Archives for August 2007

If you’re up for a good post to get you thinking…. read this post by Scot McKnight. If you have 3 days… you can read all like 100 “comments” it generated. Wow…. guess that’s a hot topic.

Those who do youth ministry are rare. Owners of the vision of youth ministry are even harder to find. Those who own it as their own life calling are an endangered species.

Last night I had the privilege of taking Sarah Merk- my partner in crime in high school- and 7 key students who all graduated this last year and truly, truly, truly owned our ministry out for a thank you dinner at BJ’s. It was fun to see then as they head off to college and see them making decisions to stay involved in ministry both locally and across the state. They are the “owners” that keep me going some days. Now I pray that their big shoes get filled fast.

Last Sunday for Jakes 5 year old birthday- we went to see the stage show called GO DIEGO GO. Jakes birthday isn’t until Sept 2nd, but the show was only in town for 2 days and he wants a “diego” themed party, so we went. No photos allowed inside, but here’s a couple from outside.

Today I had a conversation with an old ministry friend who was telling me about his family going to Brazil on a missions project to work with the over 1 million kids who live on the streets of Brazil. That number staggered me. Less than 1% have a father figure anywhere in their lives. UGH.

I relayed this story to him from a previous post about how amazed I was at how far $100 can go in another spot on this spinning ball of dirt.

We then talked about how many people live on less than $2 a day. This article says it’s 3 billion people- 50% of the population of the world. We talked about how both of us are richer than Solomon was… or at least live nicer than he did. Running water, electricity, fresh food in a fridge…. yatta yatta. We were amazed and saddened by our own prosperity.

I told him it was WRONG that the world is this lopsided. It’s NOT RIGHT. It is ridiculous. I’m doing small things like buying fair trade coffee, helping the needy in my community when I can, and sponsoring a world vision child, etc. But it doesn’t seem like it’s enough. It’s never enough.

Then tonight I came home after 3 1/2 hours of soccer practices with my boys and sat down to dinner in front of what remained in a pre-season game for the NFL. (Solomon never did that!) They interviewed a defensive player named Freeney who on his “off season” landed the NFL’s most lucrative contract for a defensive player in history. The dude makes 72 million in 6 years. I did the math. That’s $32,876 and change per day. Or if he plays all 16 games and a few post season things… maybe make it 20 games total and he does it for 6 years straight… then it’s 600,000 per game- To play sports… which generates billions of dollars worth of profit across the board in ONE country on the planet.

That means that if this guy gave away his salary for one month of his “off season” (which is really like 7+ months long) when he does nothing anyway, he could pay the way for over 500,000 people on the planet to eat and work for a day. That’s $%@#$%@$#^@#. (I can’t type what I really said. There are rules about that kind of language you know).

And I’m tempted to think that the problems of the world lie on that guys shoulders. But they don’t. They are not his responsibility before they are mine. No matter how much ridiculous money the guy makes. Dumb money. I mean he really could wipe with it if he wanted, he’s that rich.

Sadly, if I look just 15 miles south of where I live. I’m that rich comparatively too.

TJ turned ten while we were on vacation this year and he asked if we could re-do his room. So he and I sat down with the drawing board and dreamed up some stuff in late June/early July. Then we got started….

• We decided to get rid of his old closet. So we ripped it out along with an old a/c unit that someone had installed in the wall.
• Then we fixed the holes we just made, moved the ceiling fan, fixed the electrical and added some new sockets, put in new trim on the windows and doors, added some crown, and painted the place to match his surf themed bed spread.
• Then we built in a loft for a bed/hang out space that would fill into the old closet space.
• We then re-made a new closet for under the loft, added a bookshelf, and a new desk for under the loft.
• Then the other side of the room got fitted with a new small couch from ikea and a surfboard shelf from an old board we cut up.
• Then, finally, after weeks of a day here and a day there, on Saturday I put in the window shade and declared…… It is finished!!!!

Here ya go…. wanna be 10 again? I do.