For our high school service this weekend I needed some videos of the best of 2010.   In the hunt, I found 3 worth watching…

HERE’S WHAT WAS NEWS WORTHY BASED ON WHAT WAS MOST SEARCHED VIA GOOGLE.  Some of this was news to me.  Oops.

HERE’S WHAT WAS MOST POPULAR ON YOUTUBE. I’d only seen like 1/2 of these and since they had a collective 250 million views, this officially proves I’m a pop culture idiot.

HERE’S WHAT HAPPENED IN THE SOCIAL NETWORK WORLD.  Super interesting the data about who is on facebook and students texting in this one.

3 confessions:

Here’s what kept me from blogging all month.  Lots of good times of family and ministry all tangled up in winter and celebration.

A VISIT TO SANTA: This time, only 3 are sincerely believing that this guy fills stockings.  I told Tyler the truth this year.  He had the same response as his brother.  His biggest hang up was that he knew we couldn’t afford what he got, so he was sure Santa must be real.  Big hugs come when my kids realize they had fun and that we saved up for them.

BLACK AND WHITE: We had our annual semi-formal Christmas Party this year with several bands, a comedy team, some grub… and plenty of laughter.  The place and the students came dressed to the nine.  Great way to spend Christmas with the students who came.  This year, we tried to make it a bit of a fundraiser for kids around the world that we sponsor.  Super fun night.  Very thankful for our volunteers.

DADDY DATE TO THE DEL: I took my daughter Becky to the Hotel Del for our first ever daddy date.  Almost one year to the day that her adoption paperwork was finalized.  We got dressed up and I took her for hot chocolate and pizza and soup and then mom took her to see the Nut Cracker with her brothers.  Love me this pretty little girl. 

CHRISTMAS WITH MY SISTER AND HER FAMILY: It’s been several years since we got to spend a few days with Alisha and Brad and the cousins.  So good.  We spent a day at Sea World thanks to some generous friends and went on our first ever dinner to Ruth Chris as couples that night.  The following day was family pictures and church and dinner at home. Christmas day we spent some time at our house, caught a movie, and ate dinner at Grandma and Grandpa’s house.  Super fun few days.

Well, I’m ending my longest non-blogging streak in the last 5 years with a post about some of the family stuff that has kept me from this space on the internet.  I pretty much stopped reading and writing my own blog, just had to let something go.  I plan on picking up my blogging baton again in the next few days with more stuff on life, family, and ministry… I really miss this outlet in my life.

But for the record, here’s some of the stuff I’ve been up to in photos November.

PRE-MISSIONS TRIP TREK TO NAVAJO RESERVATION:  I did a pre-trip to a Navajo reservation in Arizona with a long time friend Pat Moore.  He’s been there a bunch and he’s like family so we got treated to a special private tour of a beautiful Navajo canyon on cattle round up day.  We checked out the church and talked about their needs and then pretty much rock climbed into the canyon and then walk/herded cattle out.   Long road trip and good times.  I think we’ll go back with some students this spring.

DISNEYLAND 2 DAY:  Our tribe and the grandparents all went to Becky and Billy’s first trip to Disney and enjoyed the huge holiday crowds over thanksgiving break.  Fun was had by all and we played more “would you rather?” than you can imagine while waiting in hours of lines 🙂

THANKSGIVING:  I bbq’d the bird again.  We set the table.  Dang our family is blessed.

DESERT TRIP WITH MY KIDS:  1 Grandpa, 3 dads, and 10 kids all went to the desert for our 2nd annual post turkey day father/kid trip to shoot weapons, blow stuff up, bonfire, zip line, and paintball and such.  It was a father/son trip, but becky begged me to go and so she changed the rules.  She’s a trooper for sure.

STUDENT MINISTRY STAFF GET AWAY:  I took our student ministry staff for a couple days to bond and laugh in a beautiful place we got the hook ups for in Capistrano Beach at the Wunderly home.   Super fun watching the sunset, the dolphins, and eating way too much food together.

next up, December in pictures.

We’ve banned phones, computers, and ipads in our church staff meetings.

We’ve banned them in our guys small groups.  We’ve banned them on retreats.

Shannon and I have banned them from our home between when I get home and the kids bed time.  We’ve banned them on dates.

But I can’t figure out how to ban them in our Sunday high school program.

The result today was teaching hell in Encounter.  Maybe there’s a lot of factors, but the chief distractor, in my estimation is the “damn cell phone”.  That’s the nicest way to put it.  The smart phone among teens is anything but smart. They can text, do facebook, check the internet, play music, you name it… the phone is a way to be anything but present and a multi-tasking myth nightmare.   It affects their attention to music, worship, games, the message, the people around them… pretty much everything.

Then tonight I saw this commercial.

Every once in a while, the makers of commercials preach to us better than most sermons.  Here my friends, is 60 seconds of prophecy.  Sadly, it isn’t as much hyperbole as I wish it was.  It’s 90% reality and 10% the extra mile.   Watch it.  Think about it. Don’t blow it off.  This IS our cultural reality.

Really?  yes, REALLY!

Oh God, Save us from our phones.  And as much as I LOVE this commercial, no phone can do this.  This is going to require Spiritual Discipline.  For the love of all things holy, please unplug.