Tag: fun

  • Congrats to Tim & Sara

    st_48A few weeks ago Sara and Tim got married. They have a pretty cool story, I hope I don’t get in too much trouble for sharing the little snippets that I know.

    I met Sara last October in Pittsburgh for the National Youth Workers Convention. I was walking around looking for people to interview for the ghetto fabulous podcast recap and found Sara in the hallway and she agreed to let me ask her a few questions. (She also knew Patti, maybe through YMX, I’m not sure on that part of the story!) Later in the weekend she and I bumped into one another again in the store and chatted some more. We connected, it was cool, and now she is a contributor on the YS blog.

    I remember cracking up with her because she told me that before the convention the little old ladies of the church had invited her to come over and they all prayed for her… that she would meet a husband at the conference. Being from a smallish town in Upstate New York it really wasn’t an unreasonable prayer request. There probably aren’t a ton of eligible bachelors there who’d love a life of ministry to teenagers. She thought it was funny that the ladies of the church were so concerned about her dating life. I mean, it is really funny!

    Lo and behold, the old ladies of the church got their prayer answered! Sara met Tim (a youth worker from the Albany area) at convention. They hit it off… obviously. And I have no idea the whirlwind romance that happened between then and November 14th… but they got married!

    Now we know that NYWC isn’t just a place to get encouraged, trained, resourced… and has been well-documented… make babies [for married couples.] Apparently, NYWC is a great place to meet a spouse, too!

    We tried really hard to get them to convention in Atlanta so we could bring them up on stage, embarrass them lovingly, and turn their faces all shades of red. As it turned out, NYWC was a great place to meet and all… but not such a great place for a honeymoon.

  • Themes from NYWC

    IMG_7528
    I had a great weekend in Cincinnati. I had lots of time to connect with old friends, meet tons of new people, and got into a multitude of deep conversations about life, work, ministry, and family. Over and over again themes came into conversation. These weren’t things I brought up… it just seemed like everything came back to these things eventually.

    • Mentorship, tutoring, education: Apparently, I am not the only one thinking that if youth ministry needs to be Good News to students it needs to somehow involve education. It seems like this is a youth ministry-wide tribal reaction to the realization that programmatic stuff isn’t as effective as it was just 5 years ago.
    • Calling: Living on the West Coast I’m a bit insulated from what is going on in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio churches. My friends would say, “it’s bad, real bad.” And I think that means giving is way down, they are taking pay cuts, and they are having to go back to God and say… “Are you absolutely positive I am called to this?“
    • Ministering to gay and lesbian students: When Andrew Marin came to NYWC last fall and talked about the big rainbow elephant in the room… it opened up a can of worms! One of the things I’ve learned is that while teens were coming out of the closet to youth workers EVERYWHERE, the youth workers were still closeted about it. I can’t tell you how many times a conversation brought this up.
    • Dependency. I think this is related to calling– it’s just the theological “aha” so many are embracing. We all know God’s got this. We all know that no matter how bad things look for the church, the church will be fine. But this weekend I ran into a bunch of people who literally are putting their life out there and depending on God. Even during the convention I ran into people who told me they had been let go that weekend. But they aren’t giving up. They aren’t freaking out. They are depending on God.
    • Fun! Even with the heavy stuff right under the surface. This is a tribe of people who loves life and wants to have fun. Check out what they did on Halloween.

  • Remember what it was like when this was fun?

    I absolutely loved what Francis Chan said in LA a couple weeks ago. (about :43 into this video) He reminded us- me- youth workers… to stop taking ourselves so seriously, find a way to laugh again, remind yourself that you’re just a stupid kid, mistakes aren’t that big of a deal, we all went into ministry because it was fun. It was the pep talk a lot of us needed to hear among the stress of our lives.

    Let’s get back to just being children of God.

    That’s a good reminder for this weekend, isn’t it?

  • Thoughts on Disney on Ice Princess Classics

    Last night, our family went to go see the Disney on Ice show. It was great family fun. I remember when I was a kid wanting to go, the kid across the street always getting to go, but being disappointed that I never got to go. So I was a little surprised when Paul said he wanted to go because he is definitely not into princesses. In fact, we had a nice chat earlier about what kinds of wild animals it would be fun to release onto the ice to chase and eat the princesses.

    With all of that pessimism in me– it’s worth noting that we had a good time. No, really. It was fun.

    Some random thoughts.
    1. I’m glad we told the kids in advance we weren’t buying anything. It’s not that we’re cheap, it’s that we don’t want to blow money on $15 light up Disney princess spinning toys. And we ate dinner before going so no one needed a $12 Disney funnel cake. Overall, we got out of there with just paying for parking. I feel like somehow I earned $100 in bonus money.
    2. It has two acts. One was plenty. Seriously, we thought the thing was over. The kids were cheering. All of the dead princesses had been kissed by their princes and were back to life skating around in their costumed glory. It was over when they announced, “we’ll be back after this intermission for the second half of our show.” The second half ranked up there as the longest hour of my life.
    3. Now I know what happens to Olympic skaters after they reach puberty. They get jobs with Disney on Ice. I always said that skating didn’t prepare you for actual life skills, I was wrong.
    4. “Are those real men daddy?” Paul, sitting at the edge of his seat asked me this question when a troop of men in tights skated to the center of the ice rink. “It’s complicated son. Complicated.”
    5. Dress your kid like a princess, you spend $300 at Disney on Ice. Seriously, 75% of the little girls in the audience wore Disney dress-up clothes to the show. You could hear the vacuums from parents wallets as kids begged for matching kitsch.
    6. Big kids, too. Looking around, there were lots of kids who weren’t into in nearly as much as their parents. That’s the awesome part of Disney’s business model. Don’t introduce too many new characters– think about generations of kids who want to be Snow White, Belle, and Ariel when they grow up. There was a lot of sing-along from the parents. Reminds me of the McDonald’s business model. Hook ’em while they’re young!
    7. Megan was very satisfied. Like a lot of 8 year olds, Megan loves fantasy. She’s very interested in reading and stories. So this was right up her alley. She told me last night, “I just hope I can remember the order of all of these princesses for my journal.”
    8. Did you know you can watch streaming video from ustream.tv on your iPhone? I learned that last night during the second half of the show. I watched some puppy cams, kitten cams, and some strange show about people who want to pay to travel to space. No, they aren’t going to allow you to travel to space on your credit card. Pay cash up front. Makes sense.
    9. I have fun going places with my kids no matter what. Hey, I drag them to football games so putting up with 2 hours is no big deal, right? It was way easier than 2 hours of a princess birthday party.
    10. I love being a dad. There’s no other way to say that. It’s full of life lessons as I try my best to teach life lessons.

  • Cool Optical Illusion

    See more of these at Illusion Sciences

    HT to Cory

  • Rounding 3rd

    softball-gameA few years ago I was on the church softball team. Being a church league for adults it was mostly filled with people who used to be able to play well, but time and a few extra pounds had lowered their skill level down a lot lower than their imaginations thought they were. In other words, most of the teams sucked. And none was worse than ours!

    After a couple of weeks of frustration I started to figure out how to hit. The first 5-6 times up to bat my golf-styled swing lead to easy outs as all I could do was hit the ball right down the fairway… easily gobbled up by the pitcher, 2nd baseman, or center fielder. While watching a few games I made an interesting observation: There were a lot of dropped balls. I noticed that there was a high likelihood that the person playing first base wasn’t going to be able to keep his foot on the bag and catch a poorly thrown ball.

    So I learned to just keep running. In game after game this strategy worked. I’d hit a ground ball to 3rd base and instead of trying to beat out the play I’d just round first and keep running. Time and time again they’d drop the ball or it’d fly over their head and I was off to second or even third.

    The last game of the year, while I was riding to the game with a few other players, I joked that I wasn’t going to stop at third base. I was going to just keep the calamity going all the way home. I had a feeling that if I rounded third the same way I rounded first, I could make it a home run.

    So, true to form our team was down big with just two innings left. I get up and absolutely tee off on a ball that splits the outfielders and one hops to the fence. It’s a stand-up double and I could probably make it to third if I weren’t so out of shape. The third base coach gave me the stop sign at second. But I look at his stop sign and throw caution to the wind… it’s time to go home! As I got close to third I could tell by the way the third basemen was looking that the ball was coming in and he would tag me out. So I rounded third. My locomotion– instead of sliding– caused him to look up for a brief second and he bobbled the ball. Halfway home he tossed the ball to the catcher which made me stop and retreat to third. But wouldn’t you know it? When the catcher tossed the ball back to third, he dropped it and I turned for home… stretching a double into an inside the park home run.

    During my commute yesterday I was thinking about this, I love rounding third. I love the whimsy of finishing stuff off with a bang. Which is a weird statement for a guy who spends a lot of his mental day imagining ideas for projects that will never get done. That might lead you to believe I’m a project start-up kind of guy. Nope, I love seeing that small percentage of ideas come to fruition.

    With three of those “hey, wouldn’t it be cool if” projects just hours, days, or weeks away from completion I’m finding that rounding 3rd base has given me a lot of energy and momentum. I know that locomotion, surprise, and a smile will carry it home from here.

  • Stellar Day

    Yesterday was a banner day for me. I came home late last night completely exhausted but also invigorated as well.

    What happened?

    #1 Andrew Marin comes to Harbor. All throughout the fall as I got to know Andy it became more and more clear that he needed to talk to our church staff. I was talking to Stephen about the Marin Foundation and I was talking to Andy about the bridging going on between cultures here and everyone was interested in getting together. So I was able to connect the two yesterday morning. It was awesome to have our local leaders so interested and desperate to learn how to move forward in a Christ honoring way. Andy was able to share his story as well as some strategies with the teams here. I can’t wait to see how this continues to blossom!

    # 2 Oceanside Youth Workers Network. A new friend, Kevin, from the National Network of Youth Ministry invited me to come to a local network up in Oceanside. I am so glad I drove all the way up there for lunch. (about 45 minutes each way) Just to be with my people was greatly encouraging. I love praying with youth workers and hearing what they are up to. Of course, I was able to tell them about Planet Wisdom, YS One Day, and DCLA… but that was so secondary to hearing their successes, challenges, and prayer requests. It was one of those “with my people” lunches. Fortunately, I get to do the same thing up in Escondido next Wednesday.

    #3 Working the booth at National Pastors Conference. About 3 in the afternoon I headed down to NPC to relieve Dave from the YS booth. I got to talk to a lot of senior leaders about their youth ministries and how YS can help keep them trained and encouraged. It was also a fun time to meet some people face-to-face, like Mark RIddle. One difference I noticed between NPC and NYWC is that NPC seems to be much more of a networking event than NYWC. Than again, it could just be that I’m noticing all of that a lot more now?

    #4 Fun day for me with online publishing. I had a super tight schedule yesterday, before I left my house at 6:15 AM I saw that Todd Rhoades had mentioned one of my blog posts on Monday Morning Insight. I was like a school girl when I saw that, very exciting. Also, Patti published my latest article over at YMX called, “Is Justice Up to You?”

    #5 Newsletter changes. Each week at work, I help produce and send out three newsletters for YS. Over the past few months we’ve been revamping two of them. Yesterday, we sent out the first major change as the YS Parent Newsletter became the Real World Parent Newsletter. I love that we’re now tying that into our brand spanking new parent seminars. I’m a big fan of “do stuff that makes sense” and this is one of those deals. I know a lot of parents of teenagers read my blog… so make sure you subscribe using this link.

    On top of all of this there were a couple of other really exciting things for me. A friend handed me his book… I’ve been praying with him through the process and it was awesome to see it in print! And I’m working with an organization to tell the youth ministry world about something super cool. More on both of those things soon.

  • Sling Shot Man

    Based on the age of the video I kind of doubt this old timer is still around. But if you were a kid with a sling shot like me as a kid, you know just how good this guy is.

  • Travel Day

    It’s after breakfast in Romeo and I’m wide awake here in San Diego. (4:00 am) The last 24 hours have been a blur as I commuted about 3000 miles to work yesterday. (Going home Friday) Besides the travel I did get some stuff done yesterday and I’m looking forward to getting more settled today.

    The first thing on my mind about yesterday is that people on early morning flights are boring. I’m not one who would like to talk for 4 hours to a stranger on a plane, but at the same time both flights I took yesterday morning were nearly silent. If it weren’t for the guy in 6C asking me about switching to Mac somewhere over Arizona I wouldn’t have said a word to anyone all morning. I’m all for keeping to ones self but lets all acknowledge one another as humans, OK?

    The second thing on my mind is that I have a really cool job ahead of me. Like any job my new role as “communitymeister” has a lot of things to do which are really important and will occupy my mind for more hours than I’ll admit. But there are two different aspects of my new job that have me jazzed.

    Over the last few Sunday’s numerous people at church have asked me, “So what is this new job all about?” I’ve always translated that to “I want to know if this new job is worth losing a pastor over at my church.” And people from the greater youth ministry community have been asking me to give a little more insight into my new role as well. (One friend even asked me, “Can I see your full job description?” Um, no.) So here they are… two aspects of my new job I totally dig.

    • I get to help youth workers from all over the place. It’s awesome that folks can write or call YS and get practical help and encouragement. And it’s fun to be that first connection these new volunteers and paid staffers have to the greater community of youth workers out there. I love listening to them and helping them with a couple of pointers from my experiences in the trenches… but I really, really love pointing them to places online where they can learn my most favoritestist word in all of church leadership… “Collaboration.” There’s nothing like the moment when the light bulb goes off, “You mean I’m not the only one who has a parent issue like this?”
    • I get to help tell my friends about Youth Specialties. Literally, I’ve had one day in the office and my mind is already racing with ways I can help connect this amazing staff of people with the greater community of youth workers.

    Just like at Romeo, it’s not going to be my habit to talk about work very often on my blog. Sure I will talk about things that are going on in my life or things that I’m excited about. But my purpose in blogging has never been to expose the inner workings of my job… because lets face it, that’s boring for all of us. It’s not like I’m one of those early 2000s bloggers who would rant on and on about the inner workings of their jobs. I’ve been blogging a long time. And I have rules to follow.

    My purpose in blogging has always been to expose the inner workings of my mind. And for those brave/stupid enough to want to know all about that I suggest you subscribe to my RSS feed (or email) and get ready to laugh a lot.