Deep Thought

Few things scare me more than this:

Well, maybe this does...

Summer Fades, Part II

The end of summer also means my

broken ankle is now fully healed!

I had my last Doctor's appointment Friday,

where I received the good news

that the bone has healed.

They told me, I couldn't run on it

for at least 3 more weeks though.

Which means no Disneyland half-marathon

which I paid $100 to run in over Labor Day,

But it does give me a nice excuse to play

some more NCAA College Football

on the Playstation!

Here are some of the photo highlights

of my summer with a broken ankle:

Getting the first what would be 3 casts at Irvine Kaiser

in June

Family Reunion in July in Santa Cruz

where my 3 wonderful siblings

carried me on the beach

My compassionate 2 year old, Lily

told us one night she needed a cast too.

Everyone came to the rescue

to get me on the boats at Shaver Lake!

I have to give so much credit to my beautiful wife, Marie

who being pregnant all summer

still found enought patience to care for me

and do the things I couldn't while I hobbled around.

She is amazing.

If you want to

see the video one last time

of my ankle breakage

click here.

The Slow Fade of Summer

(sunset in Bali)

Our lake trip is complete.

It was a great time.

9 Boats, 91 students, 35 adults

and the best camp food I can ever remember having.

(Thank you Chuck, Bob and Lindy)

Schools start this Thursday for most our high school students.

We have High School service this Sunday morning,

Beach Baptisms Sunday night,

Tuesday morning discussion groups

and our summer finale, Wednesday night...EDL on the Grill.

Then summer fades off into the sunset

My fellow Youth Pastor's,

where are you at in regards to

summer burnout?

I am feeling it.
My wife thinks this summer
is better than past years
which means we are doing better
or

means we are becoming more numb to

the grinds of the summer.

Hopefully it is the first.

2 amazing books I have come across
in the past 2 weeks (one old, one fairly new)
are:

Margins by Richard Swenson (a medical doctor)

and

Choosing to Cheat by Andy Stanley (a Pastor in Atlanta).

If you are feeling the effects of a busy summer
you HAVE to look over these 2 books.
They are rocking me and making
me examine how I operate in youth ministry.


Mark Driscoll has been putting together

a powerful 11 part series on what he considers

warning signs of burnout

he calls, "Death by Ministry".

You can check out Mark's writings here.

11. In what ways should a pastor view their ministry?

by Mark Driscoll

Ministry is your fourth
priority after being a Christian, husband, and father.
Ministry is your job,
not your life.
God rewards faithfulness, not just fruitfulness.
Your
salvation and righteousness are gifts from Jesus and not contingent upon your
performance.
If you do not Sabbath, God will impose a Sabbath upon you.
A series of sprints, with nine natural breaks out of the pulpit, rather than
a marathon.
First Sunday of the Year (January)
Daylight Savings Day
(March)
Mother's Day (May)
Memorial Day (May)
Father's Day (June)
Fourth of July (July)
Labor Day Weekend (September)
Thanksgiving
(November)
Week after Christmas (December)

Jesus is the Senior Pastor
and the church is His

Off to the Lake we go

Our annual Lake trip with the High School group is

this coming week.
The last trip of the summer!

We drive 6 hours north
to Lake San Antonio.
We bring a bunch of wakeboards and ski's
and wake skates,
but tubing remains the most popular
sport among the students and ...
...CATS

Getting Students Out of the OC and into the Globe

One morning, 7 years ago,

I was sitting in a packed room, full of high school students
up at Hume Lake.


A guy named Brad Buser, a missionary to Papua New Guinea
was speaking to the students and sharing his life story.
He became a Christian in high school and got involved with
missions almost right away.


Brad said it like this,

"I thought missions was just something that every Christian did,

because my youth pastor continually put missions opportunities

in front of us."

As I heard Brad say these words, a wave of conviction came
over me.
I had been the High School Pastor at Calvary Church
for just over a year at that time
and I had never given much thought
to giving our students cross cultural missions
experiences.


That morning, I made a decision before God,
that I would work to re-orient our High School
group by making cross cultural experiences
part of the DNA, the fabric
of our group.


I asked God to slap me upside the head
with obvious places to go
and I asked Him to give me the courage
to take students to these places.

That was six years ago, and God has been so kind
to us.
We have had the opportunity to take students
to Brazil, Peru, Albania, Ecuador, Mexico and this week,
Kenya.



We had an overwhelming response of students
who wanted to go to Kenya
this summer, so we divided the team
up into 2 teams.



Here is a shot of the 2 teams meeting
up at the Nairobi Airport, one team coming,
one team going.
(check out the daily blog of the teams here and here )


My prayer for our High School Group:

"Lord, you care about the nations.

You are working among the nations.

Thank you for using a little youth group

in Orange County to be a blessing to

others. Especially to others who live

in third world places.

Thank you for teaching our students so many

incredible life lessons on these cross cultural

experiences.

May you raise up 10, 15, 20 high school students

in this era of our High School group who

will boldy and crazily give up their

comfortable, "OC" lives

and relocate long-term to a foreign culture

where they can bless others in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

The history of the Soul Patch, Part I

I am in the process of growing a soul patch.
I am 4 weeks in, and am feeling good about it.
Today, in the delirious midst of
thousands of kids running around our church
as part of VBS...
I began to wonder to myself,
what are the origins of the soul patch?

Here is what I found from wikipedia,
The soul patch is a small patch of facial hair just below the
lower lip and above the chin. It came to prominence in the 1950s and 1960s and was a style of beard popular with beatniks and jazz artists. Jazz trumpeters in
particular preferred the soul patch for the comfort it provided when using a
trumpet mouthpiece[1].

Here are some of the more famous soul patch wearers

Dizzy Gillespie

Phil Jackson

Steve Vai

3 WORDS...V, B, S

This is the week each year

our church shuts everything else down

and hosts Vacation Bible School

for some 1,000 kids ages 5 to 11.

Every member of the churchs staff

Is asked to help out in some form.

It is awesome seeing Pastors and

secretary's and interns all

jumping into to serve God by serving kids.

Our high school ministry

leads the recreation part of the week

which is half a ministry to the kids

and half a ministry to the high schoolers

helping to lead.

For this reason, it makes an exhausting week

for me and my team.

But the fruit is amazing.

Yesterday, on the first day of VBS,

27 kids made decisions to follow Jesus

for the first time in their lives.

I actually made a decision to become

a follower of Christ at a VBS when I was 7,

back in my home town of Santa Cruz.

So as tiring as this week is,

as hard as it is to have a break in the momentum

of our summer ministry to high school kids,

the eternal impact is huge.

Are you a fan of the VBS Format for kids?

Tradegy in Minnesota

The collapse of the 35w bridge

in Minnepolis, Minnesota

Wednesday night hit me especially

hard because my brother and sister-in-law

are living in Minnepolis, just a few miles

from the bridge.

They drive across the bridge every day

and it turns out, they had driven across the bridge

earlier in the day on Wednesday.

My sister-in law's Dad was actually in route to

cross the bridge Wednesday night,

when at the last minute he decided to take

a different route home because of all the

traffic headed towards the bridge.

My Prayer for those involved in this tradegy

Lord, thank you for sparing and protecting

Nathan and Elle and the Hutton family.

I pray that your hand of comfort

would overwhelm those who are

suffering because of the loss of

a loved one.

Lord, rise up Christians and

your church in Minnepolis at this time,

to bring mercy and comfort

and material supplies to those in need.

I pray that you will

bring peace to those who survived

and that you will somehow

use this sad, sad event

to bring glory to your Name,

the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

Amen.