Date Night
Since I was such a bad husband on Tuesday night and played golf instead of taking Kristen our for her birthday, I thought I would surprise her by getting a babysitter and taking her out to a movie. (For another day… But did you realize that it costs me over $50 for a date these days? Wow!) I left the office around 6:00 pm last night and shortly there after we headed to our favorite movie theater, the AMC 30 in Sterling Heights.

More than a boxing movie
I didn’t know that we were going to a movie about boxing until we were in our seats. As we sat there through the 247 previews I leaned over and asked, “So what’s this movie all about anyway?” She said, “It’s the boxing one with Russell Crowe… It looks great.”

The story is of a washed up former contender who falls, just like everyone else, into the dark Great Depression. As the months and years fall away the one time great boxer gets hurt and eventually has to stop boxing altogether. With his sole source of income for his wife (Renée Zellweger) and 3 kids gone, he is just like everyone else…Tryingg to get by with no money.

It all bottoms out when they fall well behind on all of their bills, lose the kids, and a brother-in-law to a police skirmish. Broken, he goes back to the cigar filled room of Madison Square Gardens and begs for money. The one time prize fighter is reduced to begging.

But, since this is an American story of an Irishmen and not an Irish story of an Irishmen, luck turns for the family. He gets a fight by chance and the comeback begins.

Better than Rocky?
As I left the theater, misty eyed and ready to shadow box in the car on the way home, I wondered if this was the best boxing movie of all time. Better than When We Were Kings? I think so. Better than Raging Bull? Move over Martin, Ron Howard beat you. Better than even Rocky? I don’t know if this was better that Rocky…Butt it was miles apart from Rocky II, III, IV, and V. (Though I’ve always had a soft spot for Rocky IV! “I must break you.”)

PA’s recommendation
I think this is a movie worth seeing. It’s fairly clean, (only one cuss word, but plenty of using the Lord’s name in vain) no nudity or sex or anything homosexual…Prettyy rare to have a major movie with none of that. It’s got a fantastic story for both men and women. All in all I’d put this in “must see” category. It will leave you chearing.

Off the tee there is a lot of terminology used. Let’s look at this beautiful golf hole and see what it has to offer for us. Follow the different colors of flight lines and check out what each of these different shots are called.

It all starts on the tee box itself. The golfer must place his ball (white dot) somewhere between the two markers. (blue dots) From there, the goal is for the player to hit his ball on the fairway. (The lighter green grass) This will give him the best approach shot to the green.

Center cut: (white) This is just a straight shot. Obviously this is the most desirable of the options. The ball flies high and long. Today’s large drivers specialize in high launch angles and maximize distance.

Slice: (red) This is the most common mistake golfer make. The ball starts off on target but an off center backspin causes the ball to drift into the right rough.

Hook: (yellow) A hook is caused by off center backspin to the right. Though a hook generally travels farther than a straight shot it often leaves the player in poor position.

Topped: (green) This is caused by severe top spin. The ball doesn’t go very far and is highly embarrassing. Also called a worm burner.

Pull: (pink) This is caused by severely off centered backspin. While it may roll a long way, it is wildly out of control.

One of the many things that small church youth pastors get dragged into is involvement in VBS. I’d like to know where VBS started… And I’d really like to meet the guy who invented the thing. Why? I don’t know, there are some questions I’d like to know the answers to.

• What was the original intention of VBS? evangelism? Discipleship? Torment? Felt need?
• Why stress a week of VBS and not a lifestyle of child evangelism?
• Why 5 days? Why not 3 days or 14 days?
• Should it look and feel like day camp? That’s the way it looks and feels to me. Even as a kid I didn’t really like it even though I went. I guess I always felt, as a kid, that it was just a week of babysitting.
• Did you ever think that VBS would become a sacred cow for most churches or did you intend for it to be a fad?
• Why is it that I can motivate kids to invite friends to church and even have them bring an offering during VBS and then NEVER again?
• How did you intend on connecting those visitors and new baby Christians to the body of Christ?
• Why does every church in town have to do it? Why can’t we all just do one massive VBS instead of the other churches kids coming to mine and visa versa?

Gosh, that sure looks like a rant… Doesn’t it? I don’t mean it to look like that… I just really want to know those things about VBS.

Perhaps the biggest thing that happens this next week is that people in my church have decided I hate VBS. This is kind of weird to me. Perhaps it is just a perception thing, but perhaps it’s been my inability to communicate how I’ve had to adapt here at Romeo.

When I came on board the mandate was to build Light Force into something that could/would become multi-staffed within a couple of years. Well, all of that came crumbling down when PM left in October 2003. So that very first VBS I was here… I saw my role differently than I do now. Then in summer 2004, they scheduled VBS the first week of golf practice. (I got double booked) So that further carried the perception that I don’t like VBS… Since I wasn’t here all the time.

This year is another story. I am involved with VBS. I’ve been doing all types of support stuff and will be a team cheerleader… But I still carry the perception that I don’t like VBS. The funny thing is that it isn’t true. Do I love VBS? Not really. I wish there could be a better way of doing the same thing, so I would just put myself in the category of “I think VBS is a phenomenon that is cool” but I wouldn’t say I either love or hate it.

I want VBS to become a catalyst for great children’s ministry @ Romeo. While Light Force has led the way and helped to be the shining star when things were down & out here… I am so excited to see these other areas spring to life… Even though it clearly means that Light Force has been put on the back-burner. The reality is that in order for Light Force to get back on track with it’s multi-staffed pace, we need 2 things to happen.

1. The church has to grow enough to support 5-6 FT staff people before I’ll be allotted a junior high or high school pastor.

2. The students in Light Force need to take the challenge to share their faith with their friends.

Until both of them happen, I will be involved with VBS in an ever-growing, ever-deepening commitment to making VBS better and more intentional. To grow to where I want to grow, I need to grow through this vehicle. Liking or disliking it has nothing to do with it. But for the record, I like VBS.

It’s back
Almost a year ago PB and I started talking about meeting a fellowship and worship need in our church. What we came up with was a simple time of getting together around the campfire for songs and prayer. We guessed that this would be most attractive to our 20-30 something… We were wrong. The first 4-5 times we did it we had the 20-30 something… But we also had a whole bunch of empty nesters.

Flash forward
This summer we have relaunched this “thing” and called it Bonfire. The first one was this last Sunday evening.

We met at the appointed location and got everything ready. As 6 PM got closer I got more nervous. There was no one there! But then the droves came. All told we ended up with over 40 people who came to be together and worship and “whatever.”

This week the weather report was terrible. There were tornado watches all over our area and the high heat and humidity from the weekend was building moisture in the atmosphere… You could just feel that something was going to give.

On that note, I was right. About 8:30 you could start to hear the rumblings of thunder. As we sat around the fire and prayed for one another we all felt a cool breeze come through the woods. The trees blew, more thunder rumbled and everyone instantly started to move. No sooner than we got everything into the basement than a major, but quick, thunderstorm rolled through.

Nonetheless
Even though it ended weird, our first bonfire was a raging success. I’m really looking forward to what God will do with this “thing” this summer. I feel it is the “point of connection” that anyone in our community could be looking for. I long to see it be the bridge between the old Romeo and the new emerging one.

In the past 3 months we’ve been running Media Shout 2.5 for worship, we’ve had limited problems. That streak ended today as it crashed in the middle of our worship service.

Since it was the first time this has happened, we didn’t really know what to do. The operator just kept clicking on things until the program just bombed out. (If it was an older PC it would have shown the blue screen of death!)

I’m sure I’ll take hell for that from PB in the morning.

In other news
Tonight is our first Bonfire of the year. This is a little postmodern thing I put together. We meet at a families house, eat some goodies, hang out a little, do some community prayer time, and do a spiritual discipline. Tonight we’ll be experimenting with the Centering Prayer. Should be interesting.

The bad news is that there are storm warnings all over the place. It could either storm or be fine. We’ll have to wait and see.

Church news
Today a new part time worship leader started. I think it could be either really good or really bad. Along those lines we’ve offered another part time position to a young couple looking to learn how to be in ministry. If it all goes through, they will be leading our children’s ministry.

Today is the big day for our high school graduates.

I can’t help thinking back to my own graduation day. It’s only been 11 years and yet life couldn’t be more different.

Back in June 1994 I was a young man “putting my life where my mouth was.” I recognized that my only chance at entering and completing my undergraduate education at Moody Bible Institute was if I worked my tail off.

About 3-4 weeks before graduation I secured a job that would pay me well enough to make that happen… It was just in Chicago when I lived in South Bend, Indiana. If I worked as a campus painter I could live on campus for free and just about make enough money for the fall semester.

Graduation day, to me, was just a parenthesis in getting that done. I had skipped the last few weeks of school to get a head start on my job at Moody, so coming back home for the weekend was both a nice break and a final chance to be a kid. I spent the weekend going to graduation parties and seeing my mom, who had come to visit from Washington state.

Graduation day itself was simple and fast. We walked with 294 students. (I ranked #94) Since all 5 South Bend schools were using the same convention space for their graduations… Our school was allotted only 70 minutes. We showed up, lined up, and as I sat down me and my best friend Tim realized that we were supposed to be singing with the choir and not sitting with our class! As soon as we sat down our choir director glared at us… And we quickly scurried to our spots in the baritone section.

There were a few speeches. The valedictorian’s speech said something about “using the force” or something cosmically stupid, and then the principal read our names. When my name was read I was proud… Looked out to my parents and waved… Gave the principal her penny towards her retirement fund… And went back to my seat.

I think we went out to eat afterwards. But I mostly remember that pretty soon I had all of my bags, my gifts, and my cap on the South Shore train back to Chicago so I could work again on Monday morning. I cried most of the way back to Chicago.

To me, graduating from high school was a profound time of loss. The years of fun had given way to the years of hard work to come. $6.40 an hour… As the train poked it’s way through Michigan City, Gary, East Chicago, Hammond, and finally to the city… The realities of what was to come became clear.

By the time the train got to the city and I walked from Randolph Street all the way to Oak Street where my new life awaited… I was ready for whatever God had in store for me. What a ride it has been!

Today and Monday mark the end of the education year for most of my students in the youth group. Sure, they still have some exams to take… but it’s the end for them!

Yesterday I advanced my grades on Youth Track. This gave me a chance to transfer some students from “youth” to “adult” status. It also gave me a chance to see what the classes will look like next fall. We’ve got a big group of upcoming 8th graders and a big group of 11th graders.

Strategically, next year is aimed at being a big year for Light Force. With this summers mission trip (evangelism) and the big emphasis I will place in the 3Story training for August/September… I’ll be challenging the high school/middle school students to share their faith with 100 people this fall. (As a group.) To steal a line from Jonathan Herron’s blog… It’s time.

So today is my 29th birthday. Happy birthday to me!

• This morning I played golf with PB; he hasn’t really played all year and I play all the time. Long story short… I shot 39 and he played. (I was +5 after 3 holes and finished +3!)
• I almost got my first hole in one. It was about 8 inches right of the hole… what a birthday that would have been!
• Got a nice bunch of cards from Light Force students last night. Too cool.
• Had a birthday lunch at church.
• Got a nice watch from Kristen and the kids… yippee!!
• Hopefully Kristen and I will get to go out tonight.

That’s it. I’m off again to finish a great day.

So I checked my calendar this morning to see what a cupcake week I have planned. Low and behold today is the day my extension ends for Historical Foundations. I have to write and turn in a 15-20 page research paper today. Ugh!

If I don’t, it is simple… I fail a class that cost me $700 and 9 days away from home. Yes, this is the same class I claimed to be dumber for taking and the same one I called “the worst class I’ve ever taken… Even from high school or before.”

Worse than that, I’ve since found out I didn’t need to take the class in the first place.

So I’ll be haulin’ ass today to try to turn something in. If I get to 7-8 pages I’ll be happy.

And you thought I was kidding about the flaming tower at LaShish?