Editor’s note: Obviously, today was a stressful day filled with stress. This is a venting place for me. Never meant to be seen by another person. I wouldn’t ever say these things out of respect for the church, my position, and my Boss. These words are merely a response to the stress of my day.

I’ve said this since the very beginning and it remains true today. Working as a pastor in a church is one of the harshest and best environments at the same time. I feel like I have to constantly justify myself daily. I could have worked the day before for 20 hours on countless projects both in support of my ministry and outside of my ministry… But there will always be someone who questions “what is it that you do?”

I don’t desire to be held in super high esteem. I don’t desire to never have my actions questioned or be treated as though I am beyond examination. What I do expect is a certain level of dignity given to me as well as some respect.

Unfortunately, I was reminded again that even leaders in the church do not respect me or the work I do with their children. They seemingly don’t see what I do as “work” and feel the need to say “are you worth the money?” No, I am only worth what others who voted say I am worth for a certain job function. No, I cannot redefine myself to suit the whims of boards or individuals. I am who God has made me.

I swear, it is only by the grace of God and His leading in my life that I don’t look at those people and simply say… You are right. I am a waste of a person. I don’t know what I am here. Since you don’t think it is important, why don’t you just fire me?

It’s kind of ironic that I am writing a paper on how to develop leadership in student ministry when my church can’t even define the terms for themselves. My opinion is that if you were to ask 5 leaders in our church what their role was, 5 would give different and equally dysfunctional answers.

It is no wonder the church is paralyzed by making decisions and moving forward. Everyone does what they want with no accountability. This is why I have said, am saying now, and will continue to say forward that the #1 skill our new senior pastor must have to move this church forward is the ability to lead and disciple men. To hire any man who is not tested and successful to that end would be a gross failure. Preaching is 3-4 down the list of importance… #1 is leading/discipling men and everything else hinges on that one skill.

I could list many “for instances” but that would only cause pain and harm to even utter to myself. Kristen and I are committed to remaining faithful to this church. Yes, we do have to keep reminding ourselves of this… But we strongly desire for that to be true. This community is so rich in potential that I feel that if we are faithful to God and His Word, we as a body apply it to our lives, God will reward us beyond our wildest dreams. This is more than hope… To Kristen and I it is reality. We have sensed it and felt it all the more since we arrived here to candidate. Romeo is where it is at. First Baptist is where it is at. We are complete fools to do this but we have not contacted a single church about moving or changing jobs.

With that said, we need a pastor who can lead our men. Disciple them. Teach them about accountability. Support one another. Lead their families. Learn to lead our church more effectively and in faith.

Today has been abnormally hectic. I had lots of preparations to do for Light Force tonight. The talk loomed large as I’ve done nothing for it! Also, it was a student’s birthday and I wanted to go visit her school at lunch. While that sounded busy enough for one day, I also had two dilemmas pop up which needed my attention. First, the roof of the church sprung a leak. Nothing serious but did warrant some conversation. Second, I received an e-mail from a parent that took me 2 hours to respond to. God is good. He provides wisdom at just the right times.

I’ve had reminders all this week that when you are getting close to people relationally, you will be overcome by their messiness. Praise God we are all forgiven by Christ’s blood. Marvelous, wonderful, amazing grace.

Today we found out Paul has an ear infection. This is so disappointing because it means that we’ve again missed it as parents. We’ve known he was sick but just never saw it as an ear infection. If he hadn’t gotten puffy eyes, we would have never even taken him to the doctor! Poor kid.

Megan had a good day at school. Not that we were stressed out over it, but we were a little disappointed in the parent/teacher conference we had at school last week. The teacher said that Megan needs to express herself more verbally instead of just whinning. That hit us hard. We knew it. We were aware of it. But we just allowed it to continue. After spending the last week saying “use your words, tell us what you want” it seems to have paid off.

I am saying this for the first time this holiday season. I hate Christmas. Not the day Jesus was born, but the thing it has become. The consumerism of it all sickens me. If I hear “I need” one more time… I’ll puke. As if want and need weren’t two different words!

I desperately need to work on my last research paper for my grad class. I am mad at myself for not doing it. I wonder if this procrastination is a sign that I secretly don’t want to be a student anymore. But then again, this isn’t one of those narcisistic blogs… so I won’t get into it!

This is just a shock to me. I can’t believe that they didn’t let him live out his contract. I think this was a mistake. Everyone wants the flavor of the month, Urban Meyer, but I think this is just another chapter in the history of how a fantastic football school has turned into just another legend. Notre Dame looks like Michael Jordan in a Wizards uniform.

This year I am trying to have a series of fun events on the calendar for the holiday season. In our community, not a lot of people travel for Christmas even though there are lots of people off of work. The idea is that if we have several small events, that we will be able to give students something fun to look forward to.

Here are some of the things we have scheduled:

1. Curling at Detroit Curling Club (Dec 17 or 18)
2. Skating at Campus Martius Park in downtown Detroit (Dec 21)
3. Feather bowling at Bath City Bistro (TBD)
4. Bocce at Palazzo di Bocce (TBD)
5. Floor hockey at Joe Dumars Fieldhouse (TBD)
6. Movies and video games at the church (12/30)

That’s only 6 you say! Exactly. I’m still working on the last 2. But it’ll probably be bowling and a movie night. We need to try to contain the costs!

No, I am not complaining about something at the church. But I will complain about this pounding headache. Ouch.

It’s been hard to get anything done today or to think clearly at all. The good news is that I have a light work day and it probably isn’t a big deal to be late on ym paper for school.

I fear I may be getting sick. Yuck. Everyone else in the house has had a cold and I really don’t want one. More on this later.

I just got done watching Super Size Me. Kristen checked it out from the library tonight. I’ve wanted to see it since I first heard about it, but we just got around to it.

Kristen fell asleep about 10 minutes into it. She hates documentaries thoroughly. Not that she is a prude or anything, but if it isn’t a home re-design show or a makeover show… She’s not watching it.

I was disgusted by what I saw. But I’m not 100% the facts all pan out on that one either. It’s kind of got that Michael Moore feel to it where everything is believable when you are watching it, but when you apply your mind to it some of the logic just falls apart. The reality is that the filmmaker could have eater tofu for 30 days and had similar results. When you don’t have a balanced diet and exercise you gain weight and feel like crap. That’s a surprise?

On the other hand, I thought McDonald’s was gross before I watched the movie and was just further disgusted by them after the movie. I think taking apart any major corporations marketing strategies will always lead you you wicked consumerism.

In the same regard, I am officially leary of Wal*Mart after watching “Is Wal*Mat Good for America?” on Frontline a few weeks back.

I don’t know whether to stop shopping at these two places, or readjust my portfolio since they are both so profitable?

There has been a lot said and written about protecting yourself from allegations and improprieties lately. Especially with the sex scandal of the Catholic church looming large in the minds of Americans. This is further developed in the media who rarely portrays pastors as normal people. They are often portrayed as sex craving hypocrites. The movie “Saved” pretty much nails the stereotype.

What this means to a pastor like me is that I have to constantly be overly careful. Even a few years ago this merely meant that I shouldn’t do anything alone with a female student. But this is now being extended to mean that I shouldn’t ever do anything alone with anyone. Should I feel guilty about being alone with my wife? Afterall, she is a volunteer staff person. Oh my goodness, Pastor Adam has sex with a volunteer! News at 11.

This is manifesting itself as we prepare for the Northern Ireland mission trip. As part of the trip, I have always wanted to have both a male and female leader go with our students. In this particular trip, the adult leaders role is very minimal since we are turning over the reigns of leadership to YFC from the onset. Yet I have always felt it was a good idea to take along a female leader just to be there for our girls. The rub with this is that some “old hens” have decided it doesn’t “look good” for a pastor to travel with a group of students and a single woman.

On the one hand, it’s my fault since I took what I had heard as a rumbling and took it to the deacons to think about before it manifested itself as a problem. To me, the whole thing would go away with a little education about this particular trip. It didn’t.

Now it is clear that the deacons want 2 females to go on the trip to watch over everything like nuns. [OK, that’s an exaggeration!] Actually, there first preference is that Kristen go. This can’t happen. The second preference is that I take two unmarried females with me. As if it there were strength against sin in numbers? The 3rd preference is that I go alone with the students. This flies in the face of both the churches policy as well as the parents “safety button.” The last preference is that the students go alone. But who wants that?

There must a line. There has to be a point where we are exercising caution but not being legalistic. We should be safe, but still leave room for God to act and speak. We should attempt to be above reproach while acknowledging that we are always sinners and always capable to sin.

I suppose this is an entry of frustration. I don’t see why this is an issue. I understand the issue, yet I don’t like to see ministry inhibited by the sinful thoughts of others. At the same time, if we don’t respond to the issues then they think we are being shaddy and not “above reproach.”

Praise God for responsive and action oriented leadership. This is one of those cases where I know I could fight for and win my point of view… But it isn’t worth fighting over. I could win this battle yet cost myself too much collateral damage along the way.

See, I do learn.

Starting today, there are two new features of the site. Actually, they are links from the site which will give greater access into the author and his work.

Both are located on the right side links bar. Both are hosted by webshots.com.

1. McLane family photo page. This is our families way of sharing pictures with family, ministry partners, and other friends.
2. Light Force photo page. This is all the great pictures of our students and the things that we do with them.

I hope that avid readers enjoy these links and check them often.