Friday, September 30, 2005

NYWC: Day 2

Tonight, we thankfully have a little bit earlier bedtime. Funny thing is that it was the first night that the girls wanted to try a late night event: Fear Factor – Youth Worker’s Edition. The group that was coming to do the event was not able to make it for whatever reason. I think we were all somewhat relieved. Sleep is always welcome at the end of a long convention day.

We woke up this morning and went to the La Boo for breakfast. Very good iced chai tea and breakfast pastry. The first general session of the convention we all attended together. It was a “Rant by a Runt on What’s Wrong with the Church” by Marko, the president of Youth Specialties. I liked it because he asked a lot of tough questions that made me re-think my own personal philosophy of ministry.

The first general session featured Mark Yaconelli, who I hadn’t enjoyed much in the past, but did an incredible job today. In fact, I would like to hear him again, if I have the chance. The Skit Guys were absolutely hilarious and the Swift were mediocre.

We all shared dinner at a loud restaurant called “Pizza by the Slice”. It didn’t pass all of the inspection codes by the health department, but we didn’t see that until we were leaving (smile).

I attended my afternoon workshop with Doug Fields on “Small Groups from Start to Finish”. I have been really praying about starting some kind of small group ministry within our youth group for a long time now. This class was super-practical and eye-opening when it comes to the effectiveness (and toughness) of doing small groups ministry. It doesn’t hurt that Doug Fields has always been one of my convention favorites.

The evening general session went just as well with featured speaker (drum roll please) Doug Fields. He spoke on the importance of saying “no” to ministry (yes, ministry) and keeping family and other more important things first. Kendall Payne was a surprising treat (better than I thought) and One Time Blind was a pleasant mix of rhythm and drama.

Mikella has been doing fairly well, although, Deanna and Amy have taken some time out a time or two to take her to the kid’s play room, which features a live video feed of all of the action on the main stage. Otherwise, she loves the music and the clapping the most and really seems to dig the party atmosphere!

Thursday, September 29, 2005

NYWC: Day 1

I just got back from the first night at the National Youth Worker’s Convention in Sacramento, CA. I’ll tell you about it in just a second, but first let me tell you about the trip here so far…

We -– Deanna, Mikella, Amy, and I -- left on Wednesday morning from Rapid City. Our goal was to leave sometime between 10:00 am that morning and noon. Well, go figure, we left at noon. The milometer on our car as we drove out read “77,777.7” miles. We joked to each other that God was going to be with us even from the start of the trip. The day before we had to have some expensive repair work done on our car to prepare it for the trip. Something that we weren’t expecting when we took it in for an oil change on Monday.

Anyhow, we left town and drove to Fort Collins, CO to spend the night at the Hyatt. It was a gift from the church for last year’s Pastor Appreciation that we hadn’t used up yet. It was a wonderful evening in a wonderful room at a really nice hotel. The next morning, we got up and drove to the Denver International Airport to fly to Sacramento. It was Mikella’s first airplane ride and she did incredible. We had a short lay-over in Phoenix and a some-what unpleasant flight from Phoenix to Sacramento. There were two guys sitting in front of us who thought too much of themselves that were drinking, reading pornographic magazines, and making rude comments to the attendants and others.

We got to our hotel with no problems, meeting up with a neat couple from South Africa who were with a dance / drama company called the “Thirteenth Floor”. They happened to be exhibitors at this year’s convention. We stopped by once we got to the hotel and convention center to say “hi” and pick up their promotional materials.

We settled into our room and walked over to the capital building to see if we could spot "The Governator". We were told later in the week that he lives on the 15th floor of the hotel that we were staying at.

After our stroll through the capital, we headed over to the Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner. We were all really hungry because none us had eaten since breakfast -- and Amy actually hadn’t had a real meal since lunch the day before (long story). After that, the girls went back to our room and I went to the late night option at the Sheridan Hotel featuring live worship from WorshipTogether.com. The featured artists were Johnny Parks, Brenton Brown, and Vicky Beeching.

It was an incredible evening and the best way I have ever had the pleasure of starting my time at the NYWC. I hope they do it again next year. It was like two hours of general session worship with Tomlin and Crowder, only a little more intimate and personal. I was in tears through most of the time as God ministered to me in places only He could know that needed it. In fact, I found myself getting filled up spiritually in places that I didn’t even know were dry or stagnant… and this is only the first night. I can’t wait for tomorrow! I’ve gotta sign off… it’s midnight.

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

TIME TO CHEAT SOME MORE

Okay it has been a long time since a post… so here ‘tis, the long lost post you have all been waiting for.

The highlight of my day was swinging in the back yard with my two youngest daughters. There’s something about their smiles that get to me every time. I can still remember a message that I heard at a YS convention a few years ago from Andy Stanley about cheating. “If you are ever gonna cheat on someone,” he said, “cheat on your job (or ministry) and not on your family.”

I’ve always tried to make my family a priority in life. It isn’t a task; it’s what I want. The thing is that sometimes all of the demands of life try to command out everything else without me noticing. That’s what I hate. That’s what I don’t want to happen.

Here’s something funny. I got an e-mail from myself a few days ago. It is from this web site called “FutureMe.org”. I definitely suggest giving it a try. Anyhow, here’s what I wrote:

(this message was composed on Tue, Sep 7, 2004)

Dear Future Me,

I thought I'd try this cool web site out. We just got back from NOT-WINNING at the LifeLight Festival [Battle of the Bands competition] in Sioux Falls this past weekend.

I feel pretty bad. I'm hoping you finally wrote and recorded some new material by now. If you haven't, stop and schedule some time in your calendar now. Don't waste the gifts that God has given you.

God bless you richly (you're a pretty cool guy),
Shawn

I like how I tried to encourage myself at the end (. Anyhow, there’s another thing that I’ve maybe cheated myself on: playing and writing music. It’s something that I love to do but hardly seem to find time for anymore. I know that I need to listen to my own advice and actually “schedule” it in to my day. That sounds sad. I love what I do. I love youth ministry. I love my family and my wife. Why do I have to “schedule” in something that I love to do? How come it doesn’t come naturally?

I don’t know. Weird question? Maybe even a weird thought. Maybe I spend too much time reading e-mail or surfing the Web. It takes up a significant part of my mornings and evenings. Maybe that’s taken over my “first love” of music. Who knows? Time to ponder some more on this. Maybe even time to re-prioritize. Maybe blogging should be on the list, too, seeing that this is the first post in how many months now?

Thursday, September 08, 2005

Thursday, September 01, 2005

BITING THE TOE NAILS


Mikella trying her first taste of "foot". Maybe she's following in Bella's tradition of hourly foot cleaning.