Archives for June 2008

I know lots of professions don’t get extended time off. But I have a few friends who have been given

I know lots of professions don’t get extended time off. But I have a few friends who have been given a 3 month Sabbatical by their churches recently. No one in youth ministry- just those at the teaching or senior pastor level. I’d be lying if I wasn’t a tad bit jealous. That sounds really refreshing.

• I’d go camping.
• I’d read.
• I’d sleep.
• I’d play with my kids.
• I’d build a shed.
• I’d wash my car.
• I’d organize my workshop.
• I’d go through my iphoto library, organize it, delete some, and print family event books.
• I’d sleep.
• I’d exercise.
• I’d go for a bike ride.
• I’d take my kayak out.
• I’d take a week of surfing lessons.
• I’d sleep.

Man that sounds nice.

I’m in my 15th year as a youth pastor. I’ve taken lots of family vacations, time off work to do projects at home, spent lots of weekends and an occasional week with my wife. But the longest single stint is about 14 days in a row camping over the summer.

Next week is a whole week at summer camp which means this week has been crazy and we have no weekend service the first week in July due to us being gone at that trip.

Then I return to relax for a day.
Then I spend a day packing.
Then I plan for the fall for 2 days in my office.
Then I do yard work for a day.

Then the next day I leave for Uganda for 10 days of missions trip with my family and a team of 15 from our high school ministry. Then the team will come home and I’ll be there for additional 10 days with my family- meeting my parents and my sisters family who will already be there. All in all, I’ll be gone for 4 sundays for that trip. The end result is that I’m not teaching to high school students in our weekend service for 6 weeks, the longest single stint I’ve had off of teaching in 14 plus years of ministry.

I wonder if it will feel like a refreshing Sabbatical?

I’m working hard in the coming weeks to be able to truly leave and forget about my home concerns for a solid 21 days. When I get back, I got almost straight into a 2 day leadership conference with out church staff and then right directly into the fall launch of our ministry, coaching soccer, and a new seminary class.

Sabbatical sounds like a dream.

I said I didn’t have pictures.

But sarah did. So here’s how to catch a pigeon…..

1. Pour out copious amounts of Doritos on your friend.

2. Watch pigeons eat everything around you.

3. Once one pigeon is on you, move fast and throw the towel over them.

4. Bammo. You have a pigeon.

Next we’re gonna catch a pelican by having a kid hold a fish in his teeth while through a whole in a towel.

Today is my wife and I’s official 14 year anniversary. Happy Anniversary Wife!

We celebrated it a few weekends ago when we had free childcare ala the grandma and papa, but today is the official day.

So while we were gone on vacation, my wife bought me a new ring. I wear a lot of rings, but the only gold one I wore was my wedding ring. All the rest were silver. It’s also the only one I never changed or took off. But we have talked about changing it out for a silver one every now and again. Anyway, I found these rings I liked made of Titanium on our cruise a while back and then I found them again while in Dana Point.

So I tried one on and my lovely bride said I could have it and then she suggested I wear it as my wedding ring. I thought she was kidding, but evidently not.

It costs $35. Whooo hooo. Maybe I can buy one for my wife for our 20 year. I’ll splurge and buy her one for $50.

So… here’s my new comfort fit titanium wedding ring for my marriage of steel 🙂

I have no photos. But you’ll have to trust me on this. Just do this again but this time use copious amounts of Doritos on Pacific Beach. If I didn’t see it, I wouldn’t believe it. My students caught a pigeon on Monday. I didn’t think they would be successful so I never pulled out my camera. Craziness. Pure craziness. You should have seen all the people watching to see if they could do it. We are a regular circus act.

We should go start some kind of business catching birds.