• A Children’s Ministry Curriculum about Underwear. Really?

    Taking a little detour into online marketing this morning… 

    This ad popped up on my Facebook profile this morning. It kind of stopped me cold.

    • The title is clear: “For children’s ministers.“
    • The picture is of little girls underwear…
    • Let that sink in. Strike you as odd?

    I clicked on the ad, seeking to understand what girls underwear and children’s ministers had to do with Christmas.

    It’s for a curriculum called, Socks and Underwear, by an unnamed publisher on a site I’ve never heard of. (My knowledge of kids ministry curriculum is really limited.) But I did see that it’s normally $100 but they will sell it to you for $45. I’m going to guess that a weird name like this isn’t helping sales. The curriculum itself looks cute, not something I’d use or recommend, but cute nonetheless. The general premise seems to be that we give/receive gifts at Christmas that we don’t want and Jesus is the gift we do want.

    Just a little hint to those who like their jobs in kids ministry…. don’t do a series that advertises to you with little girls underwear. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but sexual molestation is just about the scariest thing a parent can imagine when it comes to leaving their kids at church. Not to sound alarmist or anything but a lot of people outside of the church are already suspicious of many church workers because of sexual abuse cases.

    Just a little hint to the marketer creating ads… Um, no. Don’t feature little girls underwear in your ads, it’ll attract the wrong types of people.

    And while jokes about underpants and stuff like that is totally in bounds for kids ministry— ads using little girls underwear on Facebook feels completely out-of-bounds to me.

    Am I alone in this?

    Follow-up

    After emailing them I received this response:

    Thanks for the heads up! We are sorry you were offended. Our FB marketer put a picture of adult underwear up since the title of the series’ is Socks and Underwear. We went ahead and took it down to be on the safe side. Thanks again for writing and letting us know.

    My thought – I’m not trying to take the moral high ground here… but “We are sorry you were offended” and taking it down, blaming it on the Facebook marketer, is hardly admitting that it was misguided to begin with. But whatever, less underwear on Facebook is a good thing regardless.

     

  • Join us for Open Seattle

    I’m getting really pumped for Open Seattle next week. If you live in the Pacific Northwest we’d love to have you. Yesterday, we extended the regular registration deadline until next Monday– so you can still get in for $25!

    What’s Open Seattle?

    Open is an experiment. It’s asking the the youth ministry world the question… “What would happen if we completely flipped the script on a youth ministry training event?”

    • What if a national organization gave leadership to local organizers?
    • What if front-line youth workers were favored in speaker selection over those on the speaking circuit?
    • What if we took chances instead of playing it safe on the stuff we present?
    • What if The Youth Cartel didn’t have to fly its name out front, but instead lifted up the names of its partners?
    • What if none of the speakers got paid? What if I didn’t have to get paid to help organize it… I just did it for a fair share?
    • Speaking of money, what if a local YM charity was benefited financially?
    • Heck, what if we just posted the full event budget online for anyone to see?
    • Why not record everything and then share all the sessions with the community on a central website… so no matter where you live you can have access to training resources and the freshest ideas out there on the ground?
    • What if we perfected the thing and just kind of open-sourced THE WHOLE THING so we can help people who have been to one organize one themselves?
    My hope for the answer to all of those questions is… I think that the best ideas will be given a voice. My hope is that when front-line youth workers get an opportunity to share what they know and even their big, crazy ideas with a group of people just like them… that it’ll spur on more ideas and spark new innovations with the net result that we’ll reach more teenagers with the Good News.

    So yes, it’s an experimental thing. Originally there was a lot of risk. It was really hard to explain the overall concept to the first few partners– Jeff at SPU, Brian Aaby at YouthMark, Mark Moder at Youth Dynamics. But as we kept talking about it this idea really took off. They made the idea even better.

    At this point in preparation– I’m not feeling this is as big a risk anymore. Actually, when I look at the people who are presenting and the folks who are coming I don’t see a lot of risk. Now I just see an awesome, affordable, innovative event. 

    We’ve got two tracks of learning. One is training, it’s full of great stuff as a refresher for the paid person and covering a lot of bases for your volunteers. The second track is all about ideas. It’s got some stuff in there that’ll cause you to scratch your head or write stuff down or just plain want to wrestle the speaker at the after party.

    For $25 You Get

    1. 16 sessions
    2. A free t-shirt
    3. The ability to say you were at the very first one of these. (We’ve got two more planned for this school year, one in Boston and one in Paris.)

    In 2013-2014 we hope to add 6 more of these as we beta test the concept… 4 more in the United States, 1 more in Europe, and 1 Lord willing, in Canada.

    I hope to see you next weekend on the campus of Seattle Pacific University. And if you can’t make it there, I hope to see you at an Open event soon.

  • Rewarding Students for Thinking

    If I narrowed the learnings from Soul Searching & Sticky Faith into one axiom that has to impact how I raise my kids and how I teach students, it would be this: It’s more important to teach students how to think than anything else. 

    For decades, the educational assumption of curriculum, teaching, and many kids/youth programs was: “Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.” (Proverbs 22:6)

    Don’t dismiss this point. That very verse is often in the introduction to curriculums. It pops up in committee meetings. It’s proclaimed as if Solomon was issuing a directorate for all eternity that memorization/regurgitation/repetition is somehow the best way to teach children about God. Because if we can just hide enough truth in their hearts they won’t become serial killers.

    The problem is, for as long as I’ve been part of the church, that building an educational assumption around this verse hasn’t worked. They do leave. And all of that stuff we’ve hidden in their heart sure doesn’t manifest itself later.

    We have asked kids to listen to lots of sermons. We have asked them to memorize lots of verses. We’ve turned things like “Bible Quizzing” into a church-sponsored sport. The hope (and often justification for funding) has always been that if you can just cram Bible knowledge and teaching into a students head that they won’t forget it. And the cold, hard reality is that it hasn’t made a large-scale significant impact.

    I love a not-so-subtle change our church has made in the kids ministry areas. They are focusing less on students regurgitating facts and focusing more on teaching students what biblical truth means. For instance, they are adapting one of the core things about Awana— the memorization of verses — and instead they are rewarding kids based on what the verse means. In our high school small group I’m really clear, I care more about their hearts than I do about the lesson. The agenda is them. The content is a starting point but it isn’t the point of our high school ministry.

    With our own kids, Kristen and I are challenging Megan and Paul to think critically and big picture about stuff as opposed to testing them on the details. “OK, so why did we tell you not to hit your sister. It’s great that you remember the rule… but why is it a rule and why didn’t you obey it?”

    That doesn’t mean that achievement is pointless. That doesn’t mean we don’t push our students to dive into Scripture or that we don’t challenge our kids academically. But it does mean that we are quick to ask them to say, “So what are you going to do with that knowledge?”

    Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. James 1:22

  • Football Thoughts: Fourth Edition

    This season is beginning to take shape. Some teams are exactly who you thought they were while other teams are emerging for breakout years. Here’s a quick rundown of what I saw and what I think headed into mid-season.

    Notre Dame

    For the second week, the SDSU home game start time prevented me from watching the game. But I followed along pretty closely nonetheless and watched highlights later. What is happening is Brian Kelly’s investment in the defense is starting to pay off in spades. As reported on ESPN, Denard Robinson now has the same Heisman hopes as his left tackle. The Michigan QB, who looked like Mike Vick against the Irish for the past 3 seasons, called his play “the worst game of my career.” There was a stretch in the second quarter where I’m sure Mitt Romney looked at the TV and thought, “Wow, they are having a horrible week, I feel so much better about myself.”

    Also impressive was the noise factor at Notre Dame stadium. It was loud and buzzing and starting to act like a college stadium instead of a church. They retrained their ushers and did some PSAs…  you won’t hear “Down in front” or “Sit down” anymore.

    With a bye week ahead and a gaudy 4-0 record, they’ll be in the top 10 this week. And since they don’t play they’ll have the chance to move up again before playing Miami on 10/6. I expect them to be #9 today and #7 by 10/6. Trust me, NBC wan’t ND vs. Stanford to be as high a ranking as possible on 10/13. 

    All of a sudden Notre Dame looks like they could got 10-2 or 9-3. Either of those is good enough for a BCS bowl bid.

    San Diego State

    Offensively, we did pretty good in scoring 34 points. Unfortunately, the defense continues to suck. So while we enjoyed going to the game and it was entertaining… we won’t win many games giving up so many points.

    Worse than the defense is the special teams play. Just kick the ball out of bounds and give it to them at the 40. Or go for an onside kick. Special teams play lost this game for the Aztecs and exhibited the lack of depth for the team.

    The really bad news is that San Diego fans won’t come watch a .500 team. If it weren’t for the 10/6 Sky Show I’d expect 15,000 fans for the Hawaii game. If we lost a couple more we’ll be in the 10,000 range again very soon. And that’s unfortunate.

    The Big 10 Isn’t

    Central Michigan beat Iowa? Wisconsin struggled with UTEP. Ohio State and Penn State‘s games don’t count. Michigan literally handed– make that tossed — the game to Notre Dame. And only Michigan State and Northwestern handled their business. Those two teams are in the drivers seat. Which will be in the Rose Bowl and will anyone care?

    The Pac 12

    I thought Arizona would play Oregon tough… but I think they are the only team who can give Alabama a run for their money. (Only if its outside of the south, though.) The only team that is impressing me in the Pac 12 (besides Oregon) is Oregon State. Again, with Oregon headed for the national championship game will anyone really care to watch a Northwestern vs. Oregon State Rose Bowl? At least they will have a cool parade.

    Other conferences

    The Big East is a turd this year. The MAC looks like the best mid-major. The Mountain West is somewhere between awful and terrible. And the Big 12 should get an award for not playing a decent non-conference game among all member teams. Seriously, what’s that about?

  • Picking Faithfulness

    Each day is full of choice. Most are benign, seemingly meaningless. For some the payoff is immediate, like what to eat or wear or to do after work. For others the payoff is delayed, like plans you make, what you say to your kids, or the work you do.

    I’m learning that I have to be intentional to pick faithfulness instead of ease, experience, or even wisdom.

    If I’m honest… it’s the wisdom one that causes me the most trouble. All-too-often wisdom leads me to make the safest choice. It could also be that wisdom is different than Wisdom and little w wisdom often leads you to do the thing that makes the most sense instead of what is the most faithful.

    Recently, I was spending time in Hebrews 11, and it kind of hit me… in most of these cases the author of Hebrews is celebrating someone’s action which their contemporaries probably thought was reckless, lacked wisdom, or was downright stupid.

    • Abel’s sacrifice didn’t seem reasonable… it seemed too far.
    • Enoch walked faithfully with God for 300 years…
    • Noah built an arc in his backyard, everyone thought he was a moron until it rained…
    • Abraham was prosperous where he was at, but as an old man God told him to move, can you imagine what his poker buddies called him?

    On and on, Hebrews 11 drills home this point. Pick faithfulness. 

    • Faithfulness is wild, untamed, and unpredictable.
    • Faithfulness makes old men walk away from retirement.
    • Faithfulness redefines conventional wisdom.
    • Faithfulness asks you to exchange safety for trust.
    • Faithfulness will invite your friends to think you’re an idiot.
    • Faithfulness will ask you to do the bold– stupid in your friends eyes– while overcoming the weaknesses of your personality, position, and preparation.
    • Faithfulness calls preachers to become poets.
    • Faithfulness calls executives to become moms.
    • Faithfulness calls geniuses into factories.
    • Faithfulness calls the dyslexic to become physicists.

    Defy logics last stand and embrace faithfulness. 

  • Focus and the worship service

    We use lights, microphones, seating, and position to focus attention towards the platform during a worship service. People who are attending the service may come with a million words to say, a lot of things on their hearts, and a lot of individual motives… but those putting on the service easily gain control and retain control of the room tactically. 

    • Lighting – By illuminating the platform and darkening the seating area, this draws your attention to the light, humans are built that way. The darker you make the seating area, the more you focus attention on the platform and visa versa.
    • Seating – By point all of the pews/chairs towards the platform, it is more comfortable to put your back against the pew/chair and your feet facing towards the platform than it is for any other seated position. With seating pointed towards the platform, eyes naturally go there.
    • Sound – By amplifying the human voice you can communicate to the ears of everyone else in the room that you are more powerful than they are. Music, voice, video… all of that done at 80-105 decibels will typically focus all of the audience attention.
    • Height – By positioning people on a platform or a stage, especially while you are in the seated position, you are forced to “look up” to whomever is up front. This tells your brain, “that person is in control.“
    • Position – As people of faith, we already have an assumption that the people on the platform have some level of authority over us. This is right and good. We ought to give that person our attention.
    • Schedule – By controlling all of those factors, you control the schedule. People will stand when you say so, sit, be quiet, and be dismissed. These are cultural cues, defined by mores. We all know, intuitively, that it’s rude to stand and talk to the person behind us when someone with a microphone is speaking in front of us.

    From a moral perspective all of these are neutral. Nothing about having or even creating that tactical advantage is either good nor bad. But it is a tactical advantage that most churches utilize on a week-to-week basis. It’s what they know how to do as they’ve copied and refined it over the years.

    This has inherent advantages and disadvantages, like all tactics. 

    • ADVANTAGE: This allows you to start/end services according to a prescribed time.
    • DISADVANTAGE: That only works if people show up on time and are willing to stay.
    • ADVANTAGE: The person on the platform is rarely interrupted.
    • DISADVANTAGE: That only works if the person on the platform doesn’t need to be interrupted.
    • ADVANTAGE: As a worship service planner, you can set the theme and manage the content of the service.
    • DISADVANTAGE: The service is limited to the planning teams creativity and listening to the Holy Spirit.
    • ADVANTAGE: You can build the whole service towards a theme, anticipate a response, and even manipulate the audience psychologically to respond the way you want them to. (Yes, I went there.)
    • DISADVANTAGE: There is an opportunity for abuse of power, position, and the temptation to sin is great.
    • ADVANTAGE: You can make a worship service clean, orderly, and (for the service planning group) predictable.
    • DISADVANTAGE: It’s easy to forget that the Spirit is wild, untamed, living and active in the hearts of the audience.
    • ADVANTAGE: The audience knows what to expect from the worship experience.
    • DISADVANTAGE: That predictability makes it easy to tune out.

    I’d encourage you to continue with this list of advantages and disadvantages in the comment section.

    So what’s the point?

    The point is that we need to think about these things, be reminded of them, and ask hard questions about our motives. As leaders we know it’s relatively easy to gain a tactical advantage over our audience. But, in doing so, we are also intentionally limiting the input and community aspects of our congregations.

    Again, these are morally neutral. But what happens in our heart as we utilize these advantages must be regularly checked.

    Historically, the Bible was not meant to be studied in private. At the time of its writing no one had private access to scripture. The New Testement authors couldn’t have even envisioned that one day people would study the Bible privately, it was outside of the realm of possibilities. They would argue “Why would you even want to do that?” The notion of privately owning sacred texts is a 16th century innovation. (Gutenberg, Wycliffe)

    It was never meant that the speaker would prepare in isolation and reveal his teaching at a service with such a physical tactical advantage. Even the notion of a personal application and an individual dividing Scripture and then sharing it publicly is not a historical position, but a remnant of the Reformation and Enlightenment. (Evangelicalism is really the perpetuator of this today, most mainline denominations and our Catholic brethren lean on a common lectionary.) Likewise, from a historical perspective few messages could/would ever be shared outside of a small context. In today’s technological age it’s very easy to hear messages that were never intended for your context, and a lack of specific local contextualization is a general assumption for those preparing messages/sermons today.

    Again, So What?

    For me, as I personally struggle with focus and distraction during worship services, I’m left with this thought about the impact of the modern worship service:

    Are attempts to control and limit focus in worship services killing creatively looking at the potential impact of the Gospel message on a community? Research shows that distraction leads to creativity while focused attention leads to mere productivity. And in many churches we are very productive at some things while largely ignoring the major problems our communities face.

  • The Machine & The Magician: What you need to know about distraction

    I’ve been learning a lot about the creative process lately. Like you, so much of my life is built around the concept that sometimes I need to be highly productive and other times I need to be highly creative. But, at all times, my work is best when it is both on time and creatively completed.

    The Machine

    Since childhood, we’ve been taught that there are times to sit down and focus all of our efforts on a task. I remember being rewarded as a 6 year old in kindergarten for my ability to sit down and do my work. My teacher had it set up so that each child, during a segment of the day for learning, could work at their own pace. I was really, really good at doing this. But if you looked at someone or whispered to your neighbor or suddenly got up and did a wiggle dance, that was inappropriate & bad.

    In college, you were probably truly challenged academically for the first time– you had to learn how to study and knock hard projects out quickly. Further, you learned that there were times that if you disciplined yourself to focus that you could turn your brain into a task-master machine.

    I knew that I could disappear into the corners of Moody’s library for four hours with a mug of coffee and emerge with a 10 page paper, 25 definitions memorized, a test prepared for, and 2 chapters of a book read with annotated notes for later review.

    The machine is the opposite of creative. It pounds out work. It produces. And when the grades came out the one with the most powerful machine often won the highest grades.

    As an adult I depend on turning on this machine. It takes me a while to get to that “machine” space, but if I put my headphones in with some improvisational jazz, turn off social media, and get into a project I can get there– knocking out a lot in a short amount of time.

    The Magician

    Have you been around babies & toddlers? I’ve had 3 of them crawl around my house in my lifetime. They are born magicians… incredibly creative in what they do. Turn your head for a second and BAM– they’ve done something amazing. Children can take two seemingly unrelated things and tie them together magically. In an instant they can disappear into a pretend world full of adventure, they can create stories out of thin air complete with backstory and plot twists.

    You don’t have to teach a child how to be creative, it’s intuitive. If you allow them to just be themselves they are automatically creative.

    To Review

    The Machine is learned behavior to concentrate hard on a task, it is good.

    The Magician is your natural creative self, the part of you that sees clay and stcks and smiles, it is also good.

    Distraction isn’t bad

    When I am in work mode I tend to think distractions are bad. Positive reinforcement from teachers and success in college taught me that. I get somewhere quiet and predictable. I work very well after the kids go to bed or at my office. Interruptions and distractions feel like the enemy. Phones, texts, Facebook, Twitter, visitors, going to the bathroom… all feel as though they will disturb the machines production.

    But that’s not how it works. Your best work happens because an idea is sparked. When I get peer review of my work and overlay positive feedback with the timing of its production, the things that are most often the best– a creative solution, a breakthrough, an insight, a great paragraph— most often are in my work because the machine got turned off for a time and the magician was allowed to play. Perhaps I was in full machine mode and needed a lunch break? While walking there, my mind still churning on the work, I’ll get an idea or a solution or a insight into that work that I add. But sometimes this happens because a phone rings in another room, or a someone at a coffee shop drops something. Those breaks from Machine mode allow the Magician to play with the thing I’m working with and mix it with something else.

    In fact, I’ve learned that intentionally allowing myself to become distracted can be an excellent way to generate new ideas. Taking a walk, shower, phone call, checking Facebook, listening to a sermon, catching up on the news, pulling weeds in the garden, playing with my kids, goofing off, even doing a small task like packing a box– all of these things allow me to turn the Machine off and allow my naturally creative mind, the Magician, to begin playing with ideas.

    The Machine and the Magician are Playmates

    I’ve learned that the Machine and the Magician are not adversaries. I will not truly be productive if I see the Machine as the winner and the Magician as the loser. (Though many people perpetuate that myth & it certainly seems productive.) My work is at its best when I foster interplay between getting things done and getting things done playfully. My work is best, not when I have hours and hours of uninterrupted Machine time, but when I have concerted time which builds in intentional distractibility so that the Magician has his voice.

  • How to Disembark from the S.S. Fantasia

    Delay is the deadliest form of denial.
    ~ C. Northcote Parkinson

    Have you ever talked to someone and wondered… is this person living on the same planet that I am? This is a bizarre cultural phenomenon all too common among church leaders. Their day-to-day life, ministry, and sadly ministry aspirations are not based on reality but a fantasy version of reality that they have created for themselves.

    This disconnection often manifests itself to me when false assumptions have driven decision-making and engagement with their local community.

    • Building a ministry around an assumption of the nuclear family. (In denial of the reality of their own extended family and in the face that the community they are trying to reach has no cultural reference to this ideal.)
    • Shrugging off the lack of racial/ethnic diversity in their organization. (In denial of statistical fact that all of America, not just urban centers, have experienced a major shift in statistical balance over the past 10 years.)
    • Redefining ministry measurables to fit the make-up of what happens naturally versus what ought to happen. (In denial of the role of organizational entropy, the reality that if you measure your impact based purely on who comes, eventually this will lead you to a crushing vortex of inward thinking.)

    Sometimes, almost never intentionally and certainly by apathy, I see organizations struggling not merely because they have the wrong people in leadership or because they are bad people or because they have bad values. But they are struggling because they aren’t living in their own present reality. They are trying to win a game no one else is playing. 

    They may be perfectly positioned to take community-changing action but work extremely hard on the wrong things.

    Surrounded by people who think just like them (known as groupthink) they organization sales the seas of their community on the S.S. Fantasia. 

    3 practical steps to help you anchor your assumptions in reality

    Let’s get grounded in putting our academic study to work for us!

    • Regularly review census and other statistical data in your immediate area. If once per quarter your leadership team reviewed the latest statistical data publicly available for free via the census and the myriad of government organizations in your community, you could regularly make small decisions based on what you learn. For instance, if the school district releases a profile of new students which shows a spike in a demographic you could ask the most obvious question, “What can we do to serve this new group of people?” Don’t understand this or does this seem too hard? Make an appointment with a school administrator or local college sociologist who will gladly share this data and help you understand it.
    • Regularly ask for cultural observations during team meetings. You don’t need to be a trained ethnographer to do basic ethnography. Your team is already spending time outside of the office in the community you are trying to reach… add a new question to your weekly meetings asking for one thing you observed. Maybe its that women outnumber men at a coffee shop during the day? Maybe its about what people are wearing or driving or reading. We all gather this data but until we share it with our teams we can’t make adjustments. Don’t think your team can handle this? We asked groups to do this in our Good News in the Neighborhood curriculum, middle schoolers can handle it!
    • Define your geographical target and make decisions to benefit those within that area. Face the reality that there are lots and lots of organizations/churches/ministries just like yours. Don’t be a purveyor of the rule of affinity, that’s a short-term strategy built on a false assumption that people will always like what you are doing. Instead, define your target area… be it by a mile radius or specific streets or even a zip code. And then, when you make decisions, ask yourself what’s best based on what you know from regular statistical data and cultural observations from within that target area. If you really want to go crazy– reward your staff for moving into that area and only nominate unpaid leaders like elders who come from that target area. That will begin to send the message that your organization is about that geographical area.

    What are S.S. Fantasia things you see in your area/context/ministry? What’s driving you crazy? 

  • It’s not good for man to be alone

    It is not good for the man to be alone.

    Genesis 2:18

    Disclaimer: I own a cat. I really like my cat. I don’t think all cat people are weird. (I’ve been to the dog park, it’s equal opportunity) I just imagined how amazing a companion this kind man would be with someone of his own species!

  • Football Thoughts – Third Edition

    A big, fun day in college football yesterday. With a week or so left in non-conference play the match-ups are getting better. And Saturday saw a big round of upsets… something which always adds some fun and makes the college game unique.

    The Aztecs

    With temps well over 100 the past few days fans stayed home for this game. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen so few people at the start of the game. Then it just turned out that there were a ton of people hanging out in the hallways waiting for the sun to go down! The McLane family was on the home, shady side, but the heat really wore us down and we left after the third quarter. Week 2 of “everyone goes to the game” wasn’t quite as fun as week 1.

    To me, the first two plays of the game dictated what was going to happen. On the first play our d-line pushed the North Dakota o-line back into the QB and running back. In the second play, our DB jumped a route and ran for an easy pick 6. North Dakota moved the ball… combined the game ended with just over 1000 yards of total offense. It was a classic track meet. The final score was too close for comfort but the Aztecs were never really in doubt about the outcome.

    Notre Dame

    Because the kickoff was the same as the Aztecs game I only caught the last few minutes of the game on TV. But, in watching highlights and reading all of the articles it seemed like a breakthrough game for Brian Kelly. I watched an hour long press conference on National Signing Day in 2010 which talked about all the defensive talent they had brought in. That press conference was on display yesterday in East Lansing. I’ve visited a bunch of college campuses on game day and a night game at Michigan State is one of the more hostile places around. To go in there and basically shut Michigan State down is very impressive. There’s a lot of talk today about Notre Dame being good enough for a BCS game this year… it’s too early to know that, but this was a major step in the right direction.

    Upset City

    This week in the sports media we’ll start hearing about parody. Outside of Alabama and LSU no one is overly dominant so anyone can win week to week. Case in point, UL Monroe took Auburn to overtime the week after beating Arkansas, Stanford reminded Matt Barkely that he’s no Andrew Luck, Utah handed their rival a reminder, BYwho? On and on it went. This will be a year when anyone can win on any given week… and that’s a lot of fun.

    Conference Picks

    Three weeks in it feels like I can gauge where some teams are. Here are my picks for conference champions of all the major leagues. I’ll even put the #2 team in parenthesis)

    ACC – Florida State (Va Tech)

    Big 12 – Oklahoma (Texas)

    Big East – Cincinnati (South Florida)

    Big 10 – Wisconsin (Michigan State)

    Conference USA – Tulsa (Central Florida)

    MAC – Ohio (Toledo)

    Mountain West – Boise State (SDSU)

    Pac 12 – Oregon (USC)

    SEC – LSU (Alabama)

    Upstarts of the Year

    These are teams that are on the upwards track. They might not with their conference in 2012 but are headed the right direction.

    • Northwestern
    • South Carolina
    • Notre Dame
    • Arizona
    • UL Monroe (Is anyone going to schedule them next year?)