I have some big shoes to fill. It’s the ones my kids have for me. Here’s what they’ve written about in school this year. I’m both blessed and scared to death. I love that they feel this way, but oh boy…. those are some BIG shoes and some BIG eyes they have looking my way. Oh by the grace of God go I.

HERE’S WHAT TYLER WROTE IN HIS 4TH GRADE WRITING CLASS:

“Dad’s Rock”

HERE’S WHAT TJ WROTE FOR HIS 7TH GRADE ENGLISH CLASS NARRATIVE:

“My Dad”

So… today I posted on twitter and facebook this status update. “wanna guess what i have until Tuesday am to finish?” with a link to this pic:

To which a friend of mine, danny bowers, sent me a “direct message” via twitter. Now, if you’re not familiar with this lingo, it means Danny sent me like a private 140 character text message of sorts that can’t be seen by everyone who follows my twitter account.

His “private” Direct Message to me read this “snazzy shirt your sporting in that pic! I’m wielding a hammer & crowbar tomorrow for 8 hrs wanna come join for $20p/h instead of seminary??”

Now, so far, so good. This was a no brainer though for me. I immediately would choose a hammer and a crowbar over my 15 page greek paper in a second. So, I sent him a quick reply of “hell yes :)!”

Or so I thought.

What I actually did was reply to the text message I got from twitter, saying that I had a direct message from danny. However, when you reply to the text that twitter sends, it doesn’t send a “direct message” back just to danny, it sends a public twitter. My twitter then auto-publishes to my facebook status. So, in a matter of nano seconds…

If you’re still with me:

• I posted a pic
• Danny messaged me privately
• I accidentally replied publicly
• it auto posted to twitter and facebook, very publicly

I then tried to quickly undo this since my facebook is read by parents in my ministry and stuff and while I won’t say I don’t say “hell yes” on occasion, I don’t usually type it for the world to read as often as they like and certainly not as the only 2 words in my status update.

Immediately, it got a reply from Nicholai saying “wow, serious stuff there” and my wife replied “wow” and another pastor on our team laughing at me said “I LOVE this” and my fiasco.

So I tried to delete it and limit the damage and the explaining I’d have to do. But I couldn’t cuz I was away from my computer and only using my cell phone to post things and I couldn’t figure out how to delete it for the life of me.

By the time I finally figured out how to delete the stupid thing, 10 people had already commented on facebook and I was laughing really hard at my silly story. In the end, I actually deleted it on accident once I finally was told how to do it via my phone.

Funny day. Just goes to show, what you do publicly, is completely public. Ha ha. Be careful when you say “Hell Yes!”

Ok.. so over the past 16 years as a youth pastor, I have made a reputation for myself. In an effort to keep my house from getting toilet papered every 5 seconds, I have made it my motto that “I won’t get mad, I won’t get even, but I will get one or two up.”

So, after having been toilet papered, or my car trashed, or even one time a student broke into my house and pranked the inside… I have retaliated.

• removed tires of cars at school and left their car on them sideways.
• built a crate around a car outside once while youth group was going on inside.
• put a dead 3 pound trout under a student’s bed once. that smells later. bad.
• hosed people down in many locations, even once to a college aged secretary who orchestrated a prank.
• dowsed one girl in slop from the kitchen clean up crew.
• and the list goes on.

One of my roles as Dad is to try and make as many of my kid’s school field trips as possible.

This last few weeks, I spent 2 days with my kids and their classes riding buses, walking around, reading signs, eating lunch, and checkin out fish.  Honestly, I like being with my kids, but it never really seems like it’s that big of a deal that I’m there, especially after I’ve taken the 5th kid to the same place I’ve been 5 other times.  But to my kids, it seems to mean the world.  So, I guess it’s a small price to pay to be a hero for a day while I still can and their school still lets me.

Here’s my fun days with my kids in pics.

JAKE’S CLASS WENT TO THE BIRCH AQUARIUM IN LA JOLLA.  

BECKY AND BILLY’S CLASS WENT TO SEA WORLD TO CHECK OUT THEIR WILDLIFE.

Four years ago, our student ministries started a community service day with a fund raiser piece to it.  Initially, it was a way for us to support our church building fund.  Then it became part fundraiser for kids at camp.  

This year it involved a used goods sale on site (swap meet), an onsite car wash, and yard work in people’s homes all over our county.

So, Saturday, May 15, 2010 we worked all day for the fourth year in a row and we raised $10,102 for student ministries.  More than we have ever raised before.

These days are always a lot of work and I’ve learned a few things along the way.  Here’s some thoughts from this year.

• LISTENING TO VOLUNTEER FEEDBACK PAID OFF HUGE.   We have always done work in people’s yards as part of this day.  This has always been hit or miss.  Some jobs will break your back and some are really easy.  Some people pay you well and some people well… don’t.  One change this year came after last year one of my men came back from a grueling 4 hour job all afternoon with a trailer full of yard waste, sore muscles, a tired team, and $50.  He said two things to me in response.  #1. We need to be done with these projects by like 3pm, not 5pm.  #2. We need a suggested minimum price.  So, I listened and this year jobs were scheduled to end by 2:30pm and we added a suggested minimum of $150 for a 2 hour team job.  The result?  We raised over $5000 in yard work alone, had a lot happier teams, and a much better experience.  Yeah for the wisdom of great feedback!

• WHEN THERE’S A REAL NEED, REAL LEADERS STEP UP.  One of my biggest encouragements of the day came from one family that heard my yard work jobs went from 9 to 24 in just one day, only 7 days from our work day.  When I called to ask if their son could help me, they said that it was mom’s birthday and they were going to the beach to use a jet ski gift certificate that was due to expire soon.  I said, “happy birthday mom, enjoy your family”.   An hour later I got a call saying the whole family has decided to start the day serving instead.  So for Mom’s birthday, they put on gloves and served a family at our church that has been fighting cancer and has some real yard work needs for 2 hours.  I was so blown away by their servant leadership.  My hat goes off to the Anderson family.  What a blessing.

• A BIG JOB CAN’T BE DONE WITH OUT BIG HELP.  Last year I bit off way more than I could chew… even more than our student ministries team could chew on our own.  This year, we sought out help from the larger congregation to serve with our student ministries for this day.  The result?  LOTS MORE HELP and a GREAT first serve opportunity for many of our people.  They helped gathering swap meet items, serve on yard work teams, set up and clean up our swap meet, make phone calls…. and so much more.  About 100 middle school, high school, and college students stepped up.  Adult volunteers stepped up.  When it was all said and done and all the money was counted, my body was seriously tired and my soul seriously encouraged by how a BIG job can become achievable when a GREAT TEAM steps up to the challenge.