Porn and Nachos

Today we wrapped up our sex series by talking about porn, and then I ate nachos afterwards. (hence the title) I thought it would be a little more awkward than it was, but it went really well. I don't think they have been this silent since the talk on alcohol. It was fun. I read a transcript to them of the Ted Bundy interview that James Dobson did. That was an amazing interview. Here is the link: http://www.pureintimacy.org/gr/intimacy/understanding/a0000082.cfm

I also used alot of statistics off of www.xxxchurch.com

It was a great night, and we even had a great laugh. In the middle of the talk, Christian was asking J.D. to turn the page of his Bible, and he was making the hand motions for page turning, which also looked alot like something else, and I thought he was doing a spanking gesture, and I asked him what that meant, only to find out it was a bible page turning gesture. Everyone in the room was laughing so hard, a few of us were crying. It was a great night.

Jack vs Chunk

thank you Jason S. for pointing me in the direction of this brilliant piece of cinematic wonder. www.theshinobi.com

Gas and Church pt 1

I was driving to church today and saw a sight that baffled me. There are two gas stations in town a Wesco, and a Marathon. They are right across the street from each other. The Marathon was empty, barren, no one there getting gas, the Wesco on the other hand was jumpin'. There were people waiting in line for gas.

The question that immediately popped into my mind was: "why don't they go over across the street to get gas, its the same thing?" And then a question popped into my mind that I thought I needed to ponder for awhile, "Why do some people flock to certain churches and others are barren and empty, we are "selling" the same thing?"

I don't have answers yet, sorry, I have to think about this one. If you got any suggestions I'd like to hear it,

FamilyLife Marriage Conference pt 5

We left today to come home. The experience leaving was just as great as coming. The doorman, who was dressed just like the doormen from the movies, got our car, packed our luggage, asked us if we needed directions, bowed and said, "have a peaceful day sir." Wow, having everyone bow to you is really weird. Its good to be home.

We got to see Isaac and give him kisses and hugs. Kara was holding him and I asked, "how about a family hug?" and he reached out and grabbed my neck and pulled my face towards Kara and hugged us both. I love that. He is such a sweetheart. I missed him, but I was so glad to get away.

FamilyLife Marriage Conference pt 4

This is a picture of one of the lobbies. The chandelere was 8 feet tall! Yet again an example of how fancy this place was. Here are some thoughts from Saturday:

We Interrupt this romantic evening…

Well we were eating our wonderful burgers and had some great romantic plans for the evening when we got a call from Kara’s mom, who is watching Isaac. “I think he just had a seizure but I’m not sure.”

I always knew that we would be away and he would have a seizure, but I was not really thinking it would be today. So it goes with a special needs child. I wouldn’t trade Isaac for anything, I love him just as he is, even though it is sometimes scary.

Just got off the phone with Isaac and his Nana, he’s doing good. He is tired, which is a sign of seizure recovery, his brain is really tired and needs to rest. He’s doing good though, and his Nana and Great Aunt Camelia handled the situation great.

FamilyLife Marriage Conference pt 3

This was the ballroom that our conference was held in. Wow. It was fancy. Here are some more thoughts from Saturday:

Thoughts on Saturday Night:

We are finished with the day’s schedule. We are supposed to go out on a date for our evening homework, so we did not go out. We ordered room service. It was amazing! I got a burger with bacon cheese and mushrooms, and my goodness it is the best burger I have ever had! We also got some jalepeno poppers as an appetizer. Get this though, they brought in a table with centerpiece and set it up right in our room! And then the gal who brought it bowed to us on her way out! WOW!

Also, I have only had water to drink for the past 12 days. No milk, juice, pop, or anything, only water. It has been good, I haven’t missed the drinks at all. Today I broke it and had a diet pepsi. I really don’t miss it, I am going back to water after this meal.

All in all this has been a great weekend away to focus on Kara and my marriage, something we haven’t been able to do for 4 years. We are going to try and do this annually.

FamilyLife Marriage Conference pt 2

this is a picture of one of the rooms. Ours was a bit smaller than this, but looked very similar. Here are my thoughts on Saturday morning:

We are staying at the Amway Grand in Grand Rapids for the weekend. It is so nice. It is one of those classy old hotels with expensive everything and servants everywhere. There was even a shoe shiner downstairs! 6$ for a shine.

We are at the weekend to remember marriage conference and loving it. This is Kara and I first time to get away since Isaac was born. He is over three years old now. We are both loving the time together, it’s like a second honeymoon. Wink wink.

The conference is great, the talk last night was weird to sit through because it was the exact points that I made on Wednesday for our sex series. We are selfish in nature, we approach love in the same way, selfishly, media shapes our way of thinking about what love and sex really are. He used better illustrations though. He said that most people approach marriage like a tick approaches a dog, but we are two ticks, not a tick and a dog.

This conference has been making me think about myself, my actions, and my motivations for a lot of things and I have come to the conclusion that I am the most selfish person I know. I will have to work on that.

FamilyLife Marriage Conference

This weekend we got to go away to a marriage conference. Internet connections were a bit pricey, so I recorded my thoughts on Word, and blog them when I got home.

Well, FamilyLife puts on a marriage conference at the Amway Grand every year, pastors get a free ticket to the conference, but we still had to pay for the room and food and travel.

This was by far the nicest hotel I have ever visited. Our room was filled with cherry antique furniture, King size bed, and a marble bathroom. It was great. This was the kind of hotel that had a suit shop in the lobby just in case you had to get a suit to go out to eat at their jacket only restaurant in the lobby.

Quote of the Day pt 2

Okay, so i found another quote that hit me really hard. I have been guilty of this in the past most certainly. I will try and stay far far away from this mentality in the future though:

"Leadership development recognizes the value of people. Our ministry's leaders are the ministry's most important assets. Not to develop them while involving them in ministry is to use, and ultimately abuse them. This is most often the result of an unbalanced, task-dominated ministry. "

example: "Joe pursues growth at the risk of the church's spiritual health. The preoccupation with numbers leads Joe to keep his leaders and volunteers running in the red zone because "there are more people to be reached." Any burnout casualties along the way are justified by the greater evangelistic cause." p.26-27

Wow, amazing line. Using peoples talents without developing them as people and leaders is just using them.

Quote of the Day

I am reading this book on leadership. I just got started and a quote jumped out at me already:

"Leaders don't vaguely affect followers, they infect them with God's direction...Leaders who know where they are going (mission) and can help their people visualize it (vision) will attract followers." p.21

I love this quote because I have heard so many Pastors, including myself, ask, "How do I find leaders?" This verse is great because it says that if you are leading well, you will attract them to you.

More to come later

movie review: Strangers on a Train

This was a creepy movie by none other than Alfred Hitchcock. It is about two men who meet on a train. One is a rich mama's boy, kinda creepy, and the other is a star tennis player.

The rich mama's boy recognizes the tennis player and strikes up a conversation, treats him to drinks and lunch on the train. During this time he says how he really wishes his mean, controlling father would die, but he can't kill him because he would have motive.

The rich mama's boy also notes that he knows of the tennis players coming divorce and also about a relationship he has with a senator's daughter. "Wouldn't it be nice to trade murders?" The tennis player laughs it off and goes about his day.

His wife is pregnant with another man's child and is now not wanting a divorce, and is going to keep gold-digging the tennis player.

Well the rich mama's boy then show up to town and strangles the tennis players wife and shows up on his door step, "now you have to kill my father." The tennis player didn't know he was serious, and he doesn't want to murder anyone. The mama's boy stalks him while the tennis player is under severe suspicion. It was a great movie.

It is a bit cheesy at the end, but it was good. I find it funny that in classic movies, if you are a crook and run from the cops, they will shoot at you, even if you are unarmed, and even if you are in the middle of a crowded street.

The Sex Talk

I have to admit that I had so much fun yesterday. We started our Sex series. Now a lot of youth pastors cringe on this talk, but I had fun. I loved to hear comments afterwards like, "my priest would never say that!" and "I didn't know you were aloud to talk about this in church." I had them laughing, blushing, thinking, and surprised with the talk.

I spoke on Genesis 2 and 1 Corinthians 6. God's plan and our plan and how they differ. I like to ask really tough questions like, "if love is so great, then why does it hurt so much?" and "If you are such an expert on dating and love then why are you so lonely?" and "If love is a game with rules, tactics, and strategies, then who loses this game?"

Over all, it was a blast. I think I should speak on this more often, it was too much fun for only once a year.

movie review: The Roaring Twenties

I loved this movie. This is going on my top ten list of favorite movies of all time. This was a great look at America in the 1920's. It follows Eddie (James Cagney) after he gets back from WWI. He can't find a job so he starts to drive a taxi with his friend Danny. The prohibition hits and he learns he can make some money bootlegging. He rises to the top in the business and has it out with a few mobs. Then "Black Tuesday" hits and he goes bankrupt, sells the business to his corrupt partner and ends up driving a taxi again. It is a great Depiction of life in the twenties, great acting, great storyline, and a pretty cool ending.

Everybody's doin it

So this is the cartoon me. All the cool bloggers are doin it.

Spring Hill 2007

Well we are back from our weekend at SpringHill. It was an amazing weekend. The band Red Umbrella was sweet. They led worship and played some of their songs. I really liked their sound a lot. I am buying a CD tomorrow. Craig Gross was pretty sweet. He spoke about letting go of the things that hold us back like addictions and God moved in our group.

It was cold though. -20 windchills and single digit temps. The coldest weekend in ten years is what I heard. And it felt like it too.

We all had so much fun so here are some photos of the weekend:

Spring Hill 2007

Morgan rocked open mic night with her rendition of On Fire by Switchfoot.

Spring Hill 2007

Christian and Caleb rocked open mic night. There were some moments where I thought I was on American Idol tryouts though.

Spring Hill 2007

This is the Euro Bungee. You hook two bungees up to a harness and jump on a trampoline and do flips and things.

Spring Hill 2007

Kylie rockin the wall

Spring Hill 2007

More climbing wall pics. Rean really rocks at the clibing wall. In the fall he took on the wall an unbelievable 10 times at least and conquered. He is a beast.

Spring Hill 2007

Darin on the climbing wall.

Spring Hill 2007

This is me after High Speed Tubing. And Kara was frozen from watching. I actually had a snot-cicle in my moustache. Never had one before. I had such a great time tubing.

Spring Hill 2007

I had not ever been tubing before this moment. It was truly amazing. This is Amy, Maddie, and Noelle after a ride down the hill.

Spring Hill 2007

so this is the Desperadoes led by Bing as we went high speed tubing down the hill. Plus you didn't have to walk back up, they had a machine pull you up....ahhhh America is great.

Spring Hill 2007

I got called on in our game show, and we had to name that sound effect, but we couldn't hear anything through the monitors because the crowd was so loud. People thought we were pretty dumb when we couldn't name sounds like George W. or Daffy Duck, but honestly we couldn't hear.

Spring Hill 2007

Rachel we played a "game show" on Saturday morning and it was pretty fun. I got to pick out a few people that I thought would not mind being called on. So I had fun letting people like Lacie and Chelsey worry about whether or not I picked them. I didn't though, I did pick Rachel, and she had to play this game where you blow a ping pong ball down the stage, around the front, and up the other side.

Spring Hill 2007

Josh was a good goalie.

Spring Hill 2007

Noelle and Emily playing broomball

Spring Hill 2007

Broomball was pretty fun. Broomball is like hockey, but with boots, broom, and a ball. They had a competition of all the churches together, and we lost our first game, so we were out of the running right off the bat.

Oh my frozen toes

We are leaving for our retreat in about two hours or so from right now. There are winter weather advisories and windchill advisories for the entire weekend. This is going to be the coldest windiest weekend of the year. I am trying to mentally prepare myself for the onslought of winter ahead of me. I am still excited though, it will be a blast, but it will be COLD!!! Please pray for our travels and our weekend. Here we go.

SpringHill here we come!

We are leaving for SpringHill tomorrow evening. This will be our first winter retreat with them. The students are getting really excited, and I have to admit that I am too. Craig Gross is the speaker, and Red Umbrella is the worship band. I am really excited to see what God does this weekend. He has been moving and placing key people in our ministry leadership this year. This is getting good folks. I am excited for our ministry's direction, and I am excited about our weekend at SpringHill! I am not excited about leaving Isaac for the weekend though, I'll miss him.