun as being in the glory days of the final product. This is extremely evident to them in two areas:
Leadership development. I’ve invested in them, they’ve done a great job. Now I can feel their frustration at our investing in younger people. Our time isn’t exclusively theirs anymore… and that’s a bitter pill to swallow. At the same time… they are leaving and it’s time to begin the process of doing with a new crew what we have done with them… of course it will be different and hopefully even better. But that pill is awful bitter nonetheless. (A pill made more bitter as they see my time most invested in Dave this summer.)
All this to say, while the youth ministry cycle is at times harsh and at times may seem unfair, it is a cycle. We have no choice but to, for lack of a better term, move forward. God’s agenda is not limited to the past. Instead we invest in the here and now for His glory. In the same way that I expect my graduates to take what they’ve learned and embrace the next stage in life, I challenge the up and comers to take the batton, step up and take Light Force to a whole ‘nother level.
It’s a little easier for me to say that because I’ve experienced it many times. As a student, as a volunteer, and as a youth guy. I see it coming and even though I warn the seniors it’s coming… every single year they don’t.
p.s. The best thing about recent graduates is seeing them come back the first time from college. It’s then that they see how time just marches on. Is that an evil thought?
The last several days (ok, weeks) have been a series of late nights. I am really looking forward to a nice and lazy Saturday.
Middle Madness last night was a lot of fun. We went out to Dryden and ran around doing a scavenger hunt. Then the students tried to make some homemade ice cream. The best part, to me, was watching students try to make ice cream and have it not work. They just kept ending up with a mushy bag of white stuff.
When we got back to town we decided that we needed to go to Dairy Queen. So about 8 of us went and got DQ. It was really cool to hang out with middle schoolers without their older siblings. It’s not that I don’t enjoy hanging out with high schoolers, it just that when you mix them… the older ones manage to push their way to the front of all of the adults attention. And middle schoolers are people too!