A few thoughts and happenings from my Thursday:

- Played an early round of golf this morning. Had a decent round, but stuck my hand in some kind of wild shrubbery looking for a ball and my arm from elbow to wrist began burning and stinging instantly. Three hours later, it still hurts.

- We’re kicking off a three week missions series this weekend (which is what got my mind going yesterday…). I’m not teaching at all for three weeks, which feels really weird, but kinda nice.

-I drink lots and lots of sweet tea from Chic-Fil-A (I have one on my desk right now). It’s interesting to me that no two batches taste exactly the same. Fries always taste the same, chicken sandwiches always taste the same, but something as basic as sweet tea seems to vary quite a bit.

- Not sure how, or if, to address the Virginia Tech incident this weekend. On one hand, it feels like it will be old news by Saturday, but on the other hand I’m sure some kids haven’t talked about it with anybody and would welcome the opportunity.

I’m going to acknowledge from the get-go that this post is simply a reflection of some of my current thinking. I’ve got tons of questions and very few conclusions. My question is this: Is it time for a new paradigm for youth group missions projects?

Others have raised this question and it has been addressed in numerous articles, forums and youth ministry circles, and my response has been what it typically is when people begin to question long standing institutions: ‘Show me something more effective, and I’ll consider changing’.

But for some reason, I am beginning to feel a strong desire to change how we do missions sooner rather than later, to begin to move toward change even though I’m not sure what the ‘something more effective’ is.

I believe in short-term missions. I know first-hand the impact they have on the lives of our students (I felt called to youth ministry while on a short-term missions trip). I recognize that the efforts of students on these trips does impact those we serve. But is there more to it than that? Could there be more to it than that? SHOULD there be more to it than that? Certainly Rick Warren’s PEACE plan is one effort at a new paradigm, but I’m struggling with how to flesh it out in a youth ministry setting.

Like I said, I haven’t reached any conclusions. My only conclusion is that there must be a more effective strategy than a youth group showing up in a bunch of rental vans once a year to run VBS and paint houses. I know this isn’t the only paradigm, but it seems like it’s the prominent youth ministry strategy. In fact, I’m not sure if ‘strategy’ is even the right word. ‘Tradition’ is probably a more correct word. I think it’s time to question the traditional approach and come up with a new, more effective, strategy.

Cussing made cute.

Attendance: Average
Lesson Topic: One Hit Wonder: WORSHIP
‘Fun Factor’: Average
Volunteer Involvement: Average
Music: Average
Lesson Quality: Above average
Length of Lesson: Shorter than usual
Student Response: Above Average

Lots of things made this past weekend a little bit unique.
- The week after Easter is always tough because we cancel for Easter and for some reason it takes a couple of weeks to re-gain momentum.
- We are in between series so we did a ‘one hit wonder’. Each year, we try to teach through our purposes a couple of times. This week we taught on the purpose of Worship.
- It was Mariah Miles’ last weekend with us. Mariah heads up our small group ministry and is getting married in a couple of weeks and moving to Oklahoma. She taught the lesson and we built much of the weekend around her.

After reading this news story I can imagine some of the water-cooler talk:

“When this trial goes to court, the judge is going to tell the guy he doesn’t have a leg to stand on.”

“His partner in crime might get off though because he seems to have a leg up on him.”

“The whole story is strange. To be honest I’m totally stumped by it.”

Because we didn’t have youth services this weekend, our family had all day together on Saturday with nothing planned. So we decided to have a ‘choose your own adventure’ day. Each member of the family got to choose something they would like to do and we’d all do it together before heading off to the next destination. Here’s how we spent our day:

Brunch at The Pancake House (Kayla’s Choice)
Looking at Model Homes in new development nearby (Kurt’s Choice)
Walking around shopping Center and stopping for Coffee at The Coffee Bean (Rachel’s Choice)
Going to the movies to see ‘Meet the Robinson’s’ (Cole’s Choice)

Very fun.

After over a month of repeats, The Office made its return last night.
Some life lessons I learned:

- If ‘the man’ is keeping you down, it may be because ‘the man’ is actually being kept down himself.

- Somebody always has to speak first.

- If you want 12%, ask for 15%.

- Three grown men don’t fit in the front of a pick up.

- I’d rather be hit with num-chucks or a karate star thingy than sprayed with pepper spray.

- Never buy a suit in a hurry.

- I’m a very gruntled employee.