For those who may think I've dropped off the planet, I'm actually just on vacation. We spent a few days in San Diego and have been just hanging here at home since Thursday.
With a total Sunday off today, we headed to church at Orangecrest Community Church. It's a new church plant that meets in a middle school up in my in-laws' neighborhood (about 5-10 minutes from our house). Josh De La Rosa is the pastor there and he probably graduated from CBU when I was a freshman or so. We also had some seminary classes together and have some mutual connections through Church in the Valley in Diamond Bar.
It's a cool church. Good band and worship leader. Josh did a great job with the message. Really good signage as you drive into the neighborhood. I'd guess there were 75-100 people from a pretty broad spectrum of ages there today meeting in the school's multi-purpose room. I'm excited to see God work through OCC as they continue their ministry in Riverside.
So Nicole and I spent our Saturday today at a "Prepared Childbirth" class. It was pretty informative and stuff. Here are some of the funny things that happened:
Saw lots of videos with very exposed pregnant ladies.
The instructor talked about post-partum sex life for like 15 minutes.
Nicole and I were practicing our breathing techniques and I was breathing along with her. As I stared right at her, I dropped this big old drop of drool right out of my mouth onto my jeans. We both lost it. Hopefully I don't make her laugh in the middle of a contraction.
Spent some time this morning talking to Nicole about some stuff and she was super encouraging (as usual).
Talked with my pastor today about stuff going on at church and that was good times.
Talked on Facebook with Tom Roepke about all sorts of random stuff. He pointed to some potentially helpful resources for my message on Sunday. And he will be in Cali next week which should be cool.
Also re-connected on Facebook with Eric Busby and had a conversation that was encouraging to both of us.
I'm preaching this Sunday in "big church" so that will consume much of my week.
We're kicking off 4 weeks of an intentional outreach focus on Wednesday nights in high school ministry. Four weeks of special events that will hopefully bring new students in, expose them to the gospel, and connect them to our ministry.
Still have a few items to finalize in The Loft (our new high school room) - wiis getting set up, snack bar equipment, etc.
Couple appointments at Kaiser for the baby this week.
I started this series forever ago. I think I'll continue it now. Check out part one here.
Characteristics of the 10-15 member youth ministry growth barrier
Family feel
May be dominated by a couple families
Is either VERY tightly knit or VERY disconnected and divided
Completely volunteer-led, quite possibly completely led by one person or couple
Ideas to grow beyond the barrier
Increase the amount of volunteers beyond the initial person or couple
Capitalize on the tight-knit family feel for outreach....encourage students to let one or two outside people in on that same experience during gatherings or trips
Attempt to find common ground between the disconnected students and then build on that
Don't necessarily try to GO BIG with outreach. Stick with a relational approach at this stage and allow that to be a draw
At the same, cast vision beyond the 10-15 people. Students may be attracted to the smallness of the group, but they need to understand that God does want it to grow
For years now I've said I wanted to lose weight. I'd do seasons where I'd go to the gym. I'd go without soda for a bit. But in the last few months I've gotten more serious about it. I had some bloodwork done in December also that showed some issues I needed to take care of. In the last few months I've dropped from about 217 down to 201 today. I can't wait to see the scale say 199!
At my heaviest in my life I was 235. It was when I was an intern at Saddleback, eating lots of fast food and stuff all the time....drinking as much soda as I wanted. It was actually a little hard to get in and out of the car at that point. I had to work at it.
All I've done now is start doing sit-ups at night, running during the week, and making some relatively minor changes to my diet (typically red meat no more than twice a week and soda or coffee no more than twice a week).
Hopefully I'll be healthy dad when baby Addison gets here!
So at the end of our main service at church every week we do announcements. It's typically this one pastor, Mike Pierpoint, who does them in the service I attend. He tends to get up and say some pretty random stuff before getting to the actual announcements. The first part of this video is the week I covered announcements for Mike (watch past all the announcements for when Steve and I start talking) and the second week is his response to my little stab at him. Steve was also kind enough to put the actual times of how long the announcements took on there. Good times.
I spent the large part of my day today cleaning up my office. It had gotten to be a huge mess. We had these building tours going on yesterday because we just finished a remodel and I put paper over my door window so people couldn't see in. But then my grandma was on the tour and asked another staff member to see my office. He showed it to her and it was trashed. Poor Grandma.
Now I'm done with it looking like a teenager's room. I feel so much more sane when my workspace is clean. I can actually focus and get things done.
I'm not a hugely organized person. But for the last few months I've been especially disorganized feeling. So tomorrow I've blocked out the entire morning to get organized. I'm cleaning my office and am going to try and figure out a way to implement GTD. Hopefully the next time you hear from me I will be a more organized and effective youth pastor.
Right now, Nicole is lounging on the couch watching Narnia on TV. I'm spending a few minutes just catching up on blogs and stuff. I haven't had a ton of time like this lately. It feels pretty nice.
On a completely different subject we open up our new high school room officially tomorrow. Spent a couple hours there today putting together a foosball table and getting the place organized. It looks good. I'll try and post some sweet pictures in the next couple days.
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