Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Spam Part Two

Just so that everyone knows. All spam here will be deleted. Each comment is forwarded to my email, so all spam will be caught.

Monday, August 29, 2005

Pretending on Sundays

Nick (Thinking PAdre) has put up an interesting quick thought (dated: Friday, August 26, 2005) on the plight of the "associate" pastor who fills in while the "SR" is gone.

I empathize because I think it's true. I wonder how many people are pretending to listen on a Sunday morning. I also wonder how many people are in denial about how many people are listening on Sunday morning.

Also - I think another major difference in teaching adults and teaching students is that students don't pretend if you are boring. They haven't been conditioned into pretending on Sunday mornings. This is just another reason why I consider it a priviledge to be around teens so much. They are so core.

I wonder what those of us who are YP's can do to keep the students from being conditioned into pretending on Sunday mornings?

Friday, August 26, 2005

Pat Freaking Robertson

I've tried my hardest to ignore this guy, but it's just becoming harder and harder. Last night I watched a bit of Hardball with Chris Mattehews and he had on a token evangelical pastor, a token liberal author and Jim Wallis, who wrote God's Politics (which I have not/proly will not read/but heard was really great). Anyways, Wallis was calling for Robertson to retire and to stop being a goofball blemish.

For those of you who don't know, Robertson called for the assasination of the leader of Venezula. Dumb. Plain dumb.

I wish that he would stop speaking for so many people. Just because you are a millionare that gets other people to still donate money to you to run your stupid TV show doesn't mean you speak to me.

As of right now I declare to the world that I am not a conservative evangelical who has Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, or any Dobson for a spokesperson.

Call me progressive, call me liberal, just don't call me part of the conservative evangelical right wing moron political machine.

Dang this ticks me off. Put down the megaphone Robertson - nobody's taking you seriously anymore.

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

SPAM Master

It had to happen sooner or later - the reorientation has been spammed! A bunch of comments came through that are just ads for other junk. I don't even know what/where they are, but I'll delete what I can.

Monday, August 22, 2005

Gretzky!!

While I was away at camp, the earth shifted. The universe changed. Reality was altered.

Wayne Gretzky is assigning himself as coach of the Phoenix Coyotes. This changes everything. He is taking on the role knowing that the general rule is that great players don't make great coaches but, aware of this, Gretzky intends to, once again, rewrite the rules of the NHL. Without argument Gretzky is the greatest to ever play his sport, many others have tried, but Wayne did it all - He would be the all-time point leader if he never, ever even scored a goal. Yet, he also scored more goals than anyone in history. And made more assists than anyone in history.


Indeed it is an exciting time to be a hockey fan.

This post is made with apologizes to dummies who think that Jordan was a better athlete than Gretzky...can Jordan even skate?

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Mayfield Madness

Still recovering a bit from high school camp. I think there were a bunch of girls stampeding through my cabin at about 5 am on Saturday! Whatever...

I finished Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis really fast and will go back through it before posting on it. Currently I am still working on Andy Stanley's "Next Generation Leader" which is really not hitting it with me. No turntables, if you know what I mean...

I am also straining my way through Practicing Passion by Kenda Creasy Dean. IT IS ABSOLUTELY FAB!! If you are in youth ministry and believe there is more to this calling than lessons and games - this book is an absolute must.

A'ight - I'm out - trying to catch up!!

Monday, August 01, 2005

It's Official!

As of last Thursday night I am an official licensed minister in the Evangelical Chruch of North America. That means I can marry people, bury people, give them communion in church without any red tape and baptize people with the "official" blessing of the denomination. I really could have done all of those things before, but now I carry an implicit stamp of support from the denomination.

Denominations are great. Sure, they provide buttloads of red tape and reports and seem to be full of busybodies...but they are also full of really godly, wise men who encourage me and promise to pray for me and support me and keep me level headed; I do the same for them. Doug Padgit once compared a denomination to a family, with all the baggage and all the great stuff that goes along with that.

So that's it.

Communion anyone?