Starbury

When I was in high school I loved Shawn Kemp for his basketball skills and for his commitment to only endorse snakers that were under $100. Then I loved Shaq for his bball skills and for his commitment to offer Starter brand (a subsidery of Nike) kicks for under $30 at Payless. Now, I have fallen in love again. This time it is with Stephon Marbury. While I still struggle to understand his move out of Minnesota where he was teamed with KG21 (other than the snow), Starbury has now put out a line of shoes and clothing that are all priced at a little under $15. Stephon does not have to be doing this - he could have a big old shoe deal (of course, he may need to get out of the Knicks locker room to make that a reality...lol). Here's his quote:

“It costs less than $14.98 to make a $150 shoe. That’s not what people are being told. We are allowing kids to become more edu­cated. Through this world of trying to live an exclusive life, kids are being lost in translation. Kids are not allowing themselves to see the big picture. And the bib picture is not having a $200 pair of sneakers when your mother’s income is $15,000 to $20,000.”

I've looked, but I can't seem to be able to purchase them online. Looks like a trip to a washington mall is in order...

I hope that his shoe line does fabulous and becomes a move that forces the big three (nike, reebok, addidas) to acknowledge the cause and effect relationship that they are a part of that is detremental (sp?) to youth culture.

ps. as a side note, I wonder what a guy like Shane Claiborne does with something like this. Surely these shoes were made with cheap labour, but does making them affordable for the poor carry some weight?

Catch

Catching my son's puke in my hand is one of the specialist moments in my life. My son has taught me more about God and Jesus than most of you who read this ever will - most likely because God chose to reveal Himself to us in a Father/Son/Spirit trichotomy (prolly not even a word). So, being a father teaches me about the Father.

A prayer for today...

God, thanks for catching my puke in your hand.
thanks for wiping my chin and giving me juice.
thanks forlaying next to me while i sleep.
thanks for taking me out and treating me well and carrying me when i am tired of walking.
thanks for loving my son.

you're welcome

I got rid of the pop-ups. I think.

Rebuttal

I love learning new things. Yesterday I learned that when people call me a relativist (unjustly for sure) I can counter by asking them about their addiction to absolutism. By then, the conversation will be over. Sometimes I make short posts that say very little, but say it so dangerously....

Baptism Cannonball!

Ht to Debbie for sending me this.

Adam

Adamic perfection does not imply a lack of imperfection. At the very least we must admit that there was relational lacking in the pre-fall garden. Adam was alone and it was not good. Adam was perfect in a holistic manner; not in a individuated manner.

PESM 2.3

I finished the emerging church book by Gibbs and Bolger last night at dinner. Then went through 30 minutes of the biographies at the end. One said that when he went to Seminary he learned that it is not a place to develop and grow imaginatively theologically; rather it is a place to reinforce already held belief systems. hmm.

Day 2 - Friday, sunny but windy

NYWC – Day 2 - Friday –

10-1130am – Heather bailed on her “leading students in worship” course because it really had nothing to do with leading youth – it was just worship leading in a general sense. For us, it was the biggest disappointment of the entire convention. Won’t go into it too much, but it wasn’t worth it – and joined me for Dan Kimball’s seminar on changing youth group kids into youth missionaries. I already agree with Dan, but wanted to sit under his humble, wise teaching. Here are my gleanings:

Ø What is the role of missions trips in youth ministry? What is the next step?
Ø 1 Chronicles 12:32
Ø Judges 2:10
Ø Citizens of the Bubble vs. Citizens of the Kingdom
Ø The American Idolzation of the Church: we evaluate the services instead of praise God for encounters
Ø Bono’s quote: “Christians are hard to tolerate. I don’t know how Jesus does it.”
Ø Dan’s story of telling the girl at the gym his vocation as a pastor and tripped up reaction
Ø A question that I continued to struggle with is how to address when students are saying, “That other church over there does this – I want to go there.”

I think this comes from their own parents church shopping consumerist mindsets, but I am struggling with how to turn students from consumers to missionaries and this seminar was a huge help. Dan has powerpoints available from the Vintage Faith site. It’s not there yet, but he said it would be. I’d look after the last conventions are over.

11am-1pm – lunch at ihop. Eating anywhere with Jeremy is so much fun.

1-330pm – we rolled into General Session 1 late and ended up sitting up pretty high. Crowder led worship though and I was pretty overwhelmed during the song, “You Are My Joy” – if you know me, it wasn’t crying, it was overwhelmed. I am so glad that God is my joy – and not anything else. Then Kendall Payne sang – she’s awesome, every girl who follows Jesus ought to buy her albums – Khobi will definitely own Kendall Payne and Pink albums. Then Kenda Creasy-Dean spoke. I was pretty cranked for her teaching because of my appreciation for her books. Here’s what I gleaned in her message:

Ø An original idea of mine: BURST – an evangelism movement focused on getting out/popping the bubble mentality…needs more thought, maybe a good book title
Ø Doing theology sideways
Ø Presbycusus: inability to hear certain frequencies
Ø 1 Samuel 3:1 – while, today…80% of people don’t feel the presence of God in worship, 50% have had no connection with God in their worship service in the past year, 75% think worship is for us and not for God. The theological implications of that thought line is very dangerous.
Ø St. Benedict: “Go often reveals what is better to the younger” – he often included the youngest monks in the most important monastery decisions
Ø Eli’s ministry had become an embarrassment to God – He chose Sam to tell him that, yet Sam needed Eli to discern God’s voice.
Ø “IS WHAT WE ARE DOING WORTHY OF THE LIFE, DEATH & RESSURECTION OF JESUS?”
Ø Leadership knowledge: 10% school, 20% other people, 70% past failures. So if you are always successful, you are 70% bad leader…addendum added by me.
Ø Nothing but Nets – stopping malaria worldwide

4-5:30pm – Seminars. I first dropped by Dan Kimball’s “The Importance of Theology in youth ministry” The hand out seemed like some rehashing of his thinking from the NPC that I was at in San Diego last February. So I nabbed the handout and bailed. I ended up in Tony Jones’ seminar on adolescent neurological development and recent developments in research therein. I always appreciate Tony and his deep thinking influence on youth ministry. Here’s my gleanings:

Ø Spoke of Erikson being the prophet of adolescence and his thoughts on moratorium. I think that, if Erikson has any validity, that moratorium in decreasingly available to adolescents today – which contributes to the abandonment dysfunction that is rampant in western adolescents.
Ø Carol Gilligan as a critique of Erikson (because all of Erikson’s research was done on males) and her book “In another voice” – which purports that girls are beings in relation.
Ø Another author was Emmanuel Levanis who wrote on a relational ontology. We are who because we exist in relationship. I need to read this in order to further form my thoughts on the necessity of the Trinity for the very existence of God.
Ø A woman’s brain is more active during sleep than a man’s brain is while watching tv. Think about that next time you change the channel.
Ø Jones mentioned a Columbia (Colorado?) University study that showed that kids learn better from teachers of their own gender. Right away I think of our church’s children’s ministry and it’s staffing of near 100% women. Is it any wonder that the percentage of mature Christians and the percentage of church attendees and the very percentage of Christians in our culture is a majority of females? How can we complain of the spirituality of males when we do not have males teaching children in our churches?
Ø Jones brought up “Harwired to Connect” – a new study from medical doctors and such that is finding that the mental and behavioral health of American children is deteriorating because, as a society, we have failed to recognize broad societal environmental problems because of a lack of interpersonal connections.
Ø Neurologically the brain stops forming around the ages of 15-16, I think that, if this is true, then there should be a major split/change in paradigm in youth ministry around the age of 15/16. I will email Tony about this.
Ø Jones had some further points that were really detailed and involved the prefrontal cortex. If interested, he offered to email the powerpoint to people who were interested. You can find his email on his blog.

4-730pm – skipped dinner, hung out, watched Jeremy and Aaron sneak in a side door to the general session. Met Marko when he asked me if I was the high school guy that belonged to this middle school guy, pointing at Jeremy. It was hilarious. Watched Jeremy sneak backstage looking for Crowder. Man.

7:30pm – sat in the front row for general session. Family Force 5 preformed. Dang they are a wicked live set band. Totally great – deny categorization. Then Crowder led worship – again really great. I have to youtube some of the video we got of “I saw the Light”. Then Effrem Smith spoke. Really great. Gleanings:

Ø Colossians 3:1ff – What do you love most? Is my loving watching kids grow a dangerous idol?
Ø Matthew 9:35
Ø Matthew 1 – Jesus was an Iraqi – Abraham was from Ur in Genesis 11
Ø O.I. = God wants to love the hell out of you.

Also if you want to laugh go buy Steve Case’s “A to Z” Guide to Youth Ministry and look under F.

Killer.

10:15pm – went to the future of youth ministry forum with Lacy. It wasn’t that fantastic. Alright host though. Young youth pastors with a lot of zeal, no experience, lots of complaints about parents, senior staff, school sports, etc. I hate sitting around and complaining, it doesn’t get anything done.

11:59 sleeping.

Zondervan Youth Specialties National Youth Worker Convention 2006 Anaheim

I am going to record here by day my experiences, teachings, ideas and questions while at the NYWC in Anaheim, November 2-6. I’ll go by hours so that it makes sense.

NYWC – Day 1 – Thursday

12:00am-3:15am – I packed and stayed up and took care of my household. I had a few construction type things to take care of so I was up working like a meth addict in the middle of the night.

3:15-4am – Sleep. With the lights and tv on in my clothes – I was nervous of sleeping past my 4am wake up time.

4am-6am – travel to airport

6am-11am - flying

11am-1pm – travel from airport to hotel

1-5pm – wandering, reading, sleeping, eating

5-7pm – bought the noomas for a significant discount

7-9pm – a vague nothingness. Walked around the vendors.

9pm – went to see Leeland. I like them. But they are really freaky. They make me feel weird. I bet their mom finds this and comments me really nasty stuff about homeschooling gone wild.

Later – went to sleep

Cottonpatch Gospel

This is Romas 6 from the cotton patch gospel. Read it until you see why I like it...

So what are we advocating? "Let’s wallow in sin, so more grace may pour forth"? Hell, no! How can we who died in sin still live in it? Or are you unaware that we who were initiated into Christ Jesus’ fellowship were initiated into his death realm? Therefore, through our initiation into the death realm, we are entombed with him, in order that, as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father’s glory, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been fellow plants in the garden of his death, we shall also be fellow plants in the garden of his risen life. We are convinced that the person we used to be has been strung up with him, so that the sinful nature may be wiped out, and we no longer need be addicted to sin. For in dying, one is released from sin’s claim on him. Yet, if we died with Christ, we believe that we also shall live with him. It is clear that Christ, who was raised from the dead, doesn’t die any more. Death no longer has a grip on him. As far as sin is concerned he died once and got it over with; but as far as God is concerned, he lives and lives. In the same way we think of ourselves as being dead in relation to sin but very much alive in relation to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, don’t let sin be king of your fragile group, so that it becomes obedient to sin’s desires. And don t hand over your members to sin as tools of wickedness, but hand over yourselves to God as people who were dead but are very much alive. Commit your members to God as instruments of justice. Sin shall not lord it over you all, for you are not under compulsion but under kindness.

You can get it here.

PESM 2.2

Day two of session two - early start.

Yesterday was prayer filled, lots of circling around and filling the echos of the throneroom with our voices. Nice.

Great discussion with Darrell, Jeremy and Dr. Odell about the Albany multi-site revlution. Great stuff - Dr. Odell also gave some understanding on my prof's understanding of holiness. The difference between a theological and a devotional presentation of the holiness movement's tennants.

And! Josh brought me a gingerbread latte! Who cares if I am sitting in a chair all day!!

Best Life Possible

In reference to my previous post on James 3:1 - it is such a blessing to see those we have been entrusted with teaching develop to the point where they are discovering truth themselves. Click on the title link to see a true and honest post by Theresa, a brand new freshwoman at OSU.

This is where, i think, a lot of youth ministries eat it. They teach the kids to know/believe/do all the right things - my goal, however, is to teach students to figure out how to know/believe/do all the right things. So, maybe my students don't listen to Christian radio, have fish bumper stickers, yell stupid chants at rallies, hate sinners, etc. like yours do...but Driven students develop and keep developing and love like they are completely nuts for the gospel.

A blessing for the Driven:
May you love to love.
May you learn to learn.
May you think about thinking.
May you worhsip your God like a nut.
May you be Driven.

Wireless

I am blogging from PESM, my master's program through my denomination. I am quickly coming to the conclusion that if I had wireless internet in my early morning classes in college I would hve failed hard. Today we are doing lectures on holiness theology in the Old Testament, especially in the books of Moses. I am actually cranked about this. Question: How do you make an xperiential learning process out of holiness in the OT?

Suspicions

Sometimes I really really think something is true, but I can't figure out if I am crazy or not. This is the way I feel often around the emerging conversation. I'm pretty sure of what I am thinking and believing, but am I crazy? Thankfully, the vast majority of the time, I find out I am not that crazy.

Tonight I have decided that I will need to spend some of my "fun-study" time on Apophatic theology. It is really interesting me; and not the least by this statment, which fits in the category found in the first paragraph:

God is not conceptually confinable to assumptions based on time.

U2/Green Day - LIVE - Whole Set

Ok - here's the whole set. Yesterday U2 was Green Day. So guess what's going to happen tommorrow. Also - it says a lot that Billie Joe leads this off instead of Bono. What is it that Bono sees of himself in Green Day? hmmmmm.....

U2 and Green Day

this is a video of Green Day and U2 together - y'all better recognize.

Must be Preached

More and more I am trying to view Scripture as something that is happening, as well as something that did or will happen. The stories and the prophecies, in many ways, are current truths for me. Here's another example; last weekend I had the opportunity to enjoy the National Youth Workers Convention, taking my wife and two interns down to Anaheim. It was amazing to me to watch the development of my interns, but also very scary. You see, I have two interns who committed to learn under me - which generally means they committed to become like me as a youth pastor. Both of them are different, but have similarities with me. James 3:1 kept going through my head, where it talks about not many of us should presume to be teachers because they are held to a higher standard and judged more strictly. This seems like a future tense prophecy. But, over the last weekend, I came to see it as a current truth as I was judged by my interns development. I could see myself in them - both in good ways and in ways that will get them in trouble later. You'd think I would sit them down and warn them, but I realize that I didn't listen to those warnings...

It is such a priviledge to watch the future develop. As a parent, teacher, pastor and leader it is easily my favorite pay-off. So this past weekend was judgement for me. If I want my interns to come out a particular way, I have to be that way. Correcting them will just turn them into more of what I currently am - and I want to help them (and my students) become what I am trying to become.

So, my sermon that needs to be preached is this: Judgment is a good thing for the righteous. So the righteous should be seekng leadership opportunities because that will give them fast and harsh feedback/judgment on themselves.

I want to post a bunch on the NYWC, but that will have to wait. I think I am going to schedule my reflections for next week.

609

So the grand total for October is 609 - and the random keywords in the previous post didn't even notch one extra hit. It represents a 60.3% increase from last October.

So, I now have 1 hit for November. I am currently 99.7% lower than last November...looks like it's time for some inflamatory posts!!

Last's night's h@#%^ll@$*n/harvestoween party was great at the Boys n Girls club. It's a lot of fun seeing the kids growing and developing. Life moves fast, and the last few days have been really fast. It's hard to find a moment and just breathe, but I am doing it. I am looking forward to this weekend, partly for that reason.