random, totally-unrelated web links

I don't know what it is, but this morning I'm finding lots of cool links to interesting stuff. Here is a couple:

• Two guys in Mass were trying to dig up a tree in their backyard and found buried treasure. The contents of the box are worth about $100,000. Here is a link to the CNN news article. Now that I own a house, maybe I should start digging?! Heck, I already found lots of "treasure" left by the termites.
• Coldplay's new single, "Speed of Sound" has been released. It's the first on the upcoming CD X&Y. Sounds pretty good. Although it reminds me a little too much of "Clocks." You can listen to the whole song over at MTV.com.
• Here is an interesting article the negative consequences of porn. Apparently experts are starting to realize that looking at porn isn't a healthy thing. (duh.) Here is my favorite quote,"You might want to rethink your constant access to porn in the same way that, if you want to be an athlete, you rethink your smoking."

My Top Ten Jazz Fest Moments

Whew! It's Monday morning and our crazy Jazz Fest weekend is over! I don't know how else to explain it except to say that it was really hard and really fun at the same time. I actually feel pretty good today. I thought for sure I would be dead tired.

Anyway, here are my top ten moments:

10. Jacob literally followed people around saying, "You know you want one. I can see it in your eyes. You wanna buy one of these programs." It worked! He actually sold a ton with that strategy.

9. Some random guy walked up to me on Saturday and said, "Hey man. I just wanna let you know that you are doing a great job. You wanna beer? I'll buy you one." I politely declined.

8. Jon was a great model for our students of what it looks like to be a Christian in a secular marketplace.

7. Samantha, Corrie and Andrew worked the same booth most of the day Saturday. You put those three together on any project and you get this amazing mix that falls somewhere between genius and insanity. Needless to say, they did sell a ton of programs.

6. Brock called me Satuday afternoon. He was outside the park trying to find a parking spot. He informs me that he is a little scared to park his Jeep (with no top) just anywhere because of the two rifles that are laying in the back seat. (He had just come from the shooting range.) Yeah. That could be a slight problem?! Luckily, we figured out a way to meet up so that we could transfer the rifles to my van where they would be safely locked up.

5. Philip was the one and only student to work all three days. He's a monster.

4. Kev showed why he is the master salesman. His pitch went something like this: "It should be against the law but it's not...to sell this program for only five dollars! Find out where to go! Find out when to go! AND put ten dollars worth of coupons back in your pocket! This isn't the magic booth! This is the program booth! But it must be magic that we can sell you this program for only five dollars!"

3. Seeing people's faces on Sunday night at church when I told them that we made about five or six thousand dollars this weekend.

2. Eating Crawfish Monica. Oh yeah.

1. Crystal and Sam working on Friday. Sam was in his stroller up in the booth. After watching everyone around him sell programs, he would hold up his kid's book and yell. It had to make you smile.

Crystal had random people take her picture just because she was pregnant...had a one-year-old kid...and still was selling programs. I love my wife.

Jazz Fest

It's almost 9pm. I'm sunburnt and tired, but I just had to write tell you that we made ABOUT $2,000 towards our trip today! We sold about $6,000 worth of programs. Oh yeah.

Thanks to all who helped. Tomorrow we should have more people and Jazz Fest should be a lot busier. That means that we have the potential of having an even better day! If you aren't signed up yet, and would like to come, call me on my cell or just show up at church tomorrow at 9am.

I'll try to write more details sometime after the whole weekend is over. This is definitely an experience. It was a lot of fun (and a lot of work). I should have lots of stories and lots of pics.

John Reuben

John Reuben, everyone's favorite white rapper, has a new CD that will be coming out in June called The Boy vs. the Cynic. You can listen to two songs from the new album at his purevolume page. Also, there should be a brand new version of his official website soon.

YOUTH: upcoming events

Some upcoming youth events:

-This Wednesday (tomorrow) we will have Matt and Emily Musser at youth group. Hopefully you all had a chance to meet them this Sunday. They are missionaries to Papua, Indonesia with New Tribes Mission. I am excited to get to know them better!

-This weekend is the Jazz Fest fundraiser. We are about 5-10 people short for each day. If you can help out (teenager or adult), we could really use your help. Even if you can't stay all day, sticking around until the late afternoon (like, say, 3pm) would be a huge help. I will have the sign-up sheets at youth group tomorrow night. You can also call me or email me to be added to the list.

-We have just added an exciting new event to our calendar. We will be attending a youth conference at Gretna United Methodist Church on May 13-14 (Friday night through Saturday afternoon). It is actually being put together by a new local group called Excite Ministries. They are bringing in a band, a drama team and a speaker. It looks REALLY GOOD. It will cost $20 for the weekend.

Here are the guests:
MESSAGE - Michael Kelley (youth pastor at Rolling Hills Community Church)
MUSIC - mikeschair
DRAMA - a view from the branch

-Also, don't forget about the Luling Crawfish boil on April 30 and the Berean Crawfish boil on May 7th. Mmm!

This weekend I finished both Practicing Passion and The Volunteer Revolution. Both were not exactly what I was expecting. [insert RANDOM THOUGHT] Sometimes I just have to laugh at myself. I'm can get so obsessed with "completing the task." I got kinda energized by the fact that I finished reading two books in one weekend! Woohoo! Maybe I should just stick to those Prayer of Jabez-esque books that you can read in one night. I'd probably get so excited, I wouldn't have to drink coffee anymore. On second thought, maybe that's a bad idea. [end RANDOM THOUGHT]

Practicing Passion stretched me. It is written by a youth ministry prof at Princeton. Needless to say, her youth ministry context and perspective is a little bit different than mine. It was really good, though. It was nice to see someone in youth minstry who is willing to address real issues on a philosophical/theological level. Too many youth minstry books could be titled 1,001 super cool ideas that will make your youth group really, really big. Not really into those types of books.

I found myself resonating with more of her statements than I ever would guess. There used to be this huge gap between Mainline and Evangelical churches. I think that we are more similar now than ever. We are meeting in the middle as Evangelicals are getting tired of being new and hip and Mainlines are getting tired of being old and traditional. Kinda funny how that works.

Honestly, though, the thing that I really resonated with is frustration with shallow youth minstry. It's funny, I picked up the book because of the title, Practicing Passion. I thought, "I can teach, but I have trouble motivating. Maybe this book will help me figure out how to instill passion in students!? You know, like how to make a retreat into a life-changing experience." (Okay, so I take back that statement about not being into those "super cool idea" books.) Instead, I found a book that says that youth minstries should be calling students to die for their faith. Their passion is found in the passion of Christ. Now that doesn't sound like "super cool ideas," does it? "Hey guys, invite your friends to youth group this Wednesday. We are going to bow down and worship a man who was executed by the government as a radical. We want to all be executed for being radical. Don't worry, your friends will think it's cool."

Yeah. That's what I'm talking about.

The second book was The Volunteer Revolution. I was a little disappointed. The last Hybels book I read was Courageous Leadership which I really enjoyed. Speaking of passion, the thing that I enjoy the most about Hybels is his unending passion. When I read Courageous Leadership, it was like I was laying in a hospital bed next to Bill Hybels and they were injecting life into me directly from his veins. I know that his passion runs deep when it comes to ministry by non-professionals, so I wanted to find out what he had to say. I absolutely adore my youth leaders. I would do anything to figure out how to lead them better.

So, anyway, that was my expectations for this book. Instead, I found a book that was written to the guy who goes to church who needs to be convinced that he should be in ministry. That's great and all, but two problems: (1) I'm not him, (2) if he isn't motivated to serve, what makes you think he would take the time to read this book?

Don't get me wrong, I got something out of the book, but not enough to justify the time it took to read it. The last two chapters were the most helpful. The rest of the book was mostly stories. Which is great...if you need to hear stories. Just not my cup of tea.

Anyway, I'll stop rambling. You probably don't care that much about boring books that I'm reading. In fact, if you are still reading, I commend you, you must really like me. I'll buy you a milkshake or something.

xxxchurch.com

I had fun at youth group last night. If you were there, thanks for your courage to come and interact on a tough subject. Here is the link to xxxchurch.com's website. They have all kinds of great stuff from t-shirts to videos to a message board. Check it out.

Also, if you have some time and would like to hear their story (it is a great one). You can download an MP3 of them speaking at Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, MI. You can even put the MP3 on your iPod (oh, yeah). Here is the church's sermon download page. Their message is all the way at the bottom.

Oh, and while your at it, listen to some of the other sermons. This is one of the most happening churches in America right now. Rob Bell is the man.

Gnome gone wild

I came into the office and Julie told me about this great story that was on the Today Show this morning. Some college guys kidnapped a garden gnome from someone's front yard, took it with them on Spring Break, took pictures and then returned the gnome to the owner with his "scrapbook." Now that is creative. Check it out here. (Be sure to watch the video if you have high speed).

YOUTH EVENT: Luling Crawfish Boil

The youth group at Bible Center in Luling has invited us to join them at a Crawfish boil on Saturday, April 30 (starts at 5pm). It will cost $5 for crawfish and jambalaya. Southeastern Bible College's choir is singing at their church that weekend. (Yes, my alma mater.) They want to treat 'dem college kids to some cajun cuisine! Let me know if you would like to go. We will have a sign-up sheet at youth group tomorrow night.

reinventing work

So, yesterday Brad preached on laziness & work. The sermon was fueled by all of those fun passages in Proverbs that talk about the "sluggard." Man, I love those passages! The sluggard has got to be one of my favorite characters in the book of Proverbs (right behind the "youth who had no sense.") My mind is currently drifting to a mission trip to Honduras I took in high school. One of the adult leaders was a guy named Todd Waldemar. Todd was a Marine (Semper Fi!). Every morning of the trip, He would go and run about a hundred miles....bench press small cars...eat nails for breakfast...and all before anyone else would even get out of bed. After that, he would tiptoe into the boys room (yes, we were still sleeping), open his Bible and start reading in a loud, clear voice:

How long will you lie there, you sluggard?
When will you get up from your sleep?
A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest-
and poverty will come on you like a bandit
and scarcity like an armed man.

Good times. Good times. So that WASN'T why I sat down to write. Sorry about that rabbit trail.

Anyway, back to yesterday's sermon. The thing that struck me was how we think of the word "work" as a bad thing. Work is something that we are supposed to grin and bear so that we can earn some money to do the stuff that we really want to do. (By the way, the exact same argument applies to school if you aren't old enough to have a full-time job.)

So, I think we should get rid of the word, "WORK." I don't like it. It makes us take this one part of who we are and put it in a different category as everything else. I mean, think about it for a minute. What is the difference between working the register at a restaurant and mowing the lawn? What is the difference between taking a test and playing a video game? What is the difference between playing an instrument in band class and playing for youth group? Sure, you enjoy some things more than others. But all of these things are ways that you use your mind, body and will to do something. They are all opportunities to honor God with your gifts and talents.

So I propose that we use the word PLAY instead. When you are a kid, anytime is playtime. Sam can play with a carboard box as easily as an expensive toy. Who doesn't like to play? I love the innocence of that word.

So, why can't going to work be play? Why can't sitting in class be play? I want to find pleasure in everything I do. I want to honor God with everything I do. It shouldn't matter whether I choose to do something (like go shopping at Best Buy) or have to do something (like take out the trash). It shouldn't matter whether I am getting paid (being a youth pastor) or just volunteering my services (fixing the Jamie's computer). I want it all to be play.

If we viewed our lives through these glasses...maybe it would be easier to find God there. By the way, play doesn't mean that your not being serious. (Trying playing a game of pick-up basketball. It is probably being taken seriously...maybe too seriously.) Sometimes play is light...sometimes it's heavy. But it is all about creating a life that is worth living.

How do you play? I play through fixing up my new house, talking to teenagers about God, drinking coffee, going outside with Sam, eating lunch with Kevin, reading a good book, typing in my blog, watching a movie with Crystal...and a thousand other things.

O happy day!

I just got the mail...and lo and behold what did I find waiting for me? My copy of the new Passion CD How Great is our God. Oh yeah. I am pumped. I immediately put it in my CD player and heard the opening track by David Crowder (No One Like You). Oh yeah. It rocked my face off. I'm only on track 3...and it's already the best CD EVER! Go buy it. Now!

Jazz Fest Change

I talked to Jon Wang yesterday about Jazz Fest. They asked us to rearrange our schedule in order to accomodate another group. NOW, we are only working Friday-Sunday of the first weekend (Apr 22-24). We will need about 25 people each day (we are working more booths than originally planned).

For our inconvienience, they will pay us $1.75 per book instead of $1. That means we will be working less days and probably make more money!

FRIDAY, APR 22
SATURDAY APR 23
SUNDAY, APR 24

(click on date to see the Jazz Fest schedule for that day)

We still need to man the booths from open to close (11am-7pm). Let me know if you have any questions or what days you can work. Thanks!

this is a little scary

Okay, try this:

-visit Google Maps.
-enter an address (like, maybe, your home address).
-click "Satellite" in the upper, right-hand corner.

Here is where I am located as I type this blog. Can you see Smokie?

AHHH! Big Brother is here!

I'm tired of being normal

Just got this quote forwarded to me in an email:


"Normal is not something to aspire to,
it's something to get away from."
Jodie Foster

Spam is good for the soul

There is nothing like a good ol' fashioned SPAM-eating contest. Hey, is that Jereme on the right?

praise habit

Last night I finished Praise Habit by David Crowder. I never would have guessed that Crowder's book would have been so good! It was probably one of the few books I have ever read that have BOTH provoked me to stand in awe of God AND laugh out loud. It had some of the funniest stories and statements that I have read in a long time.

So anyway, check it out. I'll even let you borrow it if you want.

gameday revolution

I drove into the church parking lot at around 8:45am on Saturday morning. I knew that no one else would be there for about a half hour, and I kinda enjoy that in a strange way. It's nice to be early and take some time to prepare myself mentally for an event. Today was going to be our second crack at a neighborhood gameday. So I spent a good twenty minutes unlocking doors, collecting balls, setting up the stereo and lofting up short silent prayers to God for our day.

So I found myself at a stopping point. There still was about ten minutes before anyone else was supposed roll into the parking lot. It was a beautiful day. I sat down on the concrete and let the sun hit my face. For some reason, I thought, I need to read some Scripture. So I got my new TNIV Bible (which I love, by the way) and decided to read the Sermon on the Mount.

I love the Sermon on the Mount. It is the longest, most extensive recording we have of Jesus' teaching. I love to read it and think about how revolutionary these words were. I mean, you read it two thousand years later in a Christianized world, and it still sounds revolutionary. It makes me wonder, does the church look this revolutionary? Does our youth group look this revolutionary? What does it take?

It seems to me that real revolution occurs through a thousand small choices...not one big choice. Perhaps something that seems small and simple...like spending a Saturday morning playing games with kids from your neighborhood...can be revolutionary. I mean, think about it. How many teenagers are spending their Saturday mornings doing that?

I hope that the little choices you make in your life are revolutionary. Don't make the mistake of thinking that the small and simple are insignificant. Those little decisions are the foundation upon which we build our lives. It is through the everyday that the seeds of revolution are sown.


"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash."