I have come to enjoy photoshop from time to time.  I don’t retouch many photos cuz it takes me a while and the truth is, I’m sure there’s an easier way and some cool plug in to do it correctly in photoshop that I don’t know about, but I still do it occasionally.

The last time was Friday after a day at the Zoo with our family and the Taylors- friends from Nor. Cal. that date all the way back to high school.  It was great to share some stories, some time, and get caught on life again.  I posted a bunch of pics on facebook, the last of which was titled, “I changed 3 pieces of this photo, can you find them.” 

So here’s the original 3.

I stole Becky’s face from the first one.
I removed the stow-a-way daughter we got from the second one.
I added the sign from the third one.

Here’s the meshing of them into one final product. 

Yep, I’m a self professed pop culture idiot. If you ever end up on one of those “call a friend” game shows and you are in need of anything about music, movies, or famous people… don’t call me or you’ll lose.

Why?  Cuz the memory function in my brain is about 90% stupid and the remaining 10% that works right has zero space alotted to memorizing stuff that is cool but useless to me.

Want proof?

Sunday I’m teaching in high school and we are talking about pride so in our brain storming meeting a student suggests we use a clip from Anchor Man.  I’m told it’ll be hard to find a clip that is “clean enough” and I’ve never seen the movie, but they swear it’ll be funny and perfect so Sarah agrees to find the clip.

Sunday rolls around and I set up the clip per what I’ve been told- “this clip is the epitome of pride”- and no sooner do we press go, everyone starts laughing.

After the second service when this occured, I asked this question, “Hey, just out of curiosity, are you laughing cuz you have seen the movie or because you think Chevy Chase is funny.”

Answer:  a unanimous “that’s not chevy chase” came from the crowd.

Me: “Um, oh… yeah.  Who is it?”

Answer: a unanimous and simultaneous voice of about 100 kids says, “Will Ferrell”.

Me:  “Um,… yeah, I was just testing you.  They are like brothers anyway.”

yep… I’m an idiot.

As promised, here are some old school memories I found in my office drawer. I have a pile of old stuff I figured I’d post in celebration of 15 years in youth ministry and my first days via pics I scanned in.

It all started with the mentoring and example of my own youth pastor, Mark Teyler here at Yosemite with an old school musician, Reggie Coates in the darkened background- circa 1988

Before I got my first job, I spoke at a water ski trip for the Evangelical Free Church of Fremont. I thought it was just a speaking gig that Mark Teyler had recommended me for. Little did I know it would be the most life changing weekend I’d experienced to date. This is me teaching at that retreat at Bullard’s Bar in Nor. Cal. in July of 93.

Following this teaching gig I was asked to turn in a job application as Dale Goncalves- the current youth pastor- was going to step down into the adult world :). Anyway, I did and part of the process included going with the group to Hume Lake for winter camp in like January of 94. This is my then fiance Shannon and I on a tube run.

I even found a copy of the bulletin from my first Sunday where I taught in the night service and shared my testimony in the morning services before the congregation voted me in or out.

That resulted in me becoming the youth pastor of the Evangelical Free Church and the youth goup, Powerhouse- and this old school logo I dreamed up that I is no longer just a logo, but a sweet memory marker of a lot of stuff for me.

Here’s some pics from those days, just a sampling I found on top of the pile and a few that happened to have been mailed to me recently. They are not necessarily my favorite or most significant, but they are a kick and each has a story that I could do a whole blog post on by itself. But I’ll just post the pics:

Lastly… here’s 2 family pics I found. My first youth ministry job was also the place where all three of my biological children began cutting their teeth in ministry themselves…. literally.

This is TJ sleeping on the ground in a Mexico Trip.

This is TJ and Tyler and Shannon and I on a train ride we used to do for Christmas for our leaders.

I’m sure for a lot of you that was a post you skimmed like a bad family slide show. But for me… it was posted through a mixture of joy and tears. Man there’s a lot of memories. If the next 15 years looks anything like the last, then strap in… cuz it’s gonna be a ride.

None of the stuff mentioned in this interview below is new criticism. The satire is funny, serious, false, and true all at the same time. I guess that’s why they call it satire.

Anyway, got this clip from Ed Noble, the teaching pastor at Journey… guess somebody at Journey sent it to him and well, it’s worth the listen. If you are following Jesus, one of the best things I think you can do is crawl out of the hole that is the Christian community and take a look around at what the rest of the world is saying- especially those who passionately disagree. One of the best books I read in college was by Origen– a 3rd century defender of the faith who wrote a book against a strong critic of Christianity, “Celsus”. The book was called “Against Celsus” and it not only quotes Celsus, but it also offers some soid arguments for why one might intelligently choose to disagree.

I pray that our students learn less from me about what to think and more from me about how to think… and that’s way harder to do than it sounds.

Easter left my family and I with much to celebrate.  For me, it started early setting up for high school before I headed to main for the 8am service and then two services in high school.  That was followed by an egg hunt with our kids (they know we hide them and they go searching), a HUGE lunch/dinner, and then taking my parents off to the airport after a week with us.

All in all, it was great time on a very very sunny to cap off a great first week of Spring Break: