Attendance: Average
Lesson Topic: STUFF week two (trash)
‘Fun Factor’: Above Average
Volunteer Involvement: Average
Music: Average
Lesson Quality: Above average
Length of Lesson: 19:21
Student Response: Average

This series is shaping up to be one of my favorite in a long time. The lessons have been super junior high friendly and we’ve done a great job of working the theme throughout our entire program each week. Next week, Josh Griffin is going to fill in because we’ll be on our volunteer staff retreat. His topic: Toast

I realize that this may simply be because I’m buddies with Brandon and that I think he’s a great person, musician and junior high youth minister (he leads worship for Willow’s middle school ministry), but his new CD is what I’m finding myself listening to more than anything else right now. I know I mentioned it briefly as part of another post a few weeks ago, but it really is good! Brandon wrote every song but one, so you won’t recognize ‘em but I think the vast majority are songs that translate really well to a junior high ministry setting.

My three favorite songs on the CD:
1) He Made a Way
2) Father of Glory
3) You Are The Same (Scattered Around)

My least favorite song:
Dancing Generation (the one song he didn’t write!)

You can purchase it through the willow creek association, Amazon or at simply junior high.

I don’t like cats. This article is for everybody who has ever questioned my position.

- Don’t know why I didn’t post yesterday. Actually I do know: The thought never crossed my mind.

- 300 may be the best ‘manly movie’ I’ve ever seen. It probably isn’t what you want to see on your next date night, but if you’re looking for a great movie to see with the guys, this is it!

- Is it consistent to be concerned about the environment but not really concerned about global warming? Because I am and I am not really.

- Just got word that ‘My Faith’ is already in its second printing. I thought it would sell well because of the subject matter, but this still feels surprising. ‘My Family’ isn’t selling as well which isn’t as surprising.

- A whole crew of ours is preparing to camp out all night at a grand opening of Chic-Fil-A. The first 100 people in line get 52 coupons for a free combo meal. That’s one free meal a week for an entire year! I love Chic-Fil-A, but the idea of camping out in a parking lot all night just doesn’t sound fun to me any more. Certainly a sign of middle age.

- I haven’t had a soda of any kind in over a month. I’ve lost a few pounds and feel amazing. Now, if I can just get off the sweet tea. Wait, free combo meals at Chic-Fil-A means free sweet tea. I gotta grab my sleeping bag!

Attendance: Above Average
Lesson Topic: STUFF week one (toothpaste tube)
‘Fun Factor’: Above Average
Volunteer Involvement: Below Average
Music: Below Average
Lesson Quality: Above average
Length of Lesson: 22:00
Student Response: Above Average

STUFF is my adaptation of a series idea that Ryan Nielsen shared at a recent junior high pastor’s gathering. The idea is to take common household items and use them as the object lesson for the teaching time. He called his series ‘The Law Of…’ and used different items than we are using (actually, he did use toothpaste tube, but the next two weeks will be different). I called the series STUFF because it felt a little more JH friendly. Upcoming STUFF topics: Trash and Toast. It was one of our best weekends in a long time.

Mariah Miles, who has served on our team for about 2 years as our small groups coordinator recently became engaged to John, a former intern now serving at a church in Oklahoma. They are an amazing couple and I’m excited to see what God does in and through their lives. For the past several months my team and I have been interviewing candidates hoping to find a good fit for this super important role on our team. It feels like we’ve narrowed it down to two, one of whom is flying in this afternoon to spend the weekend with us. She is currently the junior high director at a fairly large church, so it feels like she would be giving up quite a bit to join our team. I’m looking forward to getting to know her this weekend.

The father of a girl in our junior high ministry passed away this week. He was only 42 and had been fighting cancer for quite a while. I’m meeting with the family this afternonon to work through the final details of tomorrow’s memorial service. Obviously I want the formal memorial service to go well and be a good celebration of this gentleman’s life, but more importantly I hope our ministry and other support systems can rally around his daughter.

A good friend of mine passed away a couple years ago at the same age. His daughter was also in junior high at the time and it was such a devastating loss. My heart is hurting today knowing that another young teenager is facing the loss of her dad.

Simple Thought: Maybe better isn’t always
It seems like many youth workers (myself included) have bought into the idea that newer, cooler, more expensive, fresher, flashier stuff is always better. If having lights is good, then better lights must be better. If playing games is good, then better games must be better. If having our own youth room is good, then a better youth room must be better.

About 6 months ago, I broke the bank and purchased four brand new X-box 360′s to replace our old X-box systems. Nothing was wrong with our old ones, but hey ‘If an X-box is good, than a better X-box must be better!’. Not even close! Sure, the graphics and games were a bit better, but we have had problem after problem after problem with the new systems. We’ve returned a couple only to have different problems with the new ones.

Our solution? We decide to buy a bunch of $20 plug-n-play games at target…there is a whole isle of them to choose from. My logic was that when these broke, we could easily replace one for less than the price of a single X-box game.

Two interesting observations:

1) They haven’t broken! They are pretty durable.
2) Our students love them and we haven’t had a single question about the whereabouts of the X-box systems.

Maybe better isn’t always.

Here’s the current top 10 praise and worship songs in America this week according to CCLI. Interesting that Chris Tomlin has 5 out of 10. Has that ever happened in secular music? Did the Beatles ever have 5 top 10 songs at once? Madonna? Michael Jackson? The pool of people contributing to the praise and worship genre is probably quite a bit smaller, and I imagine the shelf life of a worship song is much longer, but it’s still an amazing feat.
(so to Josh )

1 How Great Is Our God / Tomlin, Reeves, Cash
2 Blessed Be Your Name / Redman
3 Here I Am To Worship / Hughes
4 Open The Eyes Of My Heart / Baloche
5 You Are My King / Foote
6 Holy Is The Lord / Tomlin, Giglio
7 We Fall Down / Tomlin
8 Forever / Tomlin
9 Lord I Lift Your Name On High / Founds
10 The Wonderful Cross / Reeves, Tomlin, Walt

At 3:30 p.m. yesterday, my daughter walked through customs and into our lives once again! The next three hours were spent listenting to story after story and adventure after adventure from her experience in Kenya. We looked at loads of pictures….a few of which were actually in focus!

She’s already talking about the need to spend three weeks there next year because two weeks wasn’t enough. Not news her mom was ready to hear!