sometimes you hop into a fight you cant win

I love fighting bulls! THere are times when you hop in there and know you are going to get hit! The shots that hurt the worst are the ones you don't expect.

Up the road from the church is a middle school: Robinson. As I was heading home from work, I saw two girls yelling at each other in front of the school. One girl called another girl a name and I saw the book bags drop. In the time it took me to take of my sunglasses Girl A had a hold of Girl B's "nappy fro" (I use this term simple because Girl A used it to describe Girl B's hair). A couple sharp rights by Girl B had put Girl A in a backpedal; but if you have been paying attention Girl's A hand was stuck in the locks of Girl B's hair! So the girls are intertwined in a flurry of nails, dreds, and fists! They hit the ground with a thud and rolled down the embankment toward the street falling off the curb.

At this point I had pulled off my hat and sunglasses and pulled my truck over. I shut the truck off and hopped out. I bolted across the street just as the two girls were pulling hair and rolling down the hill into the street. Girl A slammed Girl B's head into the concrete just as I put Girl A into a head lock! They each got to their feet at the same time and I positioned myself to make a "pick" on girl A and take her away from Girl B. I still had Girl A in a headlock as i turned my body toward her to take a position between the two. I didn't quite make it all the way! Girl A threw a haymaker that did not land where she had hoped! It was her intention to land her shot in the face of Girl B; however, it landed on my Zygomatic arch just below my eye! I just held on until the principals showed up!

At the end of the day; I would rather deal with the bulls than the rough shot by a 80 lb jr. high girl! I kind of like working in the hood!

Rodeo Bible Camp 2010

I spent last week having the most fun doing ministry I have ever had. The problem is; I'm not sure why?

Theory 1: The people I was doing ministry alongside. Most of you probably remember Zac Sanger (the man I introduced you to last year in the newsletter and on this blog). I got to spend another week with him. He prefers to do ministry one horseshoe at a time. We talked a lot aboutshoeing horses (something I know nothing about) and ministry (something I thought I knew a lot about). Zac is the type of guy who will have a conversation about God with anyone and he will be the first to tell you that it has more than once cost him a client. Part of my job is having conversations about God; yet sometimes they never happen. Boldness is a quality he has in abundance. Another guy that I had the pleasure of serving

alongside was Seth Reynolds. He is the same type of guy as Zac. Willing to talk about Jesus with whomever, whenever. I had met Seth a year ago at a Rodeo Bible camp and had no idea he would be in Colorado this week. Two guys whose love for Jesus spills out of their lives. That is something that will make it fun to serve. Seth and Zac both took the time (outside of their assigned duties) to speak truth into the students lives. They have a passion for God that expands the time card. There are a ton of things I took away from that week!

Theory 2: Rodeo. It is always fun doing rodeo! Always fun fighting bulls!

But if I hadn't been rodeoing at the time; I still think that I would have had fun and enjoyed serving! Theory 1 is the winner!

What I learned this week; or should I say was reminded of this week was that ministry is about the people. The people you come into contact with and the people that change your life. Zac and Seth are two guys that changed the way I do ministry and changed my relationship with God. You wanna have fun serving God; find people who are passionate about Him and surround yourself with them! There is never a dull moment with Zac and Seth and they are livening up the Christian lives of anyone they come into contact with: this guy included!

Jr. High Camp

I just realized that I had not updated my blog to show the video from jr. high camp!

We went to King Solomon Christian Camp this year in Solomon, Kansas. As you can see from the video; we kept the kids fairly busy! One of my favorite parts of camp was the maze. We placed all the kids in a maze blindfolded. What they did no realize was that there was no way to get out the maze. We roped off the entrance after they had entered. The only way out was to surrender. It was a great illustration of the Christian life and accepting Christ! It was a great week of ministry that ended with our group growing much closer to each other and God!

Dino Day

Dinosaurs for years have been used (unintentionally, I believe) as the perfect example of how the Genesis account of creation is a myth. In my opinion churches have often not stepped up to give an answer to the question of Dinosaur origins and a biblical precedent for their existence. Too often, we as churches have spent our time letting the Institute for Creation Research; Creation Truth Foundation; Foundation for Advancing Christian Truth (FACT); or Answers in Genesis to answer their questions for us; however, God has given the local church the daily contact with people's lives in order to answer the questions that they have! The goal of Dino Day was to give our kids a biblical look at dinosaurs. They excavated a 18' T Rex, made their own fossils and are now in possession of an actual fossil that Colby and I picked up over at Calhoun Bluffs. We talked about Genesis 1 and when Dinosaurs were created. We discussed Job 40 and the animals that were discussed there: Behemoth and Leviathan. We ended the day with the Extinction of the dinosaurs and the role of the Flood of Genesis 6 in their disappearance.

It is our job as the local church to answer every question that our kids might have! Interestingly enough, it was the youngest kids who already knew that dinosaurs live 65 million years ago...church we are behind the game! Its time we start listening; start studying; and start answering!

A Good Man is dead because he was Good

The downfall of Uriah the Hittite was his loyalty and righteousness! Years ago a shepherd boy (David) was more righteous than God's annointed leader (Saul); and now we have a Hittite man (Uriah) more faithful than the King of God's People (David). As I read through the story of Uriah I can't help but see how his faithfulness and loyalty sealed his death.

After David had called him back from the front the first time; Uriah refused to sleep with Bathsheeba. Instead he slept on the steps to the palace because he was to be afforded no comforts while his men were at battle (2 Sam. 11.9-11). The whole predicament happened because David was affording himself comforts while his men were off at battle (11.1). Score one for Uriaih!

David would get him drunk the next day. Propositioning Uriah to go home, even in his drunken state the Hittite would be more righteous than the King of Israel was just weeks prior! David is covering his tracks and Uriah is too dependable to falter!

"In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. In it he wrote, "Put Uriah in the front line where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die." (2 Samuel 11.14-15)

Uriah carried his own death sentence. A man with lesser integrity would have checked the message that he was delivering, but not the man who refuses to rest while his troops were out in battle! Uriah was known by David as a fiercely loyal man. He had probably ran and hid with David and stood by him during Saul's chase. You don't get to the place in life that Uriah had attained with out some honor and dignity.

I hope someday that my integrity and loyalty will be the death of me as well!

Q: You find yourself in a deep hole. What is the first thing that you do?

A: Drop the shovel.

I would like to tell you about the last couple weeks; but in this short space I cannot fit it all here. I will give the best of it and if you want the rest you will have to look me up!

During the third week of March, I was reading through the book of Jeremiah. I came to the complaint sections of Jeremiah. If you don’t know much about the book of Jeremiah, he has a couple sections of him complaining to God about the trials in his life. As I studied them I found some really interesting stuff. A couple minutes of meditation in Jeremiah 12 led me to pray about this section. During that prayer the pride that had taken over my life reared its ugly head as I began to thank God that I was not like Jeremiah; arrogant and questioning of God. Jeremiah’s arrogance had shown up in his questioning God’s justice and God rebuked him. My arrogance showed up without the mask of justice and conversation with God. The audacity of my prayer life is absolutely exquisite. It was then that God laid the hammer on me. Pride and arrogance let me ruin relationships and hurt a lot of the people that I come into contact with regularly. The pride in what I did and accomplished, had ruined the joy I found in it. Pride stood in the way of promising relationships and any hope of a intimate relationship with God. The realization (shown by God that fateful morning) of the toxicity of my arrogance and hubris set me on the path to a lot of humbling conversations and many more to come. These discussions have been at times awkward; at times intimidating; but every time liberating! Now I have this last thing to say: “You, Church, deserved better from me.” One more difficult to type statement; but liberating! God's work in our lives is never complete. I am thankful for a God who points out our shortcomings and works with us through them! A God of so much Grace is he!

Believe Conference Tales!

If you deal with Jr. High Ministry: Believe is the one conference you need to go to. CIY has taken the liberty of making almost all the plans for you and centered the conference around your students. Seriously, as a youth pastor all you have to do is worry about getting your kids down there and back and feeding and housing them! The teaching is centered around middle school students; you are never doing the same thing twice; there is never a dull moment on stage; and you are involved in everything! It is a Jr. High ministry dream come true!

Small Groups: This year Believe hid all of the small group questions in fortune cookies. The black fortune cookie held random questions like: What is your favorite outfit that your youth minister wears?; or what is your favorite thing to eat at Taco Bell? (seriously this was really a question). The other questions were in three different colored cookies. Each small group session was a different colored cookie. Kids would read the questions in the group and answer them; there was absolutely no prep work (which if you have gone to MOVE is one of the most time consuming prep things to do). It was a great way to do small groups!

Worship: Worship was led by Johnny Scott, Hetti Marie, and Foundation Red. They were awesome! Did some Fee stuff and got the kids fired up. Mike Miyahara on guitar was melting some faces! They brought out Eric Samuel Timm, the painter (who played God this weekend) as an artist during worship! One key to Jr. High Ministry is keeping their focus! With all this stuff going on the kids were definitely focused. It was great worship.

We stayed the night at a church down in tulsa; playing dodgeball most of the night! We were still able to sleep for 5 or 6 hours. We took 18 students who had a ball. We also took 7 high school students who worked for Believe during the weekend. They had a blast and really enjoyed working for Shawn Miyahara (she mentioned me in her blog so I mentioned her back) and Nikki Palmateer. It was an awesome weekend that changed my kids lives. If you are on the fence about believe; I would rank it as the most productive Jr. High thing that I do (even above a jr. high camp during the summer).

A COOL STORY:

Right before our kids at pizza on Saturday afternoon; our boys were explaining to the Town and Country boys that girls were the first to eat. That was pretty sweet; our guys standing up for chivalry and the girls in their youth group! That is a good feeling.

Special thanks to Town and Country for letting us mooch rides down with them and letting us hang out all weekend with them. James Wright is doing a great job with their ministry and is a great asset to Town and Country Christian Church! I couldn't be more proud of my high school kids. They were a great asset to me and the Believe Staff. They had a great time working alongside the CIY team; and I think they got a lot out of it.