Archives for May 2009

Hey berrytribe blog crew. 

Hook our middle school queen up at Journey.  Christina and her husband Ian bought their first house a while back and it has a BAGILLION weeds and they have NO lawn tools.  So they seriously need your help.

HOW?

Well, they entered a contest by LOWES to win lawn equipment and they are in the finals.  You can go here and vote by giving them a thumbs up.   GO NOW!!   Go often because you can go a bunch of times. Hit vote at the top of the page and then scroll to the video that has a couple and a big ol black great dane standing in front of their house.  THEN GIVE IT A BIG OL THUMBS UP.  It looks like this: 

Ok… so we are doing this big ol massive community service thingy on Saturday at Journey. This is the 3rd year. this year there is a slight twist from previous years. Here’s what this one should be:

• 14 homes of yard work all over the county by 4 teams of guys.
• 8 hours of car washing on campus from 7-3.
• 1500000000 million things to be sold in a Swap Meet from 7-3 on campus.

But… planning and doing this thing has reminded me of some stuff when it comes to youth ministry:

1. Every event I do means that I become some crazy mix of administrator/ accountant/ facility coordinator/ travel agent/ phone caller/ taxi man/ insurance agent/ prayer warrior.
2. If the event is 8 hours long, it will take 80 hours of prep to do it right.
3. Phone calls, phone calls, texts, reminders, more texts, e-mails, phone calls, and more texts, and a plane writing in the sky is what it will take to get students and staff there.
4. Someone will cancel at some ridiculous hour.
5. Someone will likely just randomly show up and say they have always been on the list.
6. For every 3 who sign up, 1 won’t be able to go- for one of 14.3 reasons. I could list them all, but I’ve got more of #3 to do.
7. The event can easily take the place of the people. It is totally possible to complete- even a “succesful details event”- that was relationally a total wash if I don’t force the details to the back burner and remember that in the end, that stuff is only worth it if it prepares for relationship.
8. I secretly day dream of what an event would be like with a full time admin. I’ve never had one of those. If you have, I might kill you in your sleep and take your job.
9. Without the help of others, everything I do would end up stupid.
10. I will say, “Man I can’t wait for this to be over… all the way up to the event start.” 2 days after the event, I’ll forget #1-9 and think of all the good stuff that happened and decide to tweak it a little and then do it again.

SIDE NOTE REMINDER TO MYSELF IF I READ THIS POST AGAIN SOMEDAY:

Oh my… this church used junk swap meet thing might be worse than the church over nighter. I have 2 friends who do it and gave me the low down and well, yeah… they make LOTS of money. So I got their learnings and planned it out and stuff based on their experience and mine. BUT, after this is over… I might consider surgery with a blunt rusty object before doing this one again if it doesn’t make TONS of money.

Ok…. so I’ve seen this on like 4 blogs already, so I’m way late to the party, but I laugh out loud every time I hear it.

So, in case you haven’t heard this interview…. put down your coffee, so you don’t spit it out, and watch it.

Oh.. and before I forget.  Every Wednesday night for like 4 years now Stacie has been our sitter so Shannon could get a night off and our boys could have someone fun to hang with while I’ve been leading small groups and stuff.  She has been there for everything, so we just call her Super Stacie. But Stacie just graduated from college, so we might be in trouble next year.  But in her honor, we made Super Stacie suits for her graduation party.

So…. if you wanna nerf war.  Maybe you better pray Super Stacie ain’t around:)

Jake’s pose totally kills me in this one.  He is such a clown.

I came home to from seminary this evening to find the fort has been fortified. Evidently my family challenges your family to an all out war.

BRING IT!