On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:
twelve molding fruitcakes
eleven chargers charging
ten hybrids driving
nine pants eemoing
eight ipods shuffling
seven mothers nagging
six blenders blending
five useless things
four lovely togas
three PS3’s
two myspace comments
and a monkey in a palm tree

We also did something new this year. For fun we did a contest of who could make the best “gingerbread” rendition of Mary and Joseph riding on a donkey on their way to the inn out of the supplies we provided in 5 minutes or less. They did it as a table group and it was tons of fun. They still amaze me when we do this kind of stuff with their creativity. (click on the picture above and it’ll get bigger and you can see one of the creations) The supplies were:

• 4 graham crackers
• 10ish toothpicks
• a hand full of skittles and runts candies
• two small bins of colored frosting
• 4 large marshmallows
• a small bin of small marshmallows
• candie sprinkle

• Shannon and I attend in high school, our families serve there still.
• We attended under Mark, our youth pastor who is still on staff, but in a different role.
• I did 3 summers worth of internship in the high school ministry under Mark.
• Current Senior Pastor, Larry, is our college pastor and also the youth pastor before Shannon and I’s time.
• Both Mark and Larry are good personal friends and mentors to me.

REDWOOD:

• Church is across the street from Shannon’s parent’s house and right next door to our old high school.
• We have lots of friendships with people who were on staff here at one time- one of whom was Doug Tegner, who ended up being the high school pastor colleague across town from me when I served in Fremont. He eventually left that church to serve as the National Network of Youth Ministries’ president and I was invited to join him on a 3 year term of their Ministry Council.
• Several years ago, Redwood made a bad senior pastor hire that caused the church to implode.
• Doug went back to help serve in a role there with his wife, Leisa, on their team to help.
• In the transition, lots of people leave, many find their way to Neighborhood.
• Redwood decided a few weeks ago to hire their former youth pastor, Doug and his wife Leisa (who served at Redwood as a youth pastor colleague when Larry was youth pastor at Neighborhood) to be their new senior pastors.
• Doug is also a friend and mentor to me.

LAST WEEKEND:

• Larry calls Doug and Leisa to come to Neighborhood on their weekend service before they officially start in their new position at Redwood in a few weeks.
• Larry prays over Doug and Leisa a prayer of support, commissioning them as brothers and sisters in the faith to do the work of being Jesus to this community together with them.
• Larry then speaks to the congregation. He encourages those who have transferred to Neighborhood from Redwood during this tough time to go back and support Doug and Leisa in the process of healing that community. They have found rest at Neighborhood, now they are encouraged to go back and rebuild across town at Redwood.

I just paid $3.17 per gallon for diesel. When I bought my truck almost 7 years ago, I paid more to get a diesel engine because it would last longer, get better gas mileage than it’s gasoline counterpart, would tow anything I needed to for youth group or family, and because diesel was the cheapest fuel available. Now, for some reason unknown to me, the gods of the fuel industry and decided it should cost me $.67 more than the cheapest fuel and a full $.20 more than premium. I think I’m going to go stab myself with a blunt object. It would be less painful than my fuel hell I’m living in. If I didn’t use it so much for the purposes of a real truck and hauling stuff and yatta yatta… I’d get rid of it tommorrow. Ugh.