Consumed by the Call

I've got some great media ready for my next Core lesson series. I'll be tying in winter retreat stuff. My goal is to get the kids amped about the transformation that can happen at Kalahari. Nice accommodations and swimming for hours on end is great fun but how does God fit in. We will have discussion about how we can connect with God on this retreat and leave with some wonderful tools for spiritual growth.

I just finished putting the February calendar together. Here it is: February 2008

I love free games and this website is fantastic. Check it out.

This has been on the back burner for awhile now. About three years ago I was asked the question "What does your ministry need?" I immediately answered a 15 passenger van. I remember volunteering at a church in Rockford that had a van. It was sweet. We planned a trip. Everyone gathered at the church and we went. It was awesome to all be together. Having a van for our youth ministry would give us the opportunity to pick up several kids who can't get transportation to Helix, Core or Higher grounds. If it was painted it would be a rolling advertisement for our church. Having a church van would definitely give us the opportunity to minister to those who simply can't afford to get to us.

I just added a new link to the Collide Magazine blog. The magazine is interesting so the blog should be too. Let's hope so.

I'm feeling sick today. I've been coughing all day. I need to take a nap. Right now I'm playing a few game demo's. I tried Need for Speed: Pro Street. It is really lame. I'm downloading Flight Sim X. I'll let you know if it's worth the trouble.

I picked up a small turkey on Wednesday and decided to try to cook it. I've never done this myself. I watched a few food network shows and I decided to brine my bird before it went into the oven. I have to tell you, that turkey was the best turkey I have ever eaten. It was so juicy and moist. I'm used to the turkey requiring gravy just to get it down the pipe. Not this one. It was out of this world good.

I think the Marcy's Thanksgiving Day parade should be called "The Giant Commercial" I digitally record all my favorite TV shows and rarely watch them live. I usually watch them an hour later so I can fast forward through all the commercials. Well, for some reason I thought it would be fun to watch the parade. It's just a big commercial for TV and Broadway shows. The first 45 minutes haven't been entertaining at all. Maybe the Santa part will be cool. Maybe.

I have both the December and January calendars available online. Click the month to view the calendar. DECEMBER JANUARY

I finished my christmas wish list. If you want to look at it click the link under my friends catagory on the right hand side of this page. It's good for a few laughs. I played some ping pong this morning and I worked alittle on the finger labyrinths for winter retreat. Now I'm goofing around with Kalel. I enjoy my day off from work.

I figured out how to create my finger labyrinths on the cheap. I'm using plaster of paris. The real idea I'm proud of is how I manages to create the form. As you can see in the video I used a little pot pie tin and etched the bottom. I reformed the image of the labyrinth on the bottom of the tin. I fill it with plaster and after it sets I pop it out. I now have a finger labyrinth ready for paint and decoration.

The Sr. high are having a movie night tonight.

Today was a long day. I spent the entire day preparing media for worship this Sunday. I managed to carve out a few minutes to get the Ugly Mug coffee ready to sell tomorrow. I still have a bunch of stuff to do tomorrow including lesson prep for CORE. Tomorrow will probably be a busy one too.

I have a prayer request. One of my Sr. High students was involved in a house fire last night. The family and the pets are ok but my student is recovering from smoke inhalation. Please keep them all in your prayers.

I downloaded the Crysis game demo last night and it rocks. If you like Halo and other shooter style games Crysis wont disappoint you. It's a bit pricey right now though.

As many of you know already, I enjoy a good ping pong game. Tonight the Jr. High will be having a Ping Pong tournament. It should be a great time.

I found out today that two of my students compeated and placed in a speech competition. How cool is that. Way to go Graham and Krista.

Kirsten and I have been brain storming ideas to create the finger Labyrinths. It looks like we will need someone with a CNC machine to help us. The other option is to try and create them using clay. I'll post my proto type of the clay version soon. I'm still hoping for someone to step up with CNC access. That would be the quickest and easest method.

Graham and I finished the service project we were working on. Now the chickens will be nice and toasty this winter. Here are a few pics of me and Graham at work.

I'm in the process of planning the spiritual content of our Winter Retreat. I know a big part of the trip will focus on Labyrinths and how they can be powerful tools in our spiritual lives. As an introduction to the Labyrinth we will be giving each student a handmade finger labyrinth. It will look something like this.

With the upcoming release of the next Narnia film, Prince Caspian, I'm already in the process of planning a Jr. High Lock-in that will use the first film aswell at the second. I'm planning for this Lock-in to be an all day event with a not so locked in trip to the Movie Theater to see Prince Caspian. I can't wait.

Today is Veterans Day so my kids decided to call Grandpa David (my dad) in New Jersey. Kya wanted to thank him for his years of service to our country. All the kids thanked him in their own special way. Kalel sang him happy birthday. It was very cute. My father served in the US Air Force. I have memories of him telling me about his job as a maintence machanic on jet air craft. My dad took us to many air shows as a kid. We went to one a few years back. Here are a few pics.

I finished building four "Storm Windows" for Mrs. Cramers chicken coop. Graham and I will hang them tomorrow if the weather cooperates with us. I'm glad we can help her out and keep those chickens toasty this winter.

A few of my youth group kids went to Chicago and helped us donate food to a UCC food Pantry. Here are a few pics. Then we went to the Museum of Science and Industry. It was a great day. We all had a blast. Kalel loved the big John Deer tracter and the race cars. I also got to see the outside of a Sub. That was awesome. Thank you Kirsten, Wendy, and Brad. We made some life long memories today and we also had a great time forming relationships with the students of St. John. I cherish days like today because most events don't go so smoothly. What a blessing.

I'm working on a service project. I was asked if I could help weatherize an old chicken coop with one of our youth group students. Today I'm preping the window panels (building) so that all we need to do on sight is hang them. The structure is tall and difficult to work on. Last year we assisted with this project and we decided it might be better to make frames to go over each window.

I haven't worked out in several weeks because of my leg issue and the national youth workers convention. I walked alot while I was in St. Louis but I wasn't strict about my diet. Today I'm back on track. I'm also looking forward to getting a little space heater so I can continue to do my strength training in my garage. I was in the garage yesterday and the weights and bars were like holding ice cubes. Here is my setup.

The kids played a bunch of relay games and had Hot Chocolate and Cappichinos. It was a good night. We also talked about our dreams for the future and had a time of meditation.

I'm hoping some of our kids are interesting in attending the NYE scheduled for next year. It only happens every four years. Go to this link for more info: Click

St. John UCC is going through another confirmation change. I'm excited to see the final version but at the same time I feel left out. I hope this new confirmation process will be all the parents hope for. Here is a link to Wikipedia's definition of confirmation. Click

We got back home last night and we are in the process of getting life back to normal today. Kirsten and I really missed the kids and its great to be back home with them.

Well, we had a lowkey worship experience this morning. After that kirsten went to the Labyrinth and I went back to the exhibit hall. I talked to a few exihibitors then I walked to Panera Bread Co. I guess they haven't been very prepared for the massive amount of hungry youth workers. They have sold out each day by midday. Today was no different. I walked in and ordered whatever they could make me which I still haven't looked into my mystery lunch bag yet. Exciting. I waited for about 25 minutes for them to make my food and just about the time I got my food they closed the registers. I hope my lunch is good.

Kirsten and I decided that the next fundraiser will be coffee. We found a fair trade coffee company that has some seriously great coffee. I'm sure this will be a huge hit. It's a win for the farmers and a win for our youth ministry.

Kirsten and I signed up to walk the labyrinth. Jeff Conner told us it was awesome.

I challenged Kirsten to acquire a water bottle from the YouthWorker Magazine booth. She took the challenge and spent the next 10 minutes listening to their spiel. She managed to get a few old magazines and a pad of sticky notes but no water bottle.

Kirsten and I were hanging out in the convention center and we ran into Jeff Conner the assosiate pastor from Becky Sorenson's wedding.

Zack King gave a shortened session on being Innovative. It left alitle to be desired. Zack played alot of "innovative" movies. He thought they were innovative. Kirsten just told me she felt the content of the video's made the video's innovative. The video's were edgy. Below is one of the videos. (Warning-Lifechurch has a strong evangelical theology)

Kirsten and I went down to the Saint Louis University campus to check out a neat religious art museum. It was called the Museum of Contemporary Religious Art or MOCRA for short. They had a cool exhibit of movie poster that went as far back as the turn of the century. Way cool stuff.

This was an interesting workshop by Lilly Lewin. Lilly started an experiential worship service called Sacred Space that uses multisensory prayer, silence, art, discussion, and multimedia, integrating ancient and future forms of worship to bring liturgy new life. In 2004, she helped found Map Room, an ecumenical experiential worship community for college and post-college adults in and around the University of Cincinnati. She also co-authored the forthcoming YS book Sacred Space. Kirsten really enjoyed hearing her speak. Kirsten was taking lots of notes and is excited to apply what she has learned to our Helix programming. Lilly enphasised the importance of prayer and the need for prayer from our student, congregation, volunteers (pray we find some) and staff.

I scored some freebies tonight from our friends at EasyWorship. I managed to get two collections of background stills and a sweet metal water bottle from the guys at uth stuph. Kirsten and I are having fun and enjoying our time with other youth workers and their spouses. We even saw a few fresh babies here a few hours ago. I signed up to win an ipod Touch. That's on my wish list for christmas. If I could win it here that would make my trip.

We saw an amazing worship/artform. A man names Joe Castillo uses a light table and sand to create story art. Check out this trailer from the story of the passion. Joe will be worshiping with us again tonight and I can't wait. His work is very moving. I'm bringing back a DVD I hope we will use in worship. I'll definately be sharing this with our youth. We also sang and we sure sang loud with the dave crowder band.Check out there myspace page at this link. We also heard Duffy Robins speak on Matthew 17:24-27. Click the link below to check out the verse.

I messed around with getting a few of my photos up on my blog during my lunch break. Here is a pic of kirsten in front of a cool art piece. Below that is a pic of the arch. The am session wrapped up and we learned alot about parents needs. It was a great refresher and it was good to hear others ideas on keeping parents in the loop. Kirsten and I found a city market and got some microwave meals for our quick lunches. I'm about to eat, herb and chicken rice. Smells good! This afternoon we have out first worship session and we will hear a speaker. I'll let you know how it goes.

Today we spent several hours in our critical concerns course. It is on the topic of Middle School Ministry. Out speakers are Mark Oestreicher and Scott Rubin. Scott has been on staff at Willow Creek for 15 years. He has lots of stories and can speak super human fast. He spoke on the need for creativity in ministry. Both in youth ministry and adult ministry. Mark is the President of Youth Specialties, the sponsers of the conference. He has been in youth ministry for 25 years and has authored severl books on youth ministry. I'm enjoying his sense of humor. Laughster found in abundance here at NYWC 08. I love being around other youth workers who understand the trials and blessings of youth ministry. Kirsten and I have bounced alot of fresh ideas around tonight and I look forward to putting them into action once we return to the trenches of ministry. I'm truely excited about what tomorrow will bring and what new things God will reveal. It's late, or very early on November 2nd a